Maskrider?

[dvslats]

I was just wondering if you ever thought about making available whatever you have completed for Boela.

Was carousing about at your website and saw this picture. I even saved the oil wharfs wolfi made and had attached in a thread.

hmmm, seems I'm not able to attach the picture...

Anyway, I'm not twisting your arm or anything like that.
Besides, you live too far from me to reach it. :chuncky:

Dave

Edit; Here we go.

https://qolhjq-ch3301.files.1drv.com/y2pIk-2f0W9AJLKBIxiQdMxeWZIOdpy5EN57q29YkWXuNPLgNzOE-rR_v58JHWMXq9-Tu8O6KOo50IWacFNxDyADXbzLNTdGaliJlFIz9qItQj7ejmLTA FiX3yq1SfZwqmA-P4tR62mxH1Id3u6sXabbA/Boela_MR.jpg?psid=1

[MaskRider]

Hiya Dave,

Sure give me a day or so and I'll zip-up and send you what I have.

Nice to see that those slide shows at my website get viewed from time to time!

Chris

PS: Wolfi's oil-rig-barges/wharves are very cool aren't they?

PS2: I had meant to make some tweaks to the scenery before ever actually releasing it to the public. The main thing was changing the roads from VTP1 Polys without shores to VTP1 Lines. At the time I was playing with Boela there was no really good road texture available- the one from the game and FS2004 just didn't sit well- they broke up and wouldn't follow a straight path. So I was going with the next best thing, the very tedious process of creating roads out of textured VTP1 Polys without shores. But when I was making the Marianas scenery, someone, and I apologize for not remembering just who at the moment, sent me a couple of wonderful road and shoreline textures to use. I also have a really nice new partial set of Solomon Island airfields made- includes complete ground up-rebuilds of Guadalcanal, Russells, Belona-Rennell with a few other islands created but no airfields added as yet. I haven't touched them in the last 18 months or so.

[dvslats]

Hi Chris,

Man that would be great. :encouragement: Whatever you have would sure looks better then my feeble attempts for this scenery.

I've always wanted to bring a flight of A-20s to this place since I first read stories about it.

Thanks!
Dave

[Captain Kurt]

Chris, can I encourage you to get back to those partially finished projects? They sound really good.

[UncleTgt]

Chris, can I encourage you to get back to those partially finished projects? They sound really good.

+1 Yeah, what he said:encouragement: You've been gone too long.

[MaskRider]

Well, Dave is still waiting for his Boela scenery. ;^)

When I finally got around to pulling the files together and packaging it up, I realized how very much of a beta Boela really is. For one thing the airfield bgls had not yet been consolidated into one bgl. So I went ahead and did that. Tonight I went ahead an swapped out the old road bgls for some nice new VTP1 line bgls. I like the look better myself. I attach a couple of screenies for comparison.

What this little bit of work has shown me is just how rusty I have become at making scenery during this extended layoff. Thankfully it seems to come back quickly.

MR

The two shots on the left are with the new roads. On the right, the old.

[dvslats]

The two shots on the left are with the new roads. On the right, the old.

Oh, that looks sweet MR. What a difference. :cool-new:

I never could gather the patience to master G2K. It really does make the scenery come to life though.

Better keep them skills active. There must be great satisfaction to accomplish works like this.
A nice "feel good" when it's done.

Till Latter,
Dave

[UncleTgt]

Yeah, he's back!!!:triumphant:

Somebody lock the door before MR decides to go back "upstairs"...:a1310:

[Blood_Hawk23]

*Cough* I think the key went down sideways. :icon_eek:

Looks great MR. The rust will shake off quickly. You might find its only the little things that have to be brushed up on. I love the road work.

So... Any chance of talking you into another project?:eagerness:

[MaskRider]

So... Any chance of talking you into another project?:eagerness:

What did you have in mind?

MR

[dvslats]

Hmmmm, nice! (http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/album.php?albumid=40) :emmersed:

[MaskRider]

My love for CFS2 had a reawakening this evening. I had put the finishing touches on Boela, Ceram and decided to take a little joy ride from Boela near the NE corner of Ceram Island, Molukus to Amahai on the south central coast of Ceram. I departed around 1630 hours with ActiveSky running in "online" input mode from Amahai's metar station. The following screenshots are from the flight back to Boela after stopping for a cup of Joe and topping-off my fuel in Amahai. It is remarkable what a beautiful world CFS2 is still capable of creating.
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/amahai2boela12.jpg
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/amahai2boela10.jpg
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/amahai2boela09.jpg
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/amahai2boela07.jpg


Cheers,
MR

[MaskRider]

And 3 more: Sorry for them being so dark.
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/amahai2boela05.jpg
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/amahai2boela01.jpg
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/amahai2boela00.jpg
Cheers!
MR

BTW: That is Stuart Green's most excellent G4M1 Mitsubishi Betty

[Rami]

Chris,

Thank you for sharing. Your pics exemplify why I still work to provide new campaigns and material for this sim. This girl still has legs! :very_drunk:

[MaskRider]

Aye, Rami. That she does!

