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Hi all,
So I'm making significant progress in converting the fs9 world scenery to cfs2, to the point where all of North America is fully compiled, and apart from fs9 source being pretty flawed (which is still better than nothing), technically it all looks OK to me at first glance. 1722893070788.png
With CFS2's more primitive way of handling lines, it takes a lot more disk space than in FS9: total for the world will be roughly 5.7 GB, in regions of about 300/400 MB.
  1. Before uploading to SOH, I would like to make a pre-emptive donation towards upkeep/bandwidth. I don't have credit card/paypal, so if an Admin could point me to alternative payment options (intl. bank transfer preferred), that would be great.
  2. Uploading to SOH untested would be foolish; if I have to patch a lot, it would get messy and confusing. I'd rather give it another few months to stew; after all these many years of work and many years of neglect, not a big deal. But I do want to start sharing it on google drive or something temporarily to anyone who can spare some time to shake down their area's of interest outside the main PTO (Korea? Manchuria? Birma? Stalingrad? Falklands? Things like that perhaps)
In the conversion process, there is still a manual step where the water needs to be fixed by painting in fills in SBuilder9; that takes the most time and dedication now.
I guess a few more evenings work over the next couple of weeks. Time to start wrapping this up.
 
Hi S,
Glad you're back in your 'mud-groove', looking very good.

I take it they include mips, so we don't get the solid blue/green scenery at height and distance?

You have/have had your work on a separate site before, haven't you? As with Gary and a few others, sounds a better idea, if you're ok to do that.

Personally, I'd love Europe to be done (he said with a casual reference to about 4,000,000/10,000,000 sq miles/Kms...lol!).

Many thanks

Cheers

Shessi
 
Hi Sander,

Thanks for the conversion. I certainly would be interested in testing your new scenery. I still have your Ireland and Norway project from 11 years ago.

Cheers,
Kevin
 
Shessi said:
Hi S,
Glad you're back in your 'mud-groove', looking very good.

I take it they include mips, so we don't get the solid blue/green scenery at height and distance?

You have/have had your work on a separate site before, haven't you? As with Gary and a few others, sounds a better idea, if you're ok to do that.

Personally, I'd love Europe to be done (he said with a casual reference to about 4,000,000/10,000,000 sq miles/Kms...lol!).

Many thanks

Cheers

Shessi
Click to expand...
Hi Shessi, good to see you jump in here!
Regarding mips; I don't exactly know in which context you mean that, but the untextured neon tiles towards the horizon will be there as always; functionally there will be no difference with the old EURW_Beta package, except some bug squashing in the water flattens. If there's any new discoveries/hacks to deal with that, I'd be interested to know.
The whole world will be covered, so yes to (the rest of) Europe.
1722957572769.png
kdriver said:
Hi Sander,

Thanks for the conversion. I certainly would be interested in testing your new scenery. I still have your Ireland and Norway project from 11 years ago.

Cheers,
Kevin
Click to expand...
Welcome on board the longest Beta program ever ;) Those old Ireland and Norway files will be obsolete very soon!
 
Hi,

I'm Priller from the Dark Side that is MSFS. I must say that this seems very impressive indeed. Turning a single map sim like CFS2 into a sim that encompasses the whole world, that is downright impressive.

Since I've played CFS2 and FS9 in the past, I have a few questions:
  • Will this upgrade be "simple", i.e. not too much file editing?
  • Will all the airports of FS9 be in there?
  • Will this allow for substituting the original FS9 textures with some of the texture upgrades that are available for it?
Sorry for the bother, but I've played CFS2 a long time ago, and this just jumped at me.

Good luck with this huge undertaking!

Priller
 
Priller said:
Hi,

I'm Priller from the Dark Side that is MSFS. I must say that this seems very impressive indeed. Turning a single map sim like CFS2 into a sim that encompasses the whole world, that is downright impressive.

Since I've played CFS2 and FS9 in the past, I have a few questions:
  • Will this upgrade be "simple", i.e. not too much file editing?
  • Will all the airports of FS9 be in there?
  • Will this allow for substituting the original FS9 textures with some of the texture upgrades that are available for it?
Sorry for the bother, but I've played CFS2 a long time ago, and this just jumped at me.

Good luck with this huge undertaking!

Priller
Click to expand...
Hi Priller,
  • Yes, no file editing. Unzip, add to Scenery Library in-game
  • No airfields, just terrain (Land/water masks, water flattens, lines and landclass). Season to flavor with whatever you like.
  • That is also possible without what I'm cooking, although you have to convert the textures to different format (With Imagetool or DXTBmp). Note the Landclass table of CFS2 is severely limited, and locked to a single region. I have a conversion chart for which can be used, if needed. To get around this, and give each region Europe, Asia, America etc. its OWN texture set each, I'm supplying individual Landclass terrain BGL's to split it up, and supplying matching texture sets based on the fs2002/2004 ones, just to make sure it all matches up.
CFS2 is just a stripped down intermediate version of the "regular" FS. CFS3 is really a single map sim by nature, and it's even more impressive how modders have been able to break out of that. My only claim to fame is that I was able to write an algorithm to compile the CFS2 VTP1 type textures (roads/shorelines), the rest leans on previous work by Luis Sa (Sbuilder), Rhumbaflappy, Jim Keir and many more.
 
