Still no news ? :06:

Always thinking about the lighthouses ......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHzIyAd_rro

Sorry Kendras, I am writing from Senegal. I will report back on monday, when I will be back home :salute:

I'm so happy to hear that ! :yep:

Hello :)

Could you briefly tell us what you have done so far, and what you are planning to do during the month ? :hmm2:

Hi Kendras, sorry for my late feed-back I planned to reply at the beginning of the weak, but a cold kept me away from my usual activities for days :oops:

As you might have noticed, unfortunately my working method is a bit chaotic: I start a project, I loose interest, I start a new project and before I got it finished, I get back to first one, but not before having committed myself to a third project. The good news is that, with the motivation of some good subsim mates as you, soon or later I will finish them all :doh::O:
Talking about this mod, here is what I have done so far:

1) As I told you a while back, the Düne (Helgoland) leading lights are 100% ready. I know that at this stage you are mostly focused on French lights and that the Helgoland-Düne islands are poorly implemented in SHIII, but nonetheless I think they might make a nice addition to the game. Moreover, importing them might provide us with some additional insight on the best importing method, which will come in handy when we'll be ready to implement other lighthouses. If you are on it, I can import the models in a set of SH files, and send them your way :up:

2) To be honest, I didn't work on the phare de la Vieille in a long time, but its model is almost ready. The main lighthouse structure is done. The concrete base, the rock and the Temperly crane (added in 1926 and destroyed by a storm in 2008) are mostly modelled but some touch-ups are still needed (the rock must be extended below the sea level for instance), along with some UV-mapping and texture work. Ambient occlusion and normal maps are also in my todo list, but since I still have not fully clear how do they work in SHIII and whether we can have both of them on the same material or not, I think I can leave these features for a second moment. Extracting a generic lighthouse model from my representation of the La Vielle lighthouse should be fairly easy :03:

http://i519.photobucket.com/albums/u...g?t=1496506883

3) More recently, I have started working on the Tourelle de la Plate, also known as "Petite Vieille" due to its position, facing the phare de la Vieille in the Raz de Sein. Now it is a bit too early to show you a preview, but the model is coming along nicely. Completed in 1896, destroyed shortly after by a storm, and rebuilt 12 years later as a 26-m long octagonal solid reinforced concrete tower laying on a submerged rock, this lighthouse is currently painted/lighted as a cardinal west mark. I couldn't find any information on its usage during the 40s, but I can suppose it had to be similar to the current one. Let me know if you find any useful information on this topic.

4) Talking about the rocky reefs that you asked for a while back, I think there was a misunderstanding. All the lighthouses I plan to release will come with their own customized rocky base where it applies, so to make sure that the two parts are fitting together as best as possible. When you first asked for the rocks, I thought you just wanted some reefs models to be randomly placed on the sea bottom in lithoral waters, so to mimic submerged or semi-submerged unsignaled obstacles. If you agree on their utility, I still think that the Blender heightmap extrusion method I illustrated a few months ago, is the easiest way to quickly create a virtually endless number of reefs. All I need is you to point me to the heightmaps you like (there are many freely available on the web) and to provide me with the approximate dimensions that you expect them to be in game :salute:

Hi, gap!
"The best rest is a change in the type of work" I. Pavlov
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/imag...humbs_Up-1.gifhttp://www.subsim.com/radioroom/imag...humbs_Up-1.gifhttp://www.subsim.com/radioroom/imag...humbs_Up-1.gif

My work habit is identical to gap!!! So makes sense to me, looking forward to lighthouses.

Not step back, only forward!

:up:

In fact, the Düne is not at all represented, but however we may still place your lights on the main island, or perhaps directly in the sea (in this case we need a rock model) !

About Helgoland, here is what I've found :

You can see the lighthouse on the island :

http://www.welkoam-iip-lunn.de/bilde...ckvonosten.jpg

and here the LH :

http://www.kuestenforum.de/bilder/ak...r-leuchttu.jpg

:03:

Thank you for your encouragement guys :yeah:

The Düne range light is composed of two lights: rear and front.
The rear light has the shape of cylindrical tower ca. a ca. 15 m in heigth and it is located on the southern shore of the island (Position: 54°10'56.26"N, 7°54'50.58"E, 2 m asl).
The front light is placed on top of a metal pole anchored to the sandy soil by a square concrete base and it is located about 110 m SSW of the rear light (Pos: 54°10'52.79"N, 7°54'48.53"E) in the foreshore (thus, in game it can be anchored both to the land or to the sea bottom).
The alignment of the two lights shows the safest route to the harbour in Helgoland and to the channel between the two islands (this is what leading lights are generally meant for). Changing the two light's position would defeat their original purpose. On the other hand, I think Düne is a bit too big to be represented as a rock model. :hmm2:

What do you know about Terrain Editor? Creating small islands, sand banks and shoals witin the editor shouldn't be too complicated.
Here is a general view of the two islands (Helgoland and Düne):

For reference, her is a chart taken from openseamap.org showing the two islands and the relative positions of the leadings lights on Düne:

http://i519.photobucket.com/albums/u...g%20lights.jpg


Good pictures! :up:

I have found a postcard view of the same:

http://www.leuchtturm-welt.net/HTML/...L/HELGOL_2.JPG

...and a picture of it together with the first lighthouse built by the British in 1811:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._Helgoland.jpg

Unfortunately the 1901 lighthouse was destroyed during an air raid in 1945. Interestingly, the aerial picture you have posted also shows the current lighthouse, built in 1941 and then used as a FlaK tower (source: The Lighthouse Directory) :03:

http://baken-net.de/image/helgoland_hb391_1953.jpg https://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/lightho...olandDEU2b.jpg

I never tried. But I think it's a good idea to improve the island. Maybe we could ask to HanSolo. :hmm2:

The aerial view has been taken in 1935. Where do you see this flak tower on it ?

In SH5 we have these editors inbuilt into the game:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B48...?ddrp=1&hl=en#

Is there anything similar for SHIII? :hmmm:

Yep, good idea. HanS, if you are reading us... :D

If you look closely at the aerial picture you have posted, a bit to the left of the 1901 leuchturm, there is a much smaller tower, but you are right, it can't be the FlaK turm. Now that you got me thinking about it, I think to remember that that specific tower was part of a building hosting some office of the Kriegsmarine naval command. You can see it better from the other picture of the Helgoland lighthouse you had posted (on the right):

http://www.kuestenforum.de/bilder/ak...r-leuchttu.jpg

I've found this : http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/down...o=file&id=1315

Now two problems :

- how does it work ? :hmmm:
- what map should we modifiy ? Vanilla or WAC ? ...