Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Terrain Editor => Topic started by: Jose Gallegos on October 17, 2003, 08:01:19 AM
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For anyone interested I have a Pearl Harbor terrain available. This terrain is strictly for target practice (isn’t that essentially what the IJN did on that day) and not made with strategic objects or anything like that in mind. It has battleship row and all the airfields that were involved on that day. Send me an E-mail and I’ll send the terrain and the Terrain bitmap for use with the Weather Editor in ZIP format.
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Hi Goose,
I'd like to check out what you've done... there has been talk about getting a Pearl Harbor terrain for the CT.
Would you mind sending it to the address in my signature?
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I have one done already, I sent it to someone in the CT ( can't remember who) but it is SWEET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NUTTZ
Originally posted by Dux
Hi Goose,
I'd like to check out what you've done... there has been talk about getting a Pearl Harbor terrain for the CT.
Would you mind sending it to the address in my signature?
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Hey, Goose, that's a nice map. Thanks for sending it.
Roger that, Nuttz, I seem to remember hearing something about that, but I never saw it. I'm sure it's of typical Nuttz-quality, which to say is excellent.
The CMs are talking about getting a webpage set up someday soon that will be a repository for all kinds of things like terrains, skins, etc., that will be submitted by the Terrain Team and also players. Even half-completed terrains would be a great resource.
So I've always got my eyes open for a good terrain... if you have any you'd like to share, please send them to me.
:)
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I had asked NUTTZ to make one for me so I could use it in Squad Operations.
If you finished it NUTTZ shoot it to Dux so we can use it! :) I will write up an event for it asap. :)
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Can I get a copy of the Pearl Harbor map
ybej@optonline.net
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can i c the pearl habor map to plz :-) ...
send it here: darksamuria1988@yahoo.com
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I like teh idea of a website for terrains to be made publicly available.
I'd love to be able to fiddle with semi-completed terrains, in particular ones covering Britain, France and the Netherlands Belgium and Luxembourg - bits of Germany and Scandinavia, too, if possible, at 1:1. I lack the time at the moment to do the necessary to create terrains from scratch, but would like to have a terrain that could be used in H2H for more realistic navigation training excercises. Which means plenty of clouds, for one thing, and at least a few major road and railway lines, for visual purposes; well-camouflaged airfields in Britain, and sea that looks like the sea does in the area, instead of that weird bright blue that may look at home in Florida and the Pacific, but seldom does here!
By the by, if any of the creators of such terrains (the current "France", the old large BoB scenario terrain..) would mind me having access to modifiable versions of their terrains, it'd be much appreciated. It's not that I don;t like those terrains - I do! - but obviously priorities are likely to be a bit different when creating for normla arena use than for the kind of thing I have in mind.
Esme
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Can I have a copy to please.
send it to
bundy28@comcast.net
thanks
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lol Esme... some of those look like someone spilled an ocean's worth of Reflex Blue ink... I've never seen water quite that color. :)
I'm planning on making a series of unfinished terrains... just the bare landscape; real-life elevations, appropriate texture tiles, just enough strat so the map works, and all targeted to a 1:1 scale. I'll be starting with UK/France and possibly PTO, and eventually (a year or so?) there should be every major front covered.
I doubt that the makers of finished maps are very keen to let people mess around with their creations... but you can always ask them... so maybe my collection of "blanks" may have to be enough.
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If you're wanting a 1:1 scale map of the english channel, you'll get about this much in the 512x512 maps
(http://mysite.freeserve.com/mrbd/map.jpg)
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Well, there's a thing that I don;t understand - why people would be reluctant to let others alter terrains they have created. The more terrains the more choice, the more we all benefit, surely?
To be honest, I'm not concerned whether the normal AH strat works, because I'm not convinced that the mechanism behind it is all that good. Certainly the notion of supply convoys every x minutes irrespective of distance between points (and so trains or barges zipping along at hundreds of miles an hour, potentially) is just a bit daft, IMO. Well, outside of the MA, and its organised games that ring my bell, rather than the MA. And besides, in a scenario game, it'd be great if all supplies are hauled by players... :-}
I'm more concerned with the LOOK of the terrains... in southern England, I'd like to see that really loooong stretch of straight railway through Kent and Sussex, because it's a man-made landmark. Similarly, the Great Northern Road (as was; the A1) running north out of London. And clouds. Lots of clouds.... :-) Serious possibility of cloud obscuring the target area or important waypoints, so that bomber crews have to learn to navigate properly... :-) (ponders whether fog might be simulated by very low clouds...)
