http://edwardpinniger.bctalk.net/ww2/files/ww2test.zip
The file is about 3.5MB in size.

You can also read the readme (included in the zip as well) at http://edwardpinniger.bctalk.net/ww2/files/readme.txt

Any feedback is welcome, but not on bugs, graphical glitches or missing features as this is a VERY unfinished tech
demo (actually not really a demo, but the entire game in its current stage of development) - see the readme for more info.

Development-wise, yesterday I started work on painting the new camouflage/paint scheme textures. So far I've done most
RAF and USAAF ones and have made a start on Germany and Italy (I'll also be doing ground vehicle camo schemes). All the major
schemes will be featured and the patterns are also taken from those on real aircraft. This isn't taking nearly as long as you
might expect, the way I do it is to draw all the "plain metal/fabric" surface types first, and save them as seperate bitmaps, then
use Paint Shop Pro's "arithmetic" function to merge them with the camouflage textures (which are painted plainly with no shading/texturing
other than a light blur filter). Thus I don't need to draw each individual camouflage/surface type combination.
I'm also thinking of re-doing all the game textures (other than buildings) as there are many things like engines, props, weapons,
vehicle tracks and suspension, etc. which could look a lot better. Another possibility is a system for dynamically applying things like
serial codes, squadron insignia, nose art etc. but this would require modifying all the existing 3D models.

Another thing I'll be working on in the next week or so is adding the town and airfield locations for the rest of Europe,
and adding the ability to capture towns. Once the latter feature is working, along with a save-game feature, the game will
be on the way to being actually playable.

Wow, got an incredible 2.18M/s download speed.

Bit of a shame that it ran once with a scrambled screen and CTDs on subsequent tries. Doesn't like my laptop I suppose.. I would guess that a gfx card isn't needed as this runs in software mode, but that may be wrong.

It runs at 640x480 in 32-bit colour. Possibly the graphics cards on older
laptops don't support that colour depth, I'm not sure. It also requires at least
a 500mhz and preferably 700+mhz PC to run at a halfway-reasonable frame rate (yes,
I know my 3D engine is rubbish). My 1.5ghz AMD runs the game very smoothly most of the time unless you have the (very glitchy and unfinished) "virtual cockpit" turned on.
I'd also like to hear from any WinXP or 2000 users as to whether they've got it to run
or not. I'm not sure that MSVC++ 4.0 apps run on XP, that's one of the main reasons I'm still
running Win98 on my PC.

Yes, they do.

Hi Drawde:

I'm running Windows 2000, and it seemed to work. The viewpoint would disappear below the ground and leave me complete disoriented, so I can't comment much on gameplay. I did shoot some things with a machine gun though, and they seemed to take damage from the messages. I'll let you know if I play it some more.

In admiration (since I'm a software engineer and know how much work this stuff takes),

Scruff

XP Pro and it runs matey,

ive just started it up and had a look got a bit disorientated in 3d view going below ground but other wise everything seems to work (that should work)

Also you mind if i have a mess with some of the files?
I should have asked, but i get a bit carryed away and have aready started working on UI graphics, sorry.

I have XP, the demo seems to work fine.

The glitch with the ground is the most serious bug in the game ATM and one I'm trying to fix. It's caused by the polygon rotation code, and happens when some of the corners of the ground tile you're standing on are higher than you, but are not clipped properly.
Anyway, I'm trying to fix this and hopefully it will be sorted out in the next release.
Try flying some aircraft (target them and press TAB), once you've got off the ground the problem should disappear.

Currently I am re-drawing most of the UI graphics and font, as well as painting new vehicle camo textures. I've created a new "weathered metallic Olive Drab" scheme for the UI panels.
Most of the font characters in the current release are "placeholders" and very poor quality, also some are not aligned properly.

Feel free to look through and modify the data and graphics files, the game is designed to be very "moddable" (partly because this makes it much easier to develop and add things to).

All the 3D models in the game were created using the 3D modeller from "Flight Sim Toolkit" (which is about 10 years old now!) and converted to my own format (.3d) using a tool I created. I use the FST modeller since it is the only 3D modeller I've found so far that allows easy creation of low-poly models (rather than complex meshes) and straightforward editing of individual polygons and vertices. I've tried many others such as Truespace, GMax, and Milkshape but have not had much success.

The glitch with the ground is the most serious bug in the game ATM and one I'm trying to fix. It's caused by the polygon rotation code, and happens when some of the corners of the ground tile you're standing on are higher than you, but are not clipped properly.
Anyway, I'm trying to fix this and hopefully it will be sorted out in the next release.
Try flying some aircraft (target them and press TAB), once you've got off the ground the problem should disappear.

Currently I am re-drawing most of the UI graphics and font, as well as painting new vehicle camo textures. I've created a new "weathered metallic Olive Drab" scheme for the UI panels.
Most of the font characters in the current release are "placeholders" and very poor quality, also some are not aligned properly.

