Lucas Mods. The Warsaw map.

[lucas]

Hello,

First of all, I would like to apologise for not typing in Russian. I can try, if you wish, but since I learnt it about ten years ago, I forgot many words, however I can still write, read and speak (but very basic). I am fully aware that the translator can create some mess with the translation, too.
Thanks to Tony, who gave the link to the discussion, I downloaded the documentation and tools and started to work on a small test 50km x 50 km map. I want to experiment with the photoscenery a little bit and I want to create a big city for RoF. As a citizen of Warsaw, Poland, I chose this city because there is a photoplan of it from the 1935 and it was very helpful for me.
At first, I created height map which I compiled and put into the Verdun map. Then, I created a masks and placed my custom forests (I use a high res. military map from the 1930). Once it was ready, I created my water map. This was very difficult, because I did not understand the documentation properly, but finally I managed to figure it out
Yestreday, I started to work with the custom tiles of the city. While typical RoF city has 6-20 tiles, Warsaw has 86 512x512 tiles and this is only the main city without the suburbs. I rescaled the photoplan and fit it into the game. Works like a charm and looks great, although I will be correcting it and still I need to blend it with the existing terrain tiles.
What I would like to do now are the rails and roads, but looks like we do not have the tools, or I just don't know how to do it. Is there any chance that you Guys could help with with that, please? Do I need to create a 10m/pix map with the vector drawn road paths (and separate for the railworks), just like I did with the water tiles ?
Another question. Can I post my work ? Is it allowed ? I just want to show you what I achieved so far.

Best regards,
Lukasz

[=FB=LOFT]

Another question. Can I post my work ? Is it allowed ? I just want to show you what I achieved so far.
Best regards, Lukasz

let's go, very interesting

[lucas]

Hello,

here is what I achieved so far. As for the city photoscenery, it is an early WIP, because those are raw b/w photos which need to be adjusted to RoF color palette and blended with the environment What is more, I am going to put RoF buildings inside of the city, because I am curious about the fps
What I am going to do later is placing trees onto the city terrain tiles and creating alpha channells for them. Then, once everything will be ready, I can start working on the roads and rails
Once I will figure everything out, I can prepare some basic documentation in English, too (which should need some grammar correction, of course), but still need to learn the roads, rails and of course 3D, but this one is the last thing. Terrain is the most importand.

And one more thing: What should I do to have own custom map being displayed in RoF ? Currently the Verdun 5x5 map is showing and I have no idea on how to "tell" the game to use other custom folder I created.

Lukasz

[GabiLaser]

Wow, Lucas (for those who don't know him: he is a great modder from Red Baron 3D and Targetware's Richthofen's Skies and War Over Poland)!

I also have a question (i would open a new thread not to perturb the above requests, but this one seems to be made for all modding requests) - what are the object 3ds max requirements to be able to see the exported object in Rise of Flight? I can place a 'new' object in Mission Editor, but i can't see it - is it an issue of texturing or are there another specific requirements? Thank you!

[=U2=Castro]

2lucas
very nice idea and implementation, I understand that it only the begining but please proceed.

[lucas]

Yes, Castro, those are only raw black/white pictures. They will be colorised, corrected (as they show the city from the middle 1930's, rather than from the WW1) and the trees need to be placed on the city tiles. The rivers also need some small corrections, as well as the mesh and "mask" textures. So, still a long way, but I am very excited that I can somehow contribute to the project.
As I wrote above, this map is for testing purposes and to learn basic techniques. Once completed, I would like to create something "bigger"

As Gabi wrote, I messed with few sims (Targetware - 2D, terrain, planes, basic flight dynamisc, FSX - planes and aerodrome sceneries, RedBaron3D - mod creation/skins/maps) and having an oportunity to do something for RoF is a great stuff. And please help Gabi with his question, as he is one of the most progressive and innovative modders I have ever met

Lucas

[GabiLaser]

Thank you Lucas, i hope you don't believe that i'm following you on every forums where you try to mod something In truth, i got the courage to ask after i saw you here

Regarding the objects, i would be interested not to make 'plenty' of objects (because i'm not an artist, but perhaps to focus on one-two simple but well done, such as fences or special shape training gates), but i would like in future to go in the direction of generative/procedural placement of objects - for example automatic placement of non-identical fences on a map, or an aerobatic mission designer with automatic generation of gates shape and placement. For this i would need to know the structure of an object, or at least how to make one or tweak one.

