Surface Editing Manual

[super-truite]

An issue I noticed in multiplayer: Each time you join a server, you need yo download again the surface edit files, whether you already did download them or not. 
The issue is that the files being quite large, it requires some time (a few minutes) to join. I guess this is linked to the hash being random 

[AEthelraedUnraed]

I just uploaded an improved version of the guide. Some small mistakes were fixed, sections were written on those buttons that were still missing, and some additional requested info was included, e.g. on how to unpack.

[Jaegermeister]

@AEthelraedUnraed, just so you and others are aware, it appears to me that editing the ground textures and using an extracted texture file with campaign or single missions has introduced a bug that keeps some ground effects from staying at ground level. It appears to only be in certain low lying areas. I am still trying to figure out a solution, but unfortunately I can't get the Devs to help with this since they aren't going to debug an unsupported edit when it introduces new conflicts. If you see any grey village smoke that is above ground level, this might have something to do with it.  

[Hamaha15]

Morning,

 

did you copy-paste these 'hovering' effects from a different location inside the mission being edited? Effects keep their initial height values if copied. They need to be set to ground individually after pasting using the button from the menu.

 

Unless you have modified the height map editing textures shouldn't have an effect - no bugs reported so far from the community. And I remember that Jason forbade in a post to alter the height map because it would have consequences on roads and railways too. The devs encountered such problems when they fixed the Moscow map.

 

However, I observed a 'hovering' texture issue in the editor, not when playing the game, a long time ago, after the release of the Prokhorovka map - AGES before I even thought of editing surface texture. See this example picture and the related posts. This effect seems to have gone. It appears to have been related to opening the editor twice to copy elements from one mission into another.

 

 

Cheers

 

 

Edited February 17, 2023 by Hamaha15

[AEthelraedUnraed]

4 hours ago, Jaegermeister said:

@AEthelraedUnraed, just so you and others are aware, it appears to me that editing the ground textures and using an extracted texture file with campaign or single missions has introduced a bug that keeps some ground effects from staying at ground level. It appears to only be in certain low lying areas. I am still trying to figure out a solution, but unfortunately I can't get the Devs to help with this since they aren't going to debug an unsupported edit when it introduces new conflicts. If you see any grey village smoke that is above ground level, this might have something to do with it.  

Hmm, strange. Effects "resetting" their altitude in the editor is a known problem, but it has never seemed to me like it's related to custom ground textures (I use them extensively in my Hürtgenwald campaign and the effects work fine there), and I also cannot really think of a reason why it would be so. Of course that doesn't mean that there's no connection - it's certainly something to watch out for. Thanks for reporting.

 

2 hours ago, Hamaha15 said:

However, I observed a 'hovering' texture issue in the editor, not when playing the game, a long time ago, after the release of the Prokhorovka map - AGES before I even thought of editing surface texture. See this example picture and the related posts. This effect seems to have gone. It appears to have been related to opening the editor twice to copy elements from one mission into another.

 

 

Yup, this effect is caused by opening the render engine twice. I've developed an almost-failsafe method to open the editor while in-game, but even then, this does occasionally happen. What I do is basically only open the editor when in the main screen (hangar), never when a mission is loaded.

[Jaegermeister]

The reason I think it's related to texture edits is that in all of the "Mustangs" missions the smoke effects were staying on the ground fine until I changed the Textures =x/x.tini file. The next time I opened the mission in game the smoke was about 110 meters off the ground without changing anything in the editor. I reset the height as normal and they still would not stay at the correct level. I deleted them and replaced them from the Object library. That fixed most of them. I deleted a Village Fire, and the Village Smoke smoke in that mission would then stay at the correct location, except for 1 location at Wesel. Since then various locations will not allow the smoke to stay at ground level, regardless of how many times I place a new effect or reset the height, save and exit the ME. I have literally opened the mission, reset the height, closed the mission and checked in game to see it 50 meters above ground. It's still like that in the distributed files, but no one has mentioned it yet.

