fix for scapa flow

[redbrow]

i don't know how to do this but many of you do - I noted that on the harbors they have respawn points given in latitude and longitude. so this gave me the idea for the fix for the Kaise Wilhelm kanal, but also it would work for scapa i think... this is from another post i made:

just a thought, would it be possible to set up a new harbor at the entrance of the canal area you mentioned, like the new bases in Spain? but set the repsawn point from that base (when you re-enter the game) at the other end of the canal with say a loss of 1 days? this would allow subs from Kiel to make the JUMP to the north sea without having to pass the islands of the Baltic.

i suppose you'd need another harbor point at the North Sea side to warp your boat back to the Baltic side.

IF this is possible it might be used as the missing Scapa Flow NE entrance, but only if the docking point can be created there without docks. this would allow U-boats to enter Scapa from the proper location. And since the Brits later blocked this entrance the docking-warp points could be set to vanish sometime in 41.

[Ducimus]

Its possible i think. hell if you really wanted to, i think you could put a german naval base in iceland have use that as a spawn point into the game.

However, ill go out on a limb and hazard a guess that there probably isnt much intrest into modding what your describing.

At anyrate, ya i hate kiel as a port too. Your choices are either go clear around north of the isles, or a short (and dangerous) jaunt into that mine infested shallow body of water i have lovingly called the English wading pool.

[redbrow]

no there likely isn't much interest since i bet few even bother with Kiel, ,, i know i don't. since i now can start with a type 7 u-boat in Wilhelmshaven, why would i ever start in Kiel? its harbor is also a real butt to get out of.

[NoLine]

just a thought but moddeling the whole world is not possible atm, i think
so the game probably uses the map we see (or some other map) to generate the land and sea
change that map and you would have the kiel kanal

cheers
Noline

[GlobalExplorer]

I think this is a good idea, insofar as it could be used to implement the missing channels (Nord-Ostsee Kanal, Suez and Panama Channels). You should make a prototype and publish your success. If it can really be included in the game I would like to have it.

The Nord-Ostsee Kanal was used during the war, in Georg Ernst "Bis zur letzten Stunde" there are several mentions of his boat crossing it (ok, he only mentions that it happened during U-Boat training).

Concerning that missing NE entry to Scapa Flow. Hm, I only speak for myself, but better leave it.

[Marhkimov]

There is no way to alter terrain yet. Well, at least no one has discovered how...

[GlobalExplorer]

There is no way to alter terrain yet. Well, at least no one has discovered how...

But do you know if anybody has really tried to? If it is derived from DEM data it should be pretty simple. Maybe nothing but height values on a x-y matrix.

[Marhkimov]

Well, first of all, has anyone found out where the terrain data is located?

I would also love to see some altered terrain.

[ref]

Well, first of all, has anyone found out where the terrain data is located?

I would also love to see some altered terrain.

Most likely in
...data\Terrain\Data\TerrainData.BFD and
...data\Terrain\Data\TerrainData.BFI

I´ve been looking the file extensions, the two most near hits are:

a.- okino's internal format (big 3d translation software company),
I'm downloading a demo to check it,but I really don´t think it´s
a 3d format, It would be to complex to manage in real time,
b.- a paper I found on gis data," The D8 algorithm, also known as
Biflow Direction (BFD)".

However the file size is small to be full world dem map, maybe it's compressed. If I have any luck I'll keep you posted.

Ref

[GlobalExplorer]

Most likely in
...data\Terrain\Data\TerrainData.BFD and
...data\Terrain\Data\TerrainData.BFI

100 percent those files.

b.- a paper I found on gis data," The D8 algorithm, also known as Biflow Direction (BFD)".

Gis data could be close. Though I think that BFD could also have been brought up internally at ubi.

However the file size is small to be full world dem map, maybe it's compressed. If I have any luck I'll keep you posted.

Ah, yes, that sucks. You're probably right and it's compressed (the dem data should compress really well), and if it's like that we're not going to see new terrain anytime soon.

On the other hand I think the way Sh3 makes use of dem data to create a believable world is already extremely advanced and can not be improved very much. Just imagine this kind of complete world data in a game like Operation Flashpoint!

[ref]

On the other hand I think the way Sh3 makes use of dem data to create a believable world is already extremely advanced and can not be improved very much. Just imagine this kind of complete world data in a game like Operation Flashpoint!

