what am I doing now?

[andersblume 0]

the video looks great

 

are u going to include 2D cockpits (Falcon 4 style)? It will be quite difficult to check all the nessesary gauges if u have to move around in the cockpit with the mouse... I guess

Edited November 28, 2004 by andersblume

[scary_pigeon 0]

well you can use the hat switch instead of the mouse..

 

..what might happen is we'll do something a little like IL2 - along the bottom of the screen print essential flight information like alt - speed, head and possibly rise rate.

[HawkHums 0]

Hey I dont mind if you go it alone or not. Thing is Im from South Africa so would I be able to get the game. (Probably a stupid question)

I would hate it if yo guys finish and I cant get my hands on it !!

 

But I suppose I could get it off the net ?!?

 

I would like to suggest something, not something needed just a thought.

H2O effects.

 

First:

Lets say its raining and you in the cockpit ready to take off. You will see the rain droping on the canopy(running downward) Then when release brakes to take off, as the plane reaches the higher speeds the rain slowly moves in an upward arc till it goes horizontal, untill the aircraft is going fast enough that when hit by a drop, water has no visual effect.

Dont know if that expains it well enough ??

 

Second:

You flighing a Dagger over the ocean at about 100 foot above sea level. there would be a wake behind the aircraft very cool effect and just hell of a fun thing to do. (This is even caused by jet flow from slower planes flighing low and pulling up steap.) OR a harrier hovering over the water.

 

The two most antisipated games IMO.

Jet Thunder & Oblivion.

[scary_pigeon 0]

Hey I dont mind if you go it alone or not. Thing is Im from South Africa so would I be able to get the game. (Probably a stupid question)

I would hate it if yo guys finish and I cant get my hands on it !!

 

But I suppose I could get it off the net ?!?

 

brilliant, its always a moral booster to see that people are eagre for us to finish.

 

I do like the idea of having a download option. I think all developers/publishers should do this.

 

I've seens some simple but effective rain effects for the first time the otherday in that flightsim show.. but for some reason at first my eye was confused and thought it was a screensaver on a grey background - and that the moving dots were tiny wilderbeast! - but then I got it and though, 'oh. we could do that.'

 

and the sea harrier - it has a windscreen wiper.

[Mothman 0]

Hey I dont mind if you go it alone or not. Thing is Im from South Africa so would I be able to get the game. (Probably a stupid question)

I would hate it if yo guys finish and I cant get my hands on it !!

 

But I suppose I could get it off the net ?!?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I live in the US and i purchased a game not published in the US from a UK e-commerce store. It got here in less than 1 week. Worth the little wait: www.game.net.

 

I bet they'll be selling this one. :)

Edited November 29, 2004 by Mothman

[scary_pigeon 0]

well what I've been doing so far.

 

I've come across an FPS problem. I've been unable to so far fix it.

 

it is odd.

 

One version of the code it runs at >60fps (something to do with my monitor being LCD seems to often make this a limit - the video you see, that version runs at that speed)

 

now I've been creating a new version to do more clever things, as limited as it is, it runs at <20fps and as far as I can tell, no more objects are being displayed. it is really strange.

 

thought I'd add some more before bed.

 

 

I've written a bitmap text thing into the engine. Will be able to place such text anywhere at any orientation - so will work well for HUD text I believe.

 

which raises a bit of question..

 

What about HUD's?

 

sometimes people want to use a wider field of view - but HUD details might be too small to read.. perhaps instead we might enlarge features slightly to make them more readable at wider angle views?

 

this is similar to how cockpit struts are made thinner to reduce their obstructiveness to a more real life level - that we have two eyes so struts can be somwhat seen around.

 

or perhaps just essential info printing clearly at the bottom of the screen might be enough?

 

Heading, Pitch, Speed, riserate, sliprate - some of these and/or more

Edited December 3, 2004 by scary_pigeon

[+Dante-JT 6]

I'm progressing with the SeaHarrier FRS.1 cockpit, now Blue Fox radar CRT and the RWR are in their respective places, but there's still a lot to paint/adjust (picture attached in this post)

[PG_Raptor 0]

Lookin good... lookin good!

[andersblume 0]

ARGH! IT LOOKS GREAT!!

[scary_pigeon 0]

just to let you now.

 

current focus is on HUD. trying to make it programmable. a few ways there are to do this. We will hopefully suceed in this soon.

 

it would be nice to find a way to easily configure new HUD's and things.

[Dagger 21]

Just how detailed are you planning on making the cockpits? I mean will they be like Falcon 4 and Janes F-18 with alot of buttons and switches or will be they be like say Strike Fighters and WoV with ketboard control of everything?Your cockpits look amazing so far.Just wondering what kind of learning curve there will be.

[+Dante-JT 6]

I spent the weekend thinking in how to do the HUD and I've ended doing the basic symbology of the SeaHarrier in NAV mode, I've packed all data and sent to Steve by email; heading scale and horizon scale will have to employ some clever programming tricks to scroll the strip, the rest I think is straightforward stuff. Now I'm polishing the rest of the SeaHarrier cockpit while I wait Steve's feedback on the HUD.

 

Dagger: interactive 3D cockpit is technically possible, I think it would be really great to have at least the Blue Fox radar buttons interactive, and maybe the NAVHARS, but as we're actively a small 'team' of just 2 developers (me and Steve) full time in the project while the rest of the JT team have other business too and make sporadic (although important) contributions to the project, I won't be pursuing a fully interactive cockpit as priority at this stage, first it would be nice to have at least a full intercept mission to be flown from start to end in the SeaHarrier with V/STOL, radar and weapons working, with the means and resources we have in hand.

