[MOD] rowdyb00ts Rheinland Maps

[rowdyb00t]

Early Spring

 

Late Spring

 

Early Summer

 

Late Summer

 

Early Autumn

 

Late Autumn

 

Early Winter

 

Late Winter

 

 

   

 

 

 

  This mod is a repaint of all maps for the Rheinland. There are 2 maps per season, so 8 maps in total. I have redone the trees and their normal maps so that they reflect the lighting a bit better for each map. Also edited the rivers and the texture.tini files. I feel they look a bit more realistic with some softer colors and contrast and brightness adjusted a bit. The idea was for a better transition into seasons. The Maps look best with the Realistic Cloud MOD https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/53511-mod-realistic-clouds-updated-11-22-2021/

 

 

 

https://www.mediafire.com/file/9ioj2fokx9jdfqa/Rheinland_Map_Pack.zip/file

 

INSTALL:

JSGME ready. Open the file after download and put each map in the JSGME. You can only use on season option at a time. Be careful not to overwrite the files because there are two maps per season.

 

Edited November 21, 2021 by rowdyb00t

[curiouslysophie]

These are stunning @rowdyb00t You are a graphical wizard of the highest order! Thank you!

[itsbillyfrazier]

Thanks a lot Rowdy, the preview pics look super. I'll be trying these out later today as well as the updated cloud mod. A nice surprise to receive this Sunday morning!

 

Thanks for all your work on these mods mate.?

[Beebop]

A good reason to put up with the long map load time...it's worth looking at now. ??

[sevenless]

Great work. Especially early winter is more like the whole winter looks in the rhineland.

[Stonehouse]

Looks fantastic thank you. Only suggestion would be to add the prefix "Rheinland " to each sub folder so that when unzipped it ends up grouped in JSGME. No biggie though and it is something anyone can do for themselves. eg Rheinland Autumn Early instead of Autumn Early.

[rowdyb00t]

3 minutes ago, Stonehouse said:

Looks fantastic thank you. Only suggestion would be to add the prefix "Rheinland " to each sub folder so that when unzipped it ends up grouped in JSGME. No biggie though and it is something anyone can do for themselves. eg Rheinland Autumn Early instead of Autumn Early.

  Good point. I suppose when I do this for other maps I’ll for sure need to add the prefix. 

[THERION]

@rowdyb00t: Thank you very much - lovely work you've done here. I especially love the autumn late and winter early maps.

[Beebop]

I just put "R_" in front of each seasons folder name.  Now all are grouped together in my JSGME.

 

[352ndOscar]

Does any of this effect the surface.dat file?

[rowdyb00t]

3 minutes ago, 352ndOscar said:

Does any of this effect the surface.dat file?

 
   No. Those files are encrypted. 

[itsbillyfrazier]

Hi Rowdy, if using some other mods such as Realistic clouds,  Rhineland texture Mod, Better rain, correct sun size  etc, does the load order in JSGME matter?

If so, what load order would you recommend?

 

Thanks.

[rowdyb00t]

33 minutes ago, itsbillyfrazier said:

Hi Rowdy, if using some other mods such as Realistic clouds,  Rhineland texture Mod, Better rain, correct sun size  etc, does the load order in JSGME matter?

If so, what load order would you recommend?

 

Thanks.

  Don’t need the Rheinland Tex mod. I’ve upscaled the map tiles to 1024. Except I think I forgot early autumn ? it’s still 512. 
 So install the map pack then the realistic clouds, better rain, sun size. 

[Beebop]

6 hours ago, itsbillyfrazier said:

what load order would you recommend?

Last mod in wins. 

Personally....

I would put in the map repaint mod first, then sun size (I use that mod religiously), Rain etc.

Some of those mods may get overridden if the map textures are last, maybe not.

Just experiment.   JSGME makes this easy and the only caveat is load times.

[Missionbug]

Excellent work on this, thank you very much, really appreciated.

 

I particularly like the river banks and water colour.

 

Take care and be safe.

 

Wishing you all the very best, Pete.

[BladeMeister]

Is the water color something more natural for the rivers, like brown or dark green? I hope, because maybe I am wrong but I wouldn't think that the river colors near Moscow are sky blue. Maybe I am wrong???

I am going to try these maps soon.

 

S!Blade<><

[Vishnu]

Thank you for this....The current Rhineland is sooo boring...thanks for the attention to detail and effort

 

[-=[]=-little-Guardian]

 

OMG, these Maps are amazing . . .

 

Haven't had the time to test all eight(!) - but so far this is absolutely top notch work.

Thank you so much for your the time and effort you put into these!

 

greetings       little Guardian

 

[rowdyb00t]

I’m slowly working on fine tuning. I forgot some things. Also I’m adding a bit of noise to the textures so they look better. Previously I had reduced the noise for a smoother look but it’s not as good as I though ?. 

[Alan_Grey]

Don't you have a deal with Jason Williams on the official insertion into the game? It would definitely be great

[sevenless]

On 11/21/2021 at 7:05 AM, rowdyb00t said:

Early Spring

 

Late Spring

 

 

 

Rowdy, just a small remark to your otherwise excellent mod.

