swambast

Russ, right on with this - this is an absolutely appropriate use case of leveraging a .tga texture! That being said, overall definitely suggest using tga to just limited and strategic use only. .Tgas under this game engine really hurt performance overall and can cause z-buffering/fighting issues. Also, another thing is that transparency in .tga /double-sided textures will not cast shadows so something else to keep in mind.

Baff, I totally agree with you. Gepard, this is absolutely awesome work, keep it up - and let me know if I can lend a hand (time permitting).

Awesome, congratulations and keep up the great work!

Russ, instrument panel reflections are freakin' awesome - nice!

guuruu, my sincere compliments to you and all who worked on this - this is fantastic work. And I love the fact that you're focused on continuous improvement efforts - great job and cheers to the entire team!

Gerwin, that's all well and good but it's not as easy as just buying a model as you know - and didn't want others to get the idea that it's "buy and fly." Someone needs to create all the animation slots, create the flight dynamics, update the textures, ensure the mesh pieces are linked/have proper hierarchy, perform the .ini/loadout work, etc. Just want others reading this to be aware. There is a lot of work to be done once a base mesh is finished - and for aircraft and carriers especially - I would argue getting the mesh done is by far the easiest part. Please don't take my reply the wrong way, just trying to bring some transparency into the amount of effort that's needed before others go off and consider spending money on such things.

Back in the day, it was a different story with a different answer - today more efforts around brute force converting other helo models. In my opinion, Jarek/Yakarov79 makes the best helos for this sim - period. My recommendation would be enjoy the helo experience he delivers - he offers the full package from great mesh/optimized models, texturing, flight dynamics/physics, etc. and also has a great selection to choose from.

LOL...And when an SF series player like me watches that video, I'm reminded exactly why DCS World is not my primary sim and probably won't ever be even years from now. Back in the day when I was younger and had more time, totally different probability. Now I'm just too old and too busy to spend days understanding the flight manual, 15 minutes getting through a cockpit start-up and clearance sequence and then finally I'm actually airborne - hopefully for more than 5 minutes - before I'm reminded that I forgot to press the aux pressure switch parked in the bottom cockpit panel and crash into the ground. LOL. Anyway, to each their own.

Yes, that designation references a "Chief Warrant Officer." Here is one source definition that should be helpful: "Warrant Officers are recognized as the most technically and tactically competent soldiers of differing certain specialties in the Army. The base rank for Warrant Officers is Warrant Officer 1 (WO1). Still recognized as technical and tactical experts at this rank, WO1's serve from the team level (7 to 25 soldiers, depending on the type of team) thru the battalion level (around 800 soldiers)." And each subsequent rank of course has more expertise and governing authority up to CW5.

Keep at it Russ, will be great in the end. And get advice from @yakarov79 - he is the absolute best helo expert out there.

Not quite. You still need to make the proper selections in 3ds Max which includes exporting the model with decal support.

Erik, that is seriously some of the funniest shit I've seen in ages - cracks me up everytime, absolutely hilarious and great find...

Wilches, what are you talking about? There's no such thing as a "copywrite" law. I assume you meant "copyright"; but besides almost all of these are subject to licensing agreements - LOL - these are different. In almost all cases the licensing agreements declare and uphold protection of the copyright laws. How do I know? Because I was subject to software code and intellectual property piracy in the past both personally and professionally where lawyers had to get involved. I'm not going to say anything more on this topic - good luck.

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!