MR

BTW Rami, today the temps here in San Diego plummeted into the high seventies accompanied by severe sunshine with gentle warm breezes blowing through a cloudless sky. Had to change into my winter shorts. ;^)

[Rami]

Aye, Rami. That she does!

MR

BTW Rami, today the temps here in San Diego plummeted into the high seventies accompanied by severe sunshine with gentle warm breezes blowing through a cloudless sky. Had to change into my winter shorts. ;^)

Chris,

That seems a little Nero-esque while Boston continues to burn, don't ya think? :p87:

[Shadow Wolf 07]

As usual, you've done another great job on your base and surrounding areas Maskrider. Thank you! :applause:

[Rami]

BTW Rami, today the temps here in San Diego plummeted into the high seventies accompanied by severe sunshine with gentle warm breezes blowing through a cloudless sky. Had to change into my winter shorts. ;^)

Chris,

This is for you...some sights around my town and an adjacent town...:a1310:

[MaskRider]

Holy frostbite! Now that is what I call winter weather! Wow! :snowman:

Almost makes me feel guilty.... NOT!

MR

[Rami]

Chris,

More for you...:a1310:

[Rami]

Chris,

Here is the last batch...:very_drunk:

[dvslats]

I'm lovin it. :triumphant:

https://qolhjq-ch3301.files.1drv.com/y2pHQXN1NAvhJWPcITHucTLgHvAkTLHFw5yhX072aAaj3yceb7 6rVAUtxuX7A5EyhKqW7GUVIUtg7M0lw0CHFtgDBmvnRdsIH8ZR 56GAcO6CHLfPwT1Drbsgnr63JVonvwZzcggCduFWYA5FGmnwWF l8g/MR%20Boela.jpg?psid=1



https://qolhjq-ch3301.files.1drv.com/y2pWvLgBbnL1dV4_yC8oItVaAyxLDr68H4ddPurT48Pl15Q9Y6 CeqsshOHmmWC50qjp_ARxY39tao80uOH08JDf9Yx5e0-SJdLjp_GL8ughbGvcIc2oRSWRIm7mmBR33dCG0gNCE7xXqebGW GnRQgdL1A/MR%20Boela2.jpg?psid=1

Oh boy...the price for gas just went up again...

[dvslats]

Well thats enough damage for today.
Out of ordinance anyway.

If that don't warm up a cold winters day I don't know what will. :playful:

I've have been running your Boela scenery for a week or two now Chris and don not see a glitch anywhere.
Just had to scrape together a different .dp file for Leroy10's storage tanks. (they're originally water ya know)
At first I couldn't figure out why there were water splashes when they were taking hits.

Thought about making it public?

https://qolhjq-ch3301.files.1drv.com/y2pmXwu8JWrWk-v5Dc6SKqVc6syn9rMqIZ6Sq3PWQa0hGUxPGRommmvmLDuB5_dc O4swKCoUjUo_VvVkbIQXvEoTA-3MJ3KaE-0rORu2ZS9nLxJU_R-8zqRltwrA8GZiAyDLIV6MlgIutIQPERA87AHSQ/Bo_Dmg.jpg?psid=1

I might need a different shallow texture, or maybe not...

Dave

[MaskRider]

Hiya Dave,

Happy to see that you are enjoying Boela. It is indeed a target rich environment! I had forgotten about those old tanks being water tanks originally. Somewhere along the line I must have got hold of a damage profile minus the water splash. There is another set of nice oil storage tanks floating around someplace- I think Pen32win did them. Looking at your screenshot it does appear that we use a couple of different textures from each other. Number one it looks as though your standard shoreline texture might not be the same as mine and yes, we definitely use a different set of water textures. Off the top of my head I can't remember which ones mine are but I really like them- lots of coral heads and such in the shallows. "Pacific Blues" maybe? Sorry I can't think of the author.

