Ok basically I had to deal with the floating point imprecision at some point. And... well your feedback made me think about various things.
So...
Is this real enough?
Disclaimer: I am NOT going to place tons of buildings and landmarks. I just don't have the time or the will to do that. What I'm going to do is concentrate on the SAMs and other defenses, as well as enemy airbases and HAS. Also, I am not going for super high texture resolution. That's for other people.
Looks like whole Iraq is there. I don't mind low res textures, I would be happy even with EF2000-level graphics to be honest. What theatres are you considering Toumal?
Just a quick update: I haven't been able to do get much done recently because, well, most of the core systems work but there's a lot of small tasks to do and so far I haven't gotten any contribution from others. So at this point my question is: Is anyone willing to join and help?
So if anyone can contribute to the project, please contact him!
I'm willing to contribute, as I'd really like to play a modernized F-19. I could be a bit rusty with the development after years in management now, so keeping the skills is another positive side for me.
mdwa, I assume you're referring to Toumal who was showing good progress on his game up until, it looks to me like, about the end of 2017.
As the originator of this thread...started 9/4/12 (over 6 years ago), I'd like to make a few comments...
My timing for attempting such a project was terrible. I had just turned 45 and was beginning with mid-life anxiety (I hate to call it a 'crisis' with the negative stereotypical implications, none of which refers to me). I couldn't focus for any extended amount of time and the knowledge I needed to even get started seemed overwhelming. Nor was I enjoying the process.
I wanted three things in life which, over the years, had been neglected or missing...
1. A permanent lifelong healthy lifestyle (mostly diet and exercise, regular checkups...constant for the last 10 years, but especially the last 5). 2. A fun fulfilling romantic marriage (knocking on 32 years...been really good for the last 10 years, but the last 5 have been awesome). 3. My dream game replacements to F-19, Subwar 2050 and maybe a space sim built on the same engine (flight-like in a darker environment).
To quote Meat Loaf, "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad," right?
Actually, I won't be happy until I'm 3 for 3. The first 2 are now on cruise control, maybe a bit time consuming but the habits are fully set and come naturally now, not something I have to excessively think about. Since the beginning of the year I've had my mind and heart in my game and now enjoying the process of learning and creating. I plan to put *something* out there (a playable alpha) before this thread hits the 7 year mark (this Sept.) and right now I believe I can do it. My wife has seen my recent progress and believes in me as well.
Anyway, even before then I'm going to start a new progress thread on the design and creation (coding and modeling) of a 3D game (circa ~1995) which hopefully will be interesting to everyone, even if they're not into retro-gaming.
Last edited by MarkG; 02/15/1904:28 PM. Reason: wrong dates
The rusty wire that holds the cork that keeps the anger in Gives way and suddenly it’s day again The sun is in the east Even though the day is done Two suns in the sunset, hmph Could be the human race is run
It's all a mental state. Welcome to the 90's and the 90's = flight sims, the best ones IMO.
My fondest memories...
1. Eating at Upper Crust Pizza in Atlanta while staring at the back of the F-117A shrink-wrapped box on the table. Couldn't wait to get it home (with clean fingers) and it didn't disappoint.
Then a couple of years or so later...
2. Flying through the fiords in the Eurofighter. Unfortunately, I had an earlier DOS version of EF2000 which was too buggy to play for any length, more like a teaser. Then I upgraded my 486 to a P233 MMX and it wouldn't play at all. I wouldn't learn of the stable Windows 'Super' EF2000 until years later.
And finally, around 2004, after the disappointment of flying the F-117A in Jane's USAF...
3. Trying out the demo version of Total Air War (1998). Holy crap, this sim has real stealth game play!
I'm ready to relive the best of the 90's!
The rusty wire that holds the cork that keeps the anger in Gives way and suddenly it’s day again The sun is in the east Even though the day is done Two suns in the sunset, hmph Could be the human race is run
Totally different projects, mdwa. Judging by his comments and pics, if Toumal has continued working on his game since his last post, I think he might be close to releasing something interesting.
My idea all along was never conventional nor collaborative, meant for a single 'bedroom developer' (but still requiring the knowledge to make such a game which has been my biggest hurdle). When I finally post a "Making of a 3D game" thread you'll see what I mean.
