What made everyone play SF2

[+Wrench]

What got me into SF??

I don't want to think that far back....(2005). Lets just say, that coming from the Janes USNF/ATF/FA series (where I built a boatloao of novel conversion mission sets) I was given to understand this was 'the next FA". Unfortunately, it never had the in depth mission builder FA had.

But hey, I"m still here. You bunch are stuck with me!

[+daddyairplanes]

2 minutes ago, Wrench said:

ut hey, I"m still here. You bunch are stuck with me!

and yet you use the "dont quote the dark magic to me witch" or "i was there, 3000 years ago" way too little....

[+Wrench]

I was born in that region of Earth later called Mesopotamia, in the year 3834 B.C., as the millennia are reckoned. I was Akharin, a soldier, a bully and a fool. I fell in battle, pierced to the heart - and did not die.

[+daddyairplanes]

oh, and i thought you were going by Adam Pierson until recently

(Wrench? mid 1990s)

[Bartleby]

I bought the Strike fighters 2 complete edition about a week ago.
I even installed Windows 10 on my computer for it. Everything else I do, is on Linux.

I wanted the game because I desired a flight sim that let me bomb things and was in the sweet spot between an arcade game and a full-on sim like DCS.
I chose SF2 because I had heard it was easily, and completely, moddable. I am really bad at games and view this sort of software as I would a model railroad; fun to play with but even more fun to build for.
I have some experience with modelling in Blender, mostly designing military minis for 3dprints at 1/285 scale for wargames. I now want to bring some of my models into this game to play with and blow up.
Here is a WIP of some AVF's from China. This is a procedural texture as a start before finishing painting and baking it to a lower poly model.
( that's a zsu-57, not a Type 80 SPAAG; wrong chassis)
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Single player suits me perfectly as I can play how I like without lil' kids bitching about me on-line because I'm not very good at video games.
Having fooled around with YSFlight, the game looks great, or at least, more than good enough for me.

I wish it would run on linux or WINE or the like.
I wish I were allowed to look at the LOD files I've purchased so I have a benchmark as to what quality work the designer expects by default; polycounts for the different lod distances, texture sizes, animation set-ups, etc., but it is what it is. It's enough to make me think that I should have bought IL-2 instead.
No matter.... SF2 is a wonderful game.
Too bad it seems mostly abandoned.

 

[logan4]

12 hours ago, Bartleby said:

I wish I were allowed to look at the LOD files I've purchased so I have a benchmark as to what quality work the designer expects by default; polycounts for the different lod distances, texture sizes, animation set-ups, etc.,

Welcome to the club Bartleby... I would advice you to read trough the SF1/SF2 knowledge base and the mod & skining discussion threads, you will find how you can look at things and much-much more. Beside the above, download Mue's LODViewer which will enable you to see polycounts and how the models are structured, animations, etc. 

------------------------------

Back to topic...

Since young age I was scale modelling, then mid 90's I was overseas in the US and brought a package of 8 flight sims in a box, these required still to be run from MS-dos. In the early 2000-s run into Jane's IAF and USAF. In those years one of the gaming magasines had a copy of Stike Fighters Project1 included in its monthly issue. Played it trough several times, but I did miss the ability to jump from one airplane to the next like in the Jane's simulators to finish the objectives. Later on as the SF titles come out sooner or later brought them and strated to play with them more. Then run into the CA and Column5 sites and saw other birds could be built and added, so I thought, if nothing else than I can make some of my airplanes from what I'd drawn between 1990-2005 (215+ with 5 views) to be part of the game and fly them around. So started to fiddle with G-max, from there got deeper and deeper into making different objects, weapons, skins, etc. Later I only got SF2 when I had a new rig that I thought would be able to run all my siming titles and some of the shooters I played back in the days.

 

[Bartleby]

3 hours ago, logan4 said:

Welcome to the club Bartleby... I would advice you to read trough the SF1/SF2 knowledge base and the mod & skining discussion threads, you will find how you can look at things and much-much more. Beside the above, download Mue's LODViewer which will enable you to see polycounts and how the models are structured, animations, etc.

 

It's just frustrating and needlessly restrictive, IMHO, especially since I've paid for them.
It's just a given that I'm not allowed to share them; they're not mine to share.

I've read that Mue's cat extractor can expose the .LODs for me to look at. The utilities from Thirdwire don't.

[+Wrench]

Let it be known, that NO extractor available can 'pull' the LODs from the cat files. It's a rather touchy subject around here; we've several anit-piracy notices posted in the SF2 Forums.

Quote

It's just a given that I'm not allowed to share them; they're not mine to share.

First person I've seen actually state truth in a long time. Fact is, before one of the 3W patches (don't remember which, but around 2010-ish - about the time SF2NA came out, iirc) you could. But they were being shared all over the solar system. TK basicly said, 'hell with you all', and locked everything up. ALL Lods; including those inside the terrain cat files too. Of course, that's not stopped scum from sharing the entire games ...

This is how it is; I know there might still be 3dMax tutorials for building sf/sf2 models on the web, plus we've got a pretty knowledgeable crew here as well

[Bartleby]

Well, that sucks.
Nothing to be done about it, i guess.... he needs to protect his product
It's just frustrating.

Looks like a bit of trial and error for me now
I hope the blender 2.79 exporter doesn't give me any hassle
It sure would be nice if there were an .lod exporter for present blender versions, but I don't think I'll hold my breath

I'll probably ask lots of questions in the mod threads later

thanks for the info.

 

[+daddyairplanes]

6 hours ago, Bartleby said:

I'll probably ask lots of questions in the mod threads later

looking forward to it

be nice to get some new blood in amongst this cranky lot

[+Sundowner]

Have a look for the old ThirdWire Exporter notes, I think they are in the downloads somewhere.

 

[+simonmiller416]

When I was a kid, I always wanted to be an Air Force pilot. 

Perhaps unbelievably, the reason for all this is that I fell in love at first sight with the F-22 serving on the other side of the world. Unfortunately, for various reasons, it has become an eternal dream.

As a child, I have been trying to fly the best jet in the world by games.

The first flight sim I encountered was Novalogic's F-22, and then the F-22 Lightning 3 of the same series, when I stumbled across CombatAce and saw that WOE has the F-22 (apparently it was just a mod), I told myself that I was going to fall in love with this game.

 

So yeah, it's just a story about love and love.

 

[+guuruu]

I just wanted to fly a Tornado for myself. Everything I found in the new simulators was roughly below what we had in the old DI Tornado. I was looking for something that allows you to edit files to make the same plane as DI, but with newer graphics. And then I got to know the community of this forum better and I want to stay here. Even if Kevin gave me a hard time at the beginning ;-) But he was right ;-)