Y'know, one of the things that startled me when I bought a second hand copy of MS FS2002 was that by comparison with AH, the terrain looks awful. Given the nature of the product, I'd've expected FS2002 terrain to look better straight out of the box. Granted, there are plenty of add-ons for FS that can look pretty amazing, but damned well done to all the terrain builders who've given us such nice terrain to fly around... - whether quite to my taste or not, the AH terrains are still amazingly good, IMO.
Esme
Btw, its possibel to get reprint Ordnance Survey maps of England from 1939 (but only in b&w, unfortunately). I have a couple of those that cover Southern England, if thats of interest. If anyone knows where I can get similar for Germany, France and the Benelux countries, please post details here.
Thanks!
Esme
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Originally posted by EsmeNhaMaire
(ponders whether fog might be simulated by very low clouds...)
It is
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Uh, Ben - no, I dont want the English Channel; I want as much of Britain as possible plus adjacent bits of the Continent. My main interest is the Luftwaffe bombing camapaign against the UK, which, as well as the daylight raids in the Battle of Britain, mostly coming across the Channel, also included raids on northern England and Scotland, and night-time raids all over the British Isles.
Its my understanding that AH terrains can be up to 512 miles across; that'd be 20.5 grid squares in each direction, no? Just the English Channel isnt any good for my purposes, I'm afraid.
Actually, whilst my preference is for 1:1 terrains, I'd be pretty happy with a half-size terrain, although nothing shrunk any more than that. Should be able to get Denmark to Eire, and (at a guess) Bergn in Norway down to Tours in France that way, I think... -plenty of opportunities for poor harassed trainee navigators to get lost in cloud over, eh? :-)
Esme
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Hmmm... Bendover; that sliver of the English Channel measures about 220 miles east-to west, according to my atlas.
So there's one or two possible problems going on here... maybe it's a metric system miscalculation. But my guess is that you're using a bitmap-based image to generate your elevation data, and that you're measuring 512 pixels across to get your scale.
REMEMBER: while the tile resolution is 1-mile, the elevation resolution is one-half-mile. so your elevation bitmap needs to be 1024 pixels across in order to get a 512-mile distance.
There is a Ruhr terrain in the works (you may have seen the forum open up just today) and it is a 1:1 terrain that includes half of England and reaches down to Innsbruck. You can cover quite a lot of area with a 512 map.
Esme; I didn't say they definitely wouldn't share, only that they may not. It's kind of an artist thing, I guess. But I am not speaking for them, and it certainly would not hurt to ask. :)
I'm a R/L pilot, so the LOOK of a terrain is very important to me also... from down on the ground to way up high. It is my dream to someday have (in AH) chalk cliffs at Dover.
When AH2 comes out, we will be able to make actual fog, using the Arena settings... it won't have to be built into the terrain. We will soon be looking at scenarios that we never thought would be possible.
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Dux, I made some GREAT tiles for the cliffs of Dover.... let me dig them up
NUTTZ
Originally posted by Dux
Hmmm... Bendover; that sliver of the English Channel measures about 220 miles east-to west, according to my atlas.
So there's one or two possible problems going on here... maybe it's a metric system miscalculation. But my guess is that you're using a bitmap-based image to generate your elevation data, and that you're measuring 512 pixels across to get your scale.
REMEMBER: while the tile resolution is 1-mile, the elevation resolution is one-half-mile. so your elevation bitmap needs to be 1024 pixels across in order to get a 512-mile distance.
There is a Ruhr terrain in the works (you may have seen the forum open up just today) and it is a 1:1 terrain that includes half of England and reaches down to Innsbruck. You can cover quite a lot of area with a 512 map.
Esme; I didn't say they definitely wouldn't share, only that they may not. It's kind of an artist thing, I guess. But I am not speaking for them, and it certainly would not hurt to ask. :)
I'm a R/L pilot, so the LOOK of a terrain is very important to me also... from down on the ground to way up high. It is my dream to someday have (in AH) chalk cliffs at Dover.
When AH2 comes out, we will be able to make actual fog, using the Arena settings... it won't have to be built into the terrain. We will soon be looking at scenarios that we never thought would be possible.
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Ya those Dover Tiles looked awsome!:) Was realcool fling over them.
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Nuttz, that would be great... also. if you could find that Pearl terrain while you're at it...? :)
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Aye, Dux, I understood.. :-)
That is wonderful news about fog! Does this mean that clouds might be CM-settable too? And - dare I hope? - the clouds might automatically follow the set wind direction at their altitude?
Awww.. this feels like an early birthday present, hearing that the weather options are going to be improved further!
Ooh! Just in case it hant been thought of, an option to set the icyness or bogginess of terrain/runways would be nice... not expecting a reply on that, of course, but if HTC might like to take it into consideration...
