Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Open Beta Test => Topic started by: Skuzzy on October 09, 2015, 02:10:09 PM
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New version (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,375290.0.html) up!
Painting the world was never so much fun!
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The files on the patch 79 download thread are for patch 78.
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Auto patch is correct version.
Still seeing "FLS is your wingman" in missions on join and rejoin.
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The files on the patch 79 download thread are for patch 78.
Fixed.
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Just happy :x to report the tone mapping adjustment has made a wonderful improvement in my rendering of terrains. :salute
Or I don't have a clue and it is just a coincidence..... :uhoh
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Capture the flag arena vehicles are disabled on the bish side.
Offline if you sit on the runway in a fighter at V2. It looks like the white flash about every 60 seconds is related to the auto ack. I still have the problem with the first time I try to close the game after installing an update, it hangs needing ctrl-alt-del. Then after that, the game closes with no trouble from all subsequent sessions.
CV first time entering the bridge still has the compass and portholes keying their texture from an aircraft or ship skin file. I've never seen the CV's skin file before. Nice work Waffle. Once I up a plane on the deck then come back to the bridge it stops. There are still ack sprites in the wake of the CV.
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I went through the Patch 79 Test Goal procedure again and added some clutter to a test terrain using the OE. This clutter is now visible in the game as well as in the TE.
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I opened up Atlas 0 Type 19 in the OE. I'd modified it before and it loaded with all the saved trees and buildings. I re-saved it, then I tried to open another tile I'd worked on previously, Type 0. The OE crashed with ahoe... has stopped working.
When I relaunched the OE the tile type0 re-loaded okay with the trees and I saved it.
I re-opened the type19.swa without a problem.
I re-opened the type0.bmp and no problem this time. I guess saving it previously fixed whatever was causing the problem but thought you should know.
At this point, everything seems to be working as expected in the OE, the TE and in the terrain offline.
Well, I have to take that back. The buildings and trees are still black in the TE on my frontend.
I haven't checked to see if the OE will convert multiple ac3d files without crashing.
And yes, the grass clutter is showing on the tiles in the TE and offline, but I don't see it in the OE. Same for the bitmapped Detail.
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In the TE, when placing a multi-mile object, once you set it's properties, you can't delete it visually without restarting the TE. If you Cancel out of the Properties dialog before you set it's properties, it will act as expected.
I've selected two different ones from the Object's Shapes list and placed them in the terrain. If you set their properties and then, try to delete it, the listing in the selection shapes list box disappears but the object remains visually in the terrain, buildings and all. You must save your work and exit, and then restart to clear the object even though it isn't there anymore.
Moving the terrain to refresh it won't help.
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I haven't checked to see if the OE will convert multiple ac3d files without crashing.
I have not done any work or testing of ac3d import / export.
HiTech
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Just to tell I'm still hanging around, the three latest updates installed without issues. Flew around on Mission Arena, default field, until the mission started. Joined, found the enemy and lost a wing as intended. Oh, and I didn't notice any stuttering while speeding on the runway, on the other hand I had some company so my concentration wasn't at 100%.
What I'd like to know: Does the sunrise/sunset vary in different geographic areas? The same question applies the colour saturation of the terrain. Just earlier tonight I saw a nature document on TV, starting with a sunrise. To my surprise both the lighting and colour saturation were exactly like those seen on the Alpha Mission Arena, Ndisles if I recall right. However, they would look unnatural on maps like Baltic or BoB.
Another question: I know that altitude has been taken into account in the flight modeling. Does the same apply visually? I man denser air looks different, also the colour of the sky gets darker the higher you fly because the space without light spreading particles is so much nearer.
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Just to tell I'm still hanging around, the three latest updates installed without issues. Flew around on Mission Arena, default field, until the mission started. Joined, found the enemy and lost a wing as intended. Oh, and I didn't notice any stuttering while speeding on the runway, on the other hand I had some company so my concentration wasn't at 100%.
What I'd like to know: Does the sunrise/sunset vary in different geographic areas? The same question applies the colour saturation of the terrain. Just earlier tonight I saw a nature document on TV, starting with a sunrise. To my surprise both the lighting and colour saturation were exactly like those seen on the Alpha Mission Arena, Ndisles if I recall right. However, they would look unnatural on maps like Baltic or BoB.
Texture colors are different in europe.
Another question: I know that altitude has been taken into account in the flight modeling. Does the same apply visually? I man denser air looks different, also the colour of the sky gets darker the higher you fly because the space without light spreading particles is so much nearer.
Yes
Also there normally is a low level haze layer that also is modeled.
HiTech
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Reminder:
In the TE, I'm still not seeing the spawn points. The best I can find is a very small red square but even that is only when I've already selected the spawn point in some other way. I don't see the old white arrows, or it's circle when selected. I have no way to know which way any of the spawn points face.