Last edited:
Here is the first raw compile of the whole world (outside the stock PTO):

SOH CFS2 World RC1.zip

drive.google.com drive.google.com
Unzip and add to scenery library somewhere above the "Default Scenery"
  1. It will take a while to generate the scenery indices when adding the scenery in game; cfs2 may appear to "hang" especially on older PC's... it's a lot of files, give it some time.
  2. This package contains:
    1. Land Water masks (*_lwm.bgl) with Flattens (*_A16N.bgl)
    2. Roads/Shorelines/Rivers/Railroads (_vtp.bgl)
  3. This package does NOT contain:
    1. Any of the "manual" features that were customized in earlier EURW beta versions by me (like around London and in the Netherlands): those will be merged in the next version. This is purely a 1:1 conversion so far.
    2. Terrain textures > the Landclass texture overhaul will follow in several region packs later in the project.
    3. Mesh. I've been testing with Rhumbaflappy's mesh from the start.
    4. Airports.
  4. This is absolutely not compatible with:
    1. any of the earlier EURW and other demo's from me.
    2. Rhumbaflappy's CFS2_Watermasking_01 and CFS2_Watermasking_02 packages
The feedback I'm hoping for is about glaring system problems, performance issues
Compatibility issues with existing add-ons, or general feedback on where we may improve it.
The overall look of the textures; I'll take suggestions for better line textures for sure.
Whatever else you want to share, I'd love to hear it.

Next steps:
Over the next 1-2 months, I'll work on whatever is reported back, and tinker with specific improvements I have in mind (both in content and in compiler "ai")
In parallel, I'm going to put together the regional Landclass Texture sets.
 
Hi, im not really a CFS2 regular, Im an FS9 lurker, but i have a basic CFS2 install on-going. I was quite intrigued by this project and thought i'd have a go. I actually live in on the South East English coast, and thought i'd take a flight down the coast and over to the French coast. Everything looks how its supposed to, along Kent and Sussex, then crossing the channel to Le Harve and it seems to work out the box just fine. I dont have any European textures installed, so everything looks abit to Far eastern, but thats my department, either i download a set from the lib or wait for future updates form you. The road network looks abit 21st century, including multi-lane motorways, but other than that, good job. Thanks ian
 
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Beautiful! Thanks for this cool stuff. I've fly around over southeast asia. Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia. It seems almost perfect match with other add-on sceneries. I will try flying over China, Hongkong, Burma tonight.
So far, there is no performance issues with my old PC. No long loading time and FPS keeps high numbers and no stutters.

Thanks for this great stuff again.

P.S. Is there any future plan to release other asian areas like Japan, Taiwan, Philippines? If any, it will improve many important theaters for the battle of Pacific.
 
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Reactions: SdC
ian elliot said:
Hi, im not really a CFS2 regular, Im an FS9 lurker, but i have a basic CFS2 install on-going. I was quite intrigued by this project and thought i'd have a go. I actually live in on the South East English coast, and thought i'd take a flight down the coast and over to the French coast. Everything looks how its supposed to, along Kent and Sussex, then crossing the channel to Le Harve and it seems to work out the box just fine. I dont have any European textures installed, so everything looks abit to Far eastern, but thats my department, either i download a set from the lib or wait for future updates form you. The road network looks abit 21st century, including multi-lane motorways, but other than that, good job. Thanks ian
Click to expand...
Thanks a million Ian, I'm adding your England airfields to my install as we speak. It would be nice if we can bundle up some of those into feature packs, a bit of mix-and-match / Best Off, as a sort of 25th Anniversary (coming up October 2025!) celebration pack.
Regarding the dual carriageways, yeah they're a bit modern, but at least better than nothing for some VFR navigation ;) Still not as bad as the railways and streams running up/down the mountains in the Alps haha, neither of which I can do much about in the near future. Let's just pretend.....
If you want to preview England/ETO with better texture set, I think the old Beta version should still work with this, as a stop-gap measure: https://sim-outhouse.org/sohforums/resources/sdc-eurw-lc-su-beta4.9887/

miccasharon said:
Beautiful! Thanks for this cool stuff. I've fly around over southeast asia. Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia. It seems almost perfect match with other add-on sceneries. I will try flying over China, Hongkong, Burma tonight.
So far, there is no performance issues with my old PC. No long loading time and FPS keeps high numbers and no stutters.

Thanks for this great stuff again.

