Clouds for Offline Play

[Diamax]

<Salute>

I am wondering if you guys would be willing to share the offline cloud files for any terrains you may have, because unfortunately the developers did not include a functionality to download them alongside the terrain files, while playing online, and that's a pitty.

Thank you,
Diamax

[CptTrips]

I haven't worked out the kinks in uploading a cloud file separately, but I have found that if you are building a custom terrain, drop the cloud file in the terrain folder where the oba file is and it will bundle the clouds file into the terrain build.

Brooke has some excellent examples for 512 terrains.  For smaller terrains, you'll want to edit them.

http://electraforge.com/brooke/flightsims/ahScenarioGuild/cloudDesignsAH3.htm

If you are wanting it for offline, you can just make a weather file and put the awa file in the  ..\Aces High III\chconfig\<terrain_name> folder and name it the same as the terrain.  Like myterrain.awa.

[Traveler]

I think this is a wish list item.

[Diamax]

Thank you CptTrips, MUCH APPRECIATED!!
I will look into these files.

I used to make terrains and weather long ago for AHII, see this post:
https://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,153131.0.html

However it looks like now the way was working before doesn't cut it any longer.
Also I read somewhere on the forums that the extension for the cloud files has been changed to .cld, if I remember correctly.
The Cloud Editor doesn't work for me, doesn't even open... it never really did work, even in AHII I had to make my cloud files "by hand" for the most part.


Thank you for sharing all that info for building clouds into the terrain and for offline play. I will definitely start experimenting on the new terrain that I just made couple of days ago... by the way to embed a custom skin that I made would be the same? drop it in the same folder with the .oba file?
If you know of a guide for the new cloud system in AHIII, please post here.

Again Thank You!

Yes Traveler... there are many things on that wish list, some of which should've been addressed by now, me thinks!

[bustr]

Here are the basic rules for weather files in the MA.

Only make single cloud layers no stacking layers.
Cloud blocks need 40 miles between them, think grid overlay of your MA map.bmp.
The high cirrus layer should be above game play expected alts, 35k and above.
Clouds can touch mountain tops but minimum 3k AGL.

Offline play, anything you want until you crash your FPS including there is a killer sock in fog layer included in the menu queue.

I extensively tested the v1.0 of the cloud editor offline and killed my FPS many times socking in BowlMA during it's development for the MA.  I also created local ground level "fog in" for feilds on BowlMa which required me to use instruments to land. Crashed the game constantly which helped Hitech fix some bugs and produce v2.0 of the cloud editor and those rules for the MA. Problem with clouds is FPS if you stuff too many inside of a 40mile area. You also don't want cloud block edges touching each other.

The new cloud editor is simple, open it then choose open terrain and pick that terrain's res file. The map.bmp will be loaded from the res file. After that, push buttons since Hitech never ships a hand book. The current cloud editor won't break if you push all the buttons to see what happens. That's all I did until Hitech gave me those rules after I kept breaking the game with 8 hour long run tests and insane cloud stacking and stuffing.

To this day I regret that 20min cool down cycle I put in all the MA terrains in the rotation queue. I left it out with riftval and the time transition between cycles is much smoother. I'll incorporate that into my new project fjordma.

 

[CptTrips]

Thank you CptTrips, MUCH APPRECIATED!!
I will look into these files.

The current cloud editor created a awa file for me.

For planes skins, you want to create a sub-folder below the folder where your oba files lives and name it "texsrc".  Put your skin bitmaps there.  Also you can put a custom clipboard map bitmap or any other bitmaps you want to override except for terrain tile textures. 

See the Terrain Editor sub-Forum where Easyscor is starting an informative post thread there on how to do that if you had an interest to go that way.


The cloud editor is working for me right now.  Have you updated to the latest I assume?

What OS are you on?

What size terrain are you wanting a cloud file for?  512? 256? 128?

[CptTrips]

If you are running Win10 from an upgrade, I might suspect you need to re-install your C++ distributables.

See https://www.techjunkie.com/application-was-unable-to-start-correctly-0xc000007b/.

I don't know if that would fix it, but it is something I'd try.

[bustr]

I remember installing that for something a long time ago, don't remember if it was due to the cloud editor. The new one should work out of the box and it's always been an awa file since I was breaking v1.0 back in 2016. If you name it the same name as your terrain and drop it in the chconfig it loads automatically offline. I always name it something else for testing to call it with .sweath terrain1.swa while I'm sitting in the air using CMeye.

Oh, v2.0 has better hover your mouse over items help than v1.0 did. If you want your weather to move across your terrain, 50mph works pretty good while off the map from the wind start direction place a line of cloud blocks with the 40 mile spacing and they will just fill the edge sectors after about 1 hour. I usual cycle the MA weather in 1 hour chunks while it's slightly less visually disruptive to have no cool down period between 1 hour cycles. I suppose I could do something like 3hours and two more lines of clouds off the map with a 10x10. I'll have to test that on fjordma, I've had players who know I built the awa files for the MA say naughty things becasue of how stark the beginning and end of a weather cycle can visually disrupt air combat.