 

Maybe I will find out later it's due to something else, but I have not had this issue until now. The effect height resets all the time, but usually placing them on ground and saving the mission immediately fixes it until the next time I am in the ME.  

 

 

4 hours ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

Hmm, strange. Effects "resetting" their altitude in the editor is a known problem, but it has never seemed to me like it's related to custom ground textures (I use them extensively in my Hürtgenwald campaign and the effects work fine there), and I also cannot really think of a reason why it would be so. Of course that doesn't mean that there's no connection - it's certainly something to watch out for. Thanks for reporting.

 

Yup, this effect is caused by opening the render engine twice. I've developed an almost-failsafe method to open the editor while in-game, but even then, this does occasionally happen. What I do is basically only open the editor when in the main screen (hangar), never when a mission is loaded.

 

It does not happen everywhere, so I would guess your Hürtgenwald campaign is not in an affected location.

 

 

Edited February 17, 2023 by Jaegermeister

[Hamaha15]

The Bastogne area appears to be safe from it too...

...and Eindhoven...

Edited February 17, 2023 by Hamaha15

[Jaegermeister]

@Hamaha15 and @AEthelraedUnraed, you are correct, it's not just from using the edited texture file. I deleted everything but the player, the effect and the Wesel scenery and the smoke is fine. It is some other problem and I will keep trying to figure out what it is. Thanks for the information or I would probably have stopped working on it by now. 

[IckyATLAS]

I am new to this feature, and just downloaded the manual. Thanks to AEthelraedUnraed for this time consuming work to build this manual.

I experimented a little without it some time ago and just let it go. Now that IL2 seems to be more willing to support these features I said let's try again.

It is true that without the manual it is such a time lost so thanks to share the effort.

 

Let's see if I can do what I would like to do, and how difficult/simple this will be. Stay tuned.

 

[Mistralfred901]

Hi,

 

The new mission editor function for modifying elevation, as specified in the patch 5.202 release log, does not work with mods on. 
So what's the point? I can't understand putting a function that doesn't work!
I changed the Height in a mission and when I load the mission there's a fault: "this map is not available for your account."

[AEthelraedUnraed]

57 minutes ago, Mistralfred901 said:

The new mission editor function for modifying elevation, as specified in the patch 5.202 release log, does not work with mods on. 
So what's the point? I can't understand putting a function that doesn't work!
I changed the Height in a mission and when I load the mission there's a fault: "this map is not available for your account."

From the changelog:

Quote

[...] it is intended for enthusiast teams who are working on the new maps (an existing map with an altered landscape won't load in the game in Mods On mode and will result in an error during loading).

 

Changes to the heightmap don't work; they need to be approved by the Devs first. Changes to the forest and water maps do work however; either with Mods On or with Mods Off by using the same technique as I specified in the Surface Editing Manual

[Mistralfred901]

Thank you for your time. Too bad, I wanted to do Biggin Hill airfield on the Normandy map. So I won't be able to reproduce it.?

Edited February 22, 2024 by Mistralfred901

[Mistralfred901]

I think I made a mistake when I tried to modify the elevation, because now I can't open a single mission on the Normandy map! "this map is not available for your account." I think it's the Height map file. I didn't make a backup before. Could someone please send me the Height map file for the Normandy map?
Thank you.

Edited February 22, 2024 by Mistralfred901

[AEthelraedUnraed]

8 minutes ago, Mistralfred901 said:

I think I made a mistake when I tried to modify the elevation, because now I can't open a single mission on the Normandy map! "this map is not available for your account." I think it's the Height map file. I didn't make a backup before. Could someone please send me the Height map file for the Normandy map?
Thank you.

Just delete it and IL2 will load the default one from the .gtp file

 

It's probably something like data\graphics\LANDSCAPE_Normandy\height.dat

[Mistralfred901]

Thanks AEthel, it's working again! However, in my normandy map template I no longer have my forests that I had edited. I think I'll have to redo everything. ? That'll teach me to touch the Heigh.hini file! ? Thanks a lot.

