Solomon Islands UT
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Thread: Solomon Islands UT

  1. #1

    Solomon Islands UT


    A new entry has been added to Add-Ons Library, category CFS 2 Scenery Add-Ons

    Description: Solomon Islands & Bougainville Scenery for CFS2 by UncleTgt


    This is a reworking of the stock sceneries for the Solomon Islands & Bougainville area of the SWPTO. 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 the recent "87 Days" release by Captain Kurt, 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 Waterclass.
    Some simple missions using the stock F4U-1A Corsair for viewing the gsl airbases & scenery

    Malaita & San Cristobal Islands are not included. Maybe in the future....
    The rivers on Bougainville, Choiseul & Santa Isabel have not all been "hand-flown" to match the LOD 8 mesh - it would take weeks more to do this!


    Because the airbases line-up changed so dramatically I decided to create separate "time-specific" airbase scenery layers, each with their own gsl.


    87 Days - the airbases active until the end of 1942


    Solomons43erly - airbases active from the start of 1943 until the fall of Munda, circa JUL-AUG'43


    Solomons43late - airbases active from the fall of Munda, leading up to the US landings at Torokina, Bougainville, OCT-NOV'43


    Solomons44erly - airbases active post-Torokina landings


    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
    SEP 2022

    To check it out, rate it or add comments, visit Solomon Islands UT
    The comments you make there will appear in the posts below.

  2. #2
    Awesome work UT. What a great upgrade!!!
    Cheers,

    Captain Kurt
    ------------------------------------------------------
    "Fly, you fools!" Gandalf the Gray

  3. #3
    Library Staff
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    A monumental scenery package John - thanks very much!
    Cheers,
    Kevin

  4. #4
    Thank you for your efforts on this fantastic scenery package, UncleTgt! It creates lots of opportunities for new missions in the Solomons.

  5. #5

    A Great New Addition

    Thank you, this will find good use.
    "De Oppresso Liber"

  6. #6
    Níice ..... more eye candy!!!!!

    Thanks UT!!!


    Cheers mav

  7. #7
    Hi UncleTgt
    This is outstanding.
    Thanks for all your hard work on this great addition.
    Cheers
    Stuart
    PS
    Thanks for the new oil tank textures and the new effects

  8. #8
    Hi John,

    Absolutely fantastic work and highlights what can be achieved with dedication and hard work, well done!


    Cheers
    Aussie

  9. #9
    My son is very happy for the new scenery and has future plans for it when time allows.

    Hiede

  10. #10
    Thank you very much for the Solomon Islands and your other South Pacific sceneries UncleTgt, these are simply outstanding.

  11. #11
    Senior Administrator Rami's Avatar
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    Icon22 Reply...

    UncleTgt,

    Yet another outstanding scenery package, thank you very much for this outstanding release!
    "Rami"

    "Me? I'm just a Sea of Tranquility in an Ocean of Storms, babe."

    My campaign site: http://www.box.net/shared/0k1e1rz29h
    My missions site: http://www.box.net/shared/ueh4kazk3v
    My scenery site: http://www.box.net/shared/knb1l0ztobhs2esb14rb

  12. #12
    Thanks for the kind comments, guys.

    Consider it an "artists impression" of this theatre of war - helps with the immersion factor.

    I decided to release once I had all the air facilities done. There is still plenty of stuff that could be added -

    rivers - only some on the islands of Santa Isabel, Choiseul & Bougainville have been "hand-flown" linked to G2K so I could get them to sit in the valley bottom.

    No roads - as with the airbases, these will have changed over time, so I decided not to try to depict them. It's too easy to make these islands look overdeveloped. If someone wants to add some roads & tracks (& have some decent map references), I would add them as G2K drawn roads, using layer 8, & like the airbase VTP polys I did, add them to the appropriate airbase scenery layer. That way they only show up at the appropriate timescale.

    Of course, pre-war roads & tracks (there were a few) could be added to the base Solomon_Islands_UT scenery layer...

    No non- air facility gsl - with my PNG sceneries I always liked to add some gsl for every large/significant settlement. This often meant adding large numbers of trees & jungle bridges at crossing points, & but meant a lot of scenery gobs at least had something in them instead of being completely empty. This time I decided time pressures meant this couldn't be done. But if someone else want to ...

  13. #13
    This is amazing UT! But I’m running into trouble. I’m using the late ‘43 set, but Henderson and other nearby airfields are bare. No trees, hangers or anything. I don’t get an error notifying me of a missing object. Now granted, this area has been through a lot of development in my install with stock changing to MR’s Solomons, and this replaced by your new pack.

  14. #14
    Browncoat

    Sorry to hear you're having trouble.

    I just checked the 43late gsl from the upload with Martin Wright's gsledit tool & the object calls are all definitely there. Maybe try GSLMAN & add the 43late gsl again?
    28 scenery gobs can take a while for it to process.

  15. #15
    Howdy UT!

    That did the trick! Thank you!


    Quote Originally Posted by UncleTgt View Post
    Browncoat

    Sorry to hear you're having trouble.

