Hellshade

The "For contrast" remark was in reference to Air Combat Video #13 where I flew the same QC but with guns on normal. Someone asked if I may have had my guns on Stronger or Strongest, which when looking at the video, was a very reasonable question to ask considering how often the Albs blew up and with such few rounds. So I just ran the same setup again except this time with guns set to Strongest to see if they went down any quicker. I agree with you about the AI. As good as it is compared to some of the other flight sims out there of ANY war period, there is always room for improvement and I too am hoping that P4 makes things even better. I think the Albs in particular are not as fearsome in P3 air combat as they were in real life. And for some reason the DIIIs engine appears to be particularly vulnerable to exploding when hit by a few rounds. It makes for some exciting videos but I don't know if there is any historical justification for them being DM this way in P3. Hellshade

Hellshades Air Combat Video #15 (4:48) 1080P HD Just for some contrast. 6 "Ace" Alb DIIIs vs 1 Sopwith Tripe, 500 rounds, no cheats on except ammo counter and Guns are set to STRONGEST. They do indeed come down quite quickly. Enjoy, Hellshade

Let me just say that trying to keep 6 Fokker DR 1 Aces in a relatively small area, without letting any of them get on your tail to shoot you is something like trying to keep a bunch of marbles grouped together, without actually touching one another, on a completely uneven slick surface. What a freakin nightmare!!! I don't know if I have ever worked that hard in a cockpit before in my life. It isn't pretty towards the end, but it's a hell of fight. I highly recommend anyone who wants to feel completely overwhelmed in the air give that scenerio a try. Same rules as before. Weapons normal, 500 rounds and no "cheats" except the ammo counter is up. Hellshades Air Combat Video #14 (8:01) 1080P HD Enjoy, Hellshade

Well done Lou. I see you got the engine to explode and come flying out too. Nice shooting. Where did you get that scenery from? Hellshade

No offense taken at all, my friend. There have been several missions that, having flown and reviewed them, I jump back into the workshop to make sure my guns are on normal. I might try a QC in the same scenerio using guns on Strongest though, just too see how many fewer bullets it allows me to prevail with. And Parky, flying against DR 1s sounds fun indeed. Keep checking back and I'm sure I'll get one posted sooner or later. Did you guys check out Campaign Video #13? Damn Spads were endless!!! Hellshade

With the exception of ground attack videos (it's too hard to blow up a parked plane) and two air combat videos (where I forgot to switch it back after ground attack ones) my guns really are on normal. I am also using the standard damage model. No DM mods. The secret is to aim right in front of or at the engine (depending on distance and angle of attack, of course) when at any angle other than directly behind them. When I latch right on to their 6, I try to aim slightly above or right at the pilots head or I try to dip down slightly below so I can aim up into the engine. But there is another secret too. Early Albatross's seem to explode much easier than other aircraft with engine hits. Especially the DIIIs. I'm not sure why but it seems to take fewer rounds to get them to catch fire. And of course, the planes are more likely to explode when I am right on top of them doing my work. My hit percentage is often 40% - 50%. I even had a 64% accuracy rating once after one mission. The more bullets pouring in, the faster you get the effect you desire. You just have to know the exact split second of when to pull away so you don't ram the fellow. That's why I love the Sopwith Triplane so much. It has agility in the air that allows me to maximize my fighting style, despite the fact it only has 1 gun. Here's a Campaign Video I did late last night. Jasta 2, July 18, 1918 on patrol and we come across a squadron of Spad XIIIs from ESC 112 squadron. With Spads, I found the weak spot to be their wings. Holy hell though, I didn't think they would ever stop coming. You'll notice the entire video is shot in a single take too. No editing at all other than text, of course. What an amazing fight! Hellshades Campaign Video #13 (9:58) HD I readily admit to using 3 cheats on every single one of my Campaign Videos though. Automixture is On, as are Unlimited Fuel and Unlimited Ammo. I would never stop kicking myself if I ran into a perfect dogfight and suddenly it was all over because I ran out of fuel or ammo. I try not to "spray the sky" very often, if at all. In particular though I found it difficult to get up very close to the Spads with my DVII, so I did a lot of lead shooting at the broad surface of their wings. Much too far for me to be able to accurately hit their engines. Enjoy Hellshade

Just how much damage can you do with a single gun and only 500 rounds? 6 v 1 quick combat video using "DiD" settings except the ammo counter is left up. Hellshades Air Combat Video #13 (5:14) HD Enjoy, Hellshade

Very nice video RAF. Cool scene of you flying directly over the pyramids. Nice flying and excellent shooting too. I like how you save your ammo until each round is going to count by finding it's mark. Well done! Hellshade

What are you talking about?!? That's how I fly! Hellshade

I'm running Win 7 64 bit edition and having no troubles at all. Maybe he has a P/S issue? Hellshade

