GRAPHIC MOD FOR ORIGINAL ROWAN BOB

Battle of Britain "Wings of Victory"
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rogeroger
Staff Sergeant
Posts: 271
Joined: 13 Aug 2016, 15:04

GRAPHIC MOD FOR ORIGINAL ROWAN BOB

Post by rogeroger »

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Recently I decided, for nostalgia sake, to take Rowanbob for a spin. I ported over Martins ground textures and Aris-woff clouds and was quite impressed by the lighting effect on the terrain and the way the clouds were rendered.

ROWANBOB presents a slightly different flying experience to bob2 thats worth revisiting. Bear in mind that rowanbob lacks Bob2's many improvements, though in spite of this the original is still fun to fly, and find myself spending more time in this bob than bob2..

I decided to put together a graphics package for Rowanbob containing the following:

I've edited the RAF AND ME109(MINOR EDIT) cockpit textures.

Aircraft models are low detailed but a nice skin makes the world of difference. I've re-skinned all aicraft with skins edited from il2Clod screenshots .

ARIS-WOFF clouds are included and greatly improve the look of fair weather conditions, and also combine with the existing solid cloud bank for poor and inclement conditions.

Ive used bob2 textures to retexture the airfield buidings and some ships, and have incorporated hazzie's sound files and tower of london textures.

Martins ground textures are included as well as my re-edited tree objects. I tried to port over some of bob2's ground objects without any success.

Remove Martins ground tree files from the objectadds if you'd prefer not to use them.

The included Bdg patches improved the sim tremedously and Ive incorporated Pv's terrain mesh improvements(landscap folder) . Ive only encountered one instance so far using them where aircraft took off just outside the airfield perimeter. The original landscap files are backed up in the folder if you would prefer to use them.



I encountered the spin of death on mission take off and landing and had to disable ground collisions to make the single pilot campaign playable. You will still most definately know when you've landed badly, " boompsa daisy.... its enough to make you wEEP" the flight crew seagent said.

Fartiles are sorely missed in rowanbob which improved distant terrain in bob2. A setting to position the horizon between near and far settings was introduced by one of the rowanbob bdg patches and I've set this up in the included Bdg.txt file. More info is to be found in the readme.

There are other issues that I address in the readme and hopefully there are some veterans of rowanbob who still visit the forum that could give some tips on how to improve things further.



Rowanbob patched to 0.99(included) works on my win764 system, with compatability set to winxpsp2.

GET MOD HERE: https://www.mediafire.com/file/7zml7a1n ... OD.7z/file


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As far as I know nobody supports or sells this retro title and the source code is freely available on the net, so I am providing a link to a free version on this retro game archive.

https://www.old-games.com/download/6503 ... of-britain

There are two download options, fast(you pay) or slow(free), and it is slow. I tested it to see if it works and it indicated the dowNload duration as 18 hours.

It will probably have a crack exe which you will not have to use as the BDG patches will replace the original exe file.


$$$$$I have in the past downloaded retro titles from this site and have had no problems, it's up to you to investigate and use your own discretion.$$$$$$



YOU'll find mig alley and flying corp here, some titles are packaged with dosbox.

Installation of rowanbob and graphics mod is addressed in the readme.

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Interchanging between rowanbob and bob2 versions on the same hard drive.
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rowanbob and bob2 cannot be installed on the same hdd due to registry conflicts, but there is a way to interchange between the two quickly without losing your favourite settings or having to re-install your favourite mods.

Remove your bob2 directory to a backup folder, not copy and paste, but move it. Now uninstall in the usual way. You will probably get a message stating that files are missing, ignore and continue. This is the quickest way to uninstall bob2 and it's registry entries. Install rowanbob on the c drive or in a games folder on the c drive.

To re-install bob2 go thru the same uninstall process for rowanbob as you did with bob2.



install bob2 and patch it to your favourite version that you backed up, this is to avoid registry conflicts between versions.

Delete the new bob2 main directory and replace it with your backed up one.

