Screenshots

[stoney]

WWI. St. Denijs-Westrem, Belgium. Hanriot HD.1 by Allen.

 

[mav]

Wozza's p51d.... with some tweaks.

 

[UncleTgt]

Now how'd you get that metal finish into CFS2?

 

[UncleTgt]

The diggers are now working their way up the Sittang valley...

Toungoo town

And just a bit further north are the airstrips


Kyedaw is on the right (Toungoo Sth, used by the AVG), & Tennant on the left (Toungoo Nth).

Not much info about for these fields. The RAF built Kyedaw in 1940, but Tennant is not really mentioned at all until the end of 1942, when it's noted IJAAF 50 Sentai was basing Ki-43 Oscars there.

There is a RAF target map dated 1943 floating around the web that clearly shows both fields location, so I thought I'd do both.

 

[mav]

Now how'd you get that metal finish into CFS2?

It's one those photo realistic skins.... came with the model

 

[UncleTgt]

Been messing about with giving Stuart's Irrawaddy ferries a different look...

 

[mav]

Disabled org crew and replaced with Milton's ww2 pilot.... still a WIP.... gauges and tid bits still to do.

 

[UncleTgt]

Finally got to finish the gsl around Toungoo...

 

[aussie]

Taking Bader’s Bus for a tour of New Guinea using today’s weather metar data

Cheers
Aussie

 

[UncleTgt]

Namsang airstrip Burma completed

 

[UncleTgt]

A couple of the Irrawaddy ferries were used as hospital transports - here's Stuart's B ferry dressed up as a medical transport.


It's reported the Japs never attacked the 2 large ferrys used as hospital vessels. I think one was class A, & the other was class B.

 

[stoney]

Truly UT, this is just amazing scenery, just saying thank you doesn't seem adequate. Do you think this might work in my FS9 WWII?

 

[UncleTgt]

Stoney, no idea, but probably not without A LOT of conversion work.

I don't think FS9 has gsl objects, so no objects will show up.

The objects would all need to be converted to FS9 scenery objects. Then they need to be placed...

The Rhumba region texture set MIGHT work, if you change the texture formats (I think FS9 uses DXT1 for ground textures).

The airbase backdrops & A16N flattens may work as they are, but will the dirt runways show?

And I think FS9 handles AFD in a different way, so the airfields may not show in any listing...

 

[wolfi]

While in the process of moving bac to my hometown, I found a box with installation CD’s for CFS2 Pay-ware Aircraft from Alpha sim, Flight 1, Icarus and more. All around 2002, I also have a Dambusters CD, unfortunately it doesn’t install, I think, it’s because my Windows 10 (64bit) doesn’t support the .exe

So here are some screenshots.

wolfi

 

[Jorge]

Truly UT, this is just amazing scenery, just saying thank you doesn't seem adequate. Do you think this might work in my FS9 WWII?

Stoney,

If you have PW installed per the instructions, you should have a fairly WW2-ish installation, although it was meant to be the 20's and 30's more than WW2.

That said, I've been using some CFS2 "stuff" to attempt to get some of the airfields into FS9. Not the best work so far, but as Uncle has said -- it does take some special work.

First, the coordinates are not the same. FS9 uses WGS84. I'm not sure what CFS2 uses, but the placement of many things seems to be off without any real re-work.

I've been able to get a program from Martin Wright a while ago that allowed for the disassembly of "gsl" files to get the lat/lon info as well as the 3D objects themselves. I then used the FS9 SDK documentation to create the library from the "mdl" objects using xml, and then added the lat/lon to the xml file before compiling with bglcomp.exe by drag-and-drop method.

The lat/lon was basically a trial-error method, if I remember correctly, since it doesn't really give you lat/lon but rather an offset in meters. I'll have to check on that, but it sounds correct.

Which leads me to "second" here -- a layout file.

A layout file is basically a listing of all the objects in a scenery (non destructable, so not used much by people since gsl is the way to blow stuff up in CFS2) in order to place certain objects. After decompiled, I then used the offset in meters provided by the resulting file to enter the placement info into an xml file, which was likewise then drag-and-dropped onto bglcomp for "bgl" creation of the object placement in the scenery file creation.

Third -- airport background.

To use the actual CFS2 poly, you actually have to create a groundpoly in ADE9X which will be overlayed onto the airfield you make with a set of regular FS9-style "piping" underneath. Otherwise you have no AI or parking and you basically start at the center of the runway or, if added, over at one of the runway ends.

First, you have to take the "bmp" file with alpha that is used to make the airfield in CFS2 and open it in an image program. You then merge the alpha into the image so you only have the actual airfield and then export to jpg or png so you just have the airfield you want.

You then use created image as a background in SBuilder9 (for the terrain) and ADE9X (for the ADE/AFD info, groundpoly overlay, and/or objects you may want). Even if you don't really want to, you need to still have some sort of "piping" in order to have an airport show up in FS9 properly -- even if it doesn't have a taxi network or parking for AI.

If you just use ADE9X to create the "piping" and use the groundpoly method (CFS2-style), you then have to make sure the original bmp for the airfield from CFS2 is converted over to DXT1 as Uncle has said. Again, you'll have the same "look" as CFS2, but you probably won't have a good "blend" depending on your video card and the background which you may have in FS9.

If you use the SBuilder9 method for the terrain (use the image to create actual terrain files to include the VTP2 and LC files) it won't be "photo-style" or "MaskRider-Style" like the CFS2 "groundpoly" method, but it will "blend" a little easier into the surrounding terrain -- especially if you have different textures for grass and dirt in FS9.

In closing ...

Most of the stuff I've been working on uses the combined method of SBuilder9 for terrain elements and then ADE9X for ADE and object placement. I've only actually used the bmp or a background image for the airfield in two or three airports -- Lae (default CFS2 from an overhead screenshot), Torreon (from one of the Spanish sceneries), and Damascus (again, from another CFS2 scenery).

Again, these are just "tests" to see if it was even possible to convert things and, if so, then how difficult or simple would that conversion be.

Nothing has been released since it basically uses other people's work and I was basically trying to see if there was a way to do a "proof of concept" before I even considered going through the proper requests to get the permissions needed. Even if I didn't use the actual "bmp" for an airfield in the final product (no groundpoly, but just terrain), I would still like to make sure I gave credit to the original authors so we have some "chain-of-custody" for the work.

Sorry if this is probably longer than it has to be, but I've always been fairly quiet unless I actually had something to say. Thankfully, I actually had some time tonight and have actually dabled in this, so I figured I'd use what little time I had to get something out there that may -- hopefully -- answer your questions.

Simple answer: No. You can't just copy and paste and fire up FS9. Won't work.

Saludos!

ElCid97

PS: I'll see about some screenshots when able. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words.

 

[stoney]

Thanks for the thought provoking reply Jorge. I've tried to do CFS2 scenery into FS9 as well. But with out much success. I have currently the following FS9 installs. One completely stock FS9.1; a SW3; a GW3; a PW and a WWII. Plus 13 CFS2 installs, all on remote HDs. I'm always trying new things to see how it might go.

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