homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation Wings: Over Flanders Fields Expand your horizons...

...with this WOFF and WOTR weather trick!

Note: only applies if you aren't using Jara's Mission Editor for your current campaign mission!

One frustration that some users experience is the lack of an extended horizon, particularly on days with clear skies, which occurs if you don't run the Mission Editor and click the radio button that enables the BB horizon fix. This little trick can be used to give you an extended horizon even when you aren't using the Mission Editor. Here's how you can do this:

First, set "3rd Party Mission Editor" to "On" in Workshop. Then, after you click "Go to Field" to start a campaign mission and the "Run Your Mission Editor now" message comes up, open the OFFDynamicMissionWeather.xml file located in the OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields/weather folder and change the precipType variable in the Background weather section near the top of the file from "HeavyRain" to either "NoRain" or "LightRain." Save the file and then run the mission. That's it! If you wish, you can use search to easily replace ALL instances of the precipType variable in the OFFDynamicMissionWeather file, but I don't think doing so makes a difference in how the horizon is rendered in the other sections of the map.

I recommend setting precipType to NoRain for Good and Light weather, and to LightRain for Scattered and Variable weather conditions. Leave it set to HeavyRain for cloudy and rainy weather conditions. Again, this is only if you don't use the Mission Editor. If you do use the Mission Editor, this is already automatically taken care of for you (if the horizon fix button is selected). This trick can be used whether or not you use the Optional Cloud mod, but for the life of me, I can't understand why you wouldn't want to do that!

Good luck and Godspeed!

BB

Clarification: There is no need to go back into Workshop and set 3rd Party Mission Editor to "Off" either during or after you have finished the current campaign mission. You can leave it to "On" even if you don't use Jara's or any other mission editor, as long as you don't mind one extra click to close the message box asking you to run your mission editor.

Hallo @Pol,

I have seen that WOTR has the same file OffDynamicMissionWeather. And there you can read always "NoRain" instead of "HeavyRain" in the WOFF-file (also with good weather you have "HeavyRain" in the Background weather-line).
Is it possible, that this makes a difference regarding the depiction of the horizon? And -if yes- is it possible to adjust it in WOFF?

Thanks for answer and Greetings!

Is this question directed to Polovski or Pal?

I don't think the issue is with the OFFDynamicMissionWeather file, necessarily. Instead, there may be a difference in a sub-routine in WOFF vs. WOTR that populates the data for the OFFDynamicMissionWeather file so in WOFF, the precipType is usually set to "HeavyRain" and in WOTR, it is usually set to "NoRain." Personally, I prefer it to be set to NoRain, although this may negatively impact fame rates a bit.

In answer to Becker's question, and without going to the trouble of editing the OFFDynamiMissionWeather.xml file before every campaign mission as discussed above, there is actually a much easier solution.

Instead, using any basic text editor, open the following files found in the OBDWWI Over Flanders Fields/weather folder: OFFGoodSkybox.xml and OFFLightSkybox.xml. In each file, change precipType from "HeavyRain" to "NoRain."

If desired, you may also want to open OFFVariableSkybox.xml, OFFMediumSkybox.xml, and OFFMedium1Skybox.xml and change HeavyRain to either LightRain or NoRain, depending on your preference. (Tip: for some variety, you may want to leave at least one of these three files to "HeavyRain." Or, set one to "NoRain" another to "LightRain" and leave the third to "HeavyRain").

That's it! Now, you can leave "3rd Party Mission Editor" to "off" and not have to worry about editing the OFFDynamicMissionWeather.xml file and still get a clear, extended horizon. Easy!

WOTR visibility/scenery settings were changed compared to WOFF intentionally originally, it's not an error - but I'm not sure if that will be changed in WOFF.

The greater the visibility/scenery, the greater the FPS "hit", which is one of the reasons WOTR is so much more "demanding" and has a lower FPS than WOFF.

There is "no free lunch", you just have to pick what you like and what works best with the PC hardware you have (and not everybody has the same capabilities).

I agree absolutely @PR!

And my consideration was not to increase the visibility/scenery, but more the quality of the horizon-depiction (sorry for misunderstanding!). If this also means a greater visiblitiy (and less FPS in consequence) then of course I will not adjust these WOFF-files, which @BB has mentioned.
But because I have less FPS in WOTR (in comparison to WOFF) I think about the oppsite now: To adjust the WOTR-files with the settings off the WOFF-files.
I will try it probably the next days.

Greetings!

Good point, Becker. Doing the opposite of what I suggested above, at least for WOTR, may in fact, increase frame rates for those whose systems are struggling to run WOTR, even if the increase in frame rates is relatively modest.

Users of BHaH2 with a good cpu and graphics card, on the other hand, may enjoy seeing a horizon that extends somewhat further out than default, at the cost of a few frame rates. Owners of more modest systems may want to leave things as they are.

Gecko raised an important point regarding horizon fog and frame rates in the WOTR forum: you will not get any improvements in performance by reducing the horizon distance unless you also make adjustments to the compositetexturebudgets.xml and compositescenerybudgets.xml files (or reduce the scenery and texture settings in Workshop) so that fewer textures and scenery objects behind the "wall of fog" are rendered.

What this means for BHaH2 is that if you are having frame rate issues and are using the default WOFF horizon settings, you should probably also consider reducing your texture and scenery settings in Workshop so that fewer scenery and textures objects are drawn behind the horizon "wall." Since you can't see them anyway, you may get a performance boost without a noticeable loss in visual quality.

Something to consider trying for those who can't fly in 1918 because of performance slow-downs....

Be careful about changing those settings as they are used in conjunction with fog distance vals in runtime to create haze mist fog etc.

WOTR does have a higher FPS demand at the moment, something I am addressing in some ways for the expansion, but its not to do with horizon/fog distance.

WM

Good show!