kendo353

Hi hornetjock6 things are fine here, thankyou. sorry, no i don' t have a firm date i can give you. i'm rewriting it with torque TGEA, because of the limitations of the current landscape system. this direction should hopefully make things secure online, and allow people the scripting/tweaking possibilities they want. obviously, this is a big step backwards to be able to go forwards, but these features are now in place, which was a real concern... 100km x 100km landscape networking flying AI i don't know how long it will take me to convert my models over, rewrite the campaign backend, and have something workable to show you... but i have the source code, and won't have to wait for other people to deliver. i haven't given up. thanks for the interest. regards to you.

Hi Merlion... thanks for the kind thoughts. yeah, i have heard of it, and i've been keeping an eye on it. the developers say that "client/server" will be fully implemented in 1.5.0 the downside of it (for me) is that there seems to be a tremendous amount of bloat, the infinite terrain doesn't support collision, and i haven't been able to get it to compile cleanly. I was waiting for it to mature a little, when hopefully it will support VC2005. Nice to see that it handles .LWO lightwave models though. it's a definite contender, should things go horribly pear-shaped with the present engine. thankyou again for the kind offer. I have all the books and reference materials i could ever possibly need, but when we do get around to augmenting the skins, i'd be grateful for any help at all. regards to you ken

yes, a jolly bad show, and dashed unsporting! but it's not the end of the road yet, Catch. i've been itching to build some more things recently, and the prod from Gr.Viper is a good excuse. regards to you.

Hi Gr.Viper, not as much as i would have liked. the only thing the engine developers have developed is some strange form of madness. they're "rebranding", and haven't released any bugfixes or pushed the engine forwards in 8 months. they also don't seem to have any interest in this project at all. so... i have no terrain LOD, or multiplayer capability. it's a closed engine architecture, and i can't add those things without paying them something like 64,000 dollars for the source code. lol... which leaves a bit of a smell. I have made some good progress with understanding the maths, and converting some useful AI functions over from C++, but nothing that i can wrap up and call a "game" yet. a couple of people have volunteered to help, and i'm grateful to them. but it's still early days. rewriting it completely, with GL/dx9 renderer and shaders isn't out of the question. in fact, it might be quicker to do that than wait around for other people to deliver. so progress hasn't been great, but the spirit is still strong. regards. ken

nod... thats what i meant when i said it had a proven track record. it gave me hope that the underlying code isn't borked, and could be expanded upon. a big job, yes...but not impossible. How come Shockwave can make commercial games with it? I thought it was available only on a strictly "no profit" basis ? Did they come to some agreement with the original authors? or are *they* the original authors ? oh? BoB looks like C++ and assembler to me? if they have the full source, and a team of people... whats stopping them plumbing in a free library ? (like RakNet, for instance) ? yeah, i've heard of it... Mossie from Richtofen's Skies got in touch. the planes and cockpits look very nice indeed, and i'm assured the flight model is great, but pay-to-play is anathema to my sensibilities. smile... that's what i hoped when i started out, but everybody seems drawn up into their respective camps and never the twain shall meet. I'll keep plugging away at it though, and try to get a playable demo out, building up on the foundations... like you say. thanks for the info, Uriah. i'll check it out... it's good to know that there are many people working in this small genre. cheers..

lol... why did they do that? surely the objects are going to be the same amount of polygons if they are huge or tiny ?

Thanks for the suggestion, Uriah. i take your point, but on the other hand, not everybody wants to know what their coefficient of lift is, and some people of my acquaintance bemoan the lack of "game" in that game. the community here obviously seem to enjoy tweaking their First Eagles textfiles, and i'm happy for them. i hope TK makes a million dollars with it, if thats what he wants. respect to them. but it's not for me... I'm still enjoying RB3D. trundling around the net, i noticed that Rowan software have given away their "Battle of Britain" source code (which was formlerly "Flying Corps Gold"). i haven't got it to compile cleanly yet, but that would be a nice framework to set out from. there's jet code in there too, so it should be possible to extend it once the core graphics have been updated. the map isn't as mighty as EAW's, but it's still gargantuan. two other sims have sprung out of it, so it's got a proven track record. Did i mention the AI ? as it was formerly Flying Corps Gold, there are more WW1 maneuveres in there, than you can shake a stick at. woooohooooo... and free? :yes: deepest sympathies. I used to have nightmares about shunting other peoples data. I hope they pay you a handsome salary in recompense. cheers for your input and advice, Uriah. appreciated.