For example, my atmosphere, terrain and models are limited to what you'd expect to see (limited visibility) in the dead of night from inside of the F-117 (F-19...more SR-71-like), and at best on a clear night (although inclement weather is far more interesting to me). My single resolution is 640x480 and my cockpit is 2D-scrollable (think Subwar 2050 or Fighters Anthology, although the later is too zoomed in to show MFDs and side panels). I want my pit to be as functional as possible and also to click, for my game to be a retro cockpit sim similar to the original Project: Stealth Fighter for the C64 (cockpit only, no external views). Fortunately, a 3D/virtual pit isn't necessary since there's no bubble canopy (going with the F-19 version pictured below).
Even my city experimentations are mostly smoke and mirrors, with lots of simple (sometimes even code-generated) core shapes topped with single-pixel point lights, some flashing and some transforming, giving the illusion of a large living breathing metropolis...at least from a distance. But on close inspection (if I allow such an external view, which I probably won't ) it's not so impressive. Neither is my boolean up or down AI landing gear (no fluid animation) or lack of visible stores (might include static standard loadouts with each model, not decided). Stuff you really wouldn't notice inside of a frame-heavy pit at night, especially with more realistic MFD zoom factors. Heck, even my models include very few cylindrical shapes with more than 8 sides, maybe 10 on some fuselages (circles represented by octagons, but better than the original engine nozzle squares and with no landing gear at all ). Also, very few bitmaps, just shaded surfaces.
That said, I expect for my complete game (with PKUNZIP 'installation') to fit on the same number of 3.5" floppies (3) as the original F-117A (1991), only high-density diskettes vs. original double-density (4.3 MB max., PDF Manual released separately). You still might be surprised at the difference from the original though, with screen pixels more than quadrupling (307,200 vs. 64,000), 32-bit color plus 3D-acceleration effects.
The rusty wire that holds the cork that keeps the anger in Gives way and suddenly it’s day again The sun is in the east Even though the day is done Two suns in the sunset, hmph Could be the human race is run
I honestly didn't make much progress due to work constraints, and also the fact that unity doesn't like very large terrains. That kinda makes things difficult. However, I'm toying with the idea of instead adding VR support and putting realistic scale a bit on the back-burner, and instead making it something that still retains the stealth strategy elements of the original, but would be possible to play on the oculus quest for example.
I have a book by Richard Hawley who as been active on SimHQ (SimHQ was even mentioned in the "Thank you" section but I'm not sure of his current status since I haven't been as active as I used to) called, "Grome Terrain Modeling with Ogre3D, UDK and Unity3D" with a tag of "Create massive terrains and export them to the most popular game engines. It's from 2013 so I'm not sure how current things are but Google has a copy you can look through here:
I haven't had a reason to deal with large terrain in Unity myself so never got around to really exploring it.
Searching on "unity large terrain" gives me hits of other people trying to deal with this but I'm guessing you've probably looked through some of these.
Of course the original F-19 was so limited it wasn't going to get anywhere near the Uncanny Valley in regards to realism. For now I think you have the right idea of focusing on fun instead of realistic scale.
Elf
#4502743 - 01/05/2004:35 PMRe: Retro Flight Simulator: F-19 Game Design Document
[Re: Scott Elson]
I have a book by Richard Hawley who as been active on SimHQ (SimHQ was even mentioned in the "Thank you" section but I'm not sure of his current status since I haven't been as active as I used to) called, "Grome Terrain Modeling with Ogre3D, UDK and Unity3D" with a tag of "Create massive terrains and export them to the most popular game engines. It's from 2013 so I'm not sure how current things are but Google has a copy you can look through here:
I haven't had a reason to deal with large terrain in Unity myself so never got around to really exploring it.
Searching on "unity large terrain" gives me hits of other people trying to deal with this but I'm guessing you've probably looked through some of these.
Of course the original F-19 was so limited it wasn't going to get anywhere near the Uncanny Valley in regards to realism. For now I think you have the right idea of focusing on fun instead of realistic scale.
Elf
I wonder what happened to 'Combat Helo' that Richard Hawley was working on. It was using the Leadwerks engine and was looking very promising, although I suspect that it would be subject to similar large world problems with that engine.
this blog still exists, but you can't find it on google because it's not indexed. Flexman used the old version of leadwerks, the old plugin was no longer supported in the new version. there was no good solution.all who create a simulator with a dynamic campaign give up at the same time. when they start to create a dynamic campaign engine.this is the case with all simulators that never came out,such my observation. Making terrain, models, flight model is easy. Skipping that Flexman was a mythomaniac.