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[Geschirr]

Is there anyway to get the cloud textures from VP Mod Pack to work in BAT?
I thought it was a mod and came to the conclusion that it was a .tga texture file, possibly Clouds256.tga since that it what is in the load.ini for VP maps.  All the BAT maps have Clouds269.tga.  I put the 256 textures into the _Tex file #WAW/mapmods/... and tried replacing Clouds269 with Clouds256, but it is still an empty blue sky.  Any help or a confirmation that it is not possible would be appreciated.  Thank you.

[Gubi]

dunno… I use bender's ultimate environment...

[Vampire_pilot]

You could start with disabling the "Default Skies Mod" in BAT.

[SAS~Storebror]

I must say that the picture in the opening post is extremely misleading in many ways.
Quite like that fancy picture of the MiG-15 which was attributed to illumination issues in BAT and turned out to be something completely different.


Mike

[vpmedia]

IL-2 graphics extender can only use grayscale cirrus clouds layers. If it encounters a 32 bit tga it displays the alpha channel.
The other issue is that mod maps usually use a different cirrus clouds setup than the stock game (mask and texture is switched) hence maps which still have the stock cirrus setup can also have problems. Switching things up probably wasnt a good idea, but it was done a decade ago and somehow it became the standard. In the stock game the CloudsNoise layers is the pattern the HighClouds layers is a mask. In mods the CloudsNoise layer is a small, solid white picture the mask is the actual greyscale cloud pattern. This makes making cirrus clouds layers easier because you dont have to produce two tileable pictures which complement each other but just one. Slibenli probably was not aware of this fact so il2ge gets its cirrus texture from HighClouds which in a stock setup is a greyscale mask. I only included greyscale cirrus layers in vpmodpack, in BAT you have to do some work to make it il2ge compatible.

[whistler]

Geschi...19,

Graphics Extender aside...

When you enable DEF-SKIES in BAT, all maps will have the stock cloud (high skies) textures. Most likely the sky you can see in your image. When you disable DEF-SKIES, maps will have whatever sky texture the author intended for that map. Ski textures are buried in the different SFS files.

Overcast sky textures don't play well at high altitudes. I recommend to always enable DEF-SKIES in The Jet Age module. Enable DEF-SKIES in WAW if you plan to play high altitude strategic bombing missions.

You may find of interest Random Skies. 100% of the maps in B.A.T. are supported by the mod. More than a hundred different sky textures from different authors, including vpmedia's, for your pleasure.

Cheers!

[slibenli]

IL-2 graphics extender can only use grayscale cirrus clouds layers. If it encounters a 32 bit tga it displays the alpha channel.
The other issue is that mod maps usually use a different cirrus clouds setup than the stock game (mask and texture is switched) hence maps which still have the stock cirrus setup can also have problems. Switching things up probably wasnt a good idea, but it was done a decade ago and somehow it became the standard. In the stock game the CloudsNoise layers is the pattern the HighClouds layers is a mask. In mods the CloudsNoise layer is a small, solid white picture the mask is the actual greyscale cloud pattern. This makes making cirrus clouds layers easier because you dont have to produce two tileable pictures which complement each other but just one. Slibenli probably was not aware of this fact so il2ge gets its cirrus texture from HighClouds which in a stock setup is a greyscale mask. I only included greyscale cirrus layers in vpmodpack, in BAT you have to do some work to make it il2ge compatible.

Indeed, in fact I'm not using CloudsNoise at all.

[vpmedia]

Of course, you only need one texture for the cirrus clouds layer. I suspect that in the stock game the devs used two textures to have smooth transition on the horizon. This does not matter in your render engine. Btw nice work on il2ge, it looks amazing.

For the BAT devs:
The fix for the problem in the first post is easy, make a jsgme mod for BAT which changes all cirrus cloud layers to greyscale and uses the HighClouds slot in the map load.ini's. Call it "Cirrus clouds for IL2GE" and most people will know when to use it. I got a ton of greyscale cirrus cloud layers from Benders Ultimate Enviroment mod. I can upload it if you dont have it. The full color 24/32bit cloudmod textures and untouched stock maps can not work with il2ge.

[whistler]

I don't think, vpmedia, there is anything for the BAT team to fix, at least, not yet.

First we don't know if Geschirr19 is using graphics extender. Second, graphics extender came last to the party and has to make his way up the ladder. This means, in my humble opinion, graphics extender has to deal with established arts employed by modders and artists that came before. Slibenli knows well by now how painful the path is. If 24/32bit cloudmod textures can not work with il2ge, graphics extender must find a solution on its own, or a workaround. Updating 400 map *.ini/s is the fastest solution, but probably not the best in the long run.

[Geschirr]

Sorry for wasting everybody's time. Due to Graphics Extender.

[vpmedia]

The BAT image in the first post is 100% IL2GE, Storebror said that its misleading because the vpmodpack half of the pic doesnt use IL2GE.
Regardless the wrong comparsion pic the problem is still there.

The first post says that all BAT maps have Clouds269.tga, so you dont need to edit 400 load.ini's.
Just replace this Clouds269.tga and also Clouds256.tga to be on the safe side. I'm trying to help you here.

Btw the way il2ge handles the cirrus clouds is perfectly fine, grayscale is the way to go. There's no way that you could use those various 32bit colorful sky textures and have transparency.

I know that I released 24bit sky (as an experiment) textures but I did not put them in vpmodpack because I knew that they can cause problems.
Vpmodpack is fully il2ge compatible because it only uses greyscale cirrus cloud layers and all maps are adjusted to my setup.

[Vampire_pilot]

Sorry for wasting everybody's time.

I wouldn't say that. Now we all know more.