Victory! The CFS2 world is ours.

[Sander]

BV,
...
Re-farming on hillsides, as you know it would be terraced type fields. Maybe a simple fix would be to turn some of the straight farm-line field texs through 90 degs, this might give a better impression of hillside farming?

I'm working on algorithms to interpolate the Landclass with Mesh to eliminate this exact phenomenon (well, not creating terraced fields, but rather Rock or Grass depending on the angle of the slope)

............and who'd a thought it, sightseeing with CFS2!

Cheers

Shessi

VFR

[Sander]

Big progress today; Streams and rivers now cut their way through the terrain better: instead of going over the fields & crops (the lines are now interacting with the terrain textures)
Attachment 92676Attachment 92678Attachment 92677

Even with this extra task, all of EURW compiles in 1:20h on my 3 yr old laptop; not bad

Still a few minor bugs to fix, and 2 more features to build in and we should be good to go.

[Sander]

Wow, this is also a massive improvement for the coastlines. This is a shot approaching the English coast.
Attachment 92680

[kelticheart]

Big progress today; Streams and rivers now cut their way through the terrain better: instead of going over the fields & crops (the lines are now interacting with the terrain textures)
Attachment 92677

Even with this extra task, all of EURW compiles in 1:20h on my 3 yr old laptop; not bad

Still a few minor bugs to fix, and 2 more features to build in and we should be good to go.

What an improvement !!!!!... I think I know exactly where that shot was taken.....



May I ask if the same logic will be applied to roads, which in many cases in the old EURW do not stop at river banks, but cross directly the stream on the water?

There's also another minor problem: when river beds are quite wide they are displayed as small lakes, while they should show up as a dry beds with a small stream in the middle.
It's the case of the Po Valley above, where the Po tributary rivers, flowing from the Alps southward, have a constant volume of water and bed shape throughout the year. They only raise their level during the wet season and in the spring when snow melts. They are all fed by glaciers, which keep them going even during summer.
On the other hand, the tributary rivers flowing northward from the Appennini are almost dry during summer with a sort of medium to low stream during the other seasons, but they are subject to sudden flash floods if big rainstorms hit the mountains. The Appennini do not reach the same altitude as the Alps, so there are no glaciers to keep a constat water feed to the northward tributaries.

This is what causes large bed rivers, normally paved with stones and corrosion debris, with a relatively narrow and shallow water stream in the middle, which can extend up to the banks in very little time during flash floods, expecially in summertime. Large river beds are also man-maintained as such, as a measure to allow enough room for flash floods to expand and slow down, instead of flooding the surrounding farmland or, worse, towns and cities. In the fall of 1966 this is exactly what happened with the river Arno when it flooded Firenze, caused by a containment dam up in the mountains that collapsed under a huge flash flood.

These Appenini rivers are very dangerous and we know them very well. Many people lost their lives because they were fishing while standing on the dry bed of the river and paying no attention to the sudden thuderstorm up in the mountains. It still happens every so often. Crossing these rivers that were normally small streams while, all of a sudden, became furious walls of muddy waters and debris, caused a lot of troubles to the advancing Allies during the liberation of Italy from 1943 to 1945.

I don't know if CFS2 can be instructed to display the areas where these dry river beds expand as such. The Italian boot is all like that, except north of the Po river. Zooming in the above screenshot shows all of them as small, narrow lakes which, in reality, are not there.
If it doesn't, I guess we'll have to live with it as we did so far.

Cheers!
KH :ernae:

[Sander]

What an improvement !!!!!... I think I know exactly where that shot was taken.....



May I ask if the same logic will be applied to roads, which in many cases in the old EURW do not stop at river banks, but cross directly the stream on the water?

Yes, I'm going to change the layer ordering in reverse, so roads/railroads cross underneath streams. Perhaps generate 3d Bridges at those points.

There's also another minor problem: when river beds are quite wide they are displayed as small lakes, while they should show up ....
I don't know if CFS2 can be instructed to display the areas where these dry river beds expand as such. The Italian boot is all like that, except north of the Po river. Zooming in the above screenshot shows all of them as small, narrow lakes which, in reality, are not there.
If it doesn't, I guess we'll have to live with it as we did so far.

Cheers!
KH :ernae:

Sorry, not by me. With global generic synthetic scenery at this scale, with the limited choice of available land class values and
limited resolution, and limited source data, and the fact we only have the one single static season, this is just about as good as it gets (I'll bet FSX doesn't get it right either). I'm going to further enhance it by eliminating fields & crops running up hill sides and placing Rock textures on very steep slopes.
After that, it's going to be hand work (not by me!) to make further enhancements.
The main visual effect of the "riverbedding" as I've done now, is to break up the monotony of the landscape: instead of endlessly repeating agriculture, the fields are now grouped in smaller patches which makes everything look better and more credible in general.

[Robert John]

wow I just can not believe the land in cfs2 is getting better and better.
Thank you.
RJ

Train lines with cuttings and embankments?.

[Dumonceau]

Hi there,

I'm from the Dark Side (FSX) but I do want to tell you guys that if this gets released as a package with detailed instructions, I will reinstall my CFS2 for sure!!

What the CFS2 community here has done for their sim is just awesome, and freeware at that!

This is just... Too much for words!

Dumonceau

[Sander]

wow I just can not believe the land in cfs2 is getting better and better.
Thank you.
RJ

Train lines with cuttings and embankments?.

Re-meshing the lines did not make the feature set for the first release. Have to draw the line somewhere, so to speak :mixedsmi:

[Discus]

Wow, this is also a massive improvement for the coastlines. This is a shot approaching the English coast.
Attachment 92680

Well Sander. This are marvellous news!!! It´s amazing! It gets better and better each day!!

Thanks a lot for all your work!