Thanks for sharing that. Good stuff. Hellshade

Flying for survival (what you do) is what the real pilots did. My flying is more for "Hollywood", sad to say. That said, you could still record a Scramble Mission the next time one occurs if you choose to fly them. I've been trying to get one and haven't had any luck yet. Or simply hit the record button the moment you decide to engage or are "jumped" during your routine sorties. OFF could probably use some good scenery videos too, where planes are recorded at max detail flying above various max detail landscapes. The ftrial version of FRAPS allows you to record 30 seconds of video at a time so you can always give it a try and see if you like what you get. Hellshade

Sometimes a mission doesn't work out to be a good video, but maybe one or two really cool things happened before it got screwed up. Well folks I have been saving clips and last night I pasted together a collage of some of the more intense footage from my time spent flying Over Flanders Fields. Flying different planes in different battles, both Quick Combat and Campaign Missions, this is a collection of what I call "Lucky Shots, Stunning Kills & Amazing Escapes". I hope you have as much fun watching them as I had the thrill of flying them. Hellshades Greatest Hits #1 (7:25) HD Hellshade

Fantastic job Olham! It's hard to fly and keep the TrackIR view steady on the enemy airplanes, isn't it? But you seem to have that down very well. I really liked the slow motion effects too. I might have to borrow that trick sometime if you don't mind. I think it added alot to it. Keep em coming bud. I'd like to see more! Oh and I saw you got the first plane smoking pretty quickly. Nice shooting. No wonder the Allies fear you. Hellshade

Thank you very much for your compliments gentleman. They are greatly appreciated. That is my goal, Olham. I'm trying to get people who are interested in a good WWI flight sim to take a serious look at all that OFF: BH&H and HitR has to offer, especially in terms of the scope of the dynamic campaign as well as how great a job it does of immersing you in the feeling of being in a war instead of flying in a "fishbowl". It is definately time consuming work as Ras says. Trying to get all the settings right, good TrackIR camera work and still fly an exciting mission that I will hopefully live through! Here is a fairly short Campaign video, but I think the flying makes it pretty thrilling and the narrative does a good job of bringing the experience to life. Hellshade Campaign Video #12 (3:15) HD Enjoy, Hellshade

Jasta 7 on Patrol behind friendly lines - 24 July 1918 - in stormcloud filled skies. My squadron members spot the Crumpets hiding amongst the clouds and roll in to attack. Hellshades Campaign Video #11 (7:59) HD Enjoy, Hellshade

The real question I suppose should be, "What good is a high hit % if you end up dead in less than 3 to 5 patrols?" (which is what usually happens to me). My hit accuracy is usually very good but my flying is far too aggressive for me to live through too many missions. I need to combine my hit accuracy with Creaghorns patience for only engaging in fights he feels certain that he can win. Then again, my hit accuracy comes from being so close I can shake hands with the EA pilot before I open fire, not because I am a crack shot. I doubt very seriously Creaghorn ever flies and fights that way no matter what the odds. My last two campaign videos I have been taking some long range pot shots and my accuracy dropped to like 9% in one and 16% in the other. I guess as long as we are flying the way that lets us each have the most fun, that's all that really matters. Hellshade

I agree it is more thrilling without the TAC and labels. The only reason I turned them on for this campaign video is because there were questions over previous videos I did with some people saying that Over Flanders Fields can't have 40 planes in the sky except in Quick Missions 20 v 20 mode. The TAC proves at least 38 aircraft in the sky of 4 different types (Spad XIIIs, Sopwith Camels, Fokker DVIIs and Alb DVas) at various altitudes which can't be done in any of the Quick Missions. It's a video rebuttal proving the campaign capabilities of Over Flanders Fields: Between Heaven and Hell. They can post what they want, but the video speaks for itself. As for your request for an epic battle without the TAC and labels on - Jasta 7 flew again a few days later in very stormy skies. I am uploading the video now and I'll post it once it finishes processing into HD mode on youtube. Hellshade

My Jasta 7 flight came across a huge furball and decided to help shift the odds in favor of the Kaiser. Spad XIIIs, Sopwith Camels, Fokker DVIIs and Albatross DVas all mix it up in this one! Plus, I do a little strafing of British troops who are advancing while under artillery barrage afterwards. I had to split it up into two videos because youtube only allows videos a maximum of 10 minutes. I left the TAC up and labels on, even though they are a bit of an immersion killer, so that people could see how many planes were in the sky at one time. At the start of the fight, I counted at least 38 aircraft blips on my "radar". Man I love this flight sim! Hellshades Campaign Video #10 - Part 1 of 2 (7:46) HD Hellshades Campaign Video #10 Part 2 of 2 (7:25) HD Enjoy Hellshade