To answer your question, yes I have been thinking of making Boela public. I am in the process of refurbishing all of the DEI airfields as well as adding a few others that were originally only built for the stock mesh and masks. But I will put together a little teaser pack in the next day or so and post a link in this thread. ;^)

I few screenies of work so far: Boela, Monakwari, Ambon-Laha, Morotai

http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/boela30-soh.jpg
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/monakwari-soh.jpg
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/ambon-laha-soh.jpg
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/morotai-soh.jpg

[UncleTgt]

Dave, Chris is using a set of water textures included in my Carolines, New Britain or New Ireland scenery packages.

[MaskRider]

Thank you UT.

Well here go some more screenshots. I spent quite a bit of time last night reworking and obscure little airfield named Babo in what today is West Papua Indonesia.
Included are an overhead shot, a shot parked on the service apron and a couple of shots showing how nicely it can be damaged. ;^)
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/babo05-red.jpg
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/babo04-red.jpg
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/babo07-red.jpg
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/babo06-red.jpg

[MaskRider]

Uno mas-
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/babo08-red.jpg

[Shadow Wolf 07]

Maskrider: Nice screenies and a great (as usual) base. In the last screenshot, how did you get your water towers to burn? Or are they someone else 's oil tanks?

[MaskRider]

Hiya SW-07.

The slightly larger tanks are Lindsay's "LW Water Tower Type B". I remember very clearly that originally they exploded in a huge cloud of water spray. Somewhere along the line, somebody, maybe Pen32Win, redid them and changed the DP to smoke and fire. The slightly smaller tanks with the mottled tops are Pen32Win's "Oil Tank Large Green".

I'll have a look through my old stuff and see if anything relevant WRT the change to those LW water tank DPs jumps out at me.

MR

[Shadow Wolf 07]

Hiya SW-07.

The slightly larger tanks are Lindsay's "LW Water Tower Type B". I remember very clearly that originally they exploded in a huge cloud of water spray. Somewhere along the line, somebody, maybe Pen32Win, redid them and changed the DP to smoke and fire. The slightly smaller tanks with the mottled tops are Pen32Win's "Oil Tank Large Green".

I'll have a look through my old stuff and see if anything relevant WRT the change to those LW water tank DPs jumps out at me.

MR

Sir: I have paired the LW water towers with Ghostpony's napalm effect to get this:

[MaskRider]

Now that is impressive! Something like that might make my old rig to CTD! Is that Rabaul?

MR

[gius]

Chris,
congrats for this and all your other wonderful sceneries; i have a question: are you using Ground2k to make the ground layouts of your last airfields?
Thanks in advance,
Gius

[Shadow Wolf 07]

Now that is impressive! Something like that might make my old rig to CTD! Is that Rabaul?

MR

Yes that is Rabaul. That was during a night raid out of Henderson area waters with Catalinas. It was a long flight. :)

[MaskRider]

A long flight indeed. Speaking of long flights involving Rabaul, have you ever read the the biography of Saburo Sakai? In one mission, while he was stationed at Rabaul, he flew a zeke from Rabaul to Henderson. He and his ship were both badly shot up and he nursed it all the way back to Rabaul. It is an impressive story of shear will power and courage. He was a heck of a guy.

Speaking again of long missions to Rabaul. I got into making scenery when reading the book "American Aces Speak" by Eric Hammel (?). In that book one of the missions he described in detail was a mission of P-38s escorting a B-24 strike against Japanese installations all around Blanche Bay and Simpson Harbor- flying out of Dobodura (Popondetta). The mission is told through the eyes of the guy in charge of the escorting P-38s. Its a great mission- easy to build from the description- it was very detailed. NE out of Dobodura up around the tip of the Gazelle Peninsula through St George's Channel and then on into Rabaul with some groups splitting off and coming around from the north and others heading directly up Blanche Bay. Anyway I was discouraged because many of the airfields mentioned in the book were not available in CFS2. So I decided to build Dobodura. It was my very first scenery project. And I built that mission and fine tuned it and it was cool!

MR

[MaskRider]

Chris,
congrats for this and all your other wonderful sceneries; i have a question: are you using Ground2k to make the ground layouts of your last airfields?
Thanks in advance,
Gius

Hi Gius,

Yes I am. The screenshots in this thread are of airfields where I relied almost exclusively on G2K to do all of the ground texturing and roads and such. If I recall correctly the only screenshot where I used the method in my tutorial is the Morotai. Morotai has a very complex hardstand, taxiway-runway layout- best done using the method described in my tutorial. But everything else in the Morotai scenery is done with G2k. I still use FSSC for all of the basic airfield stuff- runways, start points, flat areas, NDBs, fuel areas, etc..