Hi Uriah, WW2 isn't my sphere of interest, but it's undeniably a great game. tilemapping the whole of Europe is an engineering feat which is still to be marvelled and wondered at today. agreed. i'll happily donate this project when it's finished, but i do feel that the online portion should be untweakable. anybody with an interest in the subject (including your own good self) is invited to download the free tools from... here . Have a play around with it... see if it is for you.... and if so, i'll send you the whole project. or a chunk of it which relates to your area of interest. Any help at all would be appreciated. the only "nono" is using the stuff in other sims, before i've had a chance to release a compiled .exe that is the eventual goal though, and the whole point of the exercise.... free. I don't know, Uriah. with no disrespect, what you're suggesting sounds a little like "First Eagles" ? it's fine if people want to tweak their singleplayer games, but online, everybody should be the same. with the game, innards, and toolkit released, people will be able to tweak stuff to their hearts content. but i don't think i should give it to "the public" until it's completed. thankyou for the suggestion though. appreciated..

Hi Uriah, absolutely. current comfortable viewing distance is 8192 m = 26876.640 ft i hope to be able to bump that up, but there is no LOD on terrain at present. (the DDS textures are being mipmapped, but the geometry isn't being culled). LOD does work well for models though, and changing them to different meshes/sizes based on distance is no biggie. the game can have unlimited levels of LOD.. the only caveat is the time needed to build them all. is 41,000 scientific ? I'll gladly aim for that distance if it is. seems to me that planes are going to be 'one pixel', or virtually invisible at that distance ? but i'll give it a go. ground starts are already done. ODE physics tracks the wheels along the ground pretty well. the correct stall and spin is definitely something to aim for. i appreciate that much smarter people than me have had immense trouble getting it right. but as this is a dedicated WW1 sim, it's defintely on the "TODO" list.. thankyou for bringing it up. As a reference, i've been looking at the "simple slope soarer" (glider simulator available as open source). big enough? you can fly through hangars, and under bridges. the trees have collision on them too. i don't understand what you mean? As Catch pointed out, a lot of flying will be fairly low level, so i've juggled as much realism in there as possible. up high, you can just turn it all off, or hide it.. isn't that how most sims do things? cheers..

Hi Folks... the dogsquad website is moving servers, and may be temporarily unavailable (hence no pictures). normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. game development is ongoing. no worries on that score. regards to all. waves @ Catch ken

ahhh..i know what you mean. no, nothing like that. billboards in the far distance, and models, closer up. trees done by a friend... quote: only the folliage (30 polys) is billboard here, not the trunk. I've made a little forest with some hundreds of trees, using level of detail to make it render faster. From about 70 meters, the 3d tree model is changed to a single poly plane with a .PNG showing a screenshot taken from the original one. A common technique. the FPS is completely OK even with the screen full of trees and leaf textures.

Hi briny_norman. confession: i haven't played it. enclosed cockpits don't "do it" for me. I'm fairly confident i can knock up something decent with the tools i have though. forests can be removed or billboarded at distance, and i can have as many levels of LOD on the trees as i want. flying over a billboard forest of 200 trees, didn't seem to impact on the framerate, but 12 forests at once, did. I could feasibly have trees as detailed as those in twitch shooters, with every leaf modelled, but thats going too far for an air combat game, i think. I'll strive to make them look as nice as i can, and impact upon the framerate as little as possible. but i'm working on other areas of the game at the moment, and it's not something i've spent a great deal of time on. thanks for the suggestion though. cheers..

Hi Briny... i can import a DEM real world map, and split it up into chunks, or model tiled terrain using the BV engine, which has a very nice terrain maker with water. need a river, lake, or coastline? just carve it into the map... lol.... but at present it's too small for flight-sim requirements. i'm testing stuff out on a region approximately 10km, which is made out of traditional 256m tiles. the engine developers have promised full Level of Detail for terrain, but it hasn't landed yet. when that arrives... and i can apply a heightmap across the whole of the created landscapes... *anything* is possible. simple answer... yes. the engine handles LOD and distance culling for objects very well, so 3D forests are easy. but (as im sure you appreciate), it's a balancing act between everything you want to display on screen. everything is jostling for your video ram, and i'm keen to keep the framerate as high as possible. (the dude knocked this up in an hour) cheers, Catch. still got a lot of love for the subject. seven months down the road, and i'm still keen to fire it up each morning. lol... regards to you.

cheers, Alligator. it's being developed with OpenGL, but it's trivial (a matter of cash money) to upgrade that to a DX9 renderer when the game's finished & good to go. in case you were wondering, the main reason for the lowpoly "retro" approach, is that i can have 30-40 things on screen at once, without a noticable slowdown. i'm doing my best to get a playable demo out to people, but i've been beset with delays from the BV engine developers (seven months, to be precise), and had to go out and work, occasionally. i can't make any promises as to *when*, only that i *will* finish it. thankyou for your interest, it keeps the spirit flowing. appreciated.

