The graphical Current state of CFS3

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FrostyFox

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it seems that a lot of textures from ETO are lacking something to be desired. for example, a few aren't entirely optimised for anchors shaders (shiny cockpits) or join lines in the textures and rather fuzzy textures by today's standards

I was also wondering why a lot of aircraft skins do not allow for the use of CFS3s inbuilt squadron markings and nose art?

I know there is a mod out there that allows the use of 2048 textures but the only link to that file is long gone. along with ETO perf visuals. CFS3 has a lot of potential in the dynamic campaign and it is the main reason why I play (maybe its because I'm a casual scrub but W/e haha). and all textures and eto have removed this feature... I've already suggested this to mr jmaint. perhaps we need to find a way to port s.t.a.l.k.e.r's A-life system into CFS3 :dizzy: most people have the CPU power nowadays. (honestly if you're still on a CPU/GPU/Motherboard from 2006.. :p. the bitcoin crash is coming so wait till then to get new components =) )

anyway as a bonus here's a tip. go to your CFS3 folder and find your "game.xml" file in the main directory and edit with notepad and change "max bullets" from 120 to 3000. now all your tracers will show appropriately. (i also know how to "port" your pilot from one campaign to the next ;) )

thanks for reading my rant.
 
Simple answer - there's a lot that could be done, and only about half a dozen people doing it. Not everybody knows how to do everything, and each one has his field.

In order to improve an aircraft, you need the GMAX source files. Most of these are not available.

Building a new aircraft from scratch can take months. Yes, that's right - months. For one aircraft. Now go back and see how many aircraft there are.

It's taken us more than ten years to get to this point.

Starting to get the idea?

Of course, if you would actually buckle down and learn a skill we need, I think everybody would be thrilled to bits. GMAX modelling would be nice.
 
FrostyFox said:
it seems that a lot of textures from ETO are lacking something to be desired. for example, a few aren't entirely optimised for anchors shaders (shiny cockpits) or join lines in the textures and rather fuzzy textures by today's standards

I was also wondering why a lot of aircraft skins do not allow for the use of CFS3s inbuilt squadron markings and nose art?

I know there is a mod out there that allows the use of 2048 textures but the only link to that file is long gone. along with ETO perf visuals. CFS3 has a lot of potential in the dynamic campaign and it is the main reason why I play (maybe its because I'm a casual scrub but W/e haha). and all textures and eto have removed this feature... I've already suggested this to mr jmaint. perhaps we need to find a way to port s.t.a.l.k.e.r's A-life system into CFS3 :dizzy: most people have the CPU power nowadays. (honestly if you're still on a CPU/GPU/Motherboard from 2006.. :p. the bitcoin crash is coming so wait till then to get new components =) )

anyway as a bonus here's a tip. go to your CFS3 folder and find your "game.xml" file in the main directory and edit with notepad and change "max bullets" from 120 to 3000. now all your tracers will show appropriately. (i also know how to "port" your pilot from one campaign to the next ;) )

thanks for reading my rant.
Click to expand...

Updating texture files is relatively easy, but takes a bit of time. Sometimes you also have to hex edit the m3d file to correct having too much shine on things. Since I have thousands of aircraft installed, I tend to fix the ones that bother me at the moment, rather than attacking them all at once.

I never though all that much of the in-built overlay files so I've never bother with them.

Using 2048 or 4096 textures is an easy mod you can do yourself with a text editor. In ConfigOverrides.xml (found in \AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\CFS3\ ) there is an entry about 2/3 of the way down that looks like
<CompositeAircraftTextureMaxDim val="4096"/>
 
FrostyFox said:
it seems that a lot of textures from ETO are lacking something to be desired. for example, a few aren't entirely optimised for anchors shaders (shiny cockpits) or join lines in the textures and rather fuzzy textures by today's standards

I was also wondering why a lot of aircraft skins do not allow for the use of CFS3s inbuilt squadron markings and nose art?