MR

PS: Here are three screenshots of the G2K layout window for all of the ground texturing polys for Babo (the background project map is turned off to make it easier to see). The the zoomed-out shot shows all of the shorelines and airfield ground polys- minus the roads. The roads I do as a separate bgl. The land itself is also a different project and bgl- looks just like the shorlines but its land instead. The zoomed in shot shows just the ground polys directly involved with the airfield. The third shot shows what the road layout looks like superimposed over the rest. If I were to start this project today I would very likely do it as a 2 stage project. First the wider surrounding land and shorelines and then a smaller close-up portion of the area just around the airfield. And of course there is also a landclass and a waterclass bgl associated with the scenery- made using EZLandclass usually.

MR

http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/babo-g2k-layout00.jpg
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/babo-g2k-layout01.jpg
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/babo-g2k-layout02.jpg

[SPman]

A long flight indeed. Speaking of long flights involving Rabaul, have you ever read the the biography of Saburo Sakai? In one mission, while he was stationed at Rabaul, he flew a zeke from Rabaul to Henderson. He and his ship were both badly shot up and he nursed it all the way back to Rabaul. It is an impressive story of shear will power and courage. He was a heck of a guy.

Speaking again of long missions to Rabaul. I got into making scenery when reading the book "American Aces Speak" by Eric Hammel (?). In that book one of the missions he described in detail was a mission of P-38s escorting a B-24 strike against Japanese installations all around Blanche Bay and Simpson Harbor- flying out of Dobodura (Popondetta). The mission is told through the eyes of the guy in charge of the escorting P-38s. Its a great mission- easy to build from the description- it was very detailed. NE out of Dobodura up around the tip of the Gazelle Peninsula through St George's Channel and then on into Rabaul with some groups splitting off and coming around from the north and others heading directly up Blanche Bay. Anyway I was discouraged because many of the airfields mentioned in the book were not available in CFS2. So I decided to build Dobodura. It was my very first scenery project. And I built that mission and fine tuned it and it was cool!

MRI believe he was also wounded and blind in one eye - took a cannon shell glancing off his head.......:eek:

[MaskRider]

I believe he was also wounded and blind in one eye - took a cannon shell glancing off his head.......:eek:

Yes, they were very gruesome injuries. Incredible that he made it back alive.

MR

[UncleTgt]

Chris,

Interesting, do you have G2K running under WIN 7? I've not yet plucked up the courage to look at scenery building since moving to Windows 7.

Also, you were using SBuilder & Cfs2Autocoast when you were reworking Gaudacanal & the lower Solomons chain, any updates on how this method was working out for you?

[dvslats]

Dave, Chris is using a set of water textures included in my Carolines, New Britain or New Ireland scenery packages.

Thanks for the info UncleTgt. :encouragement: I knew they looked familiar. I'll copy and paste then over.

Dave

[MaskRider]

Hi UT,

I am still running WindowsXP Pro on my scenery-making computer. It's not that I have any particular aversion to Windows 7 but just haven't seen any good reason to take a leap into the great unknown. My other computer, the one I am typing on at the moment, is running Windows 8.1 Pro. I don't even want to think about rebuilding my scenery-making infrastructure on Windows 8. However, it might be worth the effort to see what happens. I sort of by-passed Windows 7 although I am familiar with it since my daughter runs it on her computer.

WRT updating how it went using SBuilder and AutoCoast on the Solomon's rebuild, it actually was going quite well. I was having good success getting the results I wanted although at the moment, specific details of glitches and fixes don't come to mind. I really need to get back into it and shake out the cobwebs.

Chris

[gius]

Hi Gius,

Yes I am. The screenshots in this thread are of airfields where I relied almost exclusively on G2K to do all of the ground texturing and roads and such. If I recall correctly the only screenshot where I used the method in my tutorial is the Morotai. Morotai has a very complex hardstand, taxiway-runway layout- best done using the method described in my tutorial. But everything else in the Morotai scenery is done with G2k. I still use FSSC for all of the basic airfield stuff- runways, start points, flat areas, NDBs, fuel areas, etc..

MR

PS: Here are three screenshots of the G2K layout window for all of the ground texturing polys for Babo (the background project map is turned off to make it easier to see). The the zoomed-out shot shows all of the shorelines and airfield ground polys- minus the roads. The roads I do as a separate bgl. The land itself is also a different project and bgl- looks just like the shorlines but its land instead. The zoomed in shot shows just the ground polys directly involved with the airfield. The third shot shows what the road layout looks like superimposed over the rest. If I were to start this project today I would very likely do it as a 2 stage project. First the wider surrounding land and shorelines and then a smaller close-up portion of the area just around the airfield. And of course there is also a landclass and a waterclass bgl associated with the scenery- made using EZLandclass usually.