    I just checked the 43late gsl from the upload with Martin Wright's gsledit tool & the object calls are all definitely there. Maybe try GSLMAN & add the 43late gsl again?
    28 scenery gobs can take a while for it to process.

  16. #16
    Thanks for this wonderful scenery UncleTgt. All works perfectly with the exception of the trees will not show on any of the airfields. I've re-read the install instructions and check the all of the mentioned trees were there, but still no trees. I did re-install the GSL thinking that was the issue, but no go. Could you suggest a possible cause?

    Thanks, Steve
    Do not fear the enemy, for they can take only your life. Fear the media far more, for they will destroy your honour.

  17. #17
    Stoney

    A bit more detail would help.

    Did you install into an 87 Days Install?

    Do other objects show up?

    Any "failed to find.." messages during flight loading?

    The only trees I didn't provide a link to are Wolfis forest3 &4, as these were already part of the 87 Days install.

    Which period, or is it all of them? The 87 Days Airbase gsl is mainly the gsl package from 87 Days...

  18. #18
    Yes, I have 87 days, SWPTO series and Solomon_Islands (43late) installed. All GSL objects appear I believe. There are no error of scenery model items missing.
    Do not fear the enemy, for they can take only your life. Fear the media far more, for they will destroy your honour.

  19. #19
    OK, let's break this into steps.

    You installed into an 87 Days Install. So we know the autoinstall will have put the tree object files in the correct place(s).
    You seem to say all gsl objects appear. But your previous post said no trees appear (these are also gsl objects).

    Browncoat has confirmed that the trees I see when I review the gsl file for Solomons '43late show up for him too.

    So let's check something out:

    Go to the scenery library & deactivate 43late airbases.
    Activate 87days airbases.

    Exit the sim

    Run gslman

    First, select 43late gsl & click "Remove"

    Wait, this will take a while. You should see a pop up telling you 28 gobs have been removed.

    Select 87days gsl & click "Add". Again, wait a while, until you see the pop up telling you 18 gobs have been added.

    Now load CFS2, pick an airfield for Quick Combat & go fly.

    Note: Henderson has lots of tree objects, these take a few minutes to show up the first time you load this location, so maybe choose another location instead?

    Do you see trees? If you do, we know the tree objects are OK.

    This would tend to suggest either:

    Bad gsl file for 43late

    Graphic hardware limitations limiting your ability to see the gsl objects that are actually loaded?
    The Henderson gob for 43late has 1038 objects. Most of these are the palmtree objects or wolfis forests.

    On my PC I notice the forest objects seem to load up last of all when starting a mission. If I start above Henderson quite often I will do a circuit over the field watching the forests appearing.

    If I exit, then start a flight again, they will show up quicker the 2nd time. I think this is the impact of the scenery cache.
    I used Notepad to increase the size of my scenery cache in my cfs2.cfg to 400mb(thinking the maximum you can select through options is too low - I have the free disk space & it clears on exit), so maybe you might need to do something similar.

  20. #20
    Did as suggested UncleTgt and still no trees. I have this same tree sections loaded into my pure pacific install and trees do show. Funny, the crashed F4F4 aircraft won't show at Wake either!
    Do not fear the enemy, for they can take only your life. Fear the media far more, for they will destroy your honour.

  21. #21
    I'm stumped! I don't know how you can have some gsl objects showing, but not trees. Somethings borked with that install...

    The Wake Wildcats might be easier to fix.

    These will only show as gsl objects if you put the files in the SCENEDB/INF sub-folders. Same with Shessis Emily wreck.

    My only suggestion is to create an 87 Days install again. Run a few flights, just to make sure everything works & you have trees!

    IIRC, Apart from the piers objects pack I released, the only "new" tree is a 25m Quadline of palmtrees - you should have everything else.

    Note: this autoinstall has everything installed in SCENEDB subfolders.
    You can then add & activate Rhumbas mesh, CFS Tropical LC.
    Go fly again to check everything still works. Admire the difference the mesh & landclass makes.
    If everything's still OK, you can attempt to add the new scenery, replacing the files from the autoinstall where appropriate.

    A couple of other thoughts:

    You say you had my SWPTO installed. Do the trees show over Papua?
    How big is the gsl file? Maybe you need to remove some "out of theatre" gobs. I don't know of a maximum size, but maybe it influences loading ....

  22. #22
    Thanks UncleTgt. Yep, no trees at PPNG either. I'll keep trying.
    Do not fear the enemy, for they can take only your life. Fear the media far more, for they will destroy your honour.

  23. #23
    Well I reinstalled the entire 87 Days campaign into my CFS2 Pacific and now ALL trees are present in this super scenery. I'm calling it a win. Thanks UncleTgt.
    Do not fear the enemy, for they can take only your life. Fear the media far more, for they will destroy your honour.

  24. #24
    SOH-CM-2023 beepee's Avatar
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    Hi UncleTgt,

    Again thank you very much for this outstanding new release!
    Cheers
    Beepee

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