what am I doing now?

[+Dante-JT 6]

Out of interest do you have access to any current or ex-Harrier / Mirage / A4 pilots for your flight model testing?

 

Regards, Spinner

 

 

Yes, Sea Harrier FRS.1 and Mirage III.

 

Btw, while Steve fix the height code (colision to ground) I did 2 videos testing a located-camera:

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

of course, this SHAR hover model needs tuning: too strong RCS, specially yaw. And its still lacking all expected effects (heat blur, particles kicking up from ground, foreign objects ingestion ;)

[AWL_Spinner 0]

Good stuff, and a fantastic job on those two videos, thanks for posting! The audio is coming along nicely too, it seems!

 

As as aside, I notice on some of the zoom shots the ground clutter appears not to fade with distance at the same rate as the terrain it's standing on - this seems to be a condition that occurs in a lot of sims, is it hard to get round?

 

 

Regards, Spinner

Edited December 18, 2005 by AWL_Spinner

[scary_pigeon 0]

Good stuff, and a fantastic job on those two videos, thanks for posting! The audio is coming along nicely too, it seems!

 

As as aside, I notice on some of the zoom shots the ground clutter appears not to fade with distance at the same rate as the terrain it's standing on - this seems to be a condition that occurs in a lot of sims, is it hard to get round?

 

 

Regards, Spinner

 

this definately shows possible benefit of showing dev stuff in progress. i've not noticed anything like that. i wonder if fog is switched off for these objects, or maybe its fine and its illusion type thing. i dont actually have much of the ground clutter its on dantes machine.

 

edit: thought about it a bit. maybe is is product of in games the fact that everything is very zoomed out and wideangle.

 

it means that when you look into distance from a vantage point the difference in distance could be 40km - so large rocks and stuff that you visually see as in the distance might be a lot nearer than you perceive them?

Edited December 18, 2005 by scary_pigeon

[+Dante-JT 6]

Good stuff, and a fantastic job on those two videos, thanks for posting! The audio is coming along nicely too, it seems!

As as aside, I notice on some of the zoom shots the ground clutter appears not to fade with distance at the same rate as the terrain it's standing on - this seems to be a condition that occurs in a lot of sims, is it hard to get round?

Regards, Spinner

 

 

Probably it's caused by the fact that the rocks are darker than the ground they're standing, so as the distant ground goes grey due to fog, distant rocks go grey too but a darker grey for being in a darker color initially...the only imediate work around would be to have clutter never much darker than the ground it stands.

 

But they seem to be fogged (and in near future, LOD'ed) accordingly, check the rock outcrop and nearby rocks to the left of HUD below, they're many miles away:

 

At the moment, I'm very busy working in the modelling of Port Stanley (Puerto Argentino) city, the most important buildings (Governor's House, Cathedral at Ross Street, Upland Goose Hotel, etc) but I am not going to post pics here now - let the pics go for our website news update I will do near Xmas day :)

 

In the meanwhile, I'm trying to persuade Steve to let we integrate some shader assets from a mate from other proj - so we may have finally some complete pics of Port Stanley, its harbors and jettys over shinny reflective water ;)

[Phlerp 0]

I just stumbled on this:

http://www.ukar.co.uk/board/ikonboard.cgi?;act=ST;f=9;t=9880

Might not be new to you, but I thought it would be interresting to know how the terrain looks like for real to compare to your simulator.

[+Dante-JT 6]

I just stumbled on this:

http://www.ukar.co.uk/board/ikonboard.cgi?;act=ST;f=9;t=9880

Might not be new to you, but I thought it would be interresting to know how the terrain looks like for real to compare to your simulator.

 

 

How familiar :) Although the real one is much more brown-ish than ours, so I have to tune down all that green shades left. The Falklands/Malvinas are notorious for the (almost) lack of vegetation.

[SkorpioN 0]

I have some news about the new skins/textures of the models; for example

there was an A4-B (P) C-222 Skyhawk of the FAA that for some reasons never

received a scheme of camouflage and was used with the light gray, base

painting, so the pilots gave it the nickname of "El Tordillo" (a gray

horse); it was also very common that the different models of Argentine

airplanes received in the wings and the drift a blue or yellow strip.

