SpeedTrees & edm Tree Mod, what can we do?

Hi Folks,

this thread is simply about Speed Trees, I just wanne understand how they work and if we can make use of them for mods. Do they have a Model file and textures like every other Object does? No don't refer my to the SpeedTree homepage.. saw this allready

What I figured out so far:

There're no edm files anymore for trees inside the DCS Open Beta/Bazar/World/Shapes folder.

I only found information about trees inside the:

Mod/terrains/Caucasus/Models/BlockTrees (*.json files which seem to locate the textures files)

Mod/terrains/Caucasus/SurfaceDetails (dds texture files for the trees here)

Mod/terrains/Caucasus/vfstextures (only *.sb files for the trees here)

There're different Trees like:

If I add my old Tree mod wit the edm files it looks like this..matching the color to make them look kinda similar to the SpeedTrees should be possible, but as seen bellow the *.edm trees start to brighten up very strange when the camera face the direction of the sun. It's caused by the defered Light, switchin to HDR solve this problem but HDR looks horrible, so i wanne stick to defered light setting, maybe there's a way to change the reflection of light on the edm tree files? all other Objects seem not to brighten up that strange and those Objects are all edm files too. (Dark trees are the edm model trees)

I can only hope that they're not locked inside the large scenery files in Caucasus/Scenes or Caucasus/Surface if yes then we're locked out of the process to do mods with Tree files, at least when it comes to use them in the mission Editor.

Can someone from ED share some light on this, is there a Model file for the Trees? *.sb or *.ref file??

Is it possible to include them into the mod Folder with lua files (entry.lua etc) .

Thanks:helpsmilie:

Been playing around with this as well, the files are locked away somewhere, you can remove the whole tree file but that removes all the trees, so that's not an answer.

Same rule applies to Buildings etc etc.

I tried removing single items from the structure table lua but that does not work either.

I think the answer is in that .ref file, but I cannot make changes to it without destroying the file integrity.

So, not sure what the answer is, still thinking about it.

Matching the tree colour using the old trees is possible, it took me best part of a day to get that right and create a JSGME Mod that will allow you to insert trees for all four seasons as you want.

Not taking that any further until I work out how to fix the other stuff, its useless if we cant change things on the map.

Thanks Eddie, it seems like the file integrity and also the integrity check seems not so forgiven like before.

Maybe sooner or later some one of us will figure it out or ED is so kind to at least share some light. At least we can Add structures via the Mods/Tech folder, I always had the wish that someone would create a Western style 3D Shelter model that could replace those standard Shelters across the Map.. guess i can finaly throw this idea over board.

Anyway, do you have the matched color trees ready to download somewhere?, don't need a JSGME Mod just tha Textures :thumbup:

some news, I've made a backup of the whole vfstextures Folder (Mods/terrains/caucasus/vfstextures), then erased all the zip files inside the vfstextures game folder and started the sim, the SpeedTree models are still visible but the Textures of each one is gone, means that they're probably an edm model or something else that is probably locked inside one of the big scenery files.

Also erasing all the zip files leave the whole Caucasus scenery almost completely without texture, just the far texture of the buildings is left (City buildings) and mostly the textures of the structures we got inside the Mission editor.

When I get closer to the City buillings they completely dissapear... I'll put back zip after zip file and see what comes back to "life".:book:

There was a modern style NATO Hard Shelter around a while ago, I think it was in the old edm format so not useable in DCS2, I think it was a Tomcatz model.

Will see if I can find that again, it had opening doors etc, usual Tomcatz nice build.

If I can find it I will ask him if he would redo it for DCS2.

I withdrew my 2 part buildings Mod a couple of weeks ago, it has all the newer buildings from 1.5.8 in it and I needed to sort out the texture files to make it work in DCS 2.5, that is nearly done so I will upload that again soon. Things like Batumi KDP, the Meteo Tower, Tiblisis KDP, The older Hotels and 5/9 story buildings, Power Stations etc etc.

There are a couple of things that just wont work so I need to fix them or bin them, otherwise its looking good again.

yes i figured that there's no way anymore to mess around with the db_countries.lua and and db_groundunits.lua (inside Script/Database). If you just change one dot the Sim won't start nomore. So yes all mods need to be added via Mods/Tech..

There was a modern style NATO Hard Shelter around a while ago, I think it was in the old edm format so not useable in DCS2, I think it was a Tomcatz model.

 

Will see if I can find that again, it had opening doors etc, usual Tomcatz nice build.

 

If I can find it I will ask him if he would redo it for DCS2.

 

I withdrew my 2 part buildings Mod a couple of weeks ago, it has all the newer buildings from 1.5.8 in it and I needed to sort out the texture files to make it work in DCS 2.5, that is nearly done so I will upload that again soon. Things like Batumi KDP, the Meteo Tower, Tiblisis KDP, The older Hotels and 5/9 story buildings, Power Stations etc etc.

 

There are a couple of things that just wont work so I need to fix them or bin them, otherwise its looking good again.

excellent news, thank you very much for redoing!!!! :-)