Cheers, Discus

[Sander]

Cheers!

Hi there,

I'm from the Dark Side (FSX) but I do want to tell you guys that if this gets released as a package with detailed instructions, I will reinstall my CFS2 for sure!!

What the CFS2 community here has done for their sim is just awesome, and freeware at that!

This is just... Too much for words!

Dumonceau

The idea is to make a complete set with the "current state" of airfields/cities/landmarks/objects etc. included, instead of how it is now where you have to install 1000's of different zip's with separate "fix" zips etc., with links to even 10000 more zip's you have to install first, and can not be found on the original websites any more :isadizzy:

That's also the big challenge

[Dumonceau]

Cheers!



The idea is to make a complete set with the "current state" of airfields/cities/landmarks/objects etc. included, instead of how it is now where you have to install 1000's of different zip's with separate "fix" zips etc., with links to even 10000 more zip's you have to install first, and can not be found on the original websites any more :isadizzy:

That's also the big challenge

Sander,

My CFS2 disks are standing by!! The SOH CFS2 community is really an advocate of this sim!

I'm dreaming of getting into a Spit of 349 (Belgian) Sqn and blasting some He-111's and Ju-88's out of the sky!

Question, without extra aircraft, how big of an install would the world wide CFS2 be??

EDIT: and will the water, sun and sky textures also be upgraded? I mean, the screenies you people post look almost as good as FS9 with enhancements!!

Take care!

Dumonceau!

[blohmundvoss]

Big progress today; Streams and rivers now cut their way through the terrain better: instead of going over the fields & crops (the lines are now interacting with the terrain textures)
Attachment 92676Attachment 92678Attachment 92677

Even with this extra task, all of EURW compiles in 1:20h on my 3 yr old laptop; not bad

This should please Shessi !! (It certainly pleases me).

Cheers
BuV

[rhumbaflappy]

A huge limitation of CFS2 is that it is frozen to one season. We overcome that by having different installs for each needed season, so missions can be run in the correct scenery environment. It is possible to make a different landclass for each season, that could simulate dry areas, or other seasonal differences. But a landclass tile is about 1km in size. To make a convincing riverbed, we could resort to larger and varied line widths with an appropriate texture. Other differences could be displayed as VTP1 polys, which have the same size limitation of about 4.5 meters per pixel... the same as FS9.

Dick

[Shessi]

Oh! BV, it certainly does mein freund...

Sander,
Yes, I couldn't agree more that the varied types and levels of texs, meshes and scenery make it a nightmare to get right. Rami's excellent work with his ETO install instructions, is a masterpiece, and works! I do appreciate that it will be a lot of hard work, but with these stunning upgrades it will do it justice and look just.......

Cheers

Shessi

[kelticheart]

Yes, I'm going to change the layer ordering in reverse, so roads/railroads cross underneath streams. Perhaps generate 3d Bridges at those points.



Sorry, not by me. With global generic synthetic scenery at this scale, with the limited choice of available land class values and
limited resolution, and limited source data, and the fact we only have the one single static season, this is just about as good as it gets (I'll bet FSX doesn't get it right either). I'm going to further enhance it by eliminating fields & crops running up hill sides and placing Rock textures on very steep slopes.
After that, it's going to be hand work (not by me!) to make further enhancements.
The main visual effect of the "riverbedding" as I've done now, is to break up the monotony of the landscape: instead of endlessly repeating agriculture, the fields are now grouped in smaller patches which makes everything look better and more credible in general.

Roger that!

Fine by me Sander, one more question and then I'll stop being a pain: can those wide river beds be reduced to show up as regular streams instead of small lakes or do we face again the same problems you mentioned above?
I know it's impossible creating seasonal changes while CFS2 is running, the only way to do it is changing set of world textures before loading it each time.

I never meant that, sorry if I conveyed such idea.

Thank you again!

Cheers!
KH :ernae:

[kdriver]

Is it possible to decompile this file? If it could be broken up into small geographic areas, a number of texture sets could be used for the one installation, e.g. EurW for northern Italy and Mediterranean for southern Italy.

In any case, you're doing a terrific job Sander.

Thanks,
Kevin

[Sander]

Is it possible to decompile this file? If it could be broken up into small geographic areas, a number of texture sets could be used for the one installation, e.g. EurW for northern Italy and Mediterranean for southern Italy.

In any case, you're doing a terrific job Sander.

Thanks,
Kevin

Done.

[Ettico]

Big progress today; Streams and rivers now cut their way through the terrain better: instead of going over the fields & crops (the lines are now interacting with the terrain textures)

Even with this extra task, all of EURW compiles in 1:20h on my 3 yr old laptop; not bad

Still a few minor bugs to fix, and 2 more features to build in and we should be good to go.

What??

:isadizzy:

Oh, I get it. You've got autocoast doing that during compilation. That's brilliant. Exactly what I would have done if I had the brains.

Great work, Sander.:salute:

[kdriver]

Done.

Well done!

[kelticheart]

Done.

This is terrific news indeed!

I always had this texture problem in Italy! Finally!

The only way I could get around it was to have two installs, one for the north and one for the center/south/islands.

Thank you!
KH :ernae:

[Sander]

And today, I've made the routine to place rocks on steep slopes, and remove fields that are running up the hills. It's not very sophisticated and I still need to play around with the threshold values to see what works best, but here's a before-after preview of the result (somewhere in Switzerland)
Attachment 92781

[Sander]

Pretty dramatic effect :mixedsmi:
Attachment 92782

[Captain Kurt]

Awesome indeed

[Discus]

Sander

These is awesome! It´s a new world for CFS2! This will make an split before and after this great steps. Thanks for posting the pictures of your progress.

Cheers, Discus

[Worthless]

Magnificent!!!