Ground crews?

[Gryphonne]

I've always felt that flight sims lack a "soul", no matter how much radio traffic there is, or ships or tanks moving, it just seems very "synthetic". Is there any chance you guys will include some random ground crews working on stationary planes at the airbase or crews running away as soon as the air raid siren goes off. Even some infantry movement?

 

This doesn't have to be extremely detailed at all, but would add so much more to an already good looking sim. On another note, are you guys updating all the aircraft models to the Etendard standard? I really hope so, it's nice to have a uniform sim where every (flyable) aircraft receives the same amount of attention.

 

Regards,

 

Gryph

[+Dante-JT]

I've always felt that flight sims lack a "soul", no matter how much radio traffic there is, or ships or tanks moving, it just seems very "synthetic". Is there any chance you guys will include some random ground crews working on stationary planes at the airbase or crews running away as soon as the air raid siren goes off. Even some infantry movement?

 

Indeed, all this is currently being developed. Check the small test video below, it uses the current models from the flight sim, including the terrain and troops:

http://www.thunder-works.com/troops.zip

(download, uncompress .zip file to watch in Media Player, WM9 codec)

 

Convincing infantry representation is essential in this 1982 campaign. Since it's character modelling and animation, over the same code-base, we'll add also ground crew and carrier deck crews too. This is all depending on time and budget (if/when raised), if all planned features are implemented JT will be a remarkably flight sim. It's all subject to time and budget as said before, because tecnical skills of our team members are more than capable of delivering all that, as proven so far. ;)

 

On another note, are you guys updating all the aircraft models to the Etendard standard? I really hope so, it's nice to have a uniform sim where every (flyable) aircraft receives the same amount of attention.

 

They will be, at least the flyable. Skyhawk being next.

[SkorpioN]

Fantastic video!, too short but excellent recreated scene

 

Saludos!

[Gryphonne]

Indeed, all this is currently being developed. Check the small test video below, it uses the current models from the flight sim, including the terrain and troops:

http://www.thunder-works.com/troops.zip

(download, uncompress .zip file to watch in Media Player, WM9 codec)

 

Convincing infantry representation is essential in this 1982 campaign. Since it's character modelling and animation, over the same code-base, we'll add also ground crew and carrier deck crews too. This is all depending on time and budget (if/when raised), if all planned features are implemented JT will be a remarkably flight sim. It's all subject to time and budget as said before, because tecnical skills of our team members are more than capable of delivering all that, as proven so far. ;)

They will be, at least the flyable. Skyhawk being next.

 

Thank you for your quick reply :D I am truly impressed!! Are those infantry models real ingame models? The sky in that video also looks extremely convincing!

 

What plans do you have guys have for the shaders? I can remember an old video of a Pucara where the environment looked brilliant. Any idea on introducing those again?

 

With multiplayer (coop) in, I am sure this is going to be one of the best, if not, _the_ best flight sim I've ever played!

 

Regards,

 

Gryphon

[+Dante-JT]

Thank you for your quick reply :D I am truly impressed!! Are those infantry models real ingame models? The sky in that video also looks extremely convincing!

 

Yes, they are indeed ingame 3D models. Quite low poly (1100 polys), relying a lot on good textures - not really over the top models for a flight sim because during taxi and take-off from argentinean airbases, specially in the occupied isles (BAM Malvinas, BAM Condor), we'll see many soldiers around very close range, guarding the AAA near the runways. The overcast sky at low alt will be skydome texture, then for high alt flight over the cover we'll use the layered cloud effect seem in other sims.

 

 

What plans do you have guys have for the shaders? I can remember an old video of a Pucara where the environment looked brilliant. Any idea on introducing those again?

This is quite important despite we keep pushing them towards end of project as sometimes we consider them just "eyecandy", but I know it is not entirely true - playing other flight sim recently I noticed how great was the depth perception looking over its shader waters, improves gameplay indeed. We did trials with the Torque Shader Engine/Atlas Terrain last year, water effects were great, as well as the overall lighting, the problem that arrived was the z-buffer control, for a flight sim we must have strict z-buffer control or else we have extremely annoying z-buffer artifacts when flying at high alt (edges of z-buffer far plane), in other words, it looked great at low alt, but at high alt we just get an annoying flicking effect in the coastlines, runways and other sensitive parts of the enviroment.

Our homebrew 3D engine handles this very well, no z-buffer flicker anymore in any altitude, it just needs us to slot in some advanced shaders, should not be a problem as any game nowadays have them. :)

 

 

With multiplayer (coop) in, I am sure this is going to be one of the best, if not, _the_ best flight sim I've ever played!

 

Thanks! :)