To delete a video from Youtube, you must be signed in to youtube under your account name. Then under your login name on the upper right hand side of the screen, click the down arrow button and select "My Videos". The page will change to display all of the videos you have uploaded from most recent to longest ago. On the lower right hand side of the page of each video you will see the Delete button. As to how to get good quality videos, I consider that a constant work in progress. But I will give you the settings that I am using and you will need to adjust them up or down depending on your specific hardware of course. My settings are as follows: Nvidia Control Panel Anistropic filter = 8X AA Gamma Correction = ON AA Mode = Override Any Application AA Setting = 16xQ <--- You can actually turn this off completely and the video will still look ok because the FRAPS software is going to reduce the video screen size by 1/2 and get rid of most jaggies anyways. Try it both ways. AA Transparency = Off Extension Limit = On Max Pre-rendered Frames = 5 Texture Filtering Quality = Quality Texture Filtering Anistropic Sample Optimization = On Texture Filtering Negative LOD Bias = CLAMP Trilinear Optimization = On Triple Buffering = On Vertical Sync = Force On OFF BH&H Slider settings Aircraft = 5 Terrain = 4 Scenery = 3 Effects = 5 Clouds = 4/5 depending on if you want enemy AI to see through the clouds Resolution setting in CFS3 Config 1680 x 1050 no AA FRAPS settings 60 FPS record rate Half size Windows Live Movie Maker http://explore.live....ive-movie-maker For FRAPS, you will need the registered version in order to be able to record more than 30 seconds. If you have the latest registered version (3.2.2) it will record up to 3.9GB worth of data and then immediately start another video (without you having to re-push the record button) which you can then simply add together in the Windows Live Movie Maker. You generally will not even see a single frame skip when you do this. It does a great job. The Process Once you've flow the mission and recorded what you wished, exit OFF, load up Windows Live Movie Maker and put together your video with any title screens, text overlaps and credits, etc. When you are ready to publish it, select the "Home" tab and on the right hand side of the menu you will see "Sharing". Don't select the Youtube option. You'll get crappy results because it will publish it in a 360 quality format which is very poor quality. Select the icon that looks like a TV screen and says High Definition (1080P) when you highlight it. There are two other video screen icons for recording at 720P and 480 but obviously you won't get as good of quality by using them. The video will be saved to your local hard drive. Now we need to get it uploaded to youtube. The file size of your final video, by the way, is going to be drastically reduced down from the 3.9GB raw video clip that FRAPS recorded to somewhere between 100 - 450MBs. You will notice a loss of quality but not nearly as bad as if you published it in the default 360 quality format of youtube. Once you save your video and give it a name it's time to head to your personal Youtube web page again. Select upload video and browse to the video you just recorded from Windows Movie Maker Live. Upload it and put it your title, comments, etc. This can take awhile to upload, even if you have a good connection speed. Some of my videos took nearly 2 hours to upload even with a 5Mbps connection. Youtube is just slow that way. Once you have it uploaded, it's not immediately viewable in HD mode. In fact it looks like crap. Youtube will give you a message when you try to play it saying that the video is still being processed and the picture will likely improve when it's done. You don't have to do anything except wait for youtube to get done processing the video. You don't even need to be logged into the page while it does this, which is good because they take a long time to process the videos into HD format. Sometimes 2 - 3 hours. You will know that they are done processing it when you go to your youtube videos page and the "HD" now appears after the name of the video. It still is not going to look nearly as crisp and clear as the video you recorded directly from FRAPS but it will look better than a non-HD youtube video. That's pretty much the process I use. If you have any questions at all, please feel free to ask. I'd love to see your work sir. And thank you for the compliment on my videos. It is a lot of work but, for myself at least, I find the results to be very satisfying. OBD has crafted such a beautiful WWI flight simulator but they have no way to offer a Demo to people to try it. I hope maybe if people see the videos of in game action they will see what they are missing and decide it's worth far more than the price of admission. Hellshade

Nice save Druce! Hate it when the top or bottom wings go AWOL during a flight. Hellshade

Flying for the French, ESC 84 squadron, 6 April 1917 in Nieuport 17s. We were assigned to bomb a Rail Road station, however I found a couple of extra targets of opportunity after the primary target had been hit. Definately one of the more successfuly ground attack missions I have ever flown! Let me know what you think of my unorthodox attack timing for making a strafing run. It seems to have worked very well! Hellshades Campaign Video #9 (7:27) HD Hellshade

Indeed, Happy Father's Day all. Hellshade

On a lone wolf patrol I flew high over two flights of Fokker DVIIs totalling 9 aircraft. A flight of 6 and a flight of 3. After identifying all of the enemy planes, I flew back to the flight of 6 and dove down on them in my SE5a Viper. Glory has a high price but it was a hell of a fight. Hellshades Campaign Video #8 (6:52) HD Enjoy Hellshade

I don't use Macros. I assign the buttons functions right in OFF. Hellshade