OvS

Yes and no on this BirdDog, make sure you check-out the sticky posted in the Knowledge Base (the link is below) for some really good tweaks that many players are benefitting from. You can drop some of the scenery sliders and still have plenty of scenery to enjoy without the higher FPS cost. http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?showtopic=38212 Have you looked into these yet? If not, give them a try. OvS

Just for the record, let it be known that I am not taking a shot at anything Kessler did with FCJ, I am taking a shot at the engine of RB3D. For what Kessler, Pat Wilson, BvH and myself included did with that engine was an accomplishment in science. We pushed it further than the original developers ever meant it to be. But constraints of ace numbers, lack of good data and several other issues created more problems for us in a historical sense, than we could account for. There is nothing worse than being 'limited' on Aces, planes, mission types.. etc. With OFF, there is no limit. There is no 35 ace limit. Just the active German pilots (aces and normal pilots with data files) stand at well over 430. That left us miles of room to create hundreds of individual skins per plane type. However, 8 years later... the net is full of vast resources, experts all over the place, better game technology and everything else we needed to make OFF the best it could be. So although there are limits to the CFS3 engine, the amount of action, immersion and atmosphere in OFF far outweigh them. As far as historic accuracy, anything that was created from an artists rendition was done within circa. Nothing extreme, nothing over the top. I actually consulted with Jim Dietz on this very subject, and his words inspired me. Basically it came down to him saying that I needed to stand in front of the plane in 1917 and paint what it would have looked like based on the other profiles that you have studied. It made perfect sense. But even so, we had to take everything anyone offered with a 'grain of salt'. It's all based on what someone believes to be correct based piecing together written accounts and starring at B/W photos. I give you Ernst Udet's E.III as the best example. As it turns out, the modern consensus was that his bands were light blue and black, not red and black. Go figure. I'm really looking forward to you having OFF in your hands, and hearing what you have to say about it once it's up and running. :) All the best, OvS

OK, thanks guys! :) I'll sticky this thread so all can see it in the future. It's a good one. OvS

Got any tools left? I need a weather strip channel on the back of my '66 Nova Wagon I've been restoring for the past 3 years. ;) OvS

<S!> Lehman.... did you think I would forget you guys? ;) http://jasta5.org/Jagdstaffeln_5/pilots/OvS.htm Jasta 5 is very well represented, and you guys will be shocked when you see how well. Everything from Mai's D.II to his Dr.1 taken from Jasta 11. We still have some D.VII's to do, but everything before that is there as much as possible. All three of the 'German skinners' had a hand in it... Makai, Paarma and myself. It was something I promised to Baumer, and the lot of us made a point in doing. The three of us were real excited when we around got to J5!! Spread the word to the boys that I said hello. And another special thanks to Baumer for taking care of me and my HASP site. Tell him to stop by... there's a whole new world after RB3D, come and join us brother. All the best! OvS

Topic moved to Knowledge Base simply becasue it's too good to be lost in a thread. :) Great stuff! OvS

Remember, a lot of stuff needs to be natural lighting, and not so much photo-realistic. You have to match the skin to the look of the game in saturation, design, and shading. Too muchin painted on shading, and it looks stupid, too much color, it looks like a cartoon... etc. Experiment with color burn as well. Make a new layer, paint it pale light yellow, tan... whatever... and use the color burn wand on it. See what effects it makes. You can actually weather the look of the varnish that way. See my D.III factory skin for an example of what it looks like. The wood grain on that plane was made with actual pictures of birch plywood. The photos were then used the same way I told you about the flowers. But you have to work with it on many layers. It's not that simple. Some guys like harder looking wood, I don't. I like to see the grain as you would if you sanded the sheet... so I did just that. OvS