I don´t think it's necesary (or possible) to improve the quality of the terrain generation, but there are many things to be corrected,ie: kiel canal.
However it will also depends in the resolution of the dem map in use, if it's minimum resolution is 1 or 2 km, then the canal can not be added because its only 300 mts wide.



Ah, yes, that sucks. You're probably right and it's compressed (the dem data should compress really well), and if it's like that we're not going to see new terrain anytime soon.

There where lots of stuff that I think couldn't been done, but reality shows other thing, just look at the amazing things the people in this forum have done. :up:

Just to add another bit of info, looking at the file TerrainData.BFI,
It's an index of some kind with records of 28 bytes :

4 byte value : numeric data
24 bytes a string (null terminated) aparently a grid name (ie: E001N000/E001N000MK.RL2) wich suggest they are run length encoded.

I'll have to dig a little more to determine what it means, anyone with graphics programming experience is welcome to jump in.

Ref

[Marhkimov]

However it will also depends in the resolution of the dem map in use, if it's minimum resolution is 1 or 2 km, then the canal can not be added because its only 300 mts wide.
It doesn't look out of the question to make small channels in SH3. Look around, and you'll see that the smallest gaps are usually 200-300m wide... So it is possible to model a narrow channel.

[GlobalExplorer]

It doesn't look out of the question to make small channels in SH3. Look around, and you'll see that the smallest gaps are usually 200-300m wide... So it is possible to model a narrow channel.

Correct. For example, there is a tiny rock north of Scotland that I once discovered. I wonder what chance there is that people crash into this thing at high time compression :hmm:

[ref]

Marhkimov,GlobalExplorer, you're right , I found this lines at Termaps.cfg

[Map3]
Format=data
Resolution=216000,108000,200; map width,height(in pixels) and density(meters per pixel)
ZoomLevels=200,100,50,20,10,5,2,1; meters per pixel
Tiles=360,180

MAP1 and MAP2 are the maps displayed in the nav screen, this map is 10x bigger, and apparently the minimum resolution is 200 mts.

So far I've been unable to open the data files, maybe is time to remove the dust off from my dissasembler and take a look into the code to figure it out, pet project for the weekend.

Ref

pd: as stupid as may seem the BF in .BFD and .BFI stands for Big File.

[Letum]

[quote=GlobalExplorer]

However it will also depends in the resolution of the dem map in use, if it's minimum resolution is 1 or 2 km, then the canal can not be added because its only 300 mts wide.



Even if the resolution was 10km it would be possible to create a 300m wide canal because the relationship between the slope and the water level is not binary.
i.e.

waterline -------------\-/---------------

The small dash in the middle is the with of the canal, even tho the walls of the canal are much longer. (assumeing that the vertical resolution (or value step) is at least half as big as the the 2 horizontal resolutions (it usualy is far bigger than that)

Guess studying geology wasnt a total waste of time!
(oh wait, it was)

[GlobalExplorer]

Marhkimov,GlobalExplorer, you're right , I found this lines at Termaps.cfg

[Map3]
Format=data
Resolution=216000,108000,200; map width,height(in pixels) and density(meters per pixel)
ZoomLevels=200,100,50,20,10,5,2,1; meters per pixel
Tiles=360,180

MAP1 and MAP2 are the maps displayed in the nav screen, this map is 10x bigger, and apparently the minimum resolution is 200 mts.

So far I've been unable to open the data files, maybe is time to remove the dust off from my dissasembler and take a look into the code to figure it out, pet project for the weekend.

Ref

pd: as stupid as may seem the BF in .BFD and .BFI stands for Big File.

Interesting.

So would that mean the dimensions are 216000*108000 units? But the question remains, what is a unit? Maybe it helps to explain what Sh3Gen tought me about Sh3's world coordinate system.

In Sh3 every position is referenced of Longitude, Latitude and Height. My idea is that basically every coordinate represents a point in a 2-dimensional coordinate system (the height can be ignored in most situations). That means, instead of Longitude and Latitude we might as well speak of x,y. The origin of this coordinate system is the point where the equator and the zero-meridian cross, somewhere south of Cote d'Ivoire. (This is the point whose coordinates are 0,0). It helps me to better understand the referencing system, because now every coordinate simply indicates the positive or negative distance to the origin, in "units".