I'm trying to remember but, I think there is a fade in and out timer but it's broken right now. Or is it working now? I'll have to run a test on one of my test terrains.

[Diamax]

Hi guys!!
I tested things out...

Bustr,
You are obviously well advanced in terrain editing and large scale weather fronts... I mean you are talking MA scale, which is not my case.
Back when I was making AHII terrains and weather it was for player hosted arenas, and I purposely made those terrains very small, to have intense air and ground battles, back then such arenas could host no more than 8 players, now I see it's better... up to 16, but I would still make the terrains small, or at least close quarters airfields. I've never exceeded 11 layers of clouds in my weather (.awa) files previously (i just dug some up) so there was no hit on the frame rate, it was always smooth.

Now I downloaded the files CptTrips pointed me to and I see there are hundreds of layers there, I guess for large terrain that would be OK, but for my small terrain projects I would only be using a few layers and that wouldn't affect performance.
I always thought that the cloud layers were blending in smoothly (fade in/out), when starting, or so I remember...

Yes, that command, .sweath is handy for loading weather files, especially when testing, but in the final version I would like to have the option to embed the .awa files into the terrain as well as add them to the chconfig folder to override the terrain's weather at will.

Thank you for all the info you shared, it is good reference.

CptTrips,
You gave the exact pointers I needed to get started, and yes, those .awa files work, so the extension hasn't changed after all.

As far as CE goes, I do have the latest version and I use Windows 7 and I did re-install C++ Redist, even DirectX, just for the hack of it, did all that and more. Thank you for that link, even if is for Win 10, well anyway I got tired of trying to fix it.

I can live with manually setting the cloud layers, as soon as I figure them out, which by the way, those comments in the .awa files you pointed me to are really helpful in that sense.

With all the info and files you pointed me to now I am seeing clouds... which is great!! Now I can start playing around, actually already did. So THANK YOU!
The size that I am aiming for at the moment is 128, later maybe 256. I will start with small terrains that is for certain.

I will be communicating with Easyscor soon, as he responded to a post I made on the subject in the Custom Arenas section.

Now I do have a couple more questions...

#1 Is any way to  get rid of the haze/fog that is by default in every terrain? I mean I like clear weather and puffy white clouds.
Now I can experiment with the clouds, but I don't know how to get rid of the haze that forms in the distance, which I totally dislike.

#2 CptTrips, I've done as you said with the plane skin and it worked a treat, but it replaces the default skin, and I would prefer to add to the skins list, without replacing any, IF POSSIBLE!
I included the A6M2A.bmp and A6M2A.txt in the texsrc folder so the skin would appear under it's own name in the list, or so I thought, but it doesn't, it just takes on the name of the default skin.

<SALUTE>

[Diamax]

I am going to answer my own question #1. the answer came to me while I was doing something else completely unrelated, it simply popped into my head, I remembered that there is a setting that I had used long ago.

To get rid of the distace fog/haze in the arena you need to fix the arena settings as follows.
In game go to Options -> Arena Setup -> Environment -> Arena Settings.
There select the "Ranges" tab and look for "FogHiFarMiles" and "FogLoFarMiles" adjust/increase those values.
Myself I increased them by 10x.

Optionally, instead of going into the user interface game settings, you can directly edit the "arena.cfg" file
that is located in the "settings" folder, looking for the aforementioned parameters.

[Diamax]

I've discovered that my previous post was partially incorrect.
So it's time make that right.

Changing the settings in the arena.cfg file will not make any difference for offline play.
The initial settings for each terrain still have to be dealt with in game first.
Then in the terrain folder (ex. chconfig/myterr/) there will be a ".var" file created with the name of the terrain.
That file then can be manually edited, in notepad or another text editor, if wanted.

In the terrain folder (ex. chconfig/myterr/) you can also add the weather (.awa) file. Again using the name of the terrain before the extension.
And for reference here it is a simple, one line, weather/cloud file that can be named and used as needed:

# Cloud Type,CreateTime,DownTime,SpeedMPH,LifeTime,FadeTime,CreatePnt.x-(East-West),y-(Altitude),z-(North-South),TravelVec.x,y,z
5,0,0,30,3600,1,-12500,2500,16813,0,5000,1

The line starting with "#" is just a very brief comment line, in this case adding extra info regarding the meaning of the comma delimited numbers.
The actuall settings line is the one under. The cloud front using the settings above will run fairly central in a terrain that uses the 64 miles map size and will give an adequate coverage.
You can experiment with different "cloud types" using numbers 0 thru 9.
Depending on the cloud type, some will put more or less stress on the system than others.