what am I doing now?

[scary_pigeon 0]

the purpose of this is to let you know that even when there are not new movies and screenshots - things are still being done!

 

this last week and a bit - has basically been allocated to making the system much more modable - certainly for the team.

 

previously the engine has been more of a test shell - with this source code, I hard code the spawn position of the aircraft and the other objects in the scene, then we test the Flight Model - test other things like guns, bombs, AI - stuff like that.

 

Even the aircraft was hardcoded and full of emerging legacy from other test shells. The Pucara class had transmuted into skyhawk behaviour and appearence and all filenames were weird - mirage this, mirage that, etc.

 

so we've been reorganising the files and making it more general - to work towards a fully script based approach of setting up the scenes/missions.

 

Other things that need doing include scripts to place weopon pilons. this was another hard coded test with the bomb.

 

That is mostly done.

 

More recently I've working on improving the athestics of the damage model. My favourate flightsim is IL2:FB. It was always very satifying to knock off a wing with the cannons. This is what we want to see and do in the Jet Thunder series.

 

It will possibly take a few more days to do. - hopefully we will be able to then make another little movie and screenshots to show this occuring.

 

Next we'll probably be working on basic carrier take off and landings. With that we should have basically enough for an argentine carrier lauched raid on a british warship mission.

 

-- but shortly - im off to my job at walmart. A dissapointment today. I missed the courier who had my new GFX card.

Edited August 18, 2004 by scary_pigeon

[Baco-ECv56 0]

You are aiming to IL-2´s Damage Model?

WOW now that would be totally awsom...

 

Thanks for the up date mate.

Good luck, and please please watch out for those buses man...

we are counting on you ;).

[ViperBR 0]

Tanks for the SitRep pigeon.

 

Keep up with the good job.

 

About Videos and Images, you know, I can host them for you.

Can you post some new SS?

 

Cya all!

 

Viper

[scary_pigeon 0]

You are aiming to IL-2´s Damage Model?

WOW now that would be totally awsom...

 

Thanks for the up date mate.

Good luck, and please please watch out for those buses man...

we are counting on you ;).

today, I manage to avoid being hit by a SUV. serves me right for cycling round traffic island the wrong way.

 

 

viperBR what is an SS?

 

your offer to help hosting future movies is important. our bandwidth gets flooded when we make news.

Edited August 21, 2004 by scary_pigeon

[ViperBR 0]

SS = Screenshot.

 

If you need any image to be hosted also, ask Dante to call me.

[+Dante-JT 6]

You are aiming to IL-2´s Damage Model?

WOW now that would be totally awsom..

 

As far as Jet sims go, SFP1 and Lomac had also pretty good damage too, so it's a must to at least follow their example with wings falling off and individual hit points for each part of the aircraft:

 

Kudos to Thirdware and EagleDynamics for their accomplishments! This is a really tough part of the development of a flight sim. Lets hope we manage to accomplish a good DM in JT.

[scary_pigeon 0]

hope?

 

it is certain. this is practically a non issue for me. easy - but fiddly at the moment. sort of like counting beads coding wise.

[+Dante-JT 6]

hope?

it is certain. this is practically a non issue for me. easy

 

This makes me feel alliviated B)

 

The next plane that I'll split in parts will be the Sea Harrier - don't forget that the final models will have at least 2 parts for each wing (excluding the control surfaces, usually 2 or 3 of them, making a total of 4 or 5 parts for each wing) - you're fiddlying now with a simplified version of the Skyhawk model. Make it modular enough so a model can somehow 'grow' its number of parts and hit boxes.

[scary_pigeon 0]

indeed, this sort of programming is borrrrrring. time for dante to do some programming, all that he write above about it being split in this part and that part... he'll be doing all that in a script :) the system will be rather flexible in this way.

[scary_pigeon 0]

well this stage took a little longer to get to.

 

a new script based approach is being used here of arbitary complexity - I've only so far bothered to attach the wings, the tailpiece and the fuselage. there is more to do - apply new collision detection routines and some other things.

 

 

 

[scary_pigeon 0]

i sent the test exe for the new aircraft display routines that are in development to dante so he could expand the example script.

 

here is the result with an experiment of my own. Using the landscape detail texture on the aircraft as a test. the idea is to make it look interesting.

 

 

[scary_pigeon 0]

another nights coding:

 

previously, we have had moving parts in the model of our aircraft. but for a period we stopped using them for a bunch of technical reasons that I've forgotten. the moving parts were experimental and were really for when we were showing the mirage elevons at work.

