Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Rate This Thread
Hop To
Page 1 of 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
#1533057 - 09/08/04 03:02 PM Some updates...  
Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 320
Dante-JT Offline
Member
Dante-JT  Offline
Member

Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 320
Florianópolis - Brazil
...of whats going on, in development, lately:

first, the Type 42 destroyer getting ready to sail:


We're starting to implement the damage system - it works in a similar way to current IL-2 - it's fully modular so adding more parts for damage with different textures for different kinds of damage is more a matter of content creation than programming, with a bit of scripting:




The above screenshots are take from our test shell, where we open the model and can view if the animations are working and test the damage levels part by part without having to actually load the entire flight sim - so, the lighting and overall rendering is more simple in our test shell than in the flight sim itself.

As soon as I got fully references for each aircraft model, we'll dive into the effort of modelling a very high detail mesh for the internals of the aircraft - this high detail mesh of the plane's skeleton will then serve for the purpose of creating the \'Normal Maps\' . These will make the relief of damaged surfaces much more appealing. Also it's interesting for the relief of rocky coastlines (common in the Falklands), although of course it will require current top graphic cards for full effect.


-----
Jet Thunder Project
http://www.thunder-works.com
Inline advert (2nd and 3rd post)

#1533058 - 09/08/04 04:03 PM Re: Some updates...  
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 11,072
semmern Offline
Veteran
semmern  Offline
Veteran

Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 11,072
Oslo, Norway
WOW! That is some seriously stunning stuff!

On a percentage scale, how far along would you say you've come with Jet Thunder? Can't wait for it! Keep up the good work! \:D


In all my years I've never seen the like. It has to be more than a hundred sea miles and he brings us up on his tail. That's seamanship, Mr. Pullings. My God, that's seamanship!
#1533059 - 09/09/04 01:17 AM Re: Some updates...  
Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 320
Dante-JT Offline
Member
Dante-JT  Offline
Member

Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 320
Florianópolis - Brazil
Quote:

On a percentage scale, how far along would you say you've come with Jet Thunder?
It's hard to say, there is so much things left to do ahead... Basically, we faced some problems related to terrain (integrating another coder's effort into the sim), this didn't happened yet, and the current terrain we feature is quite ok, but is severely lacking in view range and contour accuracy/roundness. The sim will officially only enter alpha status when this issue is solved and an accurate and LOD-based terrain is up and running in the simulator.

So, I've decided that we should shift the focus to programming the rest of the sim and deal with the terrain problem later. This did wonders for the project as Steve promptly programmed a system to assemble multi-part objects that I'm really pleased with \:\) enabling to do the required complex damage system, amongst other things. Steve is also working in making the sim scriptable through LUA (like Lomac).

With these steps done, all integrated into the engine and working, we could consider half the work done - it'll possibly look and play like a current flight sim - the other half of the project would deal with campaign, avionics and multiplayer. So far, campaign has some bits of code related to route-finding algorithms, so it's embrionary. Avionics will and FM will be modular enough to share the workload amongst other members of the dev team. Multiplayer: we already connected and flew together (myself and Steve, Steve starting the client in one of his rigs, and myself running the client here and connecting to see Steve flying around - at this point in development history, we didn't had collision detection yet, so the test was basically to check if one saw the other and latency/pings (good or bad). With some luck, one more year ahead of full crunch mode and we might enter Beta. ;\)


-----
Jet Thunder Project
http://www.thunder-works.com
#1533060 - 09/09/04 02:23 AM Re: Some updates...  
Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 9,947
Dervish Offline
Hotshot
Dervish  Offline
Hotshot

Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 9,947
wow, a busted A4 is dadburn ugly


FTX Global
#1533061 - 09/09/04 03:29 AM Re: Some updates...  
Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 115
scary_pigeon Offline
Member
scary_pigeon  Offline
Member

Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 115
britain
i think we could actually be alpha with our current placeholder terrain?

so long as the new terrain conforms to the same interface and slots in nicely.

its more rounded than what it looks. the accurate heightmap dante recently sent me of the falklands looked rather rounded and nice. the sharp bumpyness of the current terrain is because the 'heightmap' used wasnt really a heightmap.

The problem at the moment is that I botched and lost back up, of the code used to tranfer the heightmap into load on demand files.

--

use of LUA. perhaps people on this forum might be interested in this. What I'm trying to set up is a system where we can prototype the flight model in script language. It wont be very quick if there were lots of planes involved - but for online only and small number of AI tests - it could work quite well.

basically if the stock models dont model spin correctly, you'd be able to say - write, i'll program in spin or whatever was felt was lacking.

So people might be able to help develop the FM by prototyping in LUA.

LUA will probably also be used to script some of the avionics to make cockpits fully modable including advanced stuff like HUD programming and radar programming.

Probably these features will be closed from the final release version of the game with scripts encrypted or recoded in C.

#1533062 - 09/09/04 01:35 PM Re: Some updates...  
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 11,072
semmern Offline
Veteran
semmern  Offline
Veteran

Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 11,072
Oslo, Norway
In-game screenies please! ;\)


In all my years I've never seen the like. It has to be more than a hundred sea miles and he brings us up on his tail. That's seamanship, Mr. Pullings. My God, that's seamanship!
#1533063 - 09/09/04 01:45 PM Re: Some updates...  
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 491
Wolfox Offline
Member
Wolfox  Offline
Member

Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 491
Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
Congratulations. The use of Lua is a terrific idea.

How is the modularization effort?

#1533064 - 09/10/04 05:00 AM Re: Some updates...  
Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 115
scary_pigeon Offline
Member
scary_pigeon  Offline
Member

Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 115
britain
Quote:
Originally posted by semmern:
In-game screenies please! ;\)
I made some just now, just for you.