[Deacon352nd]

AEtheIraedUnraed, I followed your instructions exactly to create a new dirt road through a forested area on the Normandy map. I have the new forest tree cut selected and I’m trying to right click+shift over it to clear the trees but nothing happens. Can you please give detailed step by step directions for clearing a forested area where a new road has been made?

Thank you in advance for your assistance. 

[AEthelraedUnraed]

7 hours ago, Deacon352nd said:

AEtheIraedUnraed, I followed your instructions exactly to create a new dirt road through a forested area on the Normandy map. I have the new forest tree cut selected and I’m trying to right click+shift over it to clear the trees but nothing happens. Can you please give detailed step by step directions for clearing a forested area where a new road has been made?

Thank you in advance for your assistance. 

Whoah I only wrote the *surface* editing manual; editing forests and stuff is a wholly different cup of tea and I never said I was gonna give support on those new tools ?

However, I guess I'm currently one of the most experienced people with the new tools, so I'll try my best.

 

The road itself isn't the issue it seems. I understand you want to remove the forest along this new road you created. First of all, how did you create the new road? By editing the roads.ini file and re-compiling it into roads.bin, or as a surface mod? The forest_cut map only works for "real" roads, so that's the ones from roads.ini. So in case of a "fake" road embedded into the surface file (like you'd get if you follow my manual), you'd want to edit the forest map, not forest_cut. Then shift-right should remove the trees - although that depends on the colours you've set. There's two colours in the new toolbar; the left is what you paint on a left click; the right on a right. Don't worry about different hues right now; if you only take greyscale colours it works as intended. If the painted colour is more than 0.5 (128 binary), trees will show up, and vice versa. So to remove trees, just paint it black.

 

As said, forest_cut is just for if you want to remove autogenerated trees along roads and stuff - the trees that still show up despite the forest map being less than 0.5. If you did edit roads.ini and recompile, this is the map you'd want to edit.

 

8 hours ago, Mistralfred901 said:

Thanks AEthel, it's working again! However, in my normandy map template I no longer have my forests that I had edited. I think I'll have to redo everything. ? That'll teach me to touch the Heigh.hini file! ? Thanks a lot.

Wait a minute; height.hini should never cause the error you received. It's height.dat that causes the error. Messing with height.hini should be relatively safe

Edited February 22, 2024 by AEthelraedUnraed

[Mistralfred901]

Everything's back to normal!

 

In fact, I just had to enter the path to the titles forest folder in the "heigh.hini" file and I've got my forests back!

 

I've recreated the West Malling base and created the Shoreham airfield. I'll show the screenshots soon ! ?

[Deacon352nd]

AEtheIraedUnraed, I did EXACTLY what you said to remove trees along a road I made according to your instructions in the guide.  I even tried removing the trees first but in neither case were the trees removed.  I chose forest map and not forest _cut as instructed.  The color was black for both choices and I shift/right click and nothing.

Any further suggestions?

[AEthelraedUnraed]

On 2/24/2024 at 5:08 PM, Deacon352nd said:

AEtheIraedUnraed, I did EXACTLY what you said to remove trees along a road I made according to your instructions in the guide.  I even tried removing the trees first but in neither case were the trees removed.  I chose forest map and not forest _cut as instructed.  The color was black for both choices and I shift/right click and nothing.

Any further suggestions?

What do you see around the mouse? There should be a black circle that's coloured according to the map below.

[IckyATLAS]

If I edit say the Kuban map, to improve it in my missions. Can this modified map be also put online like the missions for someone else to have it on its computer?

[Jaegermeister]

19 hours ago, IckyATLAS said:

If I edit say the Kuban map, to improve it in my missions. Can this modified map be also put online like the missions for someone else to have it on its computer?

 

Are you referring to a single player or multiplayer mission?

