Shoreline - how do I enable it?

[kevinvos]

Hi all, new member here.

Have checked all the various forums for info on Shoreline enabling (Outhouse, FlightSim, etc), but settled for this board as it's the most active yet.

So, does anybody know how to go about enabling the shoreline?  It looks pretty bad without it, and it's been a loooong time since I've played CFS3.

Runs great though now on my new rig , and since there'll be no CFS4 I may as well make the best out of this one.

[bzhyoyo]

Have checked all the various forums for info on Shoreline enabling (Outhouse, FlightSim, etc), but settled for this board as it's the most active yet.

You must be joking

[kevinvos]

Sorry, didn't mean active - I know that the outhouse was active, but it seems that during all the moves lately ALOT of valuable info in the 'old' pages was lost.  I was thinking more of the lack of info on the board, unless specifically asked for it.

I'll give that Terrains2 a shot, when I get all this other work going on out of the way .

Thanks for the help, I might just go check out the Outhouse more frequently, there does seem to be more activity.

[IndioBlack]

So let's get this straight then:

You install CFS3 properly as per instructions.
You patch up to their latest patch.
You run CFS3 config and accessing the overrides window, you note that "disable shoreline texture" is unticked.
When you go into the game, the shorelines are sharp edged.

Since there is no obvious shoreline texture, you then have to do some extra undocumented work that Microsoft doesn't like to tell you about.

You then go into CFS3 and find a folder called "Textures 2". Inside, you note that there is nothing there.

So you then have to put disc 2 in the drive, find a folder called "Terrains 2" and copy the items from there into your CFS3 "Terrains 2" folder, and now you get a shoreline?

How come Microsoft didn't want us to know about this?

[IndioBlack]

So the above solution would be real peachy if there was indeed a folder on the 2nd CFS3 disk called "Terrains 2". But there isn't.

Can someone take this saga a step further and tell us all exactly what files you do need from disk 2, and how you get them into the Terrains 2 folder of CFS3 in the correct format?

Some of you out there must have done this. I mean surely some of you do have shorelines showing, don't you?

[Woodlouse2002]

I think I've got shorelines. Can't really remember though... My first idea would be that it's overridden in the CFS3 config. If not then go looking for a file called "Textures 2" and not "Terrain 2". But then, without checking any of my facts I really am grasping at straws...

[Woodlouse2002]

Ok, forget everything I've just said.

My terrains2 folder contains the following:
cfs3hyl.zip
cfs3msh2.zip
and a .zx file for each of the above.

You can find these on CFS3 disc two in the cabinate file CAB8.

Let me know if it works.

[bzhyoyo]

It seems some people got lucky

[kevinvos]

Wow, you guys know your stuff!

Found it on CD2, in the zip file CAD8 - and now my shorelines work.

Thanks a bunch!

[IndioBlack]

Well we got there eventually, even though it felt like extracting teeth.

So let's go through the entire process once more so that we get it completely clear:

You install CFS3 properly as per instructions.  
You patch up to their latest patch.
You run CFS3 config and accessing the overrides window, and you note that "disable shoreline texture" is unticked.
When you go into the game, the shorelines are sharp edged. And when you go into CFS3 and look inside a folder called "terrains2", you find it is empty. All this tells you that you don't have textured shorelines as you should have.

Now that you know something is missing, you do the following:

You put CFS3 disc 2 in your drive, and find a folder called CAB8.CAB which is a winzip file. You copy that file somewhere onto your hard drive and then unzip it to somewhere useful where you can find it.

What you get when you unzip it is a folder called CAB8. Inside that folder is a folder called "terrains2"
Inside that folder are two more zip files called:
cfs3hyl.zip
cfs3msh2.zip
plus two.zx files which you can ignore.

You unzip the two zip files and then place their contents
into your CFS3 "terrains2" folder, and now you get a shoreline.

You don't get this trouble with CFS2!

Thanks everyone, I'll now go follow the instructions that I have collated from your several postings and see if it works.

[IndioBlack]

PS: Lack of shoreline - i.e that ugly straight line separating land and sea was one of the reasons that I felt that CFS3 was one of the ugliest Flight Sims around.
Let's see if this changes my mind.

[IndioBlack]

Well my new shorelines look gorgeous, so thanks very much. It does make an enormous difference to the visual effect.

One thing I note though, I unzipped the two files
cfs3hyl.zip
cfs3msh2.zip
and placed the new folders in Terrains2

However, Woodlouse2002 clearly says they remain as zips in his terrains2 folder.

The other thing is that bzhyoyo says that the zx files are created when CFS3 starts. I notice that they haven't been created in my terrains2 folder yet.

Does anyone know their purpose? Like do they tell the zip files to unzip when you start CFS3?

Learning all the time - as Benny Hill used to say.

[Mathias]

Yep IB, do not unzip them, just copy them into the terrains folder as is.
CFS3 will write a binary file with extension zx next time you launch it.

[bzhyoyo]

Did we tell you to unzip them ?  ;)

Anyway, you make it sound as if it was much more complex to solve than it really is. I doubt your cfs2 is stock and I'm sure you have installed add-ons for it, which was surely as much trouble as this fix : copy and paste are clearly not complex operations.

You have a right to be pissed at Microsoft, but I repeat : you're part of an unlucky minority - most of us had shorelines from the beginning.

[IndioBlack]

No, you didn't tell me to unzip them, but it does work that way.

No, I am not making it sound as if it's complex to solve. I'm trying to clarify exactly what you do to fix it, so next time some poor sucker asks how do you enable shorelines, he doesn't have to draw it out of everybody piece by piece. The trouble with you people here who know everything, is that you often omit the detail, because you think it's obvious. The Simouthouse bunch were even worse - if you read their thread, you still don't know how to do it.
To dumb idiots like me, it's not obvious, and when I follow your instructions, I usually discover something that you haven't mentioned, and then I have to ask about that part. Far better to have the full instruction in one piece.

I get the impression that if some of you were telling someone how to defuse a bomb, you would tell them: "Cut the red wire, after cutting the blue wire."
I think it's obvious how you should tell that, but people just don't think.


Yes I am pissed off at Microsoft. They should have supported this problem.
How do you know how many people didn't have shorelines in the Sim? I didn't know I didn't have shorelines until somebody queried how to enable them. I just thought it was Microsoft turning out a very ugly Sim because they couldn't be arsed to do better. They have form there.

Nothing personal. Thanks for all your help.