kendo353

cheers, i knew about that site. it's been very useful. but thankyou for the kind thought.

the satellite heightmap import turned out to be less than spectacular. but it did deliver a large (128km) gently rolling terrain to fly over. the atlas pager can handle any size map, by seamlessly loading up the chunk that you're flying over. which seems to work fine. visibility is currently set at 40,000 meters, which is delivering 30fps. flight model is still very much 'arcade', but even with 2 dozen bots, it's fast. regards.

fantastic!! is that GabiLaser, that visits here? congratulations and many thanks.

that would be a great help, thankyou. i'm the world's worst organiser. i'm slowly getting up to speed with torque. give me a couple of weeks to bundle things up, and i'll mail you what i have. the models are converting over fine, in (roughly) an hour. and i'm getting a better feel for the engine's capabilities. starting out from the beginning again was scary, but i'm glad i did it now. cheers.. ken

Hi JG6_oddball, here is the latest version ----> Blender DTS exporter cheers... the space i'm renting has a simple forum, with a mySQL backend. combatAce has been a great place to meet likeminded people, but i guess the talk is veering more towards the technical end of the spectrum now, and a new place is needed. if the inbuilt forum turns out to be useless, i'll take up your kind offer.. thanks. fantastic resource. says it took 4 years to collate it. i'm definitely going to save up for it. in the meantime, DEM geographical data is free, and i have all the period maps, books, and diagrams i could ever need. it would be lovely to see everything in full 3D context, but theres so much data on the DVDs, i could see months being soaked up just looking at the details. it also doesn't contain the Italian front. cheers.. ken

Hi JG6_oddball, great news! will it handle multi-layer objects, or does it require everything to be squished flat, like an .OBJ ? I haven't messed with .DIFs at all yet. reading up on it, a lot of people seem to prefer using .DTS for buildings (if they are not going to be entered). GG supply a free tool called 'constructor' which is apparently easy to use, but i've been concentrating on moving .DTS objects. if blender can pump out .LWO... the torque LW exporter is supposed to be the easiest, and provide the best results. sounds like we have a pipeline which could work both ways. sounds good.. good question. big question. on the 'art asset' front, i have pretty much all the placeholders i need to get things rolling. i do need to make a vehicle webpage to show people whats made and what needs doing. and as you pointed out, the project needs a website overhaul. at present... anything people supply would be gratefully recieved. there are a lot of strands to tie together... and you're right, i should sit down and consider what my most pressing need is. right now, today, i'm attempting to marry these together with the heightmapped terrain. then i'll have a proper map that can be stocked with towns, villages, airfields, and other geographical details. 740x850km dem data regards. ken

Hi Flybert, oh, yes. definitely. but the TNL is inbuilt into TGEA, isn't it? if you purchase the TNL on it's own, you just get the networking library, free from the constraints of the "game". but i'll be needing "the game" (unless there are serious reasons why their framework should be dumped... or the standalone TNL is so updated and fantastic that it needs to be added on top of the existing networking). no, i didn't. thanks for this very interesting piece of information. i've often wondered what they went on to do afterwards. i think so. and everything is there to be tweaked, should it not fit the requirements of your game. that's interesting too. I looked him up... a computer science graduate with a string of qualifications. what a team! for all it's flaws, they did a *fantastic* job. full of admiration for them. you mentioned that you were a GG licensee, flybert... did you keep it up? i've seen a few of your early posts on the forum, but nothing recently. regards. ken

Hi Hellzone.. excuse me butting in... i'm not sure if you mean the IL2 engine, or the new one ? the game looks visually stunning, and i'm looking forward to playing it very much. whats up with it? regards.

Hi JG6_oddball, thankyou for the kind offer. I use Lightwave 8.5 (because i enjoy it), but other people don't have to. it doesn't have to be planes. all sorts of stuff is needed. I don't know if Blender objects will convert to Lightwave (so i can add player/gun/mount points, etc), but i do know that theres a Torque exporter for it. I'll look into it for you. my own stuff is in .LWO format. if you can convert that into something that can be skinned properly (or more easily, shall we say), the engine supports skin swapping natively (after the model has been converted over to the Torque .DIF format). i'm totally aware that my own attempts at UV mapping are amateur, but they're serving fine as placeholders for the moment. i would gladly welcome help from any artist or coder. full credit will be given to anybody involved. cheers..

Hi Buddywoof.. just some cheezy w-i-p. been spending a lot of time programming, and reading about programming. so, sadly, the eye candy and model creation has had to take a back seat. on the positive tip, i've touched base with Warren @ NaturalPoint, and learnt more than i thought i would have to about DirectInput devices (shudder). and i've found this.. -->The Silver Lining Cloud SDK<--, which i hope to be able to incorporate further on down the line. Aaron (the L3DT programmer) says that blendmaps will be available for the terrain soon, so the more familiar fields and mud can be tiled in too. regards.

cheers Gr.Viper. i don't know about the size yet.

