Ok, too much time to think again & I have come up with a new 'brain fart'. Would it be feasible to do summer & winter versions of the SceneDB folder in order to have 'winter'ised' & 'summer'ised' bmps in the airfield folders. This has already been done to allow texture swapping with the world folder, why not go on to the next plateau? IMHO, this would have a much improved visual effect in winter mode.
oldwheat,
I agree with you. and Let have snow on our airfields and other textures.
Could be a good group project.
We can have a paint snow contest.
RJ.
I've done a little messing with idea & it seems to be completely 'do-able', The only really difficult part is painting all those ground textures for the airfields. You are right, it would make for a great team effort.
Attachment 70839
OK, so how do you go about creating a menu file to switch between SceneDB folders?
Sometimes I'm a little slow perceiving the obvious. All that is really necessary here is to have a system that switches between two separate
SCENERY.cfg files rather than having two SceneDB folders. This would only require having two copies if the airfields, pertinent scenery & the world folder. This would save a considerable amount of drive space & be a simpler approach, I'm thinking.
OK I' m not at all in your league and do not even understand the workings of CFS-2, but in every mission there use to be a DATE. Could it not be made so, that in the winter months the system uses the winter textures all by itself, and then goes back to summer textures in those months? I am sure, that if it could be done so easy, someone would have done it years ago, but still...?
Finn
Check something called JSGME (JoneSoft Generic Mod Enabler). I discovered it when started into Silent Hunter 4, and is very useful for a lot of games.
The official download site is already down, but will probably be hosted somewhere in www.subsim.com.
Greetings from Spain
Not necessarily, sometimes these things merely go unnoticed. It would be fantastic if this procedure could be automated.Originally Posted by Finn
Thanks for the info Japlance, I'll check it out.
Apparently this is some sort of "big secret" but after 10 minutes I managed to find a decent copy.
OW, can you see what you can do with this, please ?
SC
Attachment 70899
"...And, When I died, They washed me out of the turret with a hose..."
Thanks SC, it is a little out of my knowledge base but I'll try to figger it out & see if it is an option.
Been messing around with reworked textures for this project & it appears as if it will probably be for the most part merely a case of tweaking the alpha textures for blended airfields & perhaps making blended airfield alphas for those which aren't blended @ present.
I'm still looking for someone better versed in the matter to have a look @ options for easily swapping the scenery CFGs.
With the JSGME software:
1) Create a shortcut to JSGME in your CFS2 folder.
2) Start JSGME. The first time you run it, it will ask you which folder do you want to put your mods in.
3) Once you've set up the mods folder, add a sub folder with your new mod (e.g. Winter Airfields) inside.
4) Inside this folder mimic the folder structure of CFS2. In this case, scenery.cfg is in the main folder, so no need to create any new folders: you simply put it there (if you wanted to add planes for instance, you would create the AIRCRAFT folder and then copy the plane inside).
5) This new scenery.cfg will have the routes altered to point to the new scenery you just created with the new winter textures instead of the original ones.
This tool is very helpful. I did a test adding the Aerocrate WWI Campaign (which has its own scenery stuff) to a clean CFS2 install and everything worked OK.
I don't think it's any secret. This tool has been used for years in the Silent Hunter and the Il-2 Sturmovik communities. I have successfully used it with other games as well.
Greetings from Spain
I think something similar is used on the Dambusters add on?? You get a screen with a choice of winter or summer and night or day
OK, so how do you go about creating a menu file to switch between SceneDB folders?
Hi oldwheat,
You can use a program called Menu Builder.
You can only upload if you paid for the program.
I have some information on bat files in issue 2 of the magazine I produce, and also I know lots for diffrent ways to edit them.
http://thefreeflightsite.com/CFS2_Magazine.htm.
I enjoy making menues and I am going to buy the program so I can distribute them.
Pm me with email address and we can work on this project together and put information in issue no 4 about our work.
RJ
The new install requirement with the JSGME gives me pause but I suppose that I could always add all of the add-ons from another of my
folders after JSGME was installed & funtioning.
Thanks for the offer RJ, sounds great. PM sent.
