[WIP] The SH5 EcoMod

[THEBERBSTER]

Hi gap
Very nice work and so unexpected.

Makes you wonder about the possibilities for improving the vegetation around Memel and the Kiel Canal.
Peter

[vdr1981]

Originally Posted by THEBERBSTER

Hi gap
Very nice work and so unexpected.

Makes you wonder about the possibilities for improving the vegetation around Memel and the Kiel Canal.
Peter

Indeed ...Very nice, thanks Gap!

[gap]

Originally Posted by Fifi

Jesus that looks nice! Scenery is photo realistic!

Originally Posted by THEBERBSTER

Hi gap
Very nice work and so unexpected.

Originally Posted by vdr1981

Indeed ...Very nice, thanks Gap!

Thank you guys, I am glad that you appreciate my efforts

Originally Posted by Fifi

I never sailed in this area, so i don’t know how this island looks like with stock TWOS...

You can enable only the testing missions without the actual mod if you want, and check yourself what those islands looked like before my tweaks. They were covered with a luxuriant jungla-like vegetation composed of gigantic palm trees and banana plants lol

I have never been in the Azores, but from what I have read and from the pictures I have seen, the shrubs and small trees that I have chosen for this mod are typical of the Azores flora at medium and low altitudes. I have put a great care in scaling those plants correctly; it is unbeliavable how much difference makes, in terms of lanscape realism, getting vegetation in the right proportions. Yet, I would be curious to hear the impressions of someone coming from there. Is any Azorean subsim member reading these notes?

Originally Posted by Fifi

Anyway, i’ve Installed your Eco mod on top of all in JSGME, in this order: 1 Main mod + 2b + 3 + 4a + testing missions
I believe that’s the maximum in computer impact matter, and have to say i still have a steady 60 FPS even in external camera.
On side note, there are no other boats around...maybe you could add some action around there to see.

Okay, that would be the maximum in terms of performance impact, but take in mind that without many 3D objects in rendering radius and without campaign data loaded in memory, we cannot consider the current testing missions a reliable benchmark to evaluate the performance hit by this mod.

In future we could add some cities/ports/airports on the Azores and marine traffic around them, for making them more lively. For the record, there was an important airfield in the island of Terceira which, starting from '43, was used by the Allies for closing the mid-Atlantic gap, and by '44 a second military airfiled was built by the Americans in the Santa Maria Island. Probably those additions would be better addressed in OHII/TWoS than with an environmental mod as this one but, for sure, your idea of making the testing missions more appealing by adding some units and a bit of action to them, is a good one; I will put it in practice with the next releases

Originally Posted by Fifi

I guess it only apply on this zone area, and i’m Impatient to see it on the whole theatre!

The next terrain type that I will work on, the Atlantic mixed forests, will encompass a big portion of map, from E Denmark to SW France (though I will probably split it in smaller parts for adding more variety to the game) and it will cover many of the U-boat bases featured in campaign. After adding that ecoregion, I think the EcoMod will be more interesting for a wider audience, and by setting the next test missions near one of the big ports located there, we will get a better idea of its impact on computer performance.

Originally Posted by THEBERBSTER

Makes you wonder about the possibilities for improving the vegetation around Memel and the Kiel Canal.
Peter

Sure: the Brunsbüttel end of the Kiel Canal will be covered with one of the next releases (see my reply to Fifi above). Kiel and Memel, on turn, are located in two other ecoregions (respectively: Baltic mixed forests and Central European mixed forests), but they are high in my todo list too. Let me know if you have any suggestions or special requests about them

[vdr1981]

Will this mod finally get rid of snow in Mediterranean?

[gap]

Originally Posted by vdr1981

Will this mod finally get rid of snow in Mediterranean?

Definitely yes! Snow there has always pissed me off lol ...and grass will turn brown in summer, and if you plan reworking/extending the Mediterranean campaign, adding the Pola U-boat base to the pool of Mediterranean bases, I promise I will extend the effects of this mod also to Croatia and Yugoslavia

[vdr1981]

Are these strange looking color anomalies intentional ?

[Jeff-Groves]

That's a dds file.
I saw that today looking at files in the terrain folders.
detaile.dds maybe?

Where were you in Game?

[gap]

Originally Posted by vdr1981

Are these strange looking color anomalies intentional ?

No, this is only happening where incident sunlight illuminates portions of shore under certain angles, after changing the sand texture. It looks like the result of messy normal map, but shores have no normal maps applied, only rocky cliffs have one.

This glitch has always bothered me, since the time I worked on some of the DynEnv's textures. There are two methods that I can think to iron it out, or at least reduce its extent: reworking the sand textures (for some obscure reason, some colors in them seem to cause the problem), which I will certainly do, or tweaking the light glare FX parameters