Huon Gulf Scenery UT

[UncleTgt]

I thought I'd start a separate thread to post progress made extending my SWPTO scenery from Buna/Wau north & east to Finschhafen.

[UncleTgt]

First, some shots from the Wau- Bulolo goldfield area...

[UncleTgt]

Next, a selection of shots showing the myriad of Landing Grounds & Emergency Fields peppering the area.

[UncleTgt]

And some from the area SE of the Wau valley...

[UncleTgt]

Lastly, a selection of shots from the Finschhafen area. The Salamaua & Lae area has been covered in the screenshots thread before.

I'm working on a package that will do early war to mid-43. As with my Solomons package, I intend to do a separate set showing the build-up at Tsili-Tsili, Nazdab & Dreger Field at Finschhafen through the latter half of 1943.

[Cody Coyote]

These look great!

[RWILLS]

Looking good.

[kdriver]

Fantastic!

[skylane]

Great pictures, John, looking forward to this new scenery. :applause:

[Worthless]

The anticipation is unbearable.

[Worthless]

What are you flying in these pics? The single engine, fixed gear.

[scoobyman32]

Man, what an improvement, gorgeous shots!

[UncleTgt]

What are you flying in these pics? The single engine, fixed gear.


It's Ralf Kreibich's Junkers W34. Pepe converted some of the model varieties (GER, CHI), but the uncowled engine variants were the one's used in supporting the goldfield operations in the Wau & Bulolo valleys during the 1930's.

A lot of the animations didn't convert over, & I'm still finessing the flight performance, but they should be ready for upload soon.

[UncleTgt]

Some of the new object mdls developed for this scenery ...

[Worthless]

It's Ralf Kreibich's Junkers W34. Pepe converted some of the model varieties (GER, CHI), but the uncowled engine variants were the one's used in supporting the goldfield operations in the Wau & Bulolo valleys during the 1930's.

A lot of the animations didn't convert over, & I'm still finessing the flight performance, but they should be ready for upload soon.

What a neat aircraft. Can't wait to download and take a cruise. Thanks!

[Shadow Wolf 07]

Nice, very nice, UT. Like all your work it is exceptional quality and greatly appreciated. :applause::applause::applause:

[Rami]

UncleTgt,

Very nice! It's amazing to follow your progress in these threads! :encouragement:

[skylane]

John, I really admire you for your ability to do all this.
Scenery, airplane improvements and repaints, objects, everything!
Thanks for sharing your work with us!

[aussie]

Incredible work John, amazing how this sim can keep on being improved. Keep it up buddy :ernaehrung004:


Aussie

[SgtT]

Amazing, great work, thanks for sharing!

[UncleTgt]

Into the final stretch, just finished creating the US strips from the late '43/early '44 period:

Tsil-Tsili, all 5 Nadzab strips, & Dreger Field near to Finschhafen.

Just a lot of gsl object work to do now, to finish off how they will look... :a1089::p87:

[scoobyman32]

This is outstanding work! We sure have come a long way when we look back at the original stock scenery for CFS2.

Thanks for all the effort you have put in to this. For me, good scenery is a must if I'm going to enjoy flying, and you have vastly improved the look and realism in a spot that Microsoft didn't do justice to.

[bearcat241]

Hey Unc,

No offense intended at all, but I admit that I've avoided a lot of PTO scenery makeovers over the years because they lacked sand and waves along the coastlines. I just wanted to express my appreciation at seeing this touch more and more in your work. I'm sure that involves effort of which I am clueless. :encouragement:

[Deathwind]

Hey Unc,

No offense intended at all, but I admit that I've avoided a lot of PTO scenery makeovers over the years because they lacked sand and waves along the coastlines. I just wanted to express my appreciation at seeing this touch more and more in your work. I'm sure that involves effort of which I am clueless. :encouragement:

No offense intended but that's not really in my opinion a great reason to avoid the new scenery since that can be added yourself don't have to use those parts of the new scenery. Now if you had said it was because of a lack of missions or campaigns made for it or it conflicts with your favorite stock missions then I could understand your point but sand it's pretty easy to get that.

[Deathwind]

If memory serves me correct I made a sand mod awhile back and uploaded it. came from a image of the real stuff. Sorry dog poop and seagull feathers not included.

[Hiede]

No offense intended but that's not really in my opinion a great reason to avoid the new scenery since that can be added yourself don't have to use those parts of the new scenery. Now if you had said it was because of a lack of missions or campaigns made for it or it conflicts with your favorite stock missions then I could understand your point but sand it's pretty easy to get that.

I've known Bearcat 241 for 15 yrs if not more on SOH,he is highly respected for what he has done for CFS2.He has good insight on how to fix things and has been very helpful in that regard over the years.