LOL! Thanks... yes.. much too much time spent sitting in front of the PC painting 1000's of skins. Here's a really cool shading/oil stain trick I taught Makai when I paid him a visit. Find a really good picture of roses, or flowers. One that is LOADED with them, like as if someone looked straight down into a flower patch. Take the photo, desaturate it (B&W) and use gaussian blur until you loose the details of the flowers. It looks like a massive splotch photo. Now take your wing section, and drop that on to it... use Hard light, soft light, overlay, whatever setting looks the best, and fade it out. What you'll end up with is the look of an 'oil soaked' rag. Try it and play with it a lot. It's all there, you just have to dial in the right settings. OvS

LOL! No Stump, there are paper models... I meant modeling with Gmax. ;) I need some 3-view line drawings for him OvS

In BM, the Pflaz, Dr.1 and D.VII's were hand built for the movie. The Pfalz is actually flying again, but it was written it was a mess after the movie was completed. They used the wrong varnish on the wood, and it warped to hell. So if they built the above, they could have built the others. BUT... bugets, safety, etc, come into play. You don't need to jepordize lives for action scenes to that extent. They did not toss the planes about simply because they were flimzy, and not really rated for that type of action. Even though they appear in movies, they are still subject to FAA regulations, even under the experimental tag. In flyboys, the ground shots are filmed using scale versions of the N17. In the 60's, the Tiger Moth was the plane of choice in most if not all WWI movies. It was durable, fast, and a sturdy easy flier. Much like the M48 tank seemed to be the German tank of choice of most WWII movies back then as well. OvS

I did, and I like the movie... I actual thought it was very good. You can't base the whole movie on just the flight scenes. The Blue Max had 100% better flight scenes, but the planes were all wrong, and you could see it was all fake and cut-scened to death. But we love it... meanwhile it was really an OK movie but not even true at that other than the atmosphere. But RB, it was good as far as the acting, and the attempt at being correct... it's just that like I said, you're there... man... right there. Just a few more mouse clicks to skin the planes like they should have been. Just one more step, instead of trying to 'Hollywood' it to death. Bertram's D.III was in J30, not J11. It was a beautiful plane, but so was Wolff's, Allmenroder's, Krefft's... why replace them with J14's and J30's? OvS

Nice effort Widow... It's tough to use Soft Light. Each color has different results. You have to play around A LOT with the coloring, saturation, and light settings... especially with Red. Red is the hardest, along with black. Black is tough because if you do it wrong, it looks too glossy, or too over contrasted. You're doing a great job, and I like the 'venom'... maybe a good name for it. ;) OvS

I'll find that and post it as a 'sticky'.... For now, it's <ctrl>+<;>, then look in your x:\user\mydocuments\OverFlanders... folder. It will be there. OvS

Ask the populous who The Red Baron is... they will tell you some German guy named von Rickenbacker. Ask the populous who Kurt Wolff was... they will tell you... I don't know, it is Peter Wolff's brother? Was he in a movie? Movies based on little known history are for fanatics and historians, not the populous... that's what the Titanic was for. And yes, at the speed those planes were flying (diving) at, they would have broken apart in seconds. OvS

True, like watching Jasta 11 flying in Jasta 14's livery? That was annoying to say the least. The renderings were amazing, but as I said about Flyboys.... you're there, in front of the PC, making the models and skins... why not go the extra mile and make them correct? How hard would it have been to make Wolf fly in the half Mauve D.III, or Lothar in the dark brown factory finish. No, they go and make the entire Jasta 14 ace paints and put Jasta 11 pilots in them, as if no one would notice. Don't they know most of thier audience are WWI fanatics like us? OvS

Thanks Hellshade, you have proven my point of using the trees as an escape route. When I wrote this in one of my pre-release Combat Report, I was questioned whether or not I was 'pumping' the game with false information, or dramatics. But it was the truth, you can get down to fly bewteen the trees and the AI will do the same. So it's a viable tactic if you are out numbered and on the run. As Bruce Lee once put it... "in real, true combat, there are no rules and anything goes. I want to defeat you and I will using everything I know." Makes perfect sense.