MR

http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/babo-g2k-layout00.jpg
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/babo-g2k-layout01.jpg
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/babo-g2k-layout02.jpg

Hi Chris,
thanks for the reply: very interesting and exciting techniques indeed: personally, mainly working on ETO, i dont need often to work with G2k for ground
particulars, but this way can be very uuseful in building airfields, except the case you must use the method described in your tutorial...congrats again!
Perhaps we can have better detail with Sander's Autocoast package..
As far as OS issues, i'm using G2k in a VMWare Xp virtual machine on a rig running Win7 32 bit since i've encountered the same problems described
by UncleTgt...
Cheers
Gius

[MaskRider]

Gius and UncleTgt,

I have been out of the loop for a while and am not really up to speed on the conflicts and glitches that have arisen between CFS2 and the newer, post-XP, versions of windows. However, I am approaching the point where I will be wanting to build a new computer for the scenery and simming. Windows 7 is as far as I am willing to take it, I think. So, I guess soon I will be looking to pick your guys brains to sort things out if necessary.

Chris

[Shadow Wolf 07]

Now that is impressive! Something like that might make my old rig to CTD! Is that Rabaul?

MR

It probably won't. I did it years ago on my XP system or maybe even on my ME system before that.

[dvslats]

Hi Chris,

Was googling maps and found the modern day Babo.

I'm guessing the circular holes in and around the area are bomb craters from seventy one years ago. Pretty amazing.

https://qolhjq-ch3301.files.1drv.com/y2pLrDGLjKZ9lP8XbHeOIqhDGdvl6SSHca_pn_Mtyff7KSL_OX QNwafH4Fug7fZ2etuXHkXOq69VF7dOvXYRPFZ7oRWqhaHWGHCK f7BzfBMoEVSDcLGwcMxyb9Y8-ev1cHSAEACmxT60pqkqkvxB96Qmg/Babo.jpg?psid=1

Captain Kurt did missions for this area. IIRC, 9th Air force. This was a nasty place for US bombers and strafers in 1944.

oh, BTW, I found the .dp's made by Pen32win. They're include in his af_bb_pak.zip. This one has the files for leroy10's objects including the Water tank to Oil storage tank .dp. :victorious:

Dave

[MaskRider]

Alright, Dave! Thanks for the pic of Babo. Good work on those dps! I had a look around my archives but wasn't able to spot them.

Another airfield not too far from Babo- about 35 mile WSW was Sagan. If you look close bomb craters are still visible there, too, along with quite a bit of detail of the taxiway, hardstands and dispersal areas. There even a few revetments still visible as well as what appear to have been gun emplacements or some such thing. It was a bit difficult to find in Google Earth because there is no modern day airfield at the location. But it is still possible to glean a pretty accurate layout from the Googfle Earth picture. I also had a photo from Pacific Wrecks to work from.

FYI Am making good progress and having fun reworking the DEI pack. Sometime in the next fews days I will get something ready for beta testing.

Here are a few pics I have. One is a wartime image of Babo from the Australian War Museum. The other 2 are of Sagan: one from Pacific Wrecks, the other from Google Earth.

BTW here are the coords of Sagan from Google Earth: 2°39'52.82"S 132°57'56.22"E

http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/babo-awm5ed.jpg
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/sagan-ed-pac-wrecks.jpg
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/sagan-googlearth.jpg

[MaskRider]

One more of MR Sagan- canted over with N at a 45 degree slant. I actually just starting upgrading this airfield earlier tonight.

MRhttp://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/sagan-mr.jpg

[gius]

Gius and UncleTgt,

I have been out of the loop for a while and am not really up to speed on the conflicts and glitches that have arisen between CFS2 and the newer, post-XP, versions of windows. However, I am approaching the point where I will be wanting to build a new computer for the scenery and simming. Windows 7 is as far as I am willing to take it, I think. So, I guess soon I will be looking to pick your guys brains to sort things out if necessary.

Chris

Chris,
i'm always ready to help...
Congrats for your works again!

[MaskRider]

After finishing up a rework of Nabire Airfield I decided to take a little hop from Nabire NW up to Ransiki Airfield- about 160 miles, with ActiveSky running. For my plane I chose one of my favorites, Akemi San's ki-45kai "Toryu". It was a screenshot worthy flight.
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/nabire-to-ransiki-map2.jpg
Taking off from Nabire
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/nabire-ransiki-00.jpg
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/nabire-ransiki-01.jpg
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/nabire-ransiki-02.jpg

[MaskRider]

Thank you, Akemi for the enjoyment you are still giving!