 

so everything had elevons - and i just commented out the code for that...

 

...but now its back and done properly - script programmed. This is quite pleasing we were stuck with other throwbacks previously like stop go animation for gear - terrible.

 

 

dante encourages me to stop playing with some aspects of the special effects and get on with the functionality - like the moving parts and further gameplay. i do enjoy the pretty aspects of it and wish to re-implement pretty lighting. In our previous screenshots it can be seen that it looked like we really knew what we doing:

 

 

the specular (highlight) reflections are quite nice and quite realistic looking. But this was done in a software way using the correct maths but obviously slow. Terribly slow. Now we use opengl lighting but have so far not quite managed to obtain the same quality. Though I'm certain we will and I look forward to adding subtly applied reflection maps.

[+Fates 63]

Does the transparency of the prop planar diameter change with viewing angle? and are their specular highlight on it as well?

[scary_pigeon 0]

Does the transparency of the prop planar diameter change with viewing angle? and are their specular highlight on it as well?

no.

 

this had not been thought of till now.

[PG_Raptor 0]

Does the transparency of the prop planar diameter change with viewing angle? and are their specular highlight on it as well?

I thought of that same thing earlier. Glad someone brought it to their attention :D

[scary_pigeon 0]

its not hard to do.

[scary_pigeon 0]

the last week or so has been focused for me on our new fangled compound object system in development, investigating possible script languages for inclusion.

 

as things have developed: more moving parts added in and more to come - codewise its simple, just working with dante at the moment.

 

Other art types would have freaked out how we do it. what?!?! has been the response of some that I remember. the last triangle in the object acts as the pivot axis. This sort of approach is quite hackish and upsets the types of people who do strikefighter mods i think...

 

...anyway I've had a bit of a headache on this recently: now that we have bits that can fall off. should think about collision detection. In the end to maintain speed we are going to try using a much simpler object with which to test for collisions.

 

Still puzzled about armour modelling - weather or not to bother. simple hitpoints might surfice especially in the interim - so long as rediculous things arent allowed to happen - like tracer rounds sinking capital ships.

 

if necessary though I have plans to implement such measures.

 

-----

 

now that I've figured out how to embed LUA code in a C program there are some interesting possibilities.

 

One possibility that interests me is putting the FM in LUA code- this will be slow and nasty but I think it will aide prototyping. LUA of course is an interpreter language - a virtual machine runs within the game.

 

LUA is an easy language to get to grips with and there might be opportunity for others to assist development of the fm beyond what I have written.

[+Dante-JT 6]

A little/short progress update here, the Type 42 destroyer now wear a texture:

 

In the meanwhile, Steve is starting to integrate damage modelling.

[scary_pigeon 0]

 

hurah. it works.

 

this is just in a test shell. it ought to be fairly straightforward now to insert these new compound object models with fancy damage model into the developing game.

 

The shell lets us selectively damage one the many components that make up the model as well as rip bits off that then fall away.

[+Dante-JT 6]

B) :D I've damaged my aircraft more:

B) :D :P

 

Next step for me, is to add .tga alpha-channel detail, so we can have damage looking like if a giant mouse has been at it - like the wingtip of this real Phantom:

[+Dante-JT 6]

Following in my alpha-channel .tga experiments, here a bullet-shattered canopy plexiglass:

 

 

I realize that I have to enhance our default Jet Thunder pilot 3D model, it was made by myself, he's starting to look really ugly compared with the rest of the graphics, that's why he's partially hidden by the canopy frame in the pic Probably in next revisions, he will feature the correct flight wear of an 1982 argie air force pilot - the same too for british, Fleet Air Arm and RAF, not just this generic clothes texture I've rushed.

[Mitja 0]

Dear Jet Thunder developers,

 

you're doing an amazing job. Keep up the good work!

I read somewhere that you're writing it in C language. Is it true? And if it is, why do you prefer C and not some other language?

 

 

Thanks,

Mitja

[scary_pigeon 0]

C/C++ is pretty much the standard - that is one reason. A standard snowballs and you get lots of well developped 3rd party API's available like SDL, OpenGL, FMOD etc.

 

C is also fast. Its also the language I'm most profficient in. which in reality is the main reason why C is being used - but I chose to learn C because of its use already as standard with regards to games.

 

We are experimenting with script languages too though - lua embedded in our C app.

[Mothman 0]

What do you guys use for 3D modelling? Maya?

[Berkut RnR 0]

I need more news!!!!

 

Please!!!!!!

 

:D :D