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#2909874 - 11/29/09 09:53 AM Re: Why do we need to stay with 256? [Re: Col. Gibbon]  
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Knegel Offline
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Knegel  Offline
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Hi John,

FM/DMming is more than a few features.

All datas are documented, the problem is that its not possible to explain in a simple way how to adjust the datas. The rough knowledge about a few values dont help anyone.

FM/DMming need a exact knowledge about the AI behaviour/skill, real plane performences and of course how the hundrets of EAW values work together.

To place all tools here or there is not the 1st step.

Its not a egg or chicken question, at 1st someone need to show motivation!

And the presence of a tool initially have anything to do with the motivation, which comes from the love to the game, historical interets or other motivating factors.

If someone show motivation, by asking "is there a tool to do this or that?" and "whee do i find it?", with our today´s connections there is no different between sending a link or sending the tool.

But how many new people did show interests in FM/DMming, or in any other area, the last years??

There only was a few and afaik out of this "newbes" IronMike is the only one who realy got into something.

I think we an agree that only a smal number of players also want to mod a game, or have the time to mod the game.
What we miss is a big community, we cant expect that we get only new modders. Only if we can increase the community in general, by luck some will start to mod EAW, but at 1st they need to find their love to EAW.

To implement more and more features, which stay unused, dont help at all!

What we need is a full set of Multiskins with all available feature(with working flap´s and visible damages), additionally we need a much better worldsetup, with much better homebases and target setups. And of course with a seasonal switch and at least two different plane sets for the default EAW world. We also need a new generation of cockpits, which looks more realistic, with drawn tail and cowling, fitting to the new view offset possibility. Of course also the new 7217 fix is most important.

All this need to be available as single download.

Imho its of no value in adding more stuff to the exe, that need extensive additional moding to take advantage of this new feature.

For the new user its not important what he could have, if we once did produce the needed addons, to make him fall in love with EAW, its important what he have NOW.

And only then he will be motivated to make EAW even better, only then we will get a new modder.

As long as the few modder we have work absolut seperated on different very big projects, nothing realy will get ready. At the end we will have many half ready setups, with a lot of flaw´s, cause one or two person simply can do it good in short timespan.

Look how long SAW took and i still consider it as half ready, regarding EAW1.28c its absolut not ready.
Look how long FAW took and its also not nearly perfect.
Iraque isnt close to be ready.
FlyingTigers is not nearly on the EAW1.28c stage.
EAW WWI is another big setup, which stuck badly.
Even SPAW is rather half ready, although this is the only setup where many people did work on, with rather big effort.

On most setups a few people of this community work, actually most modders even split their force and work on more different setups at same time.

We work like the British troops fought in Africa unti Monty came. We split our force and lose one battle after the next against our enemys, THE TIME and NO USEFULLY RESULT.

With increasig time span, while no usefully result is present, even the biggest motivation at one stage is dead.

If all the present modders would stop what they currently do and start to work all on one project, this project could be finished after a few month. Then all could start to finsih the next project.

Only then we could support the user with worthy setups in time.

Greetings,

Knegel


If you think `thats close enough´, go closer, until the plane fill up the windscreen, then a short burst is enough!
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#2909893 - 11/29/09 11:52 AM Re: Why do we need to stay with 256? [Re: Knegel]  
Joined: Oct 2004
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Ecv56SERA Offline
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Ecv56SERA  Offline
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Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 559
Argentina
Hello!
I am working in some cockpits, I want to give my point of view:
-The inclusion of textures in 24 bits, is a radical change, everything leaves a lot but real!
-This change produced a bottle neck, because new roads opened up to work with textures, but the old limitations make very difficult that the final result is, for my, acceptable.
That I need, to make a better work??
1 - to enlarge the quantity of nodes to create a segment, V,W,Z,Y,X.
A good one numbers of serious nodes to pass from 255 to 510.
If you cannot enlarge the quantity of nodes, be include new sections well, for example N,M,L etc.
I in the cockpit of the stuka in the section "V" arrive to the one it limits of 255 nodes, for that reason I had to limit the detail a lot, to enlarge the quantity of exchange nodes that!


2 - to enlarge the 256X256 pcx to 512X512, this will be an enormous change!

