streakeagle

Your written English is good enough to be understood... which is more than I can say for many US citizens born and raised here. Besides, you don't need to know English to make great 3d models and share them with us :)

About time a Viggen hits the SFP1 game engine :)

<S> to Jug. I have met and talked with many pilots over the years, but never a U-2 pilot. It is an honor meet you if only in this virtual community.

I ended up in Atlanta and trapped for a while :(

They all have functional cockpits in multiplayer. You don't need to go online to fly them. Just select multiplayer. Host a co-op mission... Fly any aircraft on the drop down box. It is not an easter egg so much as a design feature to use the A-4 cockpit for any aircraft that doesn't have one. However, a better way is to find an allied aircraft with similar systems and assign it to be the cockpit. For instance, the F-4E cockpit is perfect for the MiG-23 since both have radar, radar homing missiles and guns. With a few edits, the F-4E avionics can be altered to reflect MiG-23 capabilities... However, in this case, a MiG-23 addon is available. You can either replace the stock MiG-23 with the addon or borrow the cockpit from the addon to use with the stock MiG-23. The open nature of the game's file system provides almost unlimited options. Of course most people just want to play the game, so for them user mods are the way to go rather than editing files on their own. I have my own preferences and prefer to customize every to my liking when I am creating an install with mods... but for multiplayer, it is usually easiest to keep everything stock so anybody can join without having to find out what the host has installed and duplicate it exactly.

The change was made because the MiGs (lacking functional cockpits) are not supposed to be flyable in single player ;) During beta testing, non-flyables were made flyable to make it easier to find 3d model and FM bugs, but the final release should only have the aircraft listed on the box in the flyable list.

There is no MiG-29 in WOE and MiGs are not supposed to be flyable in a stock install (except in multiplayer mode). MiGs and Sus have no 3d cockpits out of the box (they use a generic A-4 pit when you fly them in multiplayer). The aircraft folders can be easily modified to assign cockpits and permit flying the non-flyable aircraft in single player. Downloadable mods exist that do so for you. There are also cockpits available for some MiGs and the MiG-29 is an addon aircraft that is available for download.

The best way to control zoom is through buttons. I have the zoom keys mapped to virtual buttons on my X-36 and X-45 rotary knobs so that I can zoom in/out as if I was using the normal keys. This method works well enough for me: slow enough to get the level of zoom I want, fast enough to get there before I die ;)

SFP1 game engine files are stored in *.CAT files. The community standard is to use a utility called SFP1E (SFP1 Extractor) to get files out of the CAT files. SFP1E is available for download from here and Check6!: http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?autom...mp;showfile=343

Take a look and you be the judge: Real F-15 in flight: Stock WOE F-15A: Mirage Factory F-15A mod: LOMAC F-15C: All of them have their flaws, but my eyes prefer the stock WOE F-15 to any other combat flight sim I have ever flown.

The real F-15 has flown with an entire wing missing (well enough to get back on the ground with only additional landing gear damage, i.e. blowing the tires). So it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to assume it should be flyable with a tail stab missing ;)

If you are going to fly online and you have a broadband connection, teamspeak is the way to go since CombatACE provides a free host. During WOE beta testing, we had as many as 6 of us online at one time and teamspeak provides an important solution to the problems caused by trying to type chat entries while flying.

I forgot one great pic of a German Eagle with turkey feathers (from the F-15 Playbook): Oops! It is the same pic from the other book, just on a larger scale. Apparently a popular one.

A friend gave this to me a long time ago. I wish I had read the little note saying I could get full 18x24 posters if I wrote McDonnell Douglas and asked for them!

Boeing needs to make an updated version. the score has gotten quite a bit higher since that was published.

The stock WOE F-15A definitely has the wing pylons too close to the fuselage. I can't say exactly how much they need to be moved. Is there a way to hex edit the positions of the pylons in the LOD file without the source file? For reference, look at where the red marking is on the leading edge of the wing versus the attachment point.