I know there is a mod out there that allows the use of 2048 textures but the only link to that file is long gone. along with ETO perf visuals. CFS3 has a lot of potential in the dynamic campaign and it is the main reason why I play (maybe its because I'm a casual scrub but W/e haha). and all textures and eto have removed this feature... I've already suggested this to mr jmaint. perhaps we need to find a way to port s.t.a.l.k.e.r's A-life system into CFS3 :dizzy: most people have the CPU power nowadays. (honestly if you're still on a CPU/GPU/Motherboard from 2006.. :p. the bitcoin crash is coming so wait till then to get new components =) )

anyway as a bonus here's a tip. go to your CFS3 folder and find your "game.xml" file in the main directory and edit with notepad and change "max bullets" from 120 to 3000. now all your tracers will show appropriately. (i also know how to "port" your pilot from one campaign to the next ;) )

thanks for reading my rant.
Click to expand...

Hi FrostyFox,

thanks for the ideas. I will definitely increase the bullets in the game.xml. Like you I am one of the few who post here to regularly use the campaign feature of CFS3. After going through the Campaign SDK, it is possible to start creating bespoke campaigns unlike any other sim I am aware of. The addition of modded campaign spawns makes for immersive campaign play. Always happy to swap ideas. For example, most people don't manage their wingmen very well in campaign missions. In an old post I went into great detail about best tactics for managing wingmen when attacking ships - wish I could find that post it would save a lot of writing.

As a suggestion, why not post the game.xml mod and the campaign pilot porting technique on to the Knowledgebase sticky?
 
all i want is clean textures that dont have any markings on them already that mesh with the games personal aircraft markings
 
The stock aircraft provided by M$ were done that way to let them produce just a few models and make them look like a larger fleet of available aircraft. These decals are applied over the underlying textures through the mos file in the same way that bullet holes are done.

Most subsequent models created by the modding community did not follow along with that generic standard because, by default, the artist was creating a dedicated aircraft and texture that was already as it should look. We now have thousands of unique models to choose from because of their tireless efforts to enhance the simulation fidelity.

If you want to retrofit these newer models with the M$ decals then you would have to make an undecorated skin texture, rebuild the mos file to include the decal references, and provide the alpha layer templates for the masking templates. Take a look at the stock P-47d 25 to see how it was done.
 
I took a look at the maxbullets hint, and as far as I can tell it's not changing anything in game. Setting the value to 1, or even 0 doesn't limit the tracers to anything different than what I see at 120, or 3000, or 30000. What is it that people are seeing happen when they change this?
 
Andy (Major Magee) has said it all... I did a few "multiplayer" aircraft years and years ago with letters, colour tags and noseart enabled, and there was no interest. To be frank, I was only testing the water, as I don't want to do generic aircraft in any case. A great deal of research and book money goes into finding historically accurate reference material - many here will be familiar with my private feud on some profile artists - to serve as a basis for skins. It took me long enough to work out how to remove all references to letters etc in mos files...

You have to admit, this looks FAR better than if it had MS generic lettering plastered all over it...

AZPBQVi.jpg
 
if you want more tracers I found out you change this by going into your aircrafts xdp file and changing it to something between 100 and 0. 100 being 100% as for the mos files ill have a look sometime. what programs do i need? as for porting pilots its done like so:


make a new save in your new campaign and quit immediately.

next, go to your profile folder in your documents. mine is like so

C:\Users\Foxy\Documents\CFS3 ETO Expansion_bob_____\Campaigns\saved\bob (allied)\Finley Whitfield and inside is your .lib file and your .cmpstat fileyou will want to open your "Finley" pilot and your "john doe" pilot cmpstat file and scroll to the near bottom. the last pilot should say something like so