The idea of painting planes was no different that kids today with motorcycles. It was a pilot's plane, so naturally, they took to them and made them their own. Why not, if they were to die in them, make them beautiful. Much like the American Indians did with War Paint, and all the like. It's an intimidation thing, it's pride, respect... 'hey look at me, I killed your buddy'... etc.. all wrapped into the mind of a young 18 year old behind the seat of a fast, killing machine. As far as the name Flying Circus: it all had to do with packing-up and moving to the next location overnight. The Entente bombers would be set to take down an aerodrome one-day, the next morning fly to it, and it would be gone. So, much like the 'fly by night' operation of the Circus, the GAF was the same. Good tactics considering the smaller size of the squadrons... hit and run always works when you're the little guy. OvS

Ronbo, Hello and welcome to the forum and OFF BHaH. Please, by all means crank up the now ancient Full Canvas Jacket, and compare it to the Modern OFF BHaH. What you will see will leave you in awe for months. You will quickly note about BHaH: The immersion - something we could never get out of RB3D. Sure the sky was busy, but it died there. No war down below. The detail level - many and I mean MANY of the skins are historically accurate, and based on factual information provided to use from Dan-San Abbott, Bob Pearson, and several other historian/WWI artists (and our beloved Shredward as well). The value of replay - this is where the pay-off is. The dynamic missions, the detail... everything all bundled-up into one huge pacakage. Nothing is scripted, you have NO IDEA what will happen next. If you loved RB3D... you will never leave your house once you have OFF running on a solid, updated PC. It's smooth as silk at 40+ FPS on my rig and near life-like. Also - with RB3D... trees? In OFF there are thousands all around you and you can use them to hide behind in a low-level dog-fight. I don't know... I could never do it, but if you must, go ahead and make the comparison. Also, many of Kessler's skins were artist renditions of what he believed to be correct, as stated by Kessler himself years ago. We did some of that too, but not in bulk ... only to fill small voids, so what you are about to see may very well be the first of it's kind to actually offer users a taste of what WWI may have looked like. As far as painting your own plane... hopefully WM can figure a way to do this down the road, but we don't offer that option yet. Believe me, it will be the last thing on your mind for a while anyway. All the best.... OvS Oh.... one more thing... If you recognize my 'handle'... yup, it's me... the same OvS that created the Hell's Angels series of mods for RB3D... so I know what I am talking about. I personally gave my 110% attention to accomplish all I could never accomplish in RB3D with the German side of the war in OFF. You have never seen the German Imperial Air Force like this before. The 3 guys (myself included) on the Team that created the German skins were all insane about the detail levels... we really pushed it, and it shows.

Please immediately refrain from posting, or offering any OFF type original and copywritten material without specific written permission from the OFF Dev Team. What I can suggest is offering how/what you used to increase the volume, which is as easy as using sound recorder in M$, but not our files. Thanks, OvS

Beanie, I can't tell by the small size of the thumbnail you posted, but is this a whole new skin, or a re-work of an original OFF skin? Thanks, OvS

Here's my contribution to this insane subject... Classic 70's kids TV... OvS

Jeeze... imagine putting kids in these things and letting them have IMAGINATIONS again!!! Like we did playing 'War' back in the day. I remember storming the German bunkers (tool shed) and taking out the Flak 88's (over-turned wheel barrel with painted pvc pipe)! :yes: Dump the Wii's, the PS3's, and XBox360's... get 'em a fully kid-functional Dr.1!!! OvS

Wingstrut is now doing professional grade color profiles. Sygrod and the rest are not modding anything from what I've learned about them over the years. BTW... Beery was a WWI re-enactor, so I assume he's still doing that. Shame, so much talent lost becuase they reached the 'top of the Red Baron' mountain. There is plenty of life after RB3D... even the guys that are still trying to work with it now. I give them a lot of credit, but the base game technology is now 10+ years old. Ancient by all means of computer life. OvS

I love it!! Where can I get one!!!