New theater tutorial Step by Step for CFS3

**odin_br** · August 23rd, 2016, 10:26

Some info about the objectives on new theater tutorial

Dear all,

Please consider the following points before using the tutorial:
0-) My English is not good.
1-) The theater produced is a "blank" scenery - For community research, test and development.
2-) The theater produced is very small - It´s an Islands scenery in the middle of Atlantic ocean. The Azores islands.
3-) Procedures detailed:
- How to produce the terrain.
- How to produce Shorelines and Water shape (ocean and big lakes)
- How to produce Landclasses
- How to edit the required files to produce a new theater.
- How to use SDK tools
4-) Not yet
- Vectors (roads, railroads, rivers).
- Detailed Global layer
- Terrain mosaic files
- Ref Map (UIRES)

Best Regards,

**odin_br** · August 23rd, 2016, 10:31

Some Pics
Please, note some aleatory lines on 1st pic. And note the default landclass on farway island and a grass land class on near island on 2nd pic...

**odin_br** · August 23rd, 2016, 10:34

Dear all,
The Step 3 is for Shoreline and water shape creation.
Maybe, I´ll finished on next Sat or Sunday.

Best regards

**odin_br** · August 23rd, 2016, 12:01

Dear all,

Check the cfs3_math.xls. This file is used to MESh generations calculations.

Best Regards

**gecko** · August 23rd, 2016, 13:07

Thanks for this Odin, I can't wait to take a look!

**odin_br** · August 26th, 2016, 11:17

Dear all

The Step 3 shows how to GM generate a SHP file for CFS3 shorelines.

On next days, i´ll release the Step 4 - The Water Shape.

Best Regards,

**gecko** · August 26th, 2016, 15:16

I've started looking over these and saw the $500 price tag on global mapper. But it has that 30 day trial...do any of the next steps require global mapper? Does the trial version have all the features we need? I wonder how many maps I could make in 30 days?

The tutorial seems well done Odin, thanks! I may have more questions after diving into it though.

**odin_br** · August 30th, 2016, 03:12

Dear all,
For this tutorial, GM and QGIS were used.

gecko,

Maybe MICRODEM can be used. But MICRODEM cannot produce shorelines. You can produce it by hand... point to point. But it´s a titanic work to do...
I´m looking a freeware that can make shorelines, but i didn´t find yet...

Best Regards

**Daiwilletti** · August 30th, 2016, 17:58

Thank you, thank you, thank you odin_br!

You cannot know how long I've hoped for something like this.
One thing I would like to do is put shipping lanes in the Rising Sun theatre, that would allow for better campaigns.
Once I am out of hospital I hope to read your guide more carefully

salut!

**odin_br** · September 8th, 2016, 09:00

Dear all,

I´m very busy this week. Please, wait until next week for STEP5 tutorial.

Sorry,
Best Regards...

**odin_br** · September 15th, 2016, 06:54

Dear all,

Please, check the step 5. if you do not understand something, let me know.
No time to check...

Best Regards

**odin_br** · September 21st, 2016, 23:27

Dear all,

Please, check the step 6. if you do not understand something, let me know.
SHP2POL,
Shorelines and
water commands covered.

Best Regards

**mongoose** · September 22nd, 2016, 06:44

I hope people are paying attention to this! seems to me sticky material!!

**gecko** · September 22nd, 2016, 08:12

I've been reading these as I have time, haven't gotten the last couple yet, but the others have seemed complete and well done. I am not stepping into trying this until I can maximize my 30 day trial and try to knock something out in that amount of time.

**odin_br** · October 2nd, 2016, 01:40

Dear all,

Please, check the step 7. if you do not understand something, let me know.

TIFF2LCF command covered.

Best Regards

**gecko** · October 2nd, 2016, 11:44

Excellent, thank you Odin! I do have a question on the lcf files - is there a way to go from an lcf back to a tiff so that existing maps like the stock one can have their landclasses revised?