P.S. Is there any future plan to release other asian areas like Japan, Taiwan, Philippines? If any, it will improve many important theaters for the battle of Pacific.
Click to expand...
Hi @miccasharon , thanks for the quick feedback.
I have already converted the whole Pacific region as well, but it conflicts with the default scenery; we would need to remove the default files from CFS2, or add an Exclusion layer to visually remove the default shore lines/roads/rivers. And then there are differences in the terrain that may cause problems with the default airfields, and the reworks by other people like UncleTarget.
It would be a too big project for me to work on that and does not have priority, because there are already roads and coastlines there. I must first focus on "the rest of the world", to get it finished in the next 2 months.
However, if there are people willing to take on that work: I can provide the tools and source files.
 
SdC said:
Hi @miccasharon , thanks for the quick feedback.
I have already converted the whole Pacific region as well, but it conflicts with the default scenery; we would need to remove the default files from CFS2, or add an Exclusion layer to visually remove the default shore lines/roads/rivers. And then there are differences in the terrain that may cause problems with the default airfields, and the reworks by other people like UncleTarget.
It would be a too big project for me to work on that and does not have priority, because there are already roads and coastlines there. I must first focus on "the rest of the world", to get it finished in the next 2 months.
However, if there are people willing to take on that work: I can provide the tools and source files.
Click to expand...
Hi SdC,
Thanks for your reply.
Yes, I understand it's quite too big job. I'm sorry if it's sounds like I'm asking you to do. I didn't mean to say that.
As you mentioned, there may be a conflict with some airbases either default or add-on. Some airfield near contal area may need to re-locate. So far, I don't have isseu with xavierb's east asia airfields around Thailand, singapore, Indonesia. But I haven't fly all areas yet. I don't fly with default airfields, so I have no idea and can't check issue with default airfields.
Double coastline or road issue can be solve remove the default files from CFS2. It may not be so hard to do but yes, terrain issue may be remain there. I'm a big fan of Uncle's and Maskrider's works, so I have to check it out that If there is any conflict with their beautiful works, also Xavierb's Japan airfields.
Anyways, your work is so beautiful and has great looking. Thanks for this wounderful and surprise gift. When I fly with your secenery for the first time this afternoon, I was shocked as it's much more beautiful conpared to the default scenery. So, I just thought its so nice if it will cover Japan and Philippines, both I'm living in, in the future.
 
Sander,

I think people forget that FS2004 was pre- Rhumbas mesh, & so it's got all the same inaccuracies when it comes to scenery placement over Rhumbas more accurate world mesh. This means is certain areas you have to use water flattens which destroys some of the mesh... ho-hum

It may be worth reading this thread from 2019 that Rhumbaflappy started about new global surface water files.

Global Surface Water

Good news and bad news. Here's the good news: 2812_vtp_8: The BLN file is 71.7 MB, the resulting SBX file from SBuilder is 165 MB. The bgs file created by cfs2autocoast is 669 MB! The compilation took 9hrs. and 20 minutes, and BGLC_9 used upwards of 2.5 GB of memory in producing the shoreline...
www.sim-outhouse.org

It doesn't look like the file links work anymore, but maybe Dick still has all the originals in storage? I do wonder if these would be a better startpoint than FS2004...

Dick also made a complete set of VTP excludes for CFS2, but I cant seem to find them online anywhere?
 
SdC said:
However, if there are people willing to take on that work: I can provide the tools and source files.
Click to expand...
Hu---m, yes, I am very much interested but I am afraid that I can't. I totally don't have an idea and experience for scenery building..........
 
Sander and John,

I have all Dick's 2019 files if you want them.

In the mean time I'll test this latest world scenery for North and South America.

Thanks very much Sander! (y)

Kevin
 
UncleTgt said:
Sander,

I think people forget that FS2004 was pre- Rhumbas mesh, & so it's got all the same inaccuracies when it comes to scenery placement over Rhumbas more accurate world mesh. This means is certain areas you have to use water flattens which destroys some of the mesh... ho-hum

It may be worth reading this thread from 2019 that Rhumbaflappy started about new global surface water files.

Global Surface Water

Good news and bad news. Here's the good news: 2812_vtp_8: The BLN file is 71.7 MB, the resulting SBX file from SBuilder is 165 MB. The bgs file created by cfs2autocoast is 669 MB! The compilation took 9hrs. and 20 minutes, and BGLC_9 used upwards of 2.5 GB of memory in producing the shoreline...
www.sim-outhouse.org

It doesn't look like the file links work anymore, but maybe Dick still has all the originals in storage? I do wonder if these would be a better startpoint than FS2004...

Dick also made a complete set of VTP excludes for CFS2, but I cant seem to find them online anywhere?
Click to expand...
Hi UT, I've been in touch with Rhumba recently, he does not have any of the source files any more. He did point me to the sites where I could retrieve the raw GIS data, and the tools I would need for conversions, but I just don't have the time to get back into that. The complexity to make everything work together would increase exponentially, with diminishing returns.
 
kdriver said:
Sander and John,

I have all Dick's 2019 files if you want them.

In the mean time I'll test this latest world scenery for North and South America.

Thanks very much Sander! (y)

Kevin
Click to expand...
Well, we can take look for sure.
 
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