Now if you read his post he said"I appreciate at seeing this touch more and more in your work"Also he put a "Thumbs Up".I would say that's a positive and not a negative.

Hiede

[Deathwind]

I wasn't suggesting anything was wrong with him and I've no doubt he is everything you say he is. I was surprised at his reason he didn't use the scenery as those textures can be replaced and your not stuck with whatever comes in a scenery pack. Sometimes responses catch me off guard and that was one of them but under no circumstances do I think it's something wrong with him. It could be me but I just wanted to make sure everybody knows you can swap beach sand, rivers roads etc, and not think you have to live with what came in a scenery pack itself.

[bearcat241]

I said what I said...no regrets, no apologies, no explanations, no retractions and no edits. I appreciate UncleTgt's work and that's a wrap.

[UncleTgt]

Just finished creating the gsl for both the late'43 & early'44 airbase collections.

Beginning to assemble everything for upload

[scoobyman32]

Outstanding!

Really coming together Uncle.

[Deathwind]

Wow that looks about as real as it gets without actually being real that is. Great talent simply amazing. Mẹ I’m good at getting in trouble but being talented in other area’s might serve you better.

[UncleTgt]

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/soh_ftp/uploads/imageuploads/296916806130276399.jpg
A new entry has been added to Add-Ons Library, category CFS 2 Scenery - Library objects

Description: Huon Gulf Objects for CFS2 by UncleTgt

Updated 23-MAR-2023

This is a collection of eye candy objects I made mainly in support of my reworking of the scenery for the Huon Gulf/Markham valley/Bulolo/Wau Goldfield areas of Papua New Guinea.

They are mostly single LOD models but have damage models where appropriate.

This pack includes:

BookingHall_UT
A variation on my small mission building

Golddredge1_UT & Golddredge2_UT
The mineworking in the Bulolo & Wau valleys was mainly alluvial, simply washing & crushing ore to get at gold deposits. They calculated it would be cheaper to take supplies in by air than build (& maintain) a road network, so used Lae aerodrome as their base of operations. They flew in large gold dredges, piece by piece, & reassembled them in situ.

Hangar_opensided_sml_UT
A simple open-walled shelter, previously included as part of Capt Kurt's "87 Days" rework for the Solomons.

Lae_hangar_UT
Photos seemed to show a largish hangar with one wall open to the elemements, so I adapted one of the sim's hangars & combined with elements from my open-sided hangar object.

Lae_weighbridge_UT
Descriptions of the air freight operations describe loading of the Junkers G31 taking place with the rear wheel on a weighbridge. Photos seemed to show a concrete pan under the aircraft. This simple flat plane object is an attempt to depict this feature.

metal_bridge1_UT & metal_bridge2_UT
Some grainy B & W photos show some of the bridges in the Bulolo-Wau valey being metalwork rather than timber construction. These objects combine parts from my Bailey Bridge objects with the bridge ramps from CFS2. Bridge1 is large & complex (vaguely like Jenson's Bridge at Bulolo), Bridge2 is a smaller single span bridge.

mine_headframe_UT
Whilst most of the mine workings in Wau/Bulolo were alluvial, a few deep mines were operated in the surrounding hills. I adapted elements from Wolfi's Oil Barge to create a simple Mine Headframe object.

mine_tailings3_UT & mine_tailings4_UT
My earlier mine tailings objects were'nt large enough to depict the spoil that the alluvial mine washings created, so these 2 objects were made as larger collections of tailings.

plantation60x40_UT, plantation60x60_UT, plantation80x60_UT, plantation100x40_UT, plantation100x80_UT
The Wau valley was the first location in PNG used to grow coffee. Depicting the plantation required a different look from my palmtree objects, so I developed some different looking trees.

stampmill_UT
This is simply the inf_medium_building_3 with a new texture & some texture mapping changes to give the impression of a mine stamp mill.

Wau_crane_A_UT
Photos of the air transport operations in the 1930's show a variety of metal cranes being used, almost always on a concrete plinth. This is a generic impression of such a crane.

Lae_steamcrane__UT, Lae_steamcrane_B_UT, sml_flatbed_wagon_UT
Photos show a railway running from the quayside to the weighbridge at Lae aerodrome. A small steam-powered crane was used on this line. crane_A has the crane inline with the wheels, crane_B has the crane turned to one side, as though loading/unloading. The flatbed & running gear is adapted from Wolfi's rail waggons objects.

To install, unzip the download to a temporary location & move/ copy files to the matching folder names inside your chosen CFS 2 install.