You "may" have to reset your resolution and reselect your joystick in conrtols and re_allocate functions such as pitch, throttle and pov to mouse, joystick and keyboard on the "control settings" facing page(very easy), but all of your joystick and keyboard key configurations will be preserved, as well as bdg, savegames and mods.


I have at least 4 different bob versions backed up on my hdd and with practice can quickly interchange between them without losing anything..


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33lima3
Senior Airman
Posts: 196
Joined: 11 Dec 2018, 14:48

Re: GRAPHIC MOD FOR ORIGINAL ROWAN BOB

Post by 33lima3 »

WOW! That looks brilliant!

I still have the original 'big box' version of Rowan's BoB (and of FCG and MA) so will probably give this a go!
SimHQ Battle of Britain II screenshots thread: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4481941/1
CombatAce Mission Reports: https://combatace.com/forums/forum/307-mission-reports/

rogeroger
Staff Sergeant
Posts: 271
Joined: 13 Aug 2016, 15:04

Re: GRAPHIC MOD FOR ORIGINAL ROWAN BOB

Post by rogeroger »

Thanks 33Lima3, I'm working on a similar aircraft reskin mod for Bob2.

rogeroger
Staff Sergeant
Posts: 271
Joined: 13 Aug 2016, 15:04

Re: GRAPHIC MOD FOR ORIGINAL ROWAN BOB

Post by rogeroger »

A particular cloud shape has a hard outline.
Replace it with this shape.
Place the ".dds" files in the Mskmap16 folder, copy and replace.
https://www.mediafire.com/file/4awh1q8a ... ob.7z/file


Yessterday I landed at Northweald and discovered that the "d type hangar" still had its old texture. Place ".pcx" file in IMAGEMAP folder.
New "d type hangar" texture here:https://www.mediafire.com/file/n188b63k ... pe.7z/file

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JJB17463rdBombGroup
Senior Master Sergeant
Posts: 2042
Joined: 24 May 2004, 22:28

Re: GRAPHIC MOD FOR ORIGINAL ROWAN BOB

Post by JJB17463rdBombGroup »

Fantastic I luckily also have the original Rowan's Battle of Britain in the Retail Box.
:D
Son of a U.S.A.A.F. 15th Air Force 463rd bomb group 772nd squadron B17 pilot.
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rogeroger
Staff Sergeant
Posts: 271
Joined: 13 Aug 2016, 15:04

Re: GRAPHIC MOD FOR ORIGINAL ROWAN BOB

Post by rogeroger »

Rowanbob does not have fartiles like bob2 which results in the distant horizon terrain rendering as unsightly flat colours when the horizon view distant factor setting is higher than 0.6.

0.53 or 0.6 are optimum view distant factor settings which obscures the distant flat colours.

Unfortunately when you activate the map(M) and exit back to the cockpit, the horizon distance defaults to 1.00 causing the flat colours to appear.

A way to get around this problem is to activate the radio key(R), press 5, then 6 which will result in the controller supplying home base co-ordinates. This will also result in the horizon distance changing back to 0.6 if that was your preferred setting, very weird I know.

It's best to only use the map for checking your, or the enemy's position. Any other fiddling with the radio commands might nullify the above horizon fix for that session.

rogeroger
Staff Sergeant
Posts: 271
Joined: 13 Aug 2016, 15:04

Re: GRAPHIC MOD FOR ORIGINAL ROWAN BOB

Post by rogeroger »

This is a texture and sound update. Brighter terrain, tree, ME109 and spitfire textures. Edited cockpit sight texture for raf. Raf and luft engine sounds ported from bob2. Edited a few of the other textures as well.

get it here:https://www.mediafire.com/file/mszaw355 ... E1.7z/file


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rogeroger
Staff Sergeant
Posts: 271
Joined: 13 Aug 2016, 15:04

Re: GRAPHIC MOD FOR ORIGINAL ROWAN BOB

Post by rogeroger »

alternate city textures, place in landmap2 folder, copy and replace.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/wkfpl1igy ... od.7z/file
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