 

If you mean single player, yes. You can include the modified surface.dat, surface_Tex.txt and textures.tini files with it. The player would just need to make sure the mission is under the same directory as it was when modified, or manually edit the file to update the location and then delete and recreate the .msnbin files. The easiest way is to put the mission in its own folder under Data/Missions/Your Mission Folder name

[kraut1]

Hi @AEthelraedUnraed,

Thanks very much for the manual!

I just made my first test.

I did not unpack any pbos, they were already in the graphic folder:

I edited a mission where the planes take off from an improvised airfield.

I activated surface editing and copied /  modified a part of a runway from an existing airfield to my improvised airfield.

I saved the mission / and saved the surface file.

 

I just made my first test. It worked! Now the improvised airfield has a smooth runway!

 

 

 

A small question: how can I copy the changes from e.g.: summer to the autumn, winter, spring versions of a map? (I use Rhineland)

 

Many thanks in advance!

Edited September 16, 2024 by kraut1

[Vendigo]

The manual says I need unGTP-IL2 program to unpack the game files but the link is dead, can anybody help with finding this program?     

 

Actually, what I need is the required files for editing Kuban map (textures.tini surface.dat etc.), if someone can unpack them for me and send over, I will appreciate it!   

Edited December 6, 2024 by Vendigo

[Jaegermeister]

Here ya go...

 

UnGTP-IL2.zip

 

 

 

 

Edited December 7, 2024 by Jaegermeister

[Vendigo]

@Jaegermeister thank you very much, however I need some further guiding on how to use it. 

 

I need to unpack files of the Spring Kuban map, so where do I find those .gtp files? 

In Windows Explorer I open the folder graphics/LANDSCAPE_Kuban_sp but I can't see any .gtp files here. There's one file SurfaceTex.txt and also the folder named ROADS but it doesn't contain any .gtp files either.

Are those .gtp files hidden in Windows Explorer? 

[Jaegermeister]

 

5 hours ago, Vendigo said:

@Jaegermeister thank you very much, however I need some further guiding on how to use it. 

 

I need to unpack files of the Spring Kuban map, so where do I find those .gtp files? 

In Windows Explorer I open the folder graphics/LANDSCAPE_Kuban_sp but I can't see any .gtp files here. There's one file SurfaceTex.txt and also the folder named ROADS but it doesn't contain any .gtp files either.

Are those .gtp files hidden in Windows Explorer? 

 

1) Place the UnGTP-IL2.exe file in your IL-2 Sturmovik Great Battles/data directory 

2) Drag the .gtp file you want to unpack onto the UnGTP-IL2.exe icon in the data file and it will create a (null) folder with the unpacked files inside in the same location

3) Look inside (null) for the files you want.

 

I don't know where the files you are looking for are, you will have to look yourself. Probably in one of the mapsx.gtp files. It's a chore to find them.

[Vendigo]

@Jaegermeister thank you for the explanation!

I found them - I just had to turn on "show hidden files" in Explorer 🤣

[jollyjack]

occasionally i try to find a repack to GTP program, not successful so far .. any tips?

[Vendigo]

Trying to create a customized terrain in Kuban and suddently all the airfields are missing! 

 

Spoiler

 

[AEthelraedUnraed]

On 12/8/2024 at 11:19 AM, Vendigo said:

Trying to create a customized terrain in Kuban and suddently all the airfields are missing! 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

White textures mean the game cannot find the textures you specified in the textures file (e.g. graphics/LANDSCAPE_Kuban_sp/SurfaceTex.txt - of course if you use a different map or custom surface file, this path will differ). You can either open this file with a text editor and look if those filenames are still valid, or (easier) select the surface in the Mission Editor and see what happens if you try to change its texture.

 

If you created your own custom surface file, make sure it has a matching textures file in the first place! E.g. if you copied Surface.dat to NewSurface123.dat, you also need to copy SurfaceTex.txt to NewSurface123Tex.txt!