I'd like to point out that this is still all in development.

those jagged coastlines wont be in the game when its done - and theres other things that will be improved upon visually.

#1533065 - 09/10/04 08:03 PM Re: Some updates...  
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 11,072
semmern Offline
Veteran
semmern  Offline
Veteran

Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 11,072
Oslo, Norway
Oh MAN! Thanks! Those look fan-friggin-tastic!!!! \:D


In all my years I've never seen the like. It has to be more than a hundred sea miles and he brings us up on his tail. That's seamanship, Mr. Pullings. My God, that's seamanship!
#1533066 - 09/10/04 08:23 PM Re: Some updates...  

**DONOTDELETE**
Unregistered
Anonymous
Unregistered


You get it to market, I guarantee I'll buy it!

Cheers!

Rick... ;\)

#1533067 - 09/10/04 08:32 PM Re: Some updates...  

**DONOTDELETE**
Unregistered
Anonymous
Unregistered


What they said \:D

Dano.

#1533068 - 09/10/04 09:54 PM Re: Some updates...  
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 8,746
Guderian Offline
Hotshot
Guderian  Offline
Hotshot

Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 8,746
People's Republic of Sweden






"I prefer to fly alone ... when alone, I perform those little coups of audacity which amuse me" - René Fonck
#1533069 - 09/10/04 10:13 PM Re: Some updates...  
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,497
Wilko Offline
Senior Member
Wilko  Offline
Senior Member

Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,497
Australia
You got me


You take it easy.. And have a nice day smile

Life's Journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body
but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out shouting "Holy sh!t...What a Ride!!"
#1533070 - 09/11/04 04:58 PM Re: Some updates...  
Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 115
scary_pigeon Offline
Member
scary_pigeon  Offline
Member

Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 115
britain
what we sort of aim for is to be a sort of 'IL2' for the Jet scene.

#1533071 - 09/11/04 05:04 PM Re: Some updates...  
Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 693
similan Offline
Member
similan  Offline
Member

Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 693
Phuket Island
erm...Where is the Harrier? This is the only sim I'm soooo looking forward to beside Lomac add-ons. \:\)

#1533072 - 09/11/04 05:51 PM Re: Some updates...  
Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 115
scary_pigeon Offline
Member
scary_pigeon  Offline
Member

Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 115
britain
jolly good. hopefully we wont take forever in finishing this. it would be such a pity if it took so long that it looked seriously dated.

perhaps this might be a good time to point out how flightsimmers could help us:

The Harrier. unlike the argie planes, we've had some trouble obtaining accurate docs - in particular flight manuals of period harriers.

despite it being little more than washing machine technology electronically, the Sea Harrier flightmanual is still a semi-secret doc according to emails enquiries I've made.

FM wise its not really a problem - there wont be any stupid lift flaps thats for sure.

but getting accurate cockpit plans and importantly the flightmanual is so important.

otherwise our strategy will be to model the avionics based on accounts from books - real documentation for similar weopons systems used in the Lynx helecoptor which I think dante has.

HUD wise, from cockpit photos we think - and please correct us if we're wrong anybody! - that the british HUD's are all fairly similar. Both myself and Dante had Tornado for the Amiga. The symbols seemed to match harrier cockpit photos -so we presume the same symbology is used.

So up to now, avoiding this particular hard research problem - we've focused on the jets we do have accurate information on. For example, the skyhawk and the mirage especially.

Currently our screenshots tend to feature the skyhawk because of its simple avionics. Probably our first demo or alpha release will be a skyhawk carrier mission against the british fleet.

#1533073 - 09/11/04 05:52 PM Re: Some updates...  
Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 1,382
CHDT Offline
Member
CHDT  Offline
Member

Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 1,382
Switzerland
The landscape looks amazing, but shouldn't the grass look a little more brown according to the season when the Malvinas/Falklands war happened?

#1533074 - 09/11/04 06:29 PM Re: Some updates...  
Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 115
scary_pigeon Offline
Member
scary_pigeon  Offline
Member

Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 115
britain
yes. the grass should be a bit more brown..

..and also there should be tufts of that weird falkland long grass. eventually.

#1533075 - 09/11/04 06:59 PM Re: Some updates...  
Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 115
scary_pigeon Offline
Member
scary_pigeon  Offline
Member

Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 115
britain
just did a quick texture change by fiddling with the rgb balance in paintshop pro.




#1533076 - 09/11/04 07:50 PM Re: Some updates...  
Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 1,382
CHDT Offline
Member
CHDT  Offline
Member

Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 1,382
Switzerland
Great, it looks great and the quality of the light is amazing.

\:D

Page 1 of 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Moderated by  RacerGT 

Quick Search
Recent Articles
Support SimHQ

If you shop on Amazon use this Amazon link to support SimHQ
.
Social


Recent Topics
CD WOFF
by Britisheh. 03/28/24 08:05 PM
Carnival Cruise Ship Fire....... Again
by F4UDash4. 03/26/24 05:58 PM
Baltimore Bridge Collapse
by F4UDash4. 03/26/24 05:51 PM
The Oldest WWII Veterans
by F4UDash4. 03/24/24 09:21 PM
They got fired after this.
by Wigean. 03/20/24 08:19 PM
Grown ups joke time
by NoFlyBoy. 03/18/24 10:34 PM
Anyone Heard from Nimits?
by F4UDash4. 03/18/24 10:01 PM
RIP Gemini/Apollo astronaut Tom Stafford
by semmern. 03/18/24 02:14 PM
Copyright 1997-2016, SimHQ Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.6.0