 

In these links there is interesting information about the schemes used by

the Skyhawks, as much of the FAA as of the Navy:

 

http://www.modelosaescala.com.ar/file-06/C...20&%20Marcs.htm

 

http://www.skyhawk.org/2E/argentina/c5-argentina.htm

 

http://www.skyhawk.org/2E/argentina/3rdnavy-argentina.htm

 

http://www.histarmar.com.ar/Armada%20Argen...Naval/CB-A4.htm

 

http://hsfeatures.com/features04/a4cppds_1.htm

 

For a short time now, three books of excellent quality related to the IAI

Dagger and IA-58 Pucara are on sale in Argentina. They contain beautiful

full color pictures that surely will be very helpful for you, in addition to

complete information, technical as much as historical:

 

http://www.fuerzasnavales.com/dagger.htm

 

http://www.saorbats.com.ar/saorbats_frameset.htm

 

Finally, I would like to ask you if there is already available the A4-Q

armed with bombs MK-82 "Snake Eyes", weapon very used by the naval Skyhawks

in anti-ship missions.

 

 

 

EDIT:

I find a new site whit interesting info about A-4B C-222 "El Tordillo"

 

http://aircraftresourcecenter.com/Fea1/201...nton/Fea201.htm

http://modelersite.com/PDF_Fotos/PartII/SkyhawkC222.htm

 

 

Saludos!

Edited January 7, 2006 by SkorpioN

[scary_pigeon 0]

nice models i sometimes wish i could do stuff like that.

 

today though, i've added contrails.

 

 

i think this sort of effect is important as trails give visual cue. specially important perhaps with the sort of restricted screen view issue in these sorts of games. maybe for game purposes the prominance of contrails could be enhanced to unobtrucably enhance player situational awareness - different than say icons.

Edited December 30, 2005 by scary_pigeon

[+Dante-JT 6]

today though, i've added contrails.

i think this sort of effect is important as trails give visual cue. specially important perhaps with the sort of restricted screen view issue in these sorts of games. maybe for game purposes the prominance of contrails could be enhanced to unobtrucably enhance player situational awareness - different than say icons.

 

Well said, scary_pigeon. In jet sims, I was used to wait for wingtip contrails while tracking enemy aircraft visually - when the wingtip contrails are clearly visible means the plane is entering guns range and I should try to place the gun reticle between contrails to track it properly when passing from lag pursuit to pure pursuit - a useful and realistic cue indeed.

 

Finally, I would like to ask you if there is already available the A4-Q

armed with bombs MK-82 "Snake Eyes"

 

Yes SkorpioN, all the Skyhawks (including the Q) will do a comeback soon because I'm reworking their cockpit functions with the newer Lua approach currently used for cockpits. Got already the control stick, gear lever and throttle lever animated working like the ones in current SeaHarrier cockpit, also now I should be able to add the altimeter numbers (a counter left of the needle center) and some other instruments that have these sort of number counters.

[SkorpioN 0]

Yes SkorpioN, all the Skyhawks (including the Q) will do a comeback soon because I'm reworking their cockpit functions with the newer Lua approach currently used for cockpits. Got already the control stick, gear lever and throttle lever animated working like the ones in current SeaHarrier cockpit, also now I should be able to add the altimeter numbers (a counter left of the needle center) and some other instruments that have these sort of number counters

 

Great!

 

Now, we just have to wait for an screenshots update and a new year's gift video ;)

 

Saludos!

[Bard 0]

nice models i sometimes wish i could do stuff like that.

 

today though, i've added contrails.

 

 

i think this sort of effect is important as trails give visual cue. specially important perhaps with the sort of restricted screen view issue in these sorts of games. maybe for game purposes the prominance of contrails could be enhanced to unobtrucably enhance player situational awareness - different than say icons.

 

can you make sure that contrails are visible from LONG distances - too frequently in sims contrails are only visible when you're also able to see the aircraft where you should be able to see the contrails from huge distances away.

