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Falcon 4 Theater TDF Files

<theater>.TDF is a file which controls all sorts of theater directory information. This file (or files) should be located in the Theaters\<THEATER>\ directory along with the <theater>.TGA file optionally.

Please do not confuse “theater tdf” files into “terrainview tdf” files, they are completely different!

Any TDF files needs to listed in the “theater.lst” file located in your falcon root directory. This is for example one theater.lst file:

# list of all know theaters
terrdata\theaterdefinition\korea.tdf
terrdata\theaterdefinition\korea_2005.tdf
terrdata\theaterdefinition\eurowar.tdf
# PMC theaters
Theaters\Dogfight\Dogfight.tdf
Theaters\PMCKorea\PMCKorea.tdf
Theaters\DesertStorm256\desstorm256.tdf
Theaters\Nevada\Nevada1.tdf
Theaters\Nevada\Nevada2.tdf
Theaters\Nevada\Nevada3.tdf
Theaters\Nevada\Nevada4.tdf

If your <theater>.tdf is not listed in theater.lst file, then it won't appear in your falcon theater switcher list.

Here are the basic list of TDF configurable things:

# Nevada redflag1 TDF file
# shown in the pick list
name Nevada

# Title shown on theater page
desc Nellis, Nevada. Red Flag training. East vs West equipment, traditional Falcon 4 style campaigns.

# bitmap to display on theater page
bitmap Theaters\Nevada\nevada.tga

# in general, you can miss out most of these, and it
# will use the default, unless another theater changes it
# so probably best to put in explicitly.
# Where the campaign directory is
campaigndir Theaters\Nevada\campaign\redflag1

# where the terrain data is
terraindir Theaters\Nevada\terrdata

# where art is loaded from
artdir Theaters\Nevada

# movies
moviedir Theaters\Nevada

# uisounds
uisounddir sounds

# default objects
objectdir Theaters\Nevada\objects

# misc textures
misctexdir terrdata\misctex

# 3d object files
3ddatadir Theaters\nevada\objects

# minimum tacan channel
mintacan 70

# sounds dir
sounddir sounds

Command Reference for TDF file.

name

Is the name of the theater. This is linked into the <theater>.tdf file name too, for example the theater switcher modifies windows registry when changing theaters “curTheater” value, it adds this name variable there.

desc

Description of the theater, will appear on the theater switcher menu when clicked once.

bitmap

Its the <theater>.TGA logo file.

campaigndir

Directory for the campaign files. Please note that the campaign doesn't need to be “save”, it can be anything you want (of course no unsupported characters like spaces in file names etc).

terraindir

Directory where the “terrain”, “texture” and “weather” directories can be found. It doesn't need to be “terrdata”, same as campaigndir.

artdir

Directory where “art” directory can be found. Again this doesn't need to be “art” as thats the directory where we are pointing, so if you put “path\art” in here, then you have to have “path\art\art\” where the actual art directory sub dirs are placed. PMC theaters have unfortunately been using this “artart” buggy method long time but it will be fixed in the future. You don't have to make same mistake.

moviedir

Directory where the “movies” dir is placed. This is the campaign intro etc video movies.

uisounddir

User Interface sound dir (unfortunately we are unaware of its specific).

objectdir

Directory where the objects dir can be found. This is the main database of objects files.

misctexdir

Directory where the misctex directory can be found (dunno).

3ddatadir

Basically the same dir as objects dir on most Falcon installations. This is the dir for skins and textures.

mintacan

Minimum number of lowest TACAN channel. (dunno).

sounddir

Directory for normal sounds.

ziplistname

can specify a “ziplist.fil” for the theater and loads these zips instead.

As the ziplistODS.fil for example can link to any zip anywhere, you can for example link to Sky.zip and Weather.zip from the normal zips folder, but to Simdata.zip and tacrdata.zip from zipsODS folder.