Stephen1918

I'm finalizing my presentation over the next few days (I present on Friday.) There has been a great response from 33Lima, Quack74, and Geezer. I still have room for more screen shots - I want to include as many people as I can. If anyone else wants to contribute, please post them here, or attach them to a message. Thanks

Looking good!

Thanks guys - more is always better! Geezer - with all these great shots (Quack sent me some too) there are going to be socks flying all over the room. 33Lima - even more thanks! I'll use the stock plane shots if I can get them in.

I appreciate all the screen shots, 33Lima and Geezer. Does anybody else have any shots? I could really use about twice as many as this. I would like to show different terrains, different skins and decal sets, even planes on the runway. I'm going to spend about 15 minutes showing how I make a plane and what goes into each plane. Then I hope to have a slide show with a different shot every few seconds for 15 minutes while I talk about First Eagles and the other modders who have contributed to the game. so I need a total of around 150 shots.

Wonderful shots, 33Lima. Thanks!

These are all great! I can use as many as you guys can come up with. 33Lima - These are just what I had in mind. The "shot up" and "going down in flames" shots are good too, they show what goes on in the game. Geezer - Your shots are good example of my planes wearing your skins. My presentation will talk about the teamwork that goes into a game, so it isn't all about me (although I do intend to do a little bragging!) Skyviper - Sorry, I can't really use a video this time. But it was a good idea, thanks for the offer.

Yes! Exactly what I'm looking for. Thanks 33Lima!

I have been asked to make a presentation of my planes at a local game developers show. (I will promote First Eagles while I'm at it.) I would like to be able to show high resolution screen shots of my planes in action. I'm looking for a good variety of my planes, over a variety of terrains, "in action" during the game. "Artistic" kinds of shots are good. Other planes can be in the shot, other people's skins can be on my planes. I need to be able to give credit (using your screen name) for who made the screen shot, who made the skin, the terrain, etc. So I don't want to just grab stuff from the other threads. If you have anything to help me, please post it here. I need it in about a week. Thanks.

The Schwartlose for the Aviatik-Berg was made with the axis running right down the barrel. It was the only way I could get the muzzle flash to line up properly with the gun. I've never had any trouble getting bombs to attach at any angle using the weapons station attachment angles. In the Voisin, the Caudron, and some others, some loadouts have the bombs racked vertically along the fuselage. BUT - guns appear to be a different story. I played with both the Aviatik and with Monty CZs Nieuport (wing mounted Lewis gun version by Whiteknight, I think) and I could not get the gun to rotate up and down using the attachment angles. It would rotate along x and z, but not around y. The y angle is controlled by the GunBoreSightAngle under FlightControl, as ojcar said. Changing the GunSightBoreAngle moved the gun up and down in both planes. But (again) - in both planes that was the only gun - I didn't have time to experiment with one gun attached the usual way and another gun attached through a weapon station - ojcar made a dummy gun (no LOD and doesn't fire) for some of the pusher type aircraft. You might try mounting that as the primary gun and see if the secondary gun can be controlled by the attachment angles.

I try to be as accurate as possible in all my planes, but the game does impose some limits and there is always a bit of "fudge factor" especially in the cockpits and gunners. So, I try to at least be believable. Ojcar - you just updated Armchair Aces, and now there's a new plane. Sorry?

The cockpit and nacelle on this plane are a real compromise. In the game, the gunner is attached to the gun and moves when the gun moves. His legs are severely distorted to keep them from sticking through the side of the nacelle, but still look believable from above. If the pilot is any closer to the gunner, you can see the distortion in the cockpit view. So the nacelle is wider and the crew are farther apart than they should be. I'm also putting a dashboard in the cockpit to help hide the gunner. I don't think the real F.40 had an instrument panel, just instruments hung on the frame as necessary. But it should still be a good plane.

Very nice detail. The smoothing technique works very well on the fuselage and rudder. I like the detail around the nose of the CR42. How does that affect the poly count?

I've taken some time out from the Galicia terrain (I really hate doing rivers!) to work on the Farman F.40, a two seat pusher style that was used pretty heavily in 1916. I'm still working on the gunner and haven't even started the skins yet. The gunner is giving me a lot of problems, finding the balance between range of motion, realism, and poly count. When this is finished, I'll do an F.30 for the Russians. Crowford has been helping with info about Russian cockpits and instruments.

I appreciate the offer, but like Geezer, I'll have to decline. Right now, the real world is keeping me stretched pretty thin and I just can't take on more things to learn. But thanks for thinking of me.

