Surface Edit - What can you do with it?

[jollyjack]

Just saw this in the ME, now what is this all about? JimTM ain't telling us yet ..?

 

 

Edited May 5, 2020 by jollyjack

[JimTM]

...'cause JimTM don't know.    You can edit the terrain.

Edited May 5, 2020 by JimTM

[DN308]

Excellent !!! ?

 

Or you copy this AF and put it to another place

[Nolly]

you can do anything, but it only works with "mods on"

 

I built a few Airfields, but as they only appear when you're behind the mod wall (i play MP, with no mods) i didnt find it much use.

[Flashy]

Also only discovered it recently - it allows you to edit the surface of the game world such as placing down different texture overlays, modifying the physics of the ground, placing runways etc. If you open it up and start playing with it and drag stuff around you'll see pretty quickly what each little "flag" thing does. Its very useful for creating new airfields, but as others have said it only works in mods on mode (I dont know why the devs made it that way, perhaps there are cheating implications) and until that changes its not especially useful for mission designers

 

 

Edited May 8, 2020 by Flashy

[Nolly]

I logged a suggestion on that part of the forum to take it out from behind the mod wall, or provide placable object runways (like marston matting) that we can use for placement of airfields, id suggest you do the same. It would be awesome to be able to put our own airfields on the maps, and would when you look at some corners of the stalingrad and kuban maps it would be equivalent to getting 1/3 or 1/2 an extra map.

 

Now it's just can't be used in mp especially due to the long flight times and/or lack of airfields.

[Deacon352nd]

Can the two of you who have made new airfields please discuss in a little detail how you used those texture overlays. How you placed them on an existing map, etc. I'm pretty good at making missions but some instruction here would really be appreciated. Thanks in advance. 

[Flashy]

yeah sure, check out this post in the Soggy Ground thread:

 

 Thats about all I have actually done with it. I suppose it is possible to build an aerodrome from scratch, but all I do is copy-paste one airfield from one location to another and then just tweak it slightly so it looks good - far less work than trying to build one from scratch..

[DN308]

After research, I try to found out a similar airfield on the map, copy-paste it and arrange it to fit my needs.

Design from scratch is far beyond my capabilities.

This said, I experienced some issues with the ground not always flat enough. Even put on the ground, planes are sometimes below the ground level.

 I don’t know yet how to change the ground height

Edited May 9, 2020 by DN308

[Deacon352nd]

Flashy,

I tried to move that "secret" base in 2535:1 to 0804:6/3 by selecting it and then importing it to file and then selecting it as a group.  After placing I selected the "leveling' icon to make sure everything was at ground level.  The runway texture did not transfer and it was very bumpy and rough.

 

How did you move the base on the Kuban map and did the runway texture transfer also.  When I selected the Sochi group it was just the "buildings" of the "airfield".

[DN308]

Have the same problem as you.

level tool doesn’t work 

[Flashy]

40 minutes ago, Deacon352nd said:

Flashy,

I tried to move that "secret" base in 2535:1 to 0804:6/3 by selecting it and then importing it to file and then selecting it as a group.  After placing I selected the "leveling' icon to make sure everything was at ground level.  The runway texture did not transfer and it was very bumpy and rough.

 

How did you move the base on the Kuban map and did the runway texture transfer also.  When I selected the Sochi group it was just the "buildings" of the "airfield".

I didnt do the whole saving as a group thing (i'm not even sure if surface edit groups can be saved to a group file tbh), I just simply copy-paste (drag the mouse over all the airfield objects, Ctrl-C, go to where you want it and Ctrl-V). You have to make sure you get the main "runway" object when you copy-paste because that is the one that determines the physics of the ground. You can find it by going into the properties of each little flag object and checking its surfline tab (see screen shot in my post in the soggy ground thread). Its not necessarily in the same position as the runway texture because it has a width that is not visible in the editor, so it might be offset to the left of right of the actual runway, but you'll know you've found it by the "Physics: solid" option being checked in the surfline tab. In fact, this is actually the only object you need to make a new runway - all the other stuff is texture overlays that make the airfield blend in better and look more realistic  ( vehicle tracks, textures showing where planes have landed before, hangar positions, etc).  Make sure when you paste all this stuff you do it on a flat field with enough room on either end to approach the runway. I found a lot of the fields on the kuban map have tree lines on the outskirts that can really mess with your ability to actually make a good landing approach. But yeah, if you paste all the objects into a suitably flat field it should work ...  

[DN308]

Affirmative.

on a flat field everything works like a charm.

However, if you have a slight height difference, your planes are struck into the ground, litterally.

[Deacon352nd]

Thanks for the explanation, Flashy. I got it to work and now it's just taking the time to make a base. Thanks again. 

[DN308]

I have my copied airfields disappeared while working on it.

is there a backup or is that lost for good ?

[jollyjack]

That probably happened after an update when the folder for the map has been overwritten.

Backup at least your edited maps. Example: \IL-2 Sturmovik Great Battles\data\graphics\LANDSCAPE_Rheinland_su folder.

Or rename them there before you update the game. Than you can revoke your edited map later.

In my situation i extracted this folder with UnGTP in that location from Maps7.GTP to the location above before i did any editing.

Always try to keep a whole game backup anyway for recalling after an update.

 

PS: now my current problem is that i cannot edit existing forest trees out, probably due some hidden layer not accessible with surface edit ...

Edited November 26, 2020 by jollyjack

[DN308]

Forest is simply not editable at all...

 I have yet tried to and been told by experts here, that it’s not possible.

[jollyjack]

22 hours ago, DN308 said:

Forest is simply not editable at all...

 I have yet tried to and been told by experts here, that it’s not possible.

 

Well, i found where the forest_cut.wtr, forest_map.wtr probably are pointing to.

Alas i think that somewhere the edit parameter in some configuration file must be set from 0 to 1, because the brush etc tools won't activate ...

Now where-o -where?

 

Edited November 27, 2020 by jollyjack

[DN308]

The only one forest_cut I've found is located in RoF location database...

Maybe a tip?