 

In early and late spring there are no ripe crop fields in Europe. Crops, mainly wheat, rye and barley start to change their colour to yellow early to mid-june and are harvested, depending on cereal type mostly from late june to august.

 

 

[354thFG_Drewm3i-VR]

@FTC_Q_Walker

[Megalon]

I’m sorry to be so dense, but could you explain the installation procedure?  I’m fully aware of JSGME and how to use it.

 

Should I just pick an option (late spring vs early spring) for each season?  

[rowdyb00t]

1 hour ago, Megalon said:

I’m sorry to be so dense, but could you explain the installation procedure?  I’m fully aware of JSGME and how to use it.

 

Should I just pick an option (late spring vs early spring) for each season?  

  Yes, you can only have one type of season at a time. 

[Megalon]

Thanks for the clarification

[Danziger]

I love it. Can't wait for you to work on some more maps. 

[354thFG_Drewm3i-VR]

@rowdyb00t Will you be making a map mod for the Normandy map? I'm going to be updating my pack at some point.

[rowdyb00t]

On 11/4/2022 at 1:51 AM, drewm3i-VR said:

@rowdyb00t Will you be making a map mod for the Normandy map? I'm going to be updating my pack at some point.

   Sorry for the late reply. I’ve been away for a long time. My life has been consumed with work and building a house. Once my house is done I plan on getting back into the sim. 

[FoxbatRU]

I have some problem with textures and roads in cities (autumn on the screen). Did I break something or were there any changes in the game?

 

[FoxbatRU]

If I block the cities.mesh file, then everything starts working. But maybe he was doing something useful?

[rowdyb00t]

13 hours ago, FoxbatRU said:

If I block the cities.mesh file, then everything starts working. But maybe he was doing something useful?

  I’m not sure what’s going on there. Maybe something was overwritten in an update?

[Avimimus]

On 11/10/2022 at 5:47 PM, rowdyb00t said:

   Sorry for the late reply. I’ve been away for a long time. My life has been consumed with work and building a house. Once my house is done I plan on getting back into the sim. 

 

Question for when you do (definitely no rush) - have you considered bluing some of the snow textures? To represent cold midwinter days/evenings (where the snow reflects the relatively cloudless sky)? I miss the old lighting Il-2 used to have! If you do get interested in tweaking the textures in such a direction - feel free to get in touch as I have a lot of references

[rowdyb00t]

6 hours ago, Avimimus said:

 

Question for when you do (definitely no rush) - have you considered bluing some of the snow textures? To represent cold midwinter days/evenings (where the snow reflects the relatively cloudless sky)? I miss the old lighting Il-2 used to have! If you do get interested in tweaking the textures in such a direction - feel free to get in touch as I have a lot of references

   It’s been a while since I’ve been messing with the sim  Been building a house and having a hectic last year. 
  I’m sure the old lighting could be reintroduced. I have lots of old files. The game still uses the same style of lighting. The skydome is different tech now but doesn’t effect the lighting method. Personally I don’t like the blue snow at all hours. The snow color depends on the lighting, time and sky color. Of course I do know that the color blue is definitely noticeable in snow from my experiences of making caves in the snow when I was a kid . I’ll see what I can dig up for ya. 
    

 

last week. Snow looks a bit bluer in the second pic. 

[Avimimus]

Definitely. On overcast days. However, on days when it is too cold for there to be atmospheric moisture (to diffuse the light) the snowflakes reflect the blue of the sky:

 

 

 

 

I'm not saying that the colours you've chosen are inaccurate or unbelievable!

 

It is just that I miss the colours that Il-2 used to have (until the Ju-88C-6 patch) which reflected a colder mid-winter look). It probably isn't worth the effort - and I'm hoping that they'll eventually update the lighting system to give us both sets of tints at the game-engine level... but I still couldn't help mentioning it.

[MajorMagee]

The sky.ini files in your previous sky mod still work to change the snow color to a bluer shade.

 

Stock and Modded

[Avimimus]

11 minutes ago, MajorMagee said:

The sky.ini files in your previous sky mod still work to change the snow color to a bluer shade.

 

Which sky mod is this?

[MajorMagee]

 

It used to be here.

 

Version 16.2

 

p.s. After looking at the files I'm currently using it's not really 16.2 that provided the blue snow. What is required is that the sky.ini files reference the current light.bmp file instead of the light_psky.bmp the base game points to.

 

The entry light="graphics\SKY\winter\light_psky.bmp" is found near the bottom of the sky.ini files found in the sky.gtp in the graphics/sky/winter/ (inside the 50 sub-folders). Change it to light="graphics\SKY\winter\light.bmp" and you should have bluish snow.

 

Concept done as a JSGME compatible Mod

Edited January 25, 2023 by MajorMagee

[FoxbatRU]

I can't stop admiring this mod! Very beautiful. And greatly diversifies the game. I recently ran into a problem where on the "early winter" option, places on the map with rivers and lakes were displayed as black squares. But the folder "late winter" helped me. I took folder "waterprofile" and file "waterdesc.txt" from there. And it all worked.