City Textures rework

[rince33]

The Ramsgate harbour model wasn't totally finished. Sorted out some mesh alignment issues and neatened the harbour wall mapping, added Clive's trawler models, and the Ramsgate harbour is officially open for business.

[FireStorm II]

I've been following 'City Textures' for the last while
and I just love what you've done to the place!

Very nice work, Rince

[rince33]

Thanks FireStorm.

Some work done today on my wip village to town model conversion, some roads and quite a few terraced buildings added.

[sixstrings5859]

Awesome work ! Thanks so much for the effort and time put in. Regards,Scott

[rince33]

I lost a few days to real world issues, anyway this is WIP Folkestone harbour and town . Unfortunately the mos files flatten the coastal town and the water mesh will be elevated as well if I try to elevate the city mos files.

One way to elevate a portion of the city mos is to place a village mos behind the station at a higher altitude, it elevates a portion of the adjoining lower altitude city mos as well as the station.

Some buildings need to be removed close to the harbour and as well as a portion of the city mos texture that obscures the railway line. Cranes are present on the breakwater wall as well though they are flimsy models that tend to disappear at the slightest altitude.

I placed large factory models alongside the harbour to cover the movement of the coastline which shifts under the model as you fly over it, you can spot this effect in the screenshots.

[gecko]

I'm loving these harbor models!

[gecko]

Your towns are looking really good. The only downside, as you have mentioned is that they flatten the terrain. It seems like some attention to the landclasses.xml and the landclass masks might solve some of the issues you've dealt with using the scenery approach instead of facilities. I don't think any of the existing scenery available for CFS3 is taking full advantage of the capabilities CFS3 offers, but I've not had time to look into it myself.

[rince33]

It really depends on what you want. The issue is only really a problem with this coastal city.

The landclass city masks are messy and only feature scattered single buildings that look crappy at lower altitudes where two city lanclasses meet. You have to see this for yourself to understand the issue, though they do look more natural at altitude. I am sometimes a bit torn between the two. They both have pros and cons. If you enjoy low flying in missions, the mos models are better, though generally in missions they both look better than what currently exists.

This all probably doesn't really matter when you are focused on mission way points and cockpit sights, so this project is probably one big waste of time.

I currently enjoy the work of placing these mos models which is why I go to the trouble, it is a relaxing hobby and it gives me the opportunity to listen to my favorite classical composers, keeping me out of mischief and dementia at bay. At the end of it I will probably go for landclass masks and harbour model mix...who knows, I will develop both options. I wont be replacing every town and city on the map anyway, just those near current mission paths.

[mongoose]

WRT only doing " just those near current mission paths", I would extend that a little. There are of course many main 'target' cities which would look better with your work; and I mean daytime activities, such as BoB daytime targets. Southampton and Portsmouth were oftern attacked during the daytime. including by Stukas. Dunkirk?? Other than those, I'm sure others can think of more.

Talking of terraced houses, I note that many were red brick, but heavily coated or darkened by coal fire smoke pollution, so if you like more red, albeit darkened? I note you already have some of those...

[rince33]

Southampton and Portsmouth were oftern attacked during the daytime. including by Stukas. Dunkirk??

Strangely enough, these three towns were developed by me in another sim. I created harbour models for both Southampton and Portsmouth. I edited the coastline in that particular map and created some generic harbour modules for general placement at Dunkirk. I have not visited these areas in this sim so I don't yet know the possibilities and limitations.

Thiis is my PORTSMOUTH model which would be easy enough to import into gmax and re-texture, though the problem is the variety of raised buildings needed, all with damage modeling, and possible shading issues which occur when such large harbour models connect with the terrain in Cfs3, not to mention whether the current coastline will allow for an accurate model.

In IL21946 all existing industrial buildings could be raised externally in a static model config file. In Cfs3 there are limited raised buildings including a few which I recently created and raised to the desired altitude in gmax.

[mongoose]

Impressed.

[gecko]

Oh wow!

[sixstrings5859]

Very nice ! My other love is IL-2 '46...

[Flamingskull5000]

Looks wonderful! What kind of hit does it cause FPS wise?

[rince33]

Lower end computers would probably struggle in certain areas like London of the il1946 mod. This was a sparsely populated map with few missions. I thought that I would populate areas close to mission routes with some simple objects, but it developed into a bit of a monster project with cliff and large harbour models.


The wip thread and mod release is here:

thread start:
https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.p...c,66206.0.html


mod release:
:https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,66206.0.ht


There were updates as the thread continues.

I haven't flown this sim in a while because of enemy ai squadrons taking an intense dislike of me personally and ignoring my squad mates. I find Cfs3 ai to be a bit more manageable.

[rince33]

I'm changing my roads to the right version which I think looks more natural, less stylised.




Made some textural changes to Hawkinge and Tangmere airfield which is featured here.

[rince33]

Bognor pier was back to front













Cantebury

[SgtT]

Wow, amazing work!

[rbp71854]

WOW, the old girl is looking pretty good!!!!

[rince33]

This mod literally forces you to think out of the box.

The problem: How to increase the Dover town density without using another mos file and flattening the castle mount.







The solution:












i still need to tweak this, maybe remove some buildings.

[Shessi]

Looking very nice there R,

Yes, those roads in the last two pics, ie without the hard white borders, look so much more natural and realistic, spot on.

Would it be possible to put in more curved roads, or are they a problem to populate with buildings etc? That would add a bit more character and maybe give a sense of higher density.

Cheers

Shessi

[rince33]

Thanks Shessi.

I haven't really thought about curved roads, I suppose they would be tricky to populate with buildings, angled roads are difficult enough as it is.

The city and town roads are created from sections of the city landclass textures. I have added and removed parts where I saw fit to do so. I don't see myself creating any more large city sections though I may add more villages.

[Shessi]

Ok, NP, this is so far advanced from the standard CFS3 town/city anyway. When you've finished, it might be good for a laugh, to show a before and after shot of the town/city scape....

S

[mongoose]

[QUOTE=rince33;1330045]Bognor pier was back to front




[QUOTE]

Well. being Bognor, no surprise there!

[rince33]