Hi oldwheat,
Just looked at JSGME is ok, but you still require knowlege of batch files.
Take a look at the screenshot
its an interface for my missions the yellow is the one that is loaded.
Is this some thing you would like.
You can have all the seasons, I am working on night textures at the moment,
You can have a snow button, and a reset button to default
Also you can join many interfaces together.
RJAttachment 71013
Looks promising indeed! Do you think that it would be at all feasible or possible to make seasons automatic in missions as Finn suggested?
oldwheat,
Yes, but you will have to program the switch to enable seasons and type of precipitation.
RJ.
Would this be a major PTA or relatively simple. I like to see things kept K.I.S.S. as much as possible. Witness the problems that people often have with installing scenery without glitches..
I´m not an expert (as you would probably now by now) but I think you can extract the date of the mission from the mission file you are going to fly to add it to a switch that changes the scenery.cfg.
But in CFS2 the scenery.cfg is loaded first when you start CFS2 (it´s the scenery file in the same folder as the CFS2.exe you start), and then you choose your mission. And once CFS2 is running you can´t change seasons without restarting CFS2.
So, I think a different aproach could be used here. May be divide the campaigns by date, grouping all the missions by season and then having different batch files with names by season (and Theater of Operation: ETO, EFTO or whatever) that calls the correct scenery.cfg.
Long Campaigns that span trough more than one season should be divided in Sub-Campaigns. Ouch!
May be someone expert in software could make some kind of software with a Graphic User Interface from where you could pick first the set of missions/sub-campaigns you would like to fly, this would trigger a selection of the intended scenery.cfg and then one could start automatically CFS2
I´m thinking of a GUI similar to Mortons Mk_Mdl_Ver 2.0+: (I´m a fan of that great utilitie!)
- Left screen: A menu displaying all the campaigns or missions in the CFS2 folder where you have this soft. Here you would choose wich mission or campaign to fly.
- Right screen: A menu displaing all the different scenery.cfg by season. The program should automatically filter the correct scenery.cfg by season according to the date the gotten from the mission file or from the campaign file.
- Bottom: a START CFS2 button. It should trigger a batch file that picks the season.cfg and replaces the one in the root folder and then execute cfs2.exe.
If you dream, why dream in black and white?!!
Cheers, Discus
Discus
Hi,
pm me with your email and I will send you a prototype and join in developing a interface.
Many thanks.
RJ.
Oh Jeesh!
JL, my sense of humor takes some getting used to......
When I say something is a "secret" it means Finding It was tougher than usual... And if *I* can't find it in 20 minutes [and for free], it's "A Secret" to ME.....
This is turning out to be an excellent opportunity for the Basement and CFS2-ers everywhere - A Collaboration between OW and RJ that makes flying in "real-time" weather conditions a possibility ?
OUTSTANDING !
Gung Ho, Gentlmen
SC
"...And, When I died, They washed me out of the turret with a hose..."
Hi
Just a few screenshots of an interface I have heen working on.
The interface uses the JSGME program and bat files, you have to go careful selecting the correct mods. It was also made with Quick Menue Builder.
It has two interfaces in one at the moment.
The development of this interface will be available for developers to download soon.
SC This program will not make real-time" weather conditions a possibility.
Robert John.
Attachment 71126Attachment 71127
But won't weather conditions be independent of ground textures? I would think this would be best if we could still use FSMetar, etc. to depict real- time weather if we want to, or use user defined weather in the sim, while using this new program to choose scenery textures. CFS2 also has a "switch" somewhere to turn rain into snow which ideally would be incorporated into a winter .cfg. Then, you'd have clouds, wind, rain or snow, and appropriate ground textures all together. This is very intruiging!
Best Regards,
Ghostrider
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Hi Ghostrider,
I have not seen or used FSMetar.
What I am playing around with is a interface to swap in and out a lot of folders and files. I am also doing some extra season textures. The interface may help keep track on folders and files swaped in and out.
I use a texture naming switch for rain into snow.
Will post some screenshots soon of some BOB Airfields with season textures.
Robert John.
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