Feel free to look through and modify the data and graphics files, the game is designed to be very "moddable" (partly because this makes it much easier to develop and add things to).

All the 3D models in the game were created using the 3D modeller from "Flight Sim Toolkit" (which is about 10 years old now!) and converted to my own format (.3d) using a tool I created. I use the FST modeller since it is the only 3D modeller I've found so far that allows easy creation of low-poly models (rather than complex meshes) and straightforward editing of individual polygons and vertices. I've tried many others such as Truespace, GMax, and Milkshape but have not had much success.

If it runs OK on XP, maybe I'll think about upgrading to that OS in the future. It's certainly supposed to be a lot more stable than Win98.

The glitch with the ground is the most serious bug in the game ATM and one I'm trying to fix. It's caused by the polygon rotation code, and happens when some of the corners of the ground tile you're standing on are higher than you, but are not clipped properly.
Anyway, I'm trying to fix this and hopefully it will be sorted out in the next release.
Try flying some aircraft (target them and press TAB), once you've got off the ground the problem should disappear.

Currently I am re-drawing most of the UI graphics and font, as well as painting new vehicle camo textures. I've created a new "weathered metallic Olive Drab" scheme for the UI panels.
Most of the font characters in the current release are "placeholders" and very poor quality, also some are not aligned properly.

Feel free to look through and modify the data and graphics files, the game is designed to be very "moddable" (partly because this makes it much easier to develop and add things to).
However since the game is in development, many of the graphics etc. will be improved or replaced sooner or later anyway.
Also most of the sounds are just placeholders.

All the 3D models in the game were created using the 3D modeller from "Flight Sim Toolkit" (which is about 10 years old now!) and converted to my own format (.3d) using a tool I created. I use the FST modeller since it is the only 3D modeller I've found so far that allows easy creation of low-poly models (rather than complex meshes) and straightforward editing of individual polygons and vertices. I've tried many others such as Truespace, GMax, and Milkshape but have not had much success.

If it runs OK on XP, maybe I'll think about upgrading to that OS in the future. It's certainly supposed to be a lot more
stable than Win98 (mind you, with the number of system crashes I've had lately, even my own programs seem to be more stable than Win98, so that
isn't saying much..)

Fixed the terrain problem, will post more later and hopefully post a link to an updated version.

Amazing that you find the necessary time. There are quite a few of us working on BoB very actively at the moment (though more skilled people could never hurt ) and we still make slow progress. It's the nature of these things. Even the smallest texture updates can take hours..days.. and then there is introducing a new feature. Each one brings at least three side effects that you may, or may not, see straight away..

I've finally fixed it! (the terrain glitch that is). I just clipped the Y coordinates as well as the Z ones for
terrain polygons close to the player, and the problem is now virtually nonexistent. It's a huge improvement to the
game as you might imagine - I've no idea why I never managed to fix it before, since I've been trying since I
started writing the game nearly a year ago.

I've now uploaded the latest version to http://edwardpinniger.bctalk.net/ww2/files/ww2test.zip
so you'll need to re-download it if you downloaded the previous version.

Another significant change is that the game now starts in the top-down map screen. To get to the 3D view, target a vehicle
(press CTRL+V to show vehicle names on the map; this will be fixed ASAP), then press TAB to jump into it.
I'll soon add the ability to use F1 or the "steering wheel" button to take control of the selected vehicle if you aren't already
driving a vehicle.

Other changes in this version are:

- Adjusted the scaling factor for vehicles and buildings
- Game now starts in the map screen
- Some improved UI graphics (work in progress)
- More towns in Europe
- Added Bulgaria to the nation list (doesn't have flags/insignia yet)
- Fixed location of Hungary

To Madaboutsims - I'd really like to see the work you've been doing with UI graphics, would you mind e-mailing what you've
done to me? (edwardpinniger@bctalk.net) . (don't worry, I won't use your work without your permission).
To Bader - I see what you mean, but I can imagine it's MUCH harder working on coding something written by a completely different
development team and based on ancient, pre-Windows code (having played most of the Rowan sims from Overlord to BoB, it seems that
the basic engine code remained the same, updated for each new game; correct me if I'm wrong), than a program where every line you wrote yourself
and you know exactly what it does . Also, the game engine I wrote (which I use, in a modified form, for all 3 of the
games I'm writing ATM) is designed to be very easy to modify and add content, all the game data is in text .cfg files and all the
game resources are in .bmp and .wav format.
I'm really impressed with the work the BDG team has done to improve BoB, but I'm really sorry that I can't help out at the minute -
I just don't have the time at the minute!

have only got early work so far,
about to d/l updated version will see what i can cook up and send your way,

S! mad

Haven't tried your tech demo, is it something of a Sudden Strike type game? Seems to be alot of those around. Since you seem to have all the necessary skills have you ever thought about buying the http://www.garagegames.com/ torque engine from Tribes II for $100? They have supposedly