***Pat Pattle*** · October 2nd, 2016, 23:01

Thanks for this Odin, much appreciated! I haven't had chance to read them all yet but have them downloaded and tucked away for future use. Cheers, Clive

**Capt. Winters** · October 3rd, 2016, 07:34

Thanks Odin,

nice write up, a lot of good detail.
like others have said above I have down loaded the files and will take a look in the future. would like to see a few improvements for RS down the track.

thanks for the hard work. regards Rob.

**odin_br** · October 3rd, 2016, 10:01

Dear all,

Please, check the step 8. if you do not understand something, let me know.

MKGLOB / MAKE_GLS command covered.

Gecko, about TIFF and LCF I found similarities on a free hex editor (avihex can compare 2 files). I believe that is possible to reconvert LCF to TIFF, but we need a professional hex analyser and someone with a good knowledge to do this.
But for new theater makers, we need to request, at least, the tiff file (and txt of colors) of the landclasses used, for others users can edit and improve it.
If you want some info about some LCF and TIFF comparisons, contact me at: odin_br@uol.com.br

Best Regards.

**gecko** · October 3rd, 2016, 13:13

Good news! I got in touch with Martin Wright yesterday, and he has a tool for viewing and exporting lcf files back to bmp, so existing lcf files can be modified rather than building from scratch. Martin couldn't recall if the rewrite function works, and I haven't tested it yet, but it might be possible edit existing lcf files without using the SDK tools. It does have the limitation of only recognizing the stock landclasses, but this still makes it extremely useful if you want to rework the stock lcf.

Martin wrote the program a long time ago and won't be offering support on it, but he is graciously allowing it to be uploaded here as is. You will need the dlls available on his site required for using any of his tools.

**Daiwilletti** · October 3rd, 2016, 16:33

Originally Posted by gecko

Good news! I got in touch with Martin Wright yesterday, and he has a tool for viewing and exporting lcf files back to bmp, so existing lcf files can be modified rather than building from scratch. Martin couldn't recall if the rewrite function works, and I haven't tested it yet, but it might be possible edit existing lcf files without using the SDK tools. It does have the limitation of only recognizing the stock landclasses, but this still makes it extremely useful if you want to rework the stock lcf.

Martin wrote the program a long time ago and won't be offering support on it, but he is graciously allowing it to be uploaded here as is. You will need the dlls available on his site required for using any of his tools.

Great catch, gecko! And thanks to MW. That would expalin why I was sure I'd seen an image of the CFS3 landclasses floating around somewhere....

***Pat Pattle*** · October 5th, 2016, 00:01

Good news! I got in touch with Martin Wright yesterday, and he has a tool for viewing and exporting lcf files back to bmp, so existing lcf files can be modified rather than building from scratch. Martin couldn't recall if the rewrite function works, and I haven't tested it yet, but it might be possible edit existing lcf files without using the SDK tools. It does have the limitation of only recognizing the stock landclasses, but this still makes it extremely useful if you want to rework the stock lcf.

Martin wrote the program a long time ago and won't be offering support on it, but he is graciously allowing it to be uploaded here as is. You will need the dlls available on his site required for using any of his tools.

Wow, that's promising, I could make use of that if it works. Good find Daniel (and Martin!).

I am not stepping into trying this until I can maximize my 30 day trial and try to knock something out in that amount of time.

There's a list of available GIS software here, some of it is freeware - or is Global Mapper the only one that is useable with the SDK? I haven't looked deep enough into this yet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...stems_software

**gecko** · October 5th, 2016, 20:34

I have uploaded Martin's tool to the library, should show up under CFS3 Other - Utilities.

**odin_br** · October 18th, 2016, 02:23

Dear all,

Please, check the step 9. if you do not understand something, let me know.

Its just procedure to zip MESH and water files.

Best Regards

**odin_br** · October 26th, 2016, 03:16

Dear all

Please, check the final step - Config and file exclusions for new scenery.

Thanks to you all.

Now, I´ll start to research about mapdata. Next it, I´ll try to use SRTM1 to see if CFS3 have capability to handle high resolution terrain.

Best regards!