Question: I understand that the spot-height horizontal resoultion is half that of the terrain tile size, but is there any limitation as to the actual spot height settings themselves? Could two adjacent terrain tiles vary in altitude by as little as 1 metre, for instance (theoretically, I mean).
Esme
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Originally posted by Dux
....
There is a Ruhr terrain in the works (you may have seen the forum open up just today) and it is a 1:1 terrain that includes half of England and reaches down to Innsbruck. You can cover quite a lot of area with a 512 map....
nope, cant find it. Can you provide a link? Although preferentially a LW bomber pilot, I'll happily take a crack at the Ruhr in English bombers, too! (fond memories of flying a Mossie IV NOE at night over France otw to the Ruhr in a game far away and long ago... )
Esme (pleeease can we have a Mossie MkIV and a Halifax, and a Wellington, and, oooh, LOTS of other planes?! ;-) )
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Here :)
New Ruhr Forum (http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=102166)
About terrain height... yes, you can manually set a vertex height to any integer you want. I believe that the unit of height is the same as the horizontal... 1 foot.
If you are using an imported bitmap to make elevations, consider this: you are translating an 8-bit image (0-255) into number values. If you set the maximum import height to be 10000, the TE will divide 10000 into 255 increments (10000 / 255 = 39.22). This will give you an elevation "step" of ~39 feet. If you need to get more precise than that, you will have to tweak it manually.
Yes, it is great news about the fog. I wish I knew more details about the weather beyond that. That's a really great idea about the ground friction... I wonder if it's possible? Type in a number from 0 to 1.
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i would like to have your pearl map dmynamismudd@aol.com
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Aye, Dux, that's the kind of thing I had in mind ideally, with 1 being 100% friction (representing bog or deep sand), .5 being average going, and 0 no friction at all, if a decimal number can be used. If it has to be binary bits, then mebbe at least two bits would be good, giving slippery, standard, hard going and impassable. If vehicles were then also given a "cross country" rating (0 for 4 wheeled vehicles, 1 for 6 wheeled, 2 for half tracks, 2 for fully tracked, for example) then the terrain value could be compared to the vehicle value so that 4 wheeled vehicles really couldnt cross impassable terrain, but fully tracked ones might just about manage it.
Juts had another thought... if small hillocks or ridges could be added to terrain as if they were buildings (so far as the software is concerned) that stopped shells without damage it would allow terrain builders to provide more interesting areas of terrain for ground combat. Tanks could go hull-down on the reverse of a small ridge, and hillocks and ridges could block lines of sight... something like the Normandy bocage might be put together... lots of possibilities.
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Id like that Pearl Map Also Nuttz Pwease ... i'll host it up on my website if ya ever find it ...
Roscoroo@ispwest.com <-- any file size here is ok
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Nutts, can i also get a copy of P Harbor pleeeeesse :)
m31087@yahoo.com (send it here!!!:) )
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Originally posted by EsmeNhaMaire
... if small hillocks or ridges could be added to terrain as if they were buildings (so far as the software is concerned) that stopped shells without damage it would allow terrain builders to provide more interesting areas of terrain for ground combat. Tanks could go hull-down on the reverse of a small ridge, and hillocks and ridges could block lines of sight... something like the Normandy bocage might be put together... lots of possibilities.
Esme, you really NEED to get your hands on the latest version of the Aces High 2 Beta and check it out for yourself. They even have a name for what you're describing... MTFs: Micro Terrain Features.
Consider it another early birthday present from me. :)
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Dux, I cant run AHII. Yet. As it happens, though, I'm off to a computer fair at the NEC tommorrow with a tecchy friend, hoping to get a nice new motherboard, CPU and RAM. Other bits to follow as and when.
If you can offer any pointers as to what to look for in graphics cards, 'twould be appreciated, although I'll say now, I have to go for the cheap end of things, I cannot afford cutting-edge stuff, and I'm gradually migrating over to Linux, so that may be some consideration (be interesting to see whether AHII can run under WineX like the current AH can. Be nice if HTC released AHII binaries for Linux, but I'm not expcting miracles this tiem around!)
Thanks for the extra early birthday present! Hmmn... I feel Panzergruppe Esme may be on the horizon, for when I want a change from flying... :-}
I'd like that Pearl terrain, too, please:
esme@nocturnal.clara.co.uk
Aand.. Dux, coudl you drop me an email too, please? I;d like a quick wee chat...
Thanks
Esme
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Sorry to hear about not running AH2... I think I'm due for a graphics upgrade soon also, but I don't know what's out there at the moment. Skuzzy or one of the Hardware Forum regulars could advise you better than I, anyway :)
e-mail sent.