[lucas]

Hi,

Iam playing with higher resolution images. With the "landscape" turned to "high" it really makes you feel like flying over the city

[lucas]

В настоящее время я применяю цвета на черно-белую фотографию, и я также смешиваю сцену с ландшафтом. Я надеюсь, что Вы любите это пока и пожалуйста ожидайте некоторые новые фотографии в предстоящие дни.
Я также надеюсь, что Вы будете в состоянии помочь мне с дорогами и железными дорогами

Currently, I am working with the black/white photo of the city and Iam applying colors. I am also blending it with the RoF scenery. I hope that you like it so far please expect some screenshots in the upcoming days.
I also hope that you will be able to help me with the road and railroad network!

Lucas

[lucas]

Варшава в цвете

[ROSS_DiFiS]

Nice. But very flat. And static shadows
May be we need to handmade pixeling textures for best rezult?

[lucas]

This is true, but those are black and white aerial pictures, not the modern satelitte images. And yes, the static shadows don't look OK, but this is how the photoscenery works in every sim:/
As I wrote before, this is the experiment because the city may be too huge to place the buildings. Once the 1.19 will be ready, I will cotinue working on the map. I need to finish the rivers, then I will correct the forests and place substrate textures. Hopefully somebody will be able to help with the roads and railworks as well as the "M"-key map.

Lucas

[DogEater]

This is true, but those are black and white aerial pictures, not the modern satelitte images. And yes, the static shadows don't look OK, but this is how the photoscenery works in every sim:/
As I wrote before, this is the experiment because the city may be too huge to place the buildings. Once the 1.19 will be ready, I will cotinue working on the map. I need to finish the rivers, then I will correct the forests and place substrate textures. Hopefully somebody will be able to help with the roads and railworks as well as the "M"-key map.

Lucas

Are you planning to reconstruct whole/part of Poland from scratch, not just placing cities/towns to existing map and call it Poland?

[lucas]

Dog Eater,
No I do not, because it would be too huge and will make no sense to reconstruct the whole country. The Warsaw map is to learn the techniques and to have a familiar place to take screenshots. Finally, RoF can be a tool to reconstruct something which does not exist anymore. In this case I am talking about pre-WW2 Warsaw, because during the Second World War, the city was very badly damaged and then it was rebuilt in completly different shape and architecture. So, RoF allows me to put 1935 aerial pictures, colorise them and then I may place some characteristic landmarks. With the superb graphical abilities of the engine, I am able to prepare some kind of presentation of the shape of the city. I am working in the museum, that's why I am taking this approach

As for the bigger maps for the far future, I would consider few things:
- WW1 Eastern Front map - not sure - Northern (Riga) or Southern (Bukovina) part of the front for some 1917 missions. This one would need great input from the RoF community, if there would be any interest of creating such map.
- Eastern Belarussia map with the Berezina river and Borisov and Bobruysk cities. You may disagree with me, but I would like to prepare a map from the Western Front of the Civil War in Russia. I have collected lot's of data about the Soviet and Polish aviation in this area, have some memoirs, pictures. This would recreate a situation from the March 1920 to July 1920. The Poles were trying to recon the area, while the Red Army brought their best scout units to prevent them. There was a local offensive in May 1920 and finally, the Tukhatchevsky's offensive in July. Pretty interesting area with the DFW C.V, LVG C.V, N.24bis, SPAD 7 (both sides!), S.Strutters, Farman F.30 and finally the I.Muromets for the last period.