Does anybody have any plans or pictures of the Sopwith T1, please? torpedoes are working, but the attachment mechanism needs some love. any info appreciated. cheers...

cheers..

been playing with balloons and flak this week.. still a way to go (obviously), but game speed is good.... this test level had 24 balloons, 144 simultaneous flak bursts, pathseeking ground units (a truck convoy), and 6 planes. one day the enemy will fly up and attack me... but not today... lol... they're just milling about on the ground looking confused.

Hi Catch... Gr.Viper... There have been frustrating delays, because the BV engine developers are "indies" with bills to pay, and some features which i'd hoped would be in place by now, are still on the drawing board. but i believe they will be true to their word and deliver the goods. i'd considered switching the project over to a more suitable engine (Apocalyx, DXstudio, or XNA), but that would necessitate redoing much of the work i've put into the campaign backend, and learning a completely different way of doing things. which isn't really a viable use of time. i've been getting some in-depth mathematical assistance from a fellow "flight enthusiast" in Brazil. and to keep the progress flowing, i've been working on things which are achievable with the engine as it is now. still have every confidence, and i appreciate your kind words very much. cheers...

Hi Norman, that is very kind of you, and much appreciated. no worries... don't despair... it will get finished. i'm only 7+ months into a project that i estimated would take 2-3 years. maybe even 4, at the outside. i don't have a programming background, so a lot of the things needed have had to be learned from scratch. but that said, it is only "maths", and the web is full of places where i can learn the equations. nice one. I've bumped into a suprising amount of people that have never played it. I think that's maybe a matter of financial concerns, and development time. in the "good old days" a lot of effort was put into making a game that you'd want to come back to again and again, with it being different each time you played. there are an enormous amount of "twitch shooter" games available now, and many punters seem to want something they can pick up and put down in 30 minutes. it's debatable whether this is player led, or developer led, but nobody can deny that "console style" games are the ones that sell most. I do enjoy twitch shooting, but i also miss the depth of times gone by. cheers for the offer... when it does come to alpha release time (oh happy day), there will be a lot of tweaking and fixing to be done. i'd appreciate it very much if people could "break stuff", and tell me where i've gone wrong, so that things can be fixed or augmented. if you've played RB3D, you will know *exactly* what it's about. the aim, when starting the project, was to build on that framework, and bring it up to date with improved graphics and sound. I can't hope to compete with the uber-modellers and multi-person development teams, but i can (i feel), deliver a decent storyline, which will give people some empathy towards the conditions the early aviators endured. i'm humbled by the support from people with love for the subject. thanks once again, Norman. ken

it's appreciated, people. being snubbed by the skin snobs left a nasty taste, and it warms the heart to discover that there's still human beings out there. i've been getting on with coding, gameplay, and the singleplayer campaigns. consequently, there isn't too much "new stuff" to show off at the moment. if you're flying a two-seater, you can jump into the gunners position and fire to the rear. the engine will also have support for DX9 built in soon, so people can choose which renderer they prefer looking at. slowly, but surely.

cheers guys. i'm still waiting on the engine developers to fix heightmapped terrains before i can release anything you can play with, but everything else is progressing fine. i appreciate your support, and salute your humanity.

Hi folks, enthusiasm undiminished. development still ongoing. features sorted... wingwarping. pilot personality system. pistols/rifles/shotguns in the cockpit. bridges and viaducts you can fly through. pathfollowing -> moving trains & truck convoys to strafe and bomb. improved physics and ground collisions. have a good summer, everyone. regards to the nice people. ken

thankYOU for the suggestion, Gr.Viper. she was a pleasure to build. <----------------- i like your new avatar..

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Thanks Gr.Viper. says she never actually flew on active service? but the flea is ideal for a "steal their prototype" mission. cheers...