I couldn't match the field of view/distance/distortion, so I did the best I could. I was impressed at how well the canopy rails, the canopy shape, and the antenna aft of the canopy all lined up... almost perfectly! Obviously the intakes, the Sparrow, and the wing pylon don't line up very well. Some of that involves differences between the distance and field of view used to make the photo. Some may be the result of model inaccuracy? Has anybody ever checked the alignment of the wing pylons? This pic makes it look like the WOE model has the pylons too close to the fuselage. Here is the shot from WOE: Here it is merged with the real photo: And for reference the original photo from the post above:

Both the WOE and MF F-15s do have a slight taper at the intakes (perhaps too slight? difficult to tell because there is no way to project the outline onto a flat picture via the game engine). Their general outlines are almost identical from the top, except for the wingtips and canopies. Whereas LOMAC appears to use less polygons and is by far the least accurate of all 3 from a top view. LOMAC's intake taper is excessive as easily depicted in the original pics at the top of this post. Prior to this post, I don't recall any other post on any other forum that compared these models in any way. All of the posts I recall reached the unanimous conclusion that the stock WOE model should be immediately replaced by the the MF model. The whole point of this post was to compare and contrast the differences to allow people to make an informed decision rather than blindly following the crowd. If in the course of this discussion, the MF takes a look and decides to improve their model, that would be great! But given the number of projects they have and the time they alreday spent on the F-15, I don't expect it. Given that no further model revisions are going to become available, why shouldn't people be aware of the tradeoffs? It is my opinion that the photos and drawings suggest that the most accurate F-15A available for the timeframe of WOE is the stock model. The textures and decals are an entirely separate issue which can be resolved easily in comparsion to building and editing 3d models.

The drawing you used is inaccurate to begin with (which I mentioned in my post) I scanned in a drawing from a book that is much better: WOE: MF:

Well my data is just from books too... whose to say the little words in my books are any more accurate than the little words in your books or anyone elses. I can't be absolutely certain of the years since I am mainly relying on the photo captions... but if you have very old books, as I do, the photos include lots of shots of the original F-15As since F-15Cs were relatively new. The internet and later books show them they way they have been for over 20 years now! I was partially poking fun back... but partially being critical on the "mod mafia" stuff. I believe that other people do have a lot of valid complaints about the way they get treated when they ask a question or disagree with the old guard. I got jumped on big time when I pointed out problems with the original Paco F-15... especially the hyper roll rate in the FM. It didn't matter that what I said or how ludicrous the roll rate was... the modders and their fanboys are always right. I got jumped on again for liking the P-40 that was never released better than Wolf's. That P-40 never did become available... but it looked better and moving control surfaces. It seems stating an opinion... or in the case of verifiable 3d model accuracy, a fact is a crime if it hurts someone's pride.

Notice that while the position of the blister relative to the wingtip may be different in all three of the above models, they all have a relatively square tip compared to photos. I think the wingtip being too angular on all of the models comes from drawings like the big one above... in most drawings (including the ones in my books), the rwr blister is right at the corner. If you look at photos, the curvature of the wingtip protrudes some past the blister. 3d modelers tend to use drawings (for obvious and correct reasons) and drawings tend to be wrong. I guess the government needs to laser scan all aircraft into a variety of 3d model lods so sims can have the best possible models as pc's increase their ability to handle poly counts/vertexes. Maybe we should start a petition that taxpayers are entitled such 3d models of any product purchased by the government for no additional cost beyond the taxes we already pay :)