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Reminder:
In the TE, I'm still not seeing the spawn points. The best I can find is a very small red square but even that is only when I've already selected the spawn point in some other way. I don't see the old white arrows, or it's circle when selected. I have no way to know which way any of the spawn points face.
I know I saw white circles around spawn points when writing the map stuff this week, is it maybe tied to show spawn point (right click) on the map?
HiTech
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Texture colors are different in europe.
HiTech
Thanks! Do I read you correctly that the sunrise/sunset is universal?
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I am seeing SPs correctly as a white circle in the main editing window and as a small yellow square in the map window but I am not seeing a direction arrow on the white circles.
However I do still have the issue of that while the SPs converted from my original terrain are showing the correct altitude in the Y box in Object Properties the new ones I have created since show 0 altitude there. All the SPs work in the game correctly.
Easyscor, relating to the above I don't suppose your SPs' circles could somehow be displaying at 0 alt in the editing window and so are not visible as they are below the terrain?
I like the new D3D map, it is much clearer and the icons scale nicely as it is zoomed in and out. Having the right click options box linked to the map position is nice, although Show Zone Lines and Show Field Links are not working on it.
In the Make Map window the Show Icons, Show Field Names and Show Spawn Points buttons are still not working.
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Thanks! Do I read you correctly that the sunrise/sunset is universal?
Sunrise sun set does not change with any terrain, is on my wish list ,along with star positions,to write at some point.
HiTech
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I do not watch stars much. I'm trying to figure the north star out. After sunset last night the north star at the tail of the little dipper was somewhat north. In the morning the sky had rotated and the little dipper still somewhat north. I'll update on the next patch.
Nothing to report on my end except it seems like a lot of brain work to make this game work. :salute
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I know I saw white circles around spawn points when writing the map stuff this week, is it maybe tied to show spawn point (right click) on the map?
HiTech
Nope. I even tried spawnentry wondering if that had changed. I have invisible entry points in the Edit window. On the Map window, I can toggle them on and off.
In this patch 79, the right click on the Map window's Setup Circles and Show Circles works in the Map window but has stopped working for me in the Edit window. Now I'll need to refer you back to the jpg I posted. (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,370041.msg4996314.html#msg4996314) Except of course, now the circle around the spawn is missing too in the Edit window.
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I've been incremental updating since after I installed alpha70 as a full update. I tried the 79 terrain instructions and am not getting anywhere along with the terrain editor erroring out when I try to open the zip file updated terrain I constructed per the instructions.
Do I need to download the full 79 to get a newer set of terrain and object tools?
I have never tried to build terrains or objects before and wanted to see what the outcome of following the instructions for 79 would give me.
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I don't understand. You "try to open the zip file updated terrain I constructed...?"
If you're having problems, I'd open the TE and create a new terrain, File>New, SaveAs.
I still exit and relaunch the TE out of habit but I don't know if it's still necessary. Old habits...
There's a helpful navigation pdf in the 1st post of the TE forum.
Once you have your terrain saved, use Open on the [the name you gave it].oba. The TE should still be pointing at your terrain. Draw some ground above zero elevation and set an airfield. In the Properties window, scroll to Group Master and select it. For the first field, that should be all you need. For later fields you'll need to give them different field numbers and for different countries you'll need to select the appropriate zone number.
Once you have your first field, you can save and build the terrain. Then you can load it offline and fly it or keep editing your project..
Once you have it solid, then experiment with the new stuff and the zip files in the first post of the Terrain forum.
Enjoy your weekend
PS. There are more zip files in new Patch thread.
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The CV in the Alpha is beautiful. Bravo! :aok
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Hey Bustr, the reason why we do what Easy just explained is because that first save you do creates all the necessary files & folders that you need in your terrain's folder for it to ultimately work correctly. They aren't there until you do that first save. :salute
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When building a new clutter tile, do I only worry about placing trees & objects inside the white-lined grid area and ignore all the area outside of the grid? If so, does the OE/TE fill in that empty outside area by taking sections of the area inside the grid and replicate them in the area outside of the grided area?
What happened to all the aircraft & GV static models we've always had? They were very useful to use as strafing & cosmetic additions to custom fields. May we have them put back in please? :pray And if so, can we get nice, intact models, instead of how they were before where the damaged & undamaged models were put together to make the object? Always looked kinda hokey having lined up planes/tanks that all show spinning props, being oil hit, etc. Static aircraft being placed on airfields adds a very nice cosmetic & realistic look to airfields.
Still need an answer on these, especially about the clutter. In the OE, do we only do the clutter in the central white grided area, or do we do it on the entire OE tile?