Four more:
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/nabire-ransiki-03.jpg
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/nabire-ransiki-04.jpg
Passing Moemi heading for Ransiki
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/nabire-ransiki-05.jpg
On approach to Ransiki
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/nabire-ransiki-06.jpg
On Final

[MaskRider]

On this project, which I went traipsing off on thanks to dvslats inquiring about Boela Airfield, I am current concentrating on the newer DEI airfields clustered on and around the Vogelkop, or Bird's Head, Peninsula of Western New Guinea or what was Dutch New Guinea. Many slightly older fields, because of the way they were made in the first place, prior to Rhumba's Mesh and Mask, nevertheless fit in fine with his mesh when it was released.

Not all of the newer fields have required reworking, mainly just the ones that were not quite as G2K-intensive as others. For instance, Ceram-Amahai, Hate-Tobako, Lolobata, Jeffeman Island, Middleburg Islanfd, Mar-Sansapor, Pulau Gag and Wadke Island were all pretty much OK as they were.

The first thing that came to mind when I first decided to do this project was to change the roads from textured VTP1 polys without shores to VTP1 lines textured with Jean Bomber's nice road textures. The reason I originally made the roads using polys W/O shores was that at the time there was no decent road texture available that held up well visually. JP came up with some textures that changed that.

Another thing niggling me was the way I had sort of jury rigged river miouths in man of these sceneries. Many of these Islands I had reworked using AutoCoast with the result that they had an unbroken shoreline, which meant that the rivers always flowed into the ocean through a line of sand and waves. So “opening up” river-mouths are another thing I have been tweaking.

Also, when using LWM water polys for rivers, as I usually do, the rivers naturally take on whatever water class value they find sitting under them. Near shore this is almost always going to result in bright sky-blue rivers- when they should be duller and muddier looking. So, I wanted to tweak the river water-class colors.

Another little oddity that arose when Rhumba’s Mesh and Masks were adopted is that new land locations uncovered what had up until then been “hidden” expanses of default “1” water-class along the coasts of many Pacific Islands. This value basically yields a surface that reacts like ground to bullets and more importantly to floatplanes- they get stuck in it. You will be floating along nicely, come to a blended zone border between “1” and “7” water-class, and suddenly flip over onto your nose! So, I also wanted to fix outcroppings of “1” water-class.

Finally, as far as I recall at the moment, I wanted to thin out the GSLs at many of these airfields. Not, surprisingly, simple tweaking has many times turned into major reworks. Sangihe Island, which I am just finishing up, is such a place. I never liked it. So in addition to tweaking it river water classes and opening up its river mouths, I basically trashed the original field and replaced it with one that will be considerably less elaborate but much nicer looking, IMHO, when finished.


So here is the deal. The first batch of of reworked airfields will be released some time soon. I won’t put any hard firm date on it. But I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I will want some beta tester volunteers to make sure I haven’t overlooked anything.

The list of fields in this first pack: Ceram-Amahai, Ceram-Boela, Ambon-Laha, Babo, Biak, Fak-Fak, Hate-Tobako, Lolobata, Jeffman Island, Mar-Middleburg, Mar-Sansapor, Moenmi, Monakwari, Morotai, Noemfoor Island, Nabire, Pulau Gag, Ransiki, Sagan, Sangihe, Ternate, Utarom-Kaimana, Wakde.


Pretty much all of the airfields in the mr_dutch_east_indies_090912.zip . But they will definitely look different and the file-names will be different. Thus the need for some beta testing to work out any glitches.


Only Noemfoor, Sangihe and Utarom-Kaimana remain unfinished.

The second pack will be a rework of all the DEI fields that were only built for stock CFS2 mesh and masks. I will redo these for the new mesh and masks.They will include: Dili, Kendari, Koepang, Laboera, Langoer, Manado, Namlea, Selaru, Singosari and Waingaipoe.


Cheers,
MR

Find two screenies below showing the old Sangihe Island and vs the in progress new Sangihe.