3 - there is a drop-down menu in the window "textures" of the program 3dzstudio, this drop-down menu has numbers that go from the 000 to the 155, where alone some say so that they are used, these numbers are codes for certain stocks, it would be grandiose that it was known so that they serve each one of these numbers.

With those changes Me serious very, very happy!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Castellano:
Hola!
Yo estoy trabajando en algunos cockpits, quiero dar mi punto de vista:
-La inclusion de texturas en 24 bits, es un cambio radical, todo se ve mucho mas real!
-Este cambio produjo un cuello de botella, porque se abrieron nuevos caminos para trabajar con texturas, pero las viejas limitaciones hacen muy dificil que el resultado final sea, para mi, aceptable.
Que necesito yo, para hacer un mejor trabajo??
1- Ampliar la cantidad de nodos para crear un segmento, V,W,Z,Y,X.
Un buen numero de nodos seria pasar de 255 a 510.
Si no se puede ampliar la cantidad de nodos, estaria bien incluir nuevas secciones, por ejemplo N,M,L etc.
2- Ampliar los pcx de 256X256 a 512X512, esto sera un enorme cambio!
Yo en el cockpit del stuka en la seccion "V" llegue al limite de 255 nodos, por ese motivo tuve que limitar mucho los detalles, ampliar la cantidad de nodos cambiaria eso!
3- Hay un menu desplegable en la ventana "texturas" del programa 3dzstudio, este menu desplegable tiene numeros que van desde el 000 hasta el 155, donde solo algunos dicen para que se utilizan, estos numeros son codigos para determinadas acciones, estaria grandioso que se supiera para que sirven cada uno de estos numeros.

Con esos cambios Yo seria muy, muy feliz!

Last edited by Ecv56SERA; 11/29/09 11:55 AM.

FOREVER EAW.!
#2909900 - 11/29/09 12:21 PM Re: Why do we need to stay with 256? [Re: Ecv56SERA]  
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Knegel Offline
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Knegel  Offline
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Hi Sera,

of course all implementations that make modding more easy are welcome, specialy if we can achieve the changings by easy AND without to lose backward compatibility.

Unfortunatelly backward compatibility is very important, otherwise we wouldnt have any starting point and to build up only a default plane set from zero would last some years.

Greetings,

Knegel


If you think `thats close enough´, go closer, until the plane fill up the windscreen, then a short burst is enough!
#2909908 - 11/29/09 01:24 PM Re: Why do we need to stay with 256? [Re: Knegel]  
Joined: Oct 2003
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Crashin' Jack Offline
Cockpit Connoisseur
Crashin' Jack  Offline
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Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 3,133
Illinois, USA
A lot of truth spoken here. Backward compatibility is very important, because if we make a great new game but can't use the thousands of mods out there, who wants that?

I do see a few new heads popping up of late, and I know of a couple other old hands returning to the fold. I am hoping that through a graphics upgrade we can intice others to join in modding, or maybe even bring some of the "old timers" back.

Tools and the knowledge to use them are imortant as well. We used to have to hex edit most things, now there are tools to do most of these. Having these available would perhaps spur others to give it a try that have been intimidated by a lack of knowledge. If a person can learn to do a simple tmod (which is pretty easy, it can be learned in an evening or two) they might find an interest in the hobby, and move on to other things. I myself got started by making a few skins, and a few weeks later I was working on the Nachtjager campaign...

Yes, some things do take a long time to learn, such as the FM/DM, but many other things can be taught in quick fashion.

So, those of you sitting on the fence, jump in! Ask a few questions, and you'll be rolling along before you know it!


Cheers!


"Blasts from clustered R4M quartets in my snout
And see these English planes go burn...." Blue Oyster Cult

#2912357 - 12/03/09 11:30 AM Re: Why do we need to stay with 256? [Re: Col. Gibbon]  
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vonOben Offline
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vonOben  Offline
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Skåne, Sweden
Hi

I think increasing the texture sizes for aircraft skins, ground objects and terrain would inspire more people to make new textures. yep
Personally I stopped long ago to make new 256x256 terrains after seeing how much better the 512x512 textures made the terrain look in game.

Many of the improvements in the eaw.exe also needs updated editors, so making improvements in the exe without updating the tools is not much point IMHO.