Hi Geoff... thanks for dropping by... no, it'll be a free download. hopefully from somewhere where you won't have to register, or jump through hoops to get at it. i'm hoping to have a public beta out before the final release. but that's still quite some way off, what with the engine switch, and all.. cheers for your interest though.

cheers.. information is a bit sketchy, but it appears you can console.. ListResolutions(); ...and you'll be able to set widescreen sizes.

Hi RunsWithScissors... i don't think a dynamic campaign is too far removed from a paper and pencil RPG. there's random dice, encounter tables, and the pilot's reputation/renown/personality. NPC squadmates should have a life of their own, getting into scrapes, promoted, wounded, shot down, etc.. and that kind of book-keeping/story-telling doesn't need any graphics at all. RB3D keeps things interesting with videos, news headlines, and intelligence briefings based on events, and the date. that kind of system is achievable, but full-on scene cinematics is a job for a person in itself. careful with the sharp bits (when running). cheers..

wow. thanks for sorting that out, BuddyWoof it's very generous of them to help out a non profit making project. much appreciated. screen size.... TGEA allegedly supports "whatever your monitor and video card can handle". i can't test that out myself (max rez 1280x1024), but i think you should be OK. cheers.. ken

Hi Justin... no it wasn't free.. but when it's compiled, it can be given it away for free. if somebody has a TGEA license, i can legally share code wiith them, but most people will be using the .EXE. (everything that is in the .EXE can also be reachable by script). what's 'broken' is some UV texture mapping, not the geometry... but that can be fixed later. and as you said, there are probably too many planes to start off with, anyway.

yes we do....along with paged terrain, and the ability to incorporate stuff like TrackIR. the downside of the engine switch, is that the work i did on the campaign module and personality system goes out the window, and we have to start again from scratch. quite a few models are 'broken' too. it was a dilemma... whether to sit out the delays with BV, and hope they would sort out the terrain and AI.... or switch to an engine that was unfamiliar, but could deliver. once i'm familiar with the new scripting language, hopefully chunks of the code will port across easily. a lot of it came from C++, anyway. Torque TGEA has it's own problems, but it has shaders, source code, and can deliver a fast paced multiplayer game. (which is what i set out to do originally). @buddwoof cheers... what i meant was i'm a novice coder. not a great expert. as i understand it, any fool can compile in a library or SDK, but the skill comes in exposing the functions to script. it's an area where i'd have to be reliant on other people for advice/help, so i can't give you a definite answer. if it's possible, then yeah, sure... gladly. cheers for the assist.

@Buddywoof sure, please feel free to find out. if they allow it to be used on noncommerical projects, i'd be well up for including it. (if my monkey brain can figure out how to incorporate it properly). @merlion cheers dude, but i get a few pennies on that album. if you purchase the latest one "silenced", i might get a pair of socks out of it. but at the moment i have everything i need. kind thought though. appreciated. @catch hi catch.. nice to see you about. test.. 20x bots... flying around at jet speed = 60+ fps. amazing, because the planes are unoptimised with no LOD. early days, but eternally optimistic. thanks everybody. :yes:

yeah, it is incredible isn't it. almost everybody seems to be using compiled scripts these days. as you surmised, your FPS did take a nosedive. (26fps?) but if it's any consolation, my rig is fairly mediocre too. so, the game isn't being written exclusively for dual-core pixel 2.0 shader owners with 2GB of memory.

maybe they just changed their minds? RakNet was free at one point, too. now it has a 'nominal' fee.

This SDK is only available for developers who are producing games and simulations that will be sold as commercial products to the public. it looks "expensive" ?

Hi Guys.. nice to see some new faces.. appreciate the kind words and support. thanks for the sentiment, but i haven't actually delivered anything yet. money does funny things to people and i try to avoid it whenever possible. no denying it would be great to have some ca$h to throw at the project. to hire in some programmers and speed up the development process. but it also becomes a job then. with associated stress. better for me to keep it as a hobby, interest, and a labour of love. thankyou though.

Hi guys.. yeah.. now i've figured it out, the model converter seems to work pretty well. hopefully, i will not have to redo much, just convert them over. a few UV's are broken, but it's not the end of the world. no...it's the splash for an engine demo. I was considering using 'Apocalyx' for the project, but it would need much more programming than i'm comfortable with. Leo (the engine developer) knocked up this little demo to show people the new infinite terrain library he included. so do i. :) same here... but bear in mind it's only a small demo with not much going on. the infinite terrain is clever, and doesn't take much processing power, also there is only one biplane model in the world. if you started bunging in multiple enemies and stuff on the ground, i'm sure it would drop (like most engines). that said, 'Apocalyx' is pretty swift. i like it, but i don't think it's right for this project. never say never though. if things don't work out with Torque/BV, i might have to go back. it's free... and Leo is a nice bloke. regards.

i'm liking it so far.. had a few teething troubles with the model format, but it's opened up lots of new possibilities. from what i can gather they are taking their time, and won't be rushed on it. some people have been waiting since 2004, which is a little disconcerting, but i didn't see anywhere that GG have officially abandoned the integration. regards.

Hi Merlion, only temporarily... state of play ======== the BV engine is OpenGL, and is having DX9 bolted on. the TGEA engine is DX9, and is having OpenGL bolted on. i'm still confident the game can have both. regards to you.