The game goes to 1980 right? The turkey feathers were installed until about 1982-83 on all F-15As. Show me a dated pic that shows otherwise. Most of the pics in my books are dated and all pics before 83 have turkey feathers. All pics after don't have turkey feathers. Some of my pics are of F-15As in formation over Germany and strangely enough, given the number of F-15As delivered by 1982, more than four seemed to have served there with feathers. The F-15Cs were delivered without turkey feathers, which started around 1979-1980. Holy crap! 2 of the 4 German Eagles with turkey feathers! I guess the photographer was just lucky to catch such a rare sight! I think the same 4 planes are getting repainted and sent to Okinawa! AFAIK, every single F-15A was delivered with tailfeathers and none of them had them removed prior to the stock game's 1980 date limit. So if you are trying to be historically correct and accurate, the F-15A without tail feathers is totally incorrect. The point of these posts is the same point as most of my posts on any forums: to discuss things I am interested in that kind of fall into the category of the forum. One of the things I am interested in is dispelling some myths that have been sprinkled in the forums that the stock F-15 model is completely crap compared to the latest addon revision. Another myth is that LockOn is the king when it comes to detail and accuracy for the F-15. It simply isn't so for the external 3d model. At least in SF/WOV/WOE you can look at the options (there are at least 3 different F-15As to choose from at this point), whereas in LOMAC all you can do is repaint whatever they give you. Now it just so happens that my opinion goes against the "mod mafia" on the issue of which F-15A looks better. I can agree to disagree on which is better overall, but I can't agree that the MF F-15A is superior in all ways or with someone who tells me my eyes aren't seeing something that is as clear as the sun at high noon on a cloudless day.

Drawings are all well and good... but like 3d models, they are usually done by artists and no two drawings are ever the same. Besides, drawings are flat without any distortions, whereas any screenshots are going to have distortion due to perspective and/or field of view. But just for comparison purposes, it wouldn't hurt to throw a few 3-view drawings on here. The problem is that you have to use a narrow field of view, get somewhat far away (making for low resolution), and line up the camera exactly to get a useful screenshot for good comparison. Finding perfect photos and having the game engine lighting match reality isn't going to happen (especially with the rather poor lighting in SF/WOV/WOE), but I prefer photos to drawings any day since photos are close to what my eye actually sees, which is exactly what 3d engines in games are trying to reproduce. If you can ignore the lighting and textures and mentally compensate for the angle differences in the photo, quite a few things can be learned about flaws in the 3d model from the comparisons. My mistake in the overhead shots was having made the screenshots first, then trying to comb the net for an equivalent photo (which I had to rotate and zoom to get the orientation and size close to the other aircraft). Things like the wing tips, canopy shape, and the way the various shapes are blended together on the back and at the wing roots, and the relatively straight edges of the intakes (which are beveled for some strange reason on the LOMAC model), . These images aren't meant to be measured directly to make the necessary corrections, but rather to identify the obvious errors in sizes and proportions leading to further research and better revisions in future 3d modeling attempts. Here is a small 3-view that has a fairly accurate top view, the front is ok, but the side looks a bit off: Yet another 3-view... again the side has more issues than the other views, but the canopy appears to be a two seater? I had to go to a Russian website to get a decent hi-res drawing I could scale down into a jpg for here. My uncalibrated eye likes this drawing: Now let us assume that this drawing is 100% correct (which is true enough on a relative scale when compared to any of the 3d model screenshots above). Check out how the canopy frame is close to parallel to the fuselage over most of its length. There is no super wide spot at the front canopy frame (MF F-15A), nor does it bulge a bit at the aft frame (WOE F-15A), and the LOMAC F-15 definitely did not use this Russian drawing as a reference for its canopy... but I could already see all of this was true from the original post ;)

It would be great if 3d models were like text files: easily cut-n-paste to merge the best features of each one. At a glance, the LOMAC model looks really good... it is amazing how much good lighting and textures do to improve the basic 3d model. What my screenshots from LOMAC don't show is how shiny the F-15 looks in that sim. I carefully placed the aircraft and camera to avoid the blinding flash that makes the F-15 look like it has a mirrored silver finish! But the LOMAC model always has sharp corners where there should be blending. Beyond the engine nacelles, look at the top view around the speed brake. I have seen some early F-15A model kits that had similar errors... I wonder if they based their model off of a kit rather than photos of the the real thing? The seat model is independent of the 3d model, so it can be easily replaced. But problems like the sharp wingtips, mishaped nose, distorted canopies, etc. can only be fixed by those with the source files for the base 3d model. Overall, I still like the stock model the best of these 3... general proportions just look/feel right over most viewing angles and the texturing is pretty good for a stock skin. The original pre-flying-toaster/MF F-15 was better than nothing, but its nose was downright repulsive to me. If the MF F-15 ever got the canopy lines right, it would probably be my #1 choice.