[scary_pigeon 0]

currently doing HUD tests

 

this is occuring in a shell with a mock up HUD

 

what is occuring at the moment is that we're moving more and more towards scriptability of everything. I am going to sent keyboard, mouse and joystic events to be handleable by the script.

 

textures can be flipped, dials removed and added during script operation. this programability starts giving you ideas of what is doable - suddenly clickable cockpits and things become kind of obvious how to do technically.

 

 

you can see how we come across a bit of a problem that we'd brainlessly not thought of - well, id not thought of it anyway!

 

that only the ladder without numbers will work - numbers to represent pitch will have to be done another way using probably, the 3d font system thing I've written. as when upside down, 60 degrees will look like 09 degrees - which is just nutty.

 

but for now, we'll leave it be probably.

 

progress is a little slower than I liked - its christmas, and I have to do extra hours at my warlmart store.

Edited December 16, 2004 by scary_pigeon

[Dagger 21]

I'm just very happy that yall have taken on this daunting task.I'm glad to hear that I won't have to spend the first 10 mins of my flight just trying to do a ramp start.I for one am continually watching your progress reports as I'm sure everyone around is.GREAT job..my hats off to ya.

[scary_pigeon 0]

cheers :)

 

the positive vibes we get on these forums are valuable. at times it has kept us going when we've been fed up. just knowing people are clicking our site and things like that reminds us that we have promises to keep.

[Dagger 21]

just watched your video of your low level attack on the type 22.....you bomb as bad as I do,THANLS!! I don't feel so bad now,you just made me feel so much better about myself.

[scary_pigeon 0]

I think we were trying to miss it on purpose because at the time you would have expected to see the ship sink, but that wasnt included yet. (in some versions of our code that is now there in simplistic way - in the prototype, seed project- the campaign system, ships are set to sink under the water if the water if the hitpoints are breached)

 

which reminds me, sadly we continue to use hitpoints because we havent yet done proper armour modelling. We have correct collision detection, but not armour modelling yet.

 

the sort of broad approach I think that will be used here is that we will map the collision point into texture coordinate information. This will let the texture people on the project also create armour thickness textures.

 

I suppose its not perfect as such an approach doesnt model all the different armor types. I've read some baffling threads in wwii onlines forums about this sort of thing - But I think the approach will be good enough and a lot better than hitpoints.

 

pucaras seem pretty tough little aircraft. I'm not expert on aircraft capabilities but from what dante said, the pucara has decent armour, the skyhawk is pretty tough too and shots at very light angles are not going to do much damage.

 

anyway..

 

..i'll do a bit more programming then its bed.

[+Dante-JT 6]

Steve, with the screenshot you've took of the HUD, I wonder why it is so blurred in your computer? When I arrive home, I'll send you a picture of the HUD in my setup, it's crystal clear as it should be.

 

The thing of the upside down numbers in the horizon/pitch scale, no problem, this happens, you can see by my Harrier HUD photos I sent to you, the number stays level with the horizon scale and bank with it, the number '90' in the scale isn't usually represented, it ends on '85' as you can see if you play some jet flight sim there ;)

[Dagger 21]

I just thought I'd pass this along to you guys as I watched a show on Discovery Wings on the A-4.The pilots said the early models had their ECM suites in their bellies and they were told not to fire their cannons as this could cause damage to the electronics.It was a very interesting show.little"scooter"was a work horse in the skys of Vietnam.not sure what model was used in the era of this sim but just wanted to let you know.

[+Dante-JT 6]

I just thought I'd pass this along to you guys as I watched a show on Discovery Wings on the A-4.The pilots said the early models had their ECM suites in their bellies and they were told not to fire their cannons as this could cause damage to the electronics.It was a very interesting show.little"scooter"was a work horse in the skys of Vietnam.not sure what model was used in the era of this sim but just wanted to let you know.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

In Jet Thunder, you get argentine air force A-4B and A-4C Skyhawks, bought from the US then stripped of most american avionics, including the AN/APG-53A radar. These Skyhawks were called locally "A-4P". The argentinian navy "A-4Q" that were operated from 25 de Mayo carrier were essentially A-4B in white navy colors and with few local equipment added.

[Berkut RnR 0]

Steve, with the screenshot you've took of the HUD, I wonder why it is so blurred in your computer?  When I arrive home, I'll send you a picture of the HUD in my setup, it's crystal clear as it should be.

 

The thing of the upside down numbers in the horizon/pitch scale, no problem, this happens, you can see by my Harrier HUD photos I sent to you, the number stays level with the horizon scale and bank with it, the number '90' in the scale isn't usually represented, it ends on '85' as you can see if you play some jet flight sim there ;)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Where are these pics?

Can you post anything of them?

 

Cheers!

[scary_pigeon 0]

[MaXMhZ 0]

WOW

 

just reported in - but this is a sim I'm gonne get me !

 

Just don't EVER get a distributor! DO IT YOURSELF !

 

They will EAT your money and CLIP your wings !

 

;)

[scary_pigeon 0]

still just in the cockpit test shell

 

a simple movie of the HUD behavior

 

http://www.thunder-works.com/movies/hudtest.avi

 

we've not done this before so its a bit basic, in the past we just had a simple skyhawk gunsite.

 

dante continues to improve the cockpit at his end, my texture set and dial set isnt as complete as his. But i made this movie for the curious.

 

What i'm pleased with is the level of scriptability in how the HUD and cockpit behaves.

 

future things for the shell are to finalise ways to script key presses and other inputs also radar behaviour.

 

The levers and things are supposed to move too, the nossle lever, the throttle, the pedals, the stick etc..

 

..and as for the stick, I see it has a rubbery thing at the base. not sure how that will look when it moves about.

Edited December 18, 2004 by scary_pigeon

[PG_Raptor 0]

Wow... I love the cockpit lighting!