- Finally, but this would be too much, the NE part of Poland to continue the front from above. Could be also used for the very early Eastern Front 1914/15, but there were no serious dogfights I am afraid.
Again, this is a work for a year or more, if only attepmted.

Lucas

[DogEater]

Wow!
Very very intersting idea to use RoF as reconstruction tool. We'll be watching for your achievments. And, sure, new screens.

As for bigger maps - i think what most interesting would be map of Galicia: Tarnopol - Lvov - Lublin - Przemysl. For Eastern Belarussia ... is that theatre was popular in Targetware?

[lucas]

Dog Eater,
thank you for your kind words! I am going to update you with the screenshots and I hope that the once the 1.19 will be relased and the Team will take the well deserved vacation break, someone could give me a hand with the railroad and road systems.

The map you are talking about would be very interesting, too. At first, for the First World War, second, for the conflict between Ukraine and Poland 1918/19 and third, for the offensive of S.Budionny's "Konarmia" on Lvov between June and August 1920.

While the WW1 is a niche subject, the 1920 mod was even more But the Belarussia map could be interesting because of the few things:

- both sides had regular air units and numerous planes
- Second, the most important, there were dogfights in that area, what gives a historical background for the missions. You can write a static campaign for both sides, just like the RoF "Hat in the ring". Honestly, I don't like to create a map where there were no aerial combats.
- beautiful countryside with the Berezina, Dnepr, forests and swamps - at least something different from the Western Front.

The Targetware was very unpopular because of the obsolete graphics, lack of shadows, collisions and few other things. However, we managed to create few dedicated online campaigns and I hope that they were pretty successful. We invited few squadrons, we mixed together and flew the missions with about 20-25 pilots in total. You can ask J13=Bambr about the campaigns, because he flew few ones with us and I hope he enjoyed them. Finally, we did our best to keep the mod interesting. This is why we put infantry models, cavalry models, armoured trains, river monitors...

Sorry for writing in English too much. Maybe my posts should be separated into the "Warsaw map" topic or something like this? Could it be done ?

Lucas

[DogEater]

Sorry for writing in English too much. Maybe my posts should be separated into the "Warsaw map" topic or something like this? Could it be done ?

Lucas

I will forward this to moderator.
And while waiting for old Warsaw... i will try to find "Ostatna niedzela" track on my hdd

[O_Wolfpac]

Lucas are you able to remove all trees from photo tiles of city ?

Sorry should explain
I removed all forests but i noticed that the 10x10 tiles also have tree patern that repeats , i dont seem to be able to remove these trees

below is link to one tile, i textured charcaol black just so you can see tree patern , have you worked out how to remove these trees ?
http://www.oceanicwing.com/o_memberf...es/Oceanic.jpg

[ant1967rus]

Bravo! We need the Eastern front and Soviet-Poland war 1920! This is new rising of RoF!

[lucas]

Tony, I still have not found enough time to sit and figure out the tree placement.

DogEater, thank you for your help with separating the topic and for all the good words!

ant1967rus, thank you, too! I hope to start the projects in the future and I hope very much that we will be able to work on them as a big community. I hope to start some topic in the future about what we need, what could be done, what can we create Anyways, it is a very long road, but creating additional content to the game is very exciting thing

Sorry that I have not posted for a while, but I am also working on a plane for the Flight Sim X : http://riseofflight.com/Forum/viewto...?f=275&t=19113

Lucas

[lucas]

Hello,

I have completed the scenery to the stage where I can no push the things further. It lacks roads and railroads together with custom folder for the 2D - ingame map. Currently, I placed the 2D operational map in the Verdun5x5 folder in RoF. Until the full documentation will be relased, the project will be suspended and used for some testing purposes. The city area is currently too big to populate it with the 3d buildings. I put only couple of factories and placed houses in the place of the Old Town.

Sorry for writing in English only















Thanks for watching and for all your kind words!
Best regards,
Lucas