Thanks to

XavierB, Maskrider & Wolfi for leading the way with their infrastructure objects
Allen for his Making Exploding Objects using FS2002 Tools & Tutorial
Aussie(Lindsay Watt) for his tips on how to create some larger & more complex scenery objects for CFS2 without killing framerates
Arno Gerretsen for ModelconverterX & FXeditor, such clever & versatile tools

This is freeware and subject to the usual conditions

UncleTgt
MAR 2023

To check it out, rate it or add comments, visit Huon Gulf Objects UT (http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/local_links.php?linkid=29922&catid=280)
The comments you make there will appear in the posts below.

[UncleTgt]

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/soh_ftp/uploads/imageuploads/656916806132439109.jpg
A new entry has been added to Add-Ons Library, category CFS 2 Scenery Add-Ons

Description: Huon Gulf Scenery for CFS2 by UncleTgt

This is a reworking of the stock sceneries for the area at the E end of PNG, from Buna northwards as far as Finschhafen. It is designed for use with Rhumbas mesh, but the scenery excludes provided should mean this works well in a stock mesh install too.
This scenery builds on & extends the areas covered in my previous Solomon Sea, Milne Bay, Buna-Dobodura & Port Moresby-Kokoda sceneries, but it should work as a stand-alone scenery as well.

Contents:
New Ground2K scenery for each, including fringing reefs.
New airbase scenery, made using FSSC.
New gsl infrastructure.
New custom Landclass & Waterclass.
Some simple missions using the stock F4U-1A Corsair for viewing the gsl airbases & scenery

The base scenery is as developed through to mid-1943, & the base gsl reflects this.

Known conflicts:

Installing this scenery pack will require the archiving of some the airbases from Maskrider's Papua New Guinea scenery, & Dvslats Tsili-Tsile43 airbase.

MR_PNG
======
PNG_Nadzab_GSL, PNG_Finschhafen_GSL & PNG_Wau_GSL bgls are replaced by new airstrips.

Dvslats Tsili-Tsili43 airbase is replaced by a new airstrip.

As I did with Solomons scenery, I decided this area needed separate airbase & gsl to cover the development of Nadzab & the completion of Dreger Field at Finschhafen.
Until the middle of 1943, apart from the established airdromes at Lae & Salamaua, much of the area was only covered by a myriad of small grass fields, mainly used pre-WW2 in support of the gold mining operations at Buluolo & Wau. So in this pack we have 3 options, each with their own airbase scenery layer:

HuonGulf - gsl & airbases suitable for pre-war until the middle of 1943

HuonGulf43L - gsl & airbases showing the development of Nadzab & Tsili-Tsili

HuonGulf44E - gsl & airbases showing further development around Nadzab, & the completion of the Finschhafen airstrip, Dreger Field.

You can move between date ranges simply by deactivating/activating the relevant date ranges in the usual manner through the Scenery Library. You only need to exit the sim to change the GSL.

Credits
Thanks to:
Jean Bomber for his inspiration, advice & support. He talked me through getting to grips with G2K & more…
Maskrider for all his airbase packages & the blended airbase tutorial. This set the standard for airbase sceneries for the game.
Rhumbaflappy for the new more accurate world mesh – it was a desire to make best use of this development that is the driver for many of my scenery projects. He also developed the vtp1 fixer programme to fix display errors in vtp bgls compiled from Ground2K.
GavinC for his reworking of the stock airbases, making individual base reworking/ revision much easier
Shessi for his water textures, that were the inspiration for my reworking of Jimkos Pacific Blues, & indirectly lead me to develop this latest set of water textures.
Lindsay Watt for all of his scenery objects & innovations.
Wolfi for his scenery objects.
Xavier for all his scenery objects & airbase sceneries, opening up a larger world for us all to fly in
Martin Wright for all the various software tools that are so useful!
Russell Dirks for his EZ landclass programme, making large scale land/ water class adjustments possible
Christian Fumey for his excl8 & Ground2K programmes, making the creation of completely new scenery possible for CFS2.

UncleTgt
APR2023

To check it out, rate it or add comments, visit Huon Gulf Scenery UT (http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/local_links.php?linkid=29923&catid=45)
The comments you make there will appear in the posts below.

[mav]

Thanks UT! looks fantastic from the pics! :encouragement:



Cheers mav

[Worthless]

Another homer. Got to go get all this nice new stuff. Grateful thanks for all your scenery upgrades.

[Fibber]

:jawdrop::applouse: Just one question. What are the ground textures that you use?

