swambast

Hi All, I think I started this very low-poly, "photoreal" fort years ago but it's somewhere stashed on one of my old hard drives. Are you guys all set on Forts? I thought Geezer put out a bunch of them and his stuff is of the highest quality already. Anyway, if there's still a need or interest I can try to hunt it down but if not that's perfectly fine too, just thought I'd check!

That's absolutely ridiculous, I hope you are joking...

Ha, ha - that's great. Thank you for the nice suggestion, I'll be sure to remove that as it will allow more diversity.

Thanks Wrench, glad you like them - it was actually pretty fun so thought I'd keep the momentum going... Well now that you said that, how about having a choice? Thought I'd start with the Mid-East variant. I did some research and came up with this low-poly highly optimized design with modeling time about 2 minutes, and texture time in hours...LOL Anyway, hope it is another upgrade option for your Mid East "Falfael King"...

The Hot Dog Stand is over a decade old; time for the new 2020 “Swambast” overhaul edition! This version is based on an actual hot dog stand known as “The Dog House.” It was owned by Dick Portillo who spent his family’s life savings to open up a hot dog stand in 1963. The hot dog stand was originally inside a cramped trailer located 18 miles west of Chicago, Illinois (USA). In my opinion, my version does a good (not great) job of replicating the original considering the FPS/performance balance I wanted to maintain. Also, I took it off the trailer and made it more of a solid fixture. As always, I get suckered by details, so I added in the working "grill smoke" and a delicious “hot dog combo meal.” Also, thought it would be fun to create a custom destroyed model that has burnt hot dogs scattered everywhere (). Working on a few final tweaks including hit boxes/collision mesh but should be ready soon. P.S. @Wrench: time for your “Wrench’s Weiners” hot dog stand to be updated. PM me with some details and I’d be happy to make it for you. Also, might have a surprise for you regarding the early genre firetruck you were looking for at one point.

Gkabs, I mean it's cool and all but don't forget like many often do - this isn't a DCS Game Engine. I can't imagine what the performance hit is going to be on this between the poly/tris/texture maps but best of luck and have fun anyway. So that being said, would encourage you to try and optimize the mesh the best you possibly can.

…will have to send in this fire support vehicle! Always wanted to do a proper USAF Fire Dept Support Jeep as I'm especially not aware something like this has been done before, and finally got around to nearly completing it. And don’t worry, she’s a fully optimized low poly creation leveraging just a main 1024x1024 texture map so should be nice and easy on frame rates. As many know I’m a total sucker for details, so even decided to toss in the Fire Helmet and dash details. I still have a few tweaks I need to finish up but think it’s looking good, more to come later...

Ok, great job Wrench and sounds like you got what you needed then! I'm going to stop my PSP runway work then as I have plenty of other things on the "to do" list - best of luck to you on this project!

Quick update - saw often times there would be deep skid marks along these, so made a shot at that and updated panel connectors...

Thank you Nightshade, appreciate that consideration but I always prefer to scratch build. I'm still waiting for some reference info, but thought I'd mock something up so the team can react to before I return next week. Here was an initial pass - of course eventually I would still need to adjust speculars/lighting and optimize the bump maps but you get a general idea of the initial form, colors, etc. It is a single strip about 90m wide and ~1345m long so need guidance on those dimensions and welcome any other changes needed.

Wilches, that dirt air strip is not designed for this terrain - it's for another project. But the info you shared here is good to know, for when I create the dirt air strip for what you guys need here. Same request, please send me some reference pics if you'd like, thanks.

Sounds good. When you get a chance, please send me some reference images via PM and let me know if there is a specific style/reference photo you're going after - I'll take it from there!

Wrench, if you can wait for a while until after the Thanksgiving Holiday I'm sure I could build you what you need if you're interested. I'm already working on an improved dirt airstrip (still work in progress) as a special request so wouldn't be that much trouble.

Sorry for the confusion. I really meant what Wrench is referring to...actual modding of World War 2 era. Are there other limitations of the game engine though? For example, can a B-17 fire from all turret positions? How are the prop plane flight models? Any other "showstopper" issues that made it particularly challenging to mod for this era? Or was it more a lack of content and interest?

All, just curious to get some perspectives. I understand that IL-2 is still considered a World War 2 masterpiece and "go to" sim. And I know there is a separate but rather calm forum here. But I'm just sincerely wondering what specific reasons and limitations exist as to why that genre never really took off under the SF2 game engine?

Easy enough to get it started... LOL @Mue, so under the GPL if I made this available I or anyone else can then subsequently take it and sell it? Or am I totally misunderstanding...

In my opinion, I could not disagree more and hate the way this is heading...The Developer of this Sim created an encrypted .LOD file format for a reason - to prevent theft and unauthorized distribution. I have never seen a post where the Developer has made a claim about not caring about reverse engineering - why do you think he ended up locking certain .LODs and other game components away then if he didn't care? Anyone can justify anything if they want, but it doesn't make it right. I'd personally prefer to see Thirdwire continue to go on it's own way and FlightGear do the same - I don't see what benefit Thirdwire or the community has in this arrangement - for example, do we suddenly get access to FlightGear assets? But I'm sure I'm again in the minority - seems to be just a free for all these days.

No - the game engine does NOT support Multi-Sub object texturing.

Hi Russ, don't forget this important tip as maybe it could be an issue as well...? As many of the models become higher and higher poly (digress to say some even overkill), you're going to have to think about slicing mesh components down to lower poly counts. Beyond a certain single mesh threshold, the game engine will simply not cast shadows (and same applies if you're using .tga transparencies and/or double-sided materials). I think it's something around 3000-4000 polys but can't recall exact count - so check that mesh piece! Otherwise another thing to try as a hack / workaround: place a small 1-sided cylinder/square/whatever directly in the engine innard and use a partially shaded/dark .tga texture to make the inside "look" darker (not ideal but could be quick fix).

Thanks Russ, much appreciated - that was about right...!

I can't recall, does anyone remember what the max poly/tri count is for a single mesh piece when exporting? There is an upper limit that if exceeded will crash 3ds Max...

Thanks Russ, but I never get that prompt...the model just opens.

Hi all, for some bizarre reason I just realized all my mesh units are in inches instead of meters. What is the best way to mass convert all the mesh in the file properly into meters while avoiding any scaling issues (noting I have many layers)...?

Damn, this is just such amazing work as always. Sophocles, your F-5A here is going to set the bar for superior quality and details - thank you for continuing to bring this into reality...

Russ, are you starting with a blank/transparent layer as the background layer first? If you don't have this, I've found that when the layers are collapsed when you save the file you can end up with a solid white or black background. Another thing is I've often had better luck with merging visible transparent layers as opposed to completely merging all layers (esp. when using other programs like Paint.net, PS Elements, etc.)