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Still need an answer on these, especially about the clutter. In the OE, do we only do the clutter in the central white grided area, or do we do it on the entire OE tile?
The grid is for 1x1 mile square tile objects and you shouldn't bother with it for your terrain textures. That does makes me wonder if the grid will grow in the production version to cover 4x4 miles with some kind of dividers for building the big square tile objects like the city4m00 and ref2xm00.
Load a tile texture, say Atlas 1 Type 19. That is type19.bmp, a 1016 texture. Back out until the texture fills your edit window. Then click Show Grid. Eventually, put a big tree in each corner of the texture, not the grid, and save. The new tile with the texture will be in your terrain. You don't even need to click build. (If you'd sub your texture instead of the default, then that's what you'd see in the OE, TE and in-game.)
Once you load your default texture in the OE, it covers the whole target area of the tile and it becomes obvious where the boundaries lie. In the TE, your new tile and texture will cover a square two miles on a side. Remember to toggle the Show trees after each change in ground type or your tree and building clutter won't refresh.
I can already hear my groans echoing from the monitor in front of me, but don't despair. Read on.
The good news is that the textures don't look like a checkerboard in this version, I hated that. The trade-off is the reduced resolution per pixel but you already have the solution to that in my other post. If I'm not mistaken, the clutter bmp assigns the highres textures. Don't forget to use it! Modifications are beyond this post so try to make the staff meeting on Tuesday.
Start with the ah default textures and figure out how the 508s look vs the 1016s. Hint, the 1016 are at 5.4 feet per pixel and the 508s are at 10.8 feet per pixel. Then resize one of your favorite old textures to 1016 and swap out a default texture. The 1016s give you 4 tiles to use in a terrain without resorting to the 508 bitmaps. Those 1016s should always be your most used or favorite specials with the 508s for filler in the back country. Obviously the best tile/texture combination for one terrain may not be the best for another terrain so you'll have plenty to keep busy for a long time.
:cheers:
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My Patch 79 Test Goal results mirror others: the added trees show in the OE and are colored properly, they show in the TE but are black, and they show in the game with the proper colors.
I had some weirdness with the cornfield clutter LOD distances (I didn't add the corn, it is naturally part of the clutter). As I drive towards the corn it renders. As I get closer large sections of it suddenly disappear. As I get real close it pops back into view. The cornfields in Eur2015 have a bit of weirdness with some stalks of corn disappearing as I approach but not as weird as the test terrain. (Which is just 100 ft alt flat plain covered with the first large texture.) None of the other crops do this.
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I don't understand. You "try to open the zip file updated terrain I constructed...?"
If you're having problems, I'd open the TE and create a new terrain, File>New, SaveAs.
I still exit and relaunch the TE out of habit but I don't know if it's still necessary. Old habits...
There's a helpful navigation pdf in the 1st post of the TE forum.
Once you have your terrain saved, use Open on the [the name you gave it].oba. The TE should still be pointing at your terrain. Draw some ground above zero elevation and set an airfield. In the Properties window, scroll to Group Master and select it. For the first field, that should be all you need. For later fields you'll need to give them different field numbers and for different countries you'll need to select the appropriate zone number.
Once you have your first field, you can save and build the terrain. Then you can load it offline and fly it or keep editing your project..
Once you have it solid, then experiment with the new stuff and the zip files in the first post of the Terrain forum.
Enjoy your weekend
PS. There are more zip files in new Patch thread.
I'm going to start over from a full install of 79, then follow what you have written. As it is now when I try to open my "test.oba" file, I get an executable error.
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Interesting, after an uninstall of the install I've been updating with patches since about 70. A full install of alpha 79, and I can exit with no problems after the first time opening the game. And the white flash sitting on the runway at V2 is gone.
Still need do perform the 79 testing goals.
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I've been using the manual method to set coast lines, a lot. It still hangs up occasionally, but if I can hit the various editor tabs, I can usually break it loose now. I can't remember this editor completely locking up while using the manual coast line tool.
I decided to use one of the new rivers instead of cutting rivers below zero elevation. Where the river meets the water of the bay, and the lake the river comes out of, the vertical drops at the start/end need to go, same as for the roads imo. I was thinking the start/end point faces could have a similar tapering treatment used for the roadsides and riverbanks. Yeah, I know that's harder than it sounds if the road surface is to continue.
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What is GS4?
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I would like to suggest a timer for the Host Message: "Next mission will (be) ready for population in 42 jazillion mins"
If a mission isn't scheduled for a couple of hours or more, then a single instance of the information is all that's needed. Minute by minute updates, imo, are annoying unless the mission will start in the next 30 to 120(?) minutes.