[+Dante-JT 6]

can you make sure that contrails are visible from LONG distances - too frequently in sims contrails are only visible when you're also able to see the aircraft where you should be able to see the contrails from huge distances away.

 

Yes, I've checked it - at the moment, yes the contrails are visible from really huge distances way before the plane is a visible dot - maybe it's even overdone as these planes weren't so 'dirt', engine wise. Anyway, then we should work in high altitude white contrails - these should be really visible from miles away, and stay much longer in the sky.

[scary_pigeon 0]

can anybody suggest a webspace provider? when dante puts the movies online they kill the site each time and our useless provider ignores our emails. so our website is going to go down in a day or so till the end of the month :( - sorry.

[Shadowcat 0]

Best not to host the videos locally, then. There are a number of services which will host files for free, so upload to them and just link to them from your own site.

 

I don't know all of the limitations that each of these sites might have, but you will almost certainly meet your needs with one or other of them.

 

RapidShare

I'll Host It

Filegone

Putfile

...or just peruse this list :)

 

Some sites will delete files that have not been downloaded for a certain number of days. As a workaround you probably need only hit them momentarily, and could do so by opening a set of bookmark tabs, then cancelling each download in turn, which would be a small task to remember to do once or twice a month. Paid memberships probably eliminate this sort of issue, OTOH.

 

Of course if the problem is really only in the month or two after a new video is released, then you could probably safely revert to local hosting after the other site has handled the bulk of the traffic for you, and not need to worry about keeping tabs on a large number of exernal files.

Edited January 24, 2006 by Shadowcat

[scary_pigeon 0]

well we do pay a yearly sub. but they keep having crashes and such. im thinking of maybe moving host or reducing bandwidth - for example, using bittorrent to distribute movies. its probably viable because quite a lot of people are downloading them at once.

[+Dante-JT 6]

Updating this dev log, we're been busy with some 'upgrading' of JT models to 2006/2007 standards. This means more details, more parts for damage modelling, and specially higher res textures, that Marcelo 'Marcfighter' is providing with great results.

 

Some screenshots I've took (still on my slightly ancient pc, notice the fps), they're of a rare very high altitude kind :) One of the nice improvements done recently, is that Steve somehow reduced to almost none the z-buffer flicking we had in the rock formations and ground clutter at this distant/height, so JT is pretty solid visually now and also running as a full native Win32app:

 

 

[EAGLE 18 FLT 0]

Thanks for the update! Keep up the good work lads

[SkorpioN 0]

 

good work!!! nice A-4 skin

 

Saludos!

[ECV56_PaulTen 0]

well we do pay a yearly sub. but they keep having crashes and such. im thinking of maybe moving host or reducing bandwidth - for example, using bittorrent to distribute movies. its probably viable because quite a lot of people are downloading them at once.

Scary and Dante, whenever you are planning to release a video you can certainly ask the ECV 56 Cóndor webmasters to help you setting a mirror for the file. I have some "influences" there since I'm a former webmaster and I can convince them to mirror a video of this sim.

Anyway, you can allways use sites like Rapidshare and similars.

 

Regards.

[Aerny 0]

Try Vevida

www.vevida.nl

 

They are incredibly stable and trustworthy.

 

 

Arnold

 

PS I can help you if you want, for it is a dutch provider. All my sites are hosted there.

[scary_pigeon 0]

Scary and Dante, whenever you are planning to release a video you can certainly ask the ECV 56 Cóndor webmasters to help you setting a mirror for the file. I have some "influences" there since I'm a former webmaster and I can convince them to mirror a video of this sim.

Anyway, you can allways use sites like Rapidshare and similars.

 

Regards.

 

super :) cheers.

[+Dante-JT 6]

Screenshots of the Halcones with corrected refuel probes and cannons - I will check later for more specific detail in the front gear door comms antenna:

 

 

Edited February 10, 2006 by Dante-JT

[Incendiary Lemon 0]

Those look lovely

[+Crusader 2,101]

nice Skyhawks, great progress

 

Thanks

[AWL_Spinner 0]

Great!

 

Looking at those buildings in the first shot it almost looks like you've got some speed-blur going on....

 

:)