Alphadelta

I'd suggest sorting out your seat padding before bolting down your controllers. A couple of inches behind and under you can make quite a difference to where your feet and knees end up. I'm looking forward to seeing it finished! Cheers

The reflections are dynamic (they move as you change your view position in the cockpit). They're made using cubemaps. It's a really fast way to make reflections and as you say, it contributes a lot to feeling like you're surround by glass. A quick preview of the Chinooks door gun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8AHX8uXHpQ

Nightlighting + backlighting + cubemap reflections.

A couple of new screenshots:

That method would require removing the model from the instancing system, which would put serious burden on the GPU as each airframe would be rendered in it's own individual batch process. Squadron decals and possible weathering could be done via glyph bombing but for that you need eye-relative rendering else you get graphical issues caused by floating point inaccuracy. Welcome to the world of highly efficient, 200$ engines. :) Cheers

VRAM limits become a real and unpleasant issue when you start going down that route. An airframe already gets Diffuse + bump + specular + cube map + glow map + damage + damage bump + damage spec...Adding the 4 extra maps (dirt map + dirt map bump + dirt map spec + mask). would probably push VRAM usage over the limit. Cheers

Almost, but not quite! :) We'll have the target range out this year, Herat + campaign next year and possibly the CH-47D by the end of next year. We'll see. I couldn't agree more. The latest version of the skin is quite a bit dirtier than the skin shown in this thread. You and me both Dudley. That's why the MH-6/AH-6 series will be worked on after the Chinook is complete. Cheers

Once the CH-47F has been released we'll assess which helicopters are in demand and subsequently make decisions on what we want to model next. Cheers

Feel free to check out the video of our target range terrain. http://www.youtube.com/user/CombatHelo Don't forget to like and subscribe. :) Cheers

Evening all, The first draft of Combat-Helo's website is almost complete. There's a few more pages to add and some details to fix but it's coming along. Check it out. http://www.combat-helo.co.uk Cheers

We're continually asked to release a beta, but if we had something at beta level we'd be laughing. :) It's an understandable fault, but most gamers seem to believe that every stage of game development before gold status is beta and that developers are holding-out on them for the purposes of masochistic self-destruction. At this point we are so far from what a full beta would contain (i.e EVERY features of the release build) it's not funny, far from funny infact. Hence the need to release the target range/taster/teaser to generate funds and publisher interest to make a full release possible. A taster would also solve one of our greatest problems; that we don't have the man-power or financial resources to properly 'pimp' CH to a wider audience, A taster in the hands of a few hundred hardcore fans would rapidly solve that problem. Once a product is out on the market a larger more active community form and subsequently the players promote the product via screenshots, videos, word of mouth, articles etc for free. :) Just as you say Jedimaster, fewer features, but all working correctly, that's the aim. Hopefully the features we include will be impressive enough that people feel that it was A) worth the money and B) worth future support. Cheers

I haven't been following the latest Jet Thunder developments so I'm not sure whether or not we're going down a similar release path. The current plan is to put out the target range as a taster to the hardcore sim community. Something to generate interest and capital to ensure the larger release can come sooner rather than later. New website coming soon! Cheers

Hopefully we can include a season changer. Cheers

Evening gents, Apologies for the lack of updates lately. Time has been extremely tight! Rather than chip away on the full Combat Helo project and release it in one big drop we've decided to develop and sell an initial taster/trainer. This way players get to try out the full Apache and it's various systems sooner, learn to fly and fight in a less frustrating/dangerous environment, and provide feedback to make the final release smoother and less buggy. We always wanted to develop a fort Rucker style map so the decision made sense on a number of levels. The terrain is a work-in-progress but we've happy with it's accuracy and diversity. There's relatively dense forest, farm land, scrub and an area of desert. Various buildings have been include to give it a mid-western feel. Our yet to be named stagefield. Basic, but with everything an Apache needs to operate. Fuel, ammo and maintenance tents. From inside the control tower. There are 3 regular ranges of differing lengths and 2 slightly more natural firing ranges. Targets range from rusty old pickups to rusty old T-72's. There's also a mock-up of an Afghani compound with multiple enemy firing positions surrounding it. Unorthodox, but it provides some training for the future deployment to Herat, Afghanistan. As always, follow the latest progress on: Our development blog: http://combathelo.blogspot.com/ Our facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/CombatHelo Cheers

Visual damage modeling is one of those areas of sim development that has sky-rocketed over the last couple of years. 10 years ago a flash and some flying debris was enough to convince us that we'd done our job of killing the enemy. It's one area where we want to avoid being too retro, but it's not an area we can compete with the big guns. Cheers

The Flight model shown in the video is our 'easy' flight model. Our advanced flight model (FFD) won't allow you to exceed the capabilities of the Apache. The startup sequence in the video is a bit of a fake. The powertrain simulation isn't yet complete and as a result the start-up procedure isn't implemented. The procedure we demonstrated in the video lacks a few key steps such as turning on the generators, flicking the engine start switches, shoving the throttles forward and disengaging the rotor brake. And then there's other fun and games to deal with such as engaging/disengaging the tail wheel lock, configuring the 19 switch comms panel, and setting up the TSD, ASE, WPN, UTIL and other MPD pages. The end result should be an accurate Longbow start-up procedure, which by it's nature is much simpler than the start-up procedures most of the older hardware we're used to flying due to the heavily computerized cockpit environment. There'll be enough clicking to keep the clickers happy whilst at the same time not bewildering newcomers. Cheers

As promised, Rick has put together a first rate video show-casing the latest development work. ] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6ILqIQDaio Cheers

We just finished up the set and here they are. Please remember that they're all produced with tongue in cheek and that we have no political affiliations with any groups. They're all for s**ts and giggles. Cheers

Fingers crossed we'll be able to distribute it ourselves through our own website DRM-free, with Steam used as a method of mass-distribution in order to sell to gamers outside of the sim community. You'll exist as a constant entity in the 3d world, in short, there's no menu system or loading screens. From the time you launch the game to the time you close it down you'll be moving around your base on foot or flying missions. There'll be 2 dynamic campaigns, counter-insurgency and anti-armour. Cheers

Glad you like the signs. :) We firmly believe It's little details like that that create personality and feel. They're touches that the ultra-sterile sims of today are lacking. I've got another couple of signs to make after that I'll make a Combat Ace exclusive sign preview. Some atmospheric shots. Cheers

A couple of newer shots from herat city.

We've been running a development thread over at simhq and I should have started one here long ago. Here's a selection of screenshots: A very odd area north of Herat city. The endless sea of sand and rock. Another super micro sized greenzone. Lots and lots of these added with hundreds more to add. The road to Herat. Need to add a couple of mosques to this village. To the left, a new town, to the right, a greenzone, in the middle, not much of anything. The new, yet to be named town. And a little industrial center leading off from the town.

Nutty Swedish sisters trying to get themselves run-down. http://news.bbc.co.u...ews/7636577.stm Crazy American lady throwing punches because they won't sell her deep fried chicken grizzle. http://www.bbc.co.uk...canada-10922428 Saudi women...Taking photographs!!! http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/world_news_america/8899583.stm?ls Cheers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ktBQ51iGWw