Old Sangihe:
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/sangihe-old.jpg

New Sangihe:
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/sangihe-new.jpg

Another of the new, from the NE
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/sangihe00.jpg

[MaskRider]

I think this will be the final look for Sangihe

[kelticheart]

:jawdrop:... I can't believe how beautiful the screenshots you posted are, Chris! :wavey:

I love Active Sky, although I will never be able to enjoy it. I despise the idea of having my CFS2-dedicated pc connected to the Net. All of the security involved drains a lot of the precious resources CFS2 needs, besides how can you provide security if XP is not being supported anymore? I was told Active Sky works only when the pc is online, while my CFS2-dedicated pc is 100% 'unplugged', with all of the connectivity and security services turned or deleted off.

May I ask you two quick questions?



What kind of hardware are you using to withstand such beautifully detailed sceneries with XP-Pro? Sadly only XP allows the full-screen option, even if a virtual XP-machine could be used. CFS2 can only be run inside of a DOS window from Win7 onwards.
The mesh detail of the mountains looks like it's Rhumbaflappy's corrected elevation mesh. The shoreline is perfect, yet with Rhumba's mesh installed the Pacific shores are so screwed up I had to revert back to the stock mesh. What mesh files are you using?


Thank you for getting involved again with CFS2! :applause:

Cheers!
KH :ernaehrung004:

[MaskRider]

... I can't believe how beautiful the screenshots you posted are, Chris!

I love Active Sky, although I will never be able to enjoy it. I despise the idea of having my CFS2-dedicated pc connected to the Net. All of the security involved drains a lot of the precious resources CFS2 needs, besides how can you provide security if XP is not being supported anymore? I was told Active Sky works only when the pc is online, while my CFS2-dedicated pc is 100% 'unplugged', with all of the connectivity and security services turned or deleted off.

May I ask you two quick questions?



What kind of hardware are you using to withstand such beautifully detailed sceneries with XP-Pro? Sadly only XP allows the full-screen option, even if a virtual XP-machine could be used. CFS2 can only be run inside of a DOS window from Win7 onwards.
The mesh detail of the mountains looks like it's Rhumbaflappy's corrected elevation mesh. The shoreline is perfect, yet with Rhumba's mesh installed the Pacific shores are so screwed up I had to revert back to the stock mesh. What mesh files are you using?


Thank you for getting involved again with CFS2!

Cheers!
KH



Hi KH,

I appreciate the kind words about the screenshots! Thanks!

Indeed I do run CFS2 on XPPro even though MS no longer supports it. I keep a couple of reliable, up-to-date security programs running full time whenever I am online with CFS2- indeed they run full time whether I am online or not.

So far, no issues. I try not to take any unnecessary risks.

WRT hardware, mine is actually a very modestly endowed machine:
http://www.mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/resources/systeminfo.jpg
As far as the mesh and shorelines are concerned, yes the mesh and most of the masking is Rhumbas corrected mesh. Any shorelines you see in my scenery are strictly my own. I always try to include nicely fitting shorelines with the scenery- but only for a reasonable distance either side of the scenery- unless it is a reasonably sized, i.e., not very big, island. With Sangihe, since it is a fairly small island, the shoreline runs all around. I usuallu use Autocoast or if need be do it by hand. Most the custom shorelines also sit atop custom, fine-tuned masks, made to fit the needs at any given location.

Cheers,
MR

[MaskRider]

BTW, here is Sangihe in its finished state. Added river banks, redid the ground poly under the runway and modified the scenery object layout. It has gone from being one of my least favorite airfields ti being one I like a lot.

Also finished Utarom-Kaimana. Now working on Noemfoor.

MR

[MaskRider]

Chris,

Interesting, do you have G2K running under WIN 7? I've not yet plucked up the courage to look at scenery building since moving to Windows 7.

Also, you were using SBuilder & Cfs2Autocoast when you were reworking Gaudacanal & the lower Solomons chain, any updates on how this method was working out for you?

To answer your question a little more fully, yes, I am using AutoCoast again and am very pleased with the results. As far as I recall, the only thing I have ever used SBuilder for is in conjunction with G2K and Autocast to create A16 flattens, large ones, for the water around some of the islands in the Marianas Pack some of which had major elevation anomalies protruding from their perimeters. As far a using AC on the Solomons rework project, it was a huge time saver. Although it doesn't handle really complicated clusterings of smaller inshore islets very well. Still need to turn-to by hand on those.

One other small issiue that arises with Autocoast generated lines vs hand drawn lines in G2K is, when compiling, the Autocoast-generated lines seem to generate more than their fair share of "abnormal lon de coupe (sp?)" errors compared to lines drawn by hand. Usually I can never spot the errors visually- they would appear as gaps- but still they are there. Autocoast also is not as careful to not cross lines as we humans are.