[UncleTgt]

The basis is Dvslats darker pacific textures

Link to part 1 of 3
http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/local_links.php?action=jump&catid=45&id=6051

[Fibber]

....Thank you !:wavey:

[stuart277]

Hi UncleTgt
Great work, great options.:applause::applause::applause:
Thanks for these.
Cheers
Stuart

[UncleTgt]

Rats! I forgot to update the custom textures to include the black sand shorelines.:banghead: If you're installing into an "87 Days" install you'll already have them, but if not...

Here's a complete set of the custom shorelines I used ...

I'm off to update the upload :running:

[kdriver]

Thanks very much John for this monumental effort! :applause::medals::medals:

I noticed the sandsu.bmp in the SCENEDB/world/texture folder is different to the one in the corresponding Solomons folder. Is the new texture the best one to use for the Solomons as well as New Guinea?
I'm still in the process of installing the package.

Cheers,
Kevin

[UncleTgt]

Kev,

I continue to tinker with stuff - never really happy with the feathered edge to the Sandsu.bmp, so tried altering some of the transparency using bmp2000.

The important thing is the bitmap of that name needs to exist in the SCENEDB/WORLD/TEXTURE and TEXTURE folders to avoid the green/brown/blue square effect showing up.

The sim seems to have a pecking order when looking for textures to use:

1) The add-on scenery's TEXTURE folder
2) CFS2/SCENEDB/WORLD/TEXTURE folder
3) CFS2/TEXTURE folder

So, it's possible to have different bitmaps (of the same name) in each location, and change how addon scenery looks... try it out.

[UncleTgt]

A quick note for the few people using Mission Builder with some of these more complex sceneries.

I have Rhumbas mesh & most addon scenery in a separate folder structure - it saves on disk space when you're running multiple installs!

Quite often I come across airbase backgrounds partly obscured, as though the Sim is just reading mesh from within the Sim itself. This particularly affects multiple runway complexes, where adjacent runways are at slightly different elevations, but I've also seen it at island basees too.

It only affects the Map view in Mission Builder, not how it appears within the Sim, but as a result it can make placing objects well-nigh impossible. You can imagine the fun I had creating the gsl packages:banghead:

I've discovered that in almost every case you can work around this issue by placing a copy of the runway A16N bgl into the CFS2/SCENEDB/RUNWAYS/SCENERY folder.

You need to remove this duplicate A16N when you've finished working in Mission Builder, as the A16N merging logic is quite crude, & you'll find it doesn't look so good flying in the Sim with the duplicate still in place. But it does flatten the runway area whilst you're placing objects during the Mission Building process.

[Fibber]

... for that go to your room without any nightcap and write 100 times "I will not do that again " and let it be a lesson to you. :biggrin-new: Kidding aside thanks UT for all the great work you do here. I am always amazed at your artistry Cheers ! :very_drunk: .:wavey:

[kdriver]

John,

I've found scenery seems to load quicker if the sim has to look in fewer places for textures. Consequently I have as many textures as possible, including airfield background bitmaps, in the main TEXTURE folder. I don't have any textures in the SCENEDB/world/texture folder.

My installs' pecking order is this:

1) The add-on scenery's TEXTURE folder containing textures which are different from those in the CFS2/TEXTURE folder;
2) CFS2/TEXTURE folder.

I don't have any display problems. Yes, I like to tinker as well. I'll try out both your sand textures.

Cheers,
Kev

[UncleTgt]

That's interesting Kevin, I had always followed Maskriders lead that G2K vtp lines wouldn't show correctly unless there were bitmaps of those names in both CFS2/TE TURE and CFS2/SCENEDB/WORLD/TEXTURE folders.

I hadn't thought of chucking the airfield bitmaps into the CFS2/TEXTURE folder. Maybe I'm misremembering the order, & it checks the CFS2/SCENEDB/WORLD/TEXTURE folder last...:ipepsi2:

Every day's a school day :sheep:

[Shadow Wolf 07]

Thank you,John! The scenery looks great. And thanks for the tips for mission builders post. Might I suggest that you include a text copy of the 'tips' in your download for those who do not read this entire thread or those like me, with CRS?

[Deathwind]

This scenery probably wouldn't be compatible with the Royal Australian air force Mod without redoing many missions yourself s that correct.

[kdriver]

That's correct DW. The missions would have to be adjusted for the new airbases.dat entries. Parked aircraft on the ground, such as at Lae, might have to be moved slightly to be clear of the runway or GSL infrastructure.

[skylane]

John, thank you very much for this great new scenery.

[UncleTgt]

Very small update to this scenery. I noticed a couple of small rivers to the NW & NE of the Nadzab complex that were clinging to hill slopes. Now corrected.

If you already downloaded this package, here is the replacement bgl

[Captain Kurt]

Super job mate.

[stuart277]

Hi UncleTgt
Thanks for the update.
Cheers
Stuart