That is very cool! Painting all the tracks must be an incredible amount of work, but it sure looks nice in the terrain. If you place a balloon several kilometers down range, you can get the gun to fire during the game. The engine behind the gun should be facing the other way - the gun would roll back when it recoiled and the engine would push it back into position.

This is a great surprise! I have enjoyed flying your campaigns and I'm looking forward to flying this one as well. (As soon as I finish shoveling snow!...)

Speaking for myself, it would be good to be able to use them as staff cars and supply vehicles on airfields. Being a little out of scale in a city won't be that noticeable when you're flying past it. So I would leave them true size. Others may have different opinions... Wilches - My brother has a friend whose cousin saw Elvis working at a Burger King in Battle Creek, Michigan. But that was years ago...

If you land a plane close to a city, you'll see that the buildings are quite a bit smaller than they should be. But that's OK because you usually just see them from the air. Objects you would find on an airfield are normal size because you do see them from the ground. Check out the trucks driving through a city. I think the terrain is scaled down to speed up the game. How boring would it be if you had to really spend 45 minutes flying to your target?

These will be a nice addition to any terrain. I'm looking forward to them.

Tonight I uploaded a new skin set for the Voisin LAS. This one is a Russian skin for the plane made at the Lebedev factory in Petrograd. This was inspired by some postings made by Crowford. The Russians didn't do much in the way of fancy markings, so when this came up, I had to do it! Early Lebed Voisins carried the company logo on the tail, featuring a swan (lebed is Russian for "swan".) Later versions had a much smaller logo in the middle of the standard roundel. I have included both versions in my skins. This is for the 120hp, but will also work for the 150hp Voisins. My thanks to Crowford for providing many resources and references for the logo and for placement of the insignia. And for helping me with the Cyrillic inscription.

View File Skin for Lebedev built Voisin LAS This is a new skin for the Voisin3_120, part of the Voisin LAS-2 pack available in the CombatAce Aircraft Downloads area (under Other Entente Aircraft). This skin is for a Russian Voisin LAS built at the Lebedev factory in Petrograd. It has a grey skin with the appropriate decals. Early in the war, Lebed built planes had a large company logo on the rudder. Later versions (after 1915) had a much smaller logo placed at the center of the standard Russian insignia. I have included both versions in the download. These skins are made for the 120hp Voisin, but will also work on the 150hp version. They will not work on the Voisin Type V. Note The inscription on the logo translates (approximately): "V.A. Lebedev Aeronautics Co., Ltd. - Petrograd" Credits My thanks to Crowford who provided many resources for the logo, placement of the insignia, and for valuable help with the Cyrillic inscription. Installation instructions Put the folders named "V3LebedEarly" and "V3LebedLate" into your FirstEagles/Objects/Aircraft/Voisin3_120 folder. Next, open my "PutInDFolder" and put all three files into the "D" folder for the Voisin3_120. For FE1, it will be inside the Aircraft/Voisin3_120 folder. for FE2, it will be inside the Decals/Voisin3_120 folder. Submitter Stephen1918 Submitted 01/29/2015 Category Other Entente Aircraft Skins

Concerning skis... I can only get them to work on absolutely flat airfields in "Easy" mode. There has to be some drag on the ski when the plane is on the ground, if the ground is not level, the drag causes the plane to never reach airspeed, go wandering around the terrain, or nose over. In "Normal" or "Hard" mode landing is nearly impossible because the plane noses down and crashes as soon as the skis touch the ground. I've talked about this with ojcar, who made all the FMs for my floatplanes. The seaplanes only worked because the "ground" was always level, but even then, the drag had to be set so low that some planes taxi for kilometers after they land. FE was not designed for these kinds of planes, the game engine does not have the necessary parameters. Meanwhile, there are dozens of wheeled aircraft still to be made, I'm going to go back to working on them.

Thanks guys. This is the first terrain I've made from scratch, the others were revisions of existing terrains. The more I work on this, the more respect I have for Gterl, Wrench, Gepard, and other modders who have made terrains for FE. It's an incredible amount of work (but still worth the effort.)

I started a new version of the Galicia terrain several months ago. It's going slowly because I keep stopping to work on new planes. The basic terrain is finished, the foothills of the Carpathians in the south and marshland to the north. I'm still adding roads and rivers (very tedious work.) There are about 100 towns and villages, all of them pretty small. I hate seeing farms at a steep angle and buildings sticking out of hills, so I've been doing a lot of tweaking of the height map. I haven't even started to place the military targets yet.