Used AutoCoast just last night to create a new Noemfoor. Excellent results. Just a few minor hand draw tweaks needed. Although I think I will be going with the version I made by hand using a project map image from MicroDem. Just for the heck of it.

MR

[kelticheart]

Hi KH,

I appreciate the kind words about the screenshots! Thanks!

Indeed I do run CFS2 on XPPro even though MS no longer supports it. I keep a couple of reliable, up-to-date security programs running full time whenever I am online with CFS2- indeed they run full time whether I am online or not.

So far, no issues. I try not to take any unnecessary risks.

WRT hardware, mine is actually a very modestly endowed machine:.....

You are welcome, Chris! High praises for your work are always well deserved. You pioneered the concept of 'blended in' runways which was the true quantum leap in scenery building for CFS2. When you released your first Henderson Field, nothing was the same anymore!

Your pc specs look almost like mine, other than you have a better graphic card. I have an ATI Radeon 9250 with only 128Mb of dedicated RAM, with 2Gb RAM for my XP-Pro, with an ASUS mobo running a 2Ghz AMD Sempron 2800 processor.

I have been combing the used hware market to find one of the last fully XP compatible ASUS mobos, with an AMD Athlon dual-core and 4Gb of RAM. I already have an almost new ATI Radeon of the latest PCI generation, with 512Mb of dedicated RAM, to complete a new CFS2 pc with it.

It should be the cream o' the crop for CFS2, but no cigar yet.



....As far as the mesh and shorelines are concerned, yes the mesh and most of the masking is Rhumbas corrected mesh. Any shorelines you see in my scenery are strictly my own. I always try to include nicely fitting shorelines with the scenery- but only for a reasonable distance either side of the scenery- unless it is a reasonably sized, i.e., not very big, island. With Sangihe, since it is a fairly small island, the shoreline runs all around. I usuallu use Autocoast or if need be do it by hand. Most the custom shorelines also sit atop custom, fine-tuned masks, made to fit the needs at any given location.

Ah, custom-built shores, eh? I figured it! It's the only way to make the marriage with Rhumba's mesh work in the Pacific. Allright, another two CFS2 installs, then. One, 90% stock, for the PTO sceneries which do not take Rhumba's work for love or money and one, all updated, for MR's works of art: no problem!

I projected my work with installing everything produced for CFS2 well into my retirement years: busy and out of troubles!

I am looking forward to installing your new sceneries, Chris! :applause: :applause: :applause:

Cheers!
KH :ernaehrung004:

[MaskRider]

Ah, custom-built shores, eh? I figured it! It's the only way to make the marriage with Rhumba's mesh work in the Pacific. Allright, another two CFS2 installs, then. One, 90% stock, for the PTO sceneries which do not take Rhumba's work for love or money and one, all updated, for MR's works of art: no problem!

I projected my work with installing everything produced for CFS2 well into my retirement years: busy and out of troubles!

Haha! Yes, that sounds about right. I have finally come to the conclusion that I am going to need multiple installs if for no other reason than to just keep straight my own junk! I have a hard time these days remembering what will fit with both the stock and Rhumba mesh and masks, what will fit only the stock mesh an masks and what junk will fit only the Rhumba mesh and masks. God only knows how the end users keep it all sorted out- if they even bother trying. Don't know if I would!

Last night after I noticed the trouble with Noemfoor I decided to clean out my CFS2 install. I created another whole folder in Microsoft Games and named it "Miscellaneous rubbish from CFS2". It is full to over-flowing! I had soo much crud and left overs and what-not floating around inside my install. Like a guy who has a yard full of taken apart cars and broken down washing machines and dryers.
Good luck with your CFS2-dedicated computer project!

MR

[tony2]

I found this site that has photo of many western pacific bases that might help those who want to create some new areas.

http://www.airfields-freeman.com/HI/Airfields_W_Pacific.htm

This site also has some good photos.

Tony2

[MaskRider]

Thanks, Tony2,

Abandoned and Little Known Airfields is really a great website.

The pictures of Kagman, on Saipan, I find very interesting. At the time I was making my Marianas scenery, Kagman was the only field that I was never able to find any good overall pictures of the runway and dispersal area layout. I was able to find fragments and partials but t nothing that showed the entire layout. Didn't occur to me to go the ALKA. I knew they existed and knew they concerned themselves with airfields in the USA, but I guess it didn't connect that the Marianas are part of the USA, too.

Now that I see what it looked liked I don't think I did too badly all things considered

Cheers,
MR

[Blood_Hawk23]

I've used Abandoned and Little Known Airfields for some of my WWI aerodromes. a few are just discriptions.