Example of a group somewhere near Kiel:

Long=1220980.000000
Lat=6524040.000000

That means the groups distance to the origin is 1220980 units in positive x, 6524040 units in positive y direction. But the question remains what is a "unit"?

As far as this is concerned, I would say it is meters.

distance in x = 1220 km
distance in y = 6524 km

As the distance Kiel from Kiel to Cote d'Ivoire, this sounds reasonable.

I can say this quite positively, because in Sh3Gen, whenever I need kilometers, I divide Long and Lat by 1000.

If someone wants to experiment with Sh3's coordinate system I can send him an AutoCAD Document that gives the correct Sh3 coordinates. It uses a raster image of the game map that I have scaled and positioned, and I use it a lot for Sh3Gen.

[ref]

In Sh3 every position is referenced of Longitude, Latitude and Height. My idea is that basically every coordinate represents a point in a 2-dimensional coordinate system (the height can be ignored in most situations). That means, instead of Longitude and Latitude we might as well speak of x,y. The origin of this coordinate system is the point where the equator and the zero-meridian cross, somewhere south of Cote d'Ivoire. (This is the point whose coordinates are 0,0). It helps me to better understand the referencing system, because now every coordinate simply indicates the positive or negative distance to the origin, in "units".

Example of a group somewhere near Kiel:

Long=1220980.000000
Lat=6524040.000000

That means the groups distance to the origin is 1220980 units in positive x, 6524040 units in positive y direction. But the question remains what is a "unit"?

As far as this is concerned, I would say it is meters.

distance in x = 1220 km
distance in y = 6524 km

As the distance Kiel from Kiel to Cote d'Ivoire, this sounds reasonable.

I can say this quite positively, because in Sh3Gen, whenever I need kilometers, I divide Long and Lat by 1000.

If someone wants to experiment with Sh3's coordinate system I can send him an AutoCAD Document that gives the correct Sh3 coordinates. It uses a raster image of the game map that I have
scaled and positioned, and I use it a lot for Sh3Gen.

I've been digging a little in the bhi file, it consists of records of grid subdivisions, two file names for each grid :

129600 E001N000/E001N000MK.RL2
40 E001N000/E001N000RS.RL
256 E001N001/E001N001MK.RL2
40 E001N001/E001N001RS.RL
256 E001N002/E001N002MK.RL2
40 E001N002/E001N002RS.RL

East goes from 0 to 179, north from 0 to 90,
west from 0 to 180, south from 0 to 79.

basically they subdivide de map in to small pieces (64k+) for easy handling, still need to determine what the numbers are, first guess are size of compressed chunks.

It'd be nice if you send me the cad doc, to try to match their coordinates with yours to better picture how are they distributed.

please send it to : roberto_fernandez@datafull.com

[GlobalExplorer]

I will send you the dwg. That assembler stuff is a bit above my horizon, but hopefully you will find out how the data is organized.

[redbrow]

thanks ref! my game crashes now and then, which is why i always save at every step, and i noted that my crashes seem to happen at the same locations on the map. Your discovery about the map segments helps explain to me why my game crashes at certain locations.

[ref]

Ok, some updates, I´ve playing with the terraindata files, so far I've been able to decipher part of the file , the .rl type and decompress it , the terraindata.dbf is made of 129600 squares each one 126 pixels wide, the other files .rl2 are still unknown.

Example:

http://img360.imageshack.us/img360/7545/detail5uc.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Which is located here:

http://img360.imageshack.us/img360/8581/where0vr.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Now I´m working on a program to locate the segments on the map easely, its a giant puzzle. :lol:

The problem after determining the coordinates is that the squares overlap a few pixels, so they must be edited in groups, once I figure how, I'll try to do a few edits to test if it works in the real world (sh3) without touching the .rl2 files.

[GlobalExplorer]

WOW! You're making good progress ..

Wouldn't it help to visualize the data with OpenGL?

[thasaint]

It doesn't look out of the question to make small channels in SH3. Look around, and you'll see that the smallest gaps are usually 200-300m wide... So it is possible to model a narrow channel.

Correct. For example, there is a tiny rock north of Scotland that I once discovered. I wonder what chance there is that people crash into this thing at high time compression :hmm:

i crashed right into it once, always plot a course very clear of it now :)