T-Bone

Will FC 2.0 run on Windows 2000?

The completed map will be available in DCS A-10C. You can download the map with just Nellis and the terrain at lockonfiles.

This is just a test of the LOD0 textures, so I have no idea how the LOD2 will effect them yet. I'm thinking about messing with some of the entries in graphics.cfg for the noise distance. Also I don't have FC 2.0 installed yet because I am going to get a new computer for everything soon. It seems like FC 2.0 makes the terrain look bolder, so I'm going to wait and see if it has any effect before modifying the satellite textures any further.

I've been doing some research into what the actual colors should look like and what kind of terrain to use. Apparently most of this region is Polar and Alpine desert and Steppe Tundra. Real life comparison: Obviously with the limitations of our game engine, we can't reproduce 100% accurate colors, but I'm shooting for a good representation.

The satellite data is landsat7 which is only 15m x 15m per pixel. There are higher resolution satellite images but those are either classified, or they aren't continuous throughout the whole region, and also have other problems like they were taken during different dates, and would have portions of missing data at their resolution. The satellite imagery looks better at higher altitudes when you turn up the color contrast and saturation, but down low clashes with the terrain textures as seen below: It is a tradeoff, and I'll have to keep tweaking it to get the best results. I think however that the LOMAC/DCS series put a lot of emphasis into ground pounders so I'd prioritize the appearance of terrain at lower altitudes more.

Vibrant and balanced colors from all altitudes: Angels 1 Angels 4 Angels 10 Angels 25 Using the FC 1.12 engine. I'm waiting on a new computer rig for FC 2.0.

Hey jpinard, good to see you around still. I remember you used to hang out on the Combatsim.com Falcon 4.0 boards a lot back in the early 2000s ;)

Here's a tip I discovered that will help terrain builders using landsat/satellite imagery in general to build maps: While it may be tempting to crank up the saturation and contrast on some satellite images, it generally doesn't produce good looking results. This is because the DCS/LOMAC engine uses the satellite imagery as a color mask, and actually uses the Noise_1.bmp file for the actual terrain surface. This is how my terrain looked at low altitude before. I decreased the brightness and contrast by 50/100 in photoshop and it looked much better in terms of blending:

Awesome job guys. I'm flying your Japanese F-15 over Manchuria ;)

Here are some updated shots:

Some high altitude shots:

Problem was the old texture was dark, which worked for the old satellite terrain set just didnt work for the new set...

Looks like a lighter color noise texture works better for this new set of satellite imagery, and the color blending is better.

It's blurry down low, and its more obvious with a diverse terrain like Manchuria vs something which doesn't have as much variation like Nevada or something set in the desert where the terrain is mostly monochromatic... the only way to make it less blurry would be to use higher resolution imagery, which is not available to the general public for this region right now. Then again I think the Black Sea map also has this problem, especially for the farmland so they created farm textures... which I'll probably modify and use on the farmland areas too.

The terrain looks great at high altitude, but the biggest issue is it loses a lot of detail down low. The terrain engine compensates for this by using a noise texture, as you can see in the lower shot. I think the best fix would be to increase the visibility of the noise texture in the graphics.cfg file, which is what I did for the lower pic.

I am still tweaking the colors and sharpness. I think with the current terrain engine, higher altitudes look a little hazy and lower altitudes are fuzzy. I'm trying to get the higher altitudes to look more crisp and vibrant and lower altitudes more clear.

Some test shots using the new satellite imagery.

How do I reset the pivot point?

Luckybob or Hawg I need the steps to manually convert the LOD0 to LOD2 from the 4x4 square to the 2x2 square of 128x128 pixel bmps. I remember these steps: "modifyer edit geometry attach > first one editable poly> all select verticies select quadrant magnet 2.5 attach to dummies modifyer UVW map in stack do this for each tile INDIVIDUALLY" However I'm a little rusty since I have been spending a few weeks trying to set up better satellite imagery. Thanks for your help

Yep, speaking of which... 3GO better hurry up with a new Su-33 3D model ;)

Fast forward to 1:30 That's our Su-33 ;)

I think what we need is a site where we can gather community know how. trujillostm wants collaboration of scenery objects, and I'd like to input some information on creating new maps. Also someone who is good at skins might want to share some tips for people designing skins?

Why "fail"? Someone brings up a good point about a legal technicality that is screwing ED over because of a greedy and unsupportive publisher who bought the rights to this game back when it was Flanker 2.5 and you disagree?

Slug88, I think selling each refitted and broken off LOMAC plane for DCS compatability for $29.99 would have generated more money AND given the ED team more time inbetween to fix bugs.

Why not create new standalones then of the original LOMAC planes as DCS components with the regular FM and then patch them up to AFM later?