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I decided to use one of the new rivers instead of cutting rivers below zero elevation. Where the river meets the water of the bay, and the lake the river comes out of, the vertical drops at the start/end need to go, same as for the roads imo. I was thinking the start/end point faces could have a similar tapering treatment used for the roadsides and riverbanks. Yeah, I know that's harder than it sounds if the road surface is to continue.
I've also been playing with the new river, trying to trace the Dnieper river in Ukraine. That splits and recombines downstream of islands and this necessitates using multiple river splines to match. Where two splines come together the bank of one intrudes into the center of the other. Obviously we don't know yet how these will render in game, but in the TE it looks like it will be a visual problem.
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Easyscor,
In theory I should be able to follow Skuzzy's directions, end up with the funny colored terrain in the TE. Then simply start painting in funny colored terrain. I can't even paint in basic terrain from the default terrain. Something about this is faintly like learning UNIX over the phone.
I suspect there might be keys or ancillary info one needs to know to get off the water into ground painting business here.
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Yeppers, just like learning UNIX over the phone. Once I went to the elevations tab and set alt, I could paint landscape including manipulation of the landscape by changing the numbers in the "set Alt 3".
Guess this thing is for the truly motivated like GIMP and Photoshop requires. That is why I created my gunsights in Paint.Net. That PDF Easycore told me to look at didn't give me a clue on how to use this tool for dummies. The old Wiki AH2 instructions set an expectation of what to look for, not what to do. The rest was pushing buttons and clicking on things to either get an exe error or eliminate clicking on something. When you first open the tool and figure out how to start a new map, visually it looks like you can start painting because of the red brush dot sitting in the map editing field with all of those selectable terrain tiles on the right. It is not intuitive you have to use the tabs above those tiles to set the tool's focus.
Is it possible for someone to post the how to paint terrain, set elevations, lay down rivers and roads, and introduce objects for dummies?
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Every time I try to get a small field onto my terrain, clicking OK or Apply to the object properties GUI I get a close this program error from Windows.
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By accident I discovered there is a maximum alt above the terrain you cannot exceed or when you try to OK or Apply the object like a Small Airfield to the terrain. In response the editor "Windows errors" out. I was at the maximum distance away from the terrain I could push the view alt slider up. Maybe a popup admonishment instead of a dump to the desktop would be kinder here.
By trial and error, pushing buttons and selections, I got a map built with a single airfield and now testing it offline. Had no clue how the usable terrain was supposed to get constructed. After being religious about saving anytime something worked, I thought the terrain was ready for offline. Only the fact that NDiles had an ndisle.res file in the ah3terr directory and my map didn't, clued me to go back and look for some kind of compiler button or menu choice function.
You really need an "Idiots Guide to the Galaxy" for this thing, otherwise, it's self eliminating on who will ever want to use it. This may be a good thing in the end for Skuzzy's sanity.
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OK, is this the results you wanted for alpha 79?
(http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee508/KDavis6030/al79tst01.jpg)
(http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee508/KDavis6030/al79tst02.jpg)
(http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee508/KDavis6030/al79tst03.jpg)
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Good job bustr. And nice find on the alt-to-hit-ok-button-bug. I've always hit the button only a couple thousand feet above an object at the most. If you want terrain making help, can you come to the AvA on Tuesday night(s) at 9pm EST? That is when we have our Staff Night and do a lot of talk about terrain making. We'd be happy to help you with anything you need. When the final version is finished, I'm sure someone will do a write-up, as this new TE is so different, it will be needed. In the mean time, verbal communication is working very well for us to learn everything that we can do up to this point. So consider yourself invited, along with anyone else wanting to learn.
:salute
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Thank you,
Tuesday nights is POTW's squad night.
Who knows, maybe my stumbling around trying to figuratively "find the bathroom door in a 4 sided smooth walled room" was something Hitech wanted to test. I found the bathroom door hatch in the floor by sheer luck while the door into the room is through the ceiling.
Wish the logic for that editor was more straight forward like using Paint.net. I eventually did figure out how to use Photoshop to create a 32bit alpha controlled gunsight for the closed alpha just before Waffle and Hitech really worked on the gunsight itself. The Historic gunsights in the alpha, I made them with Paint.net after they finished their gunsight work, did them all in 2 days. Where with Photoshop, I struggled for two days figuring out how to save my work as a bitmap, and then get the mask layer and alpha layers to work for a simple ring and dot 32bit gunsight. And an 8bit indexed bitmap ring and dot, weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
The Terrain Editor was just like fumbling around in Photoshop getting nowhere fast.
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Yeah, that's my squad night also, same day, same time. If you miss one squad night so that you might create something that will add to the game for everyone, I'm sure they'd understand. If not, I'll pick ya up & drop ya off so they don't mess with ya back at the Pigpen. :)