<CFS3Pilot type="Campaign" id="68" default="n">
<value name="strFirstName" value="Finley"/>
<value name="strLastName" value="Whitfield"/>
<value name="strSquadron" value="No.44 Fighting Foxes"/>
<value name="strPortrait" value="pilot/pic_johnson.bmp"/>
<value name="strModel" value="MILNE-LEES"/>
<value name="Country" value="Britain"/>
<value name="eCareerPath" value="0"/>
<value name="Vision" value="36"/>
<value name="GTolerance" value="28"/>
<value name="Health" value="31"/>
<value name="MaxHealth" value="31"/>
<value name="Fatigue" value="0"/>
<value name="Experience" value="465"/>
<value name="Level" value="6"/>
<value name="Rank" value="2"/>
<value name="Age" value="23"/>
<value name="numAirKills" value="11"/>
<value name="numGroundKills" value="16"/>
<value name="numShipKills" value="0"/>
<value name="numMissionsFlown" value="14"/>
<value name="numSuccessfulMissionsFlown" value="5"/>
<value name="numCrashes" value="2"/>
<value name="numBailOuts" value="1"/>
<value name="numDeaths" value="0"/>
<value name="numSkillPoints" value="0"/>
<value name="numPrestigePoints" value="2191"/>
<value name="numTotalPrestigePoints" value="3191"/>
<value name="numRoundsFired" value="32097"/>
<value name="numRound****" value="9637"/>
<value name="numBombsDropped" value="0"/>
<value name="numBomb****" value="0"/>
<value name="numRocketsFired" value="0"/>
<value name="numRocket****" value="0"/>
<value name="numAward2" value="1"/>
<value name="numWoundAward" value="2"/>
<value name="bCaptured" value="0"/>
<background>Born to humble circumstances in suffolk in 1917, Whitfield worked his way through a college engineering course before joining the RAF early in 1938. Originally posted to a training squadron in the midlands where he quickly became friends with a local wild fox that would soon become the squadrons mascot. He began his career in earnest in 1939 as a hurricane pilot with the 44 Squadron in france, scoring 11 air kills before the evacuation of dunkirk. Jokes are one of the few outlets he allows himself. mostly enjoying the company of his adopted pet fox "Red".</background>
</CFS3Pilot>

here you can add your own backstory as you feel.

but the points parts that youre intrested in is from <value name="Vision" value="36"/> down to </CFS3Pilot>

coping it like so:


<value name="Vision" value="36"/>
<value name="GTolerance" value="28"/>
<value name="Health" value="31"/>
<value name="MaxHealth" value="31"/>
<value name="Fatigue" value="0"/>
<value name="Experience" value="465"/>
<value name="Level" value="6"/>
<value name="Rank" value="2"/>
<value name="Age" value="23"/>
<value name="numAirKills" value="11"/>
<value name="numGroundKills" value="16"/>
<value name="numShipKills" value="0"/>
<value name="numMissionsFlown" value="14"/>
<value name="numSuccessfulMissionsFlown" value="5"/>
<value name="numCrashes" value="2"/>
<value name="numBailOuts" value="1"/>
<value name="numDeaths" value="0"/>
<value name="numSkillPoints" value="0"/>
<value name="numPrestigePoints" value="2191"/>
<value name="numTotalPrestigePoints" value="3191"/>
<value name="numRoundsFired" value="32097"/>
<value name="numRound****" value="9637"/>
<value name="numBombsDropped" value="0"/>
<value name="numBomb****" value="0"/>
<value name="numRocketsFired" value="0"/>
<value name="numRocket****" value="0"/>
<value name="numAward2" value="1"/>
<value name="numWoundAward" value="2"/>
<value name="bCaptured" value="0"/>
<background></background>
</CFS3Pilot>
 
take this data and paste it into the same paste over the exsact same place in your John Doe pilots cmpstat file and load and it should run. not forgetting to paste over your prestige andtotalprestige points :jump:


<CampaignSquadron country="0" name="No. 44 Sqn Fighting Foxes" password="" category="513" prestige="4811" totalprestige="4811">
 
MajorMagee said:
I took a look at the maxbullets hint, and as far as I can tell it's not changing anything in game. Setting the value to 1, or even 0 doesn't limit the tracers to anything different than what I see at 120, or 3000, or 30000. What is it that people are seeing happen when they change this?
Click to expand...

Ooops I had misread this thread. The problem for me is not the tracers but the actual number of bullet hits that MS generates. It has been a long standing problem that the game engine restricts the number of projectiles that it tracks/generates. For example, strafing a train or a ship is mildly disappointing. Looking at "real life" gun camera footage, a ship will disappear in a mass of spray when fired on by an aircraft. MS does not generate enough bullet hit effects, IMHO. So reading FrostyFox's post, I thought that what he was saying was that changing max bullets would cause MS to generate/track more projectiles.

It is disappointing to read that the discussion is simply about the amount of tracer appearing...
 
The bug you describe only applies to guns, cannons do not have this issue. Still, it would be nice to eradicate it.
 
it would be nice to have proper ballistics on ships and model hits taken at or just under the water line.

things like engines or magazines. cargo ship carrying bombs ect.

it would be nice to have a CFS4.
 
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