The Skunk Works thread was getting a little long, so I decided to post this simulated picture of Ubon here, even though it is loosely connected to the scenery topic we've been discussing.

I didn't have much to do today, so with some time on my hands,I decided to fire up Paint Shop Pro and get creative. Using my collection of photos and maps, I created a simulated aerial view of Ubon as it would have looked in 1967. It's extremely accurate and includes almost every building that was there at the time. It is also correctly oriented with north at the top. (Ubon's runway numbers are 5 and 23.)



The reason I did this was to establish a basic frame of reference for anyone who may wish to create terrain for this base.

Although the "buildings" shown in this simulated aerial view are just white rectangles, they are the correct size and shape and in the appropriate locations. If and when the need arises, I can provide actual photos of many of the buildings, so a scenery designer won't have to guess what they looked like.

Unfortunately, I don't have maps or photos of any other bases in Thailand.

Cool Sleuth!
This is the kind of terrian that could bring life to a simulation.
Although I'm not really a Vietnam Fanatic, I agree that terrain done on real world photos can increase the sense of being there drammatically: much better then anonymous landing stips in the middle of nowhere!

LvP

Here's another simulated overhead view of a Thai airbase. This one is Nakhon Phanom (NKP). The shape of NKP really surprised me. It was a perfect rectangle!

Hopefully, the picture can serve as a basic frame of reference for scenery designers. Like the Ubon picture, I've oriented it with north at the top. (The runway numbers at NKP are 15 & 33.)



The simulated overhead view of NKP is reasonably accurate, but not nearly as complete as the one I did of Ubon. That's because it's based on a single photograph taken from a point about 2000 feet above the extreme southeast corner of the base. Consequently, the details at the northern end were difficult to see, and in some cases, impossible to discern.

So far, this is the only Thai airbase (besides Ubon) that I've been able to find a reasonably clear aerial photograph of. I intend to keep searching the Web for others.

Hey Sleuth:

would you like to write a short tutorial on the terrain modding section for the Skunkworks site?

The best thing to do would be to contact Ajax via ICQ: download the small program at ICQ Site , set the interface to "Complex" (so you would be able to send/receive files) and insert the ICQ you need to call.
It's really an easy task.

Ajax ICQ number is 50788099.
Mine is 161511360

LvP

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Lud von Pipper:
[B]Hey Sleuth:

would you like to write a short tutorial on the terrain modding section for the Skunkworks site?

Lud:

Thanks for the offer, but I know absolutely nothing about terrain modding.

The airbase pictures I've posted are NOT terrain. They are simply color bitmap diagrams created with Paint Shop Pro.

Damn these must of taken along time! Great work.

Sleuths,

Could you email me those?I'd like to see if I can do an overlay on a couple of test tiles.
If they are extremely large you can convert them to .jpg format.

WOLF
j_farmer@bellsouth.net

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You are what you do when it counts

[This message has been edited by WOLF257 (edited 06-08-2002).]

Armourdave:

I did the Ubon picture in about 8 hours, but the NKP picture required almost 20 hours. The time difference was due to the fact that I have several excellent photos of Ubon showing the base from different angles. I also have first-hand knowledge about the place.

Wolf:

Since my online connection is a 56K bps modem, I'll have to send you the .jpg versions of the pictures because the original .bmp files are huge (more than 5 MB). The compressed files don't look all that bad anyway.

I haven't got a clue about the "tile overlaying" experiment you are planning to do, but I hope it works!

Actually I don't know how these flat two-dimensional pictures could ever be used directly to construct three-dimensional terrain.

By the way, I've started working on a similar picture of Khorat RTAFB. I found two aerial photographs that, together, cover about 80% of it. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any useable photos of Udorn or Takhli.

What I wanted to do as far as the overlay was basically take the airbase graphics,make everything but the runways,building locations ect. transparent then overlay this graphic onto several different terrain tiles I've extracted from CFS2.Just wanted to get a general idea how it would look on an existing terrain tile.
I'm not entirely sure how "Stike Fighters" does 3D object placement but you might be able to use this method to build the actual airbases as well.Overlay an airfield graphic onto a terrain tile and use the building locations in the graphics to generate a set of coordinates for the placement of the actual 3D buildings.

WOLF

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You are what you do when it counts