Now we have for example more terrain tiles we can use, but no editor that supports those new tiles. nope

We have more ground objects, but the eaw_ttd.dat editor hasn’t been updated. nope

The increased number of ground objects hasn’t been fully implemented in the exe so eaw_ttd.dat is still limited to 64 ground objects AFAIK.

And I agree with Roy that a modders guide for EAW 1.28c is needed and also o place to download the editors. The new editors are not posted anywhere AFAIK.

Cheers

Last edited by vonOben; 12/03/09 11:32 AM.

vonOben


Wer den Tod fürchtet, hat das Leben verloren. /Johann Gottfried Seume

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#2912400 - 12/03/09 01:28 PM Re: Why do we need to stay with 256? [Re: vonOben]  
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FlyRight Offline
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FlyRight  Offline
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Posts: 2,644
New Jersey-US of A
am with vonOben but want to add IMO the planes issue is a done deal! its the terrain and tmods that are the last hurdles that need addressing, as long as we're all flying in a pixel sim world, eaw will always be visually half stuck in the past.

in short i like to see bitmap type terrains as well as tmods that could use more than one tpc? just like the HR planes which btw i don't consider hi-res, bitmaps are hi-res, pcx are still palette limited and pixelated, no matter how many 3dzs it shares.

...as someone can quess i hate simming in pixels, afterall its the 21 century, not 1998 anymore!!! cheers

#2912408 - 12/03/09 01:42 PM Re: Why do we need to stay with 256? [Re: FlyRight]  
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Knegel Offline
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Knegel  Offline
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All nice and valid requests, now there just need to arrive the hero who do the work.


If you think `thats close enough´, go closer, until the plane fill up the windscreen, then a short burst is enough!
#2912424 - 12/03/09 02:01 PM Re: Why do we need to stay with 256? [Re: FlyRight]  
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Col. Gibbon Offline
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Col. Gibbon  Offline
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Posts: 13,341
This where we started.


This is where we are. Split textures which are difficult to skin.


This is what we need.


The above skin was made to go over the original default LR model, but is a 512x512 skin.

Now, there are two ways to go.

We could either start using 512x512 split textures, like the middle one, leaving the original models intact. We would have to find out why the skins work on some machines and fix the compatibility problem.

Or

Change the 3dz format to 2byte Nodes/Elements/Mapping which would allow us to have single 3dz high detail models, with a single texture of 1024x1024.

I think our current system of making a HR model is good enough for now, but with the possibility of using 3DS to make models, the latter would be worth looking at in the future. 512x512 in either 8 or 24 bit colour for the models, and maybe 1024x1024 for terrains, is the first hurdle which needs to be met, as this would transform the look of the game.


Supports EAW 1.29.exe, Drop in and Play Technology. wink

1.29 download
#2912456 - 12/03/09 02:33 PM Re: Why do we need to stay with 256? [Re: Col. Gibbon]  
Joined: Feb 2006
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Rotton50 Offline
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Rotton50  Offline
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Posts: 4,859
Cape Charles, Virginia, USA
I'll just throw this out there and see what happens.

How about using the six letters of the alphabet that aren't presently used to break the models up further?

The letters are D, I, J, K, O, and Q. That's over 1500 additional nodes.

It wouldn't take much using my method of producing hi-res models to hardpoint the extra letters to the main model with a working R/S.

Maybe we assign 4 of the letters to the exterior and two to the cockpit.

Food for thought, that's all.


Heck, even paranoids have enemies.
#2912475 - 12/03/09 02:49 PM Re: Why do we need to stay with 256? [Re: Col. Gibbon]  
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Crashin' Jack Offline
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Crashin' Jack  Offline
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Posts: 3,133
Illinois, USA
I am nearly done with the conversion to 1024x768 menus. I have the increase to 1024x1024 skins partially complete. I was hoping to finish the first and start on the second today but unfortunately got caught with the flu that is going around. Looks like a bit of a delay.


"Blasts from clustered R4M quartets in my snout
And see these English planes go burn...." Blue Oyster Cult

#2913073 - 12/04/09 07:57 AM Re: Why do we need to stay with 256? [Re: Crashin' Jack]  
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Knegel Offline
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Knegel  Offline
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Hey CJ,

a flu is a reason to die, but not to stop to work on EAW. biggrin

I hope you feel better soon!

All the best,

Knegel


If you think `thats close enough´, go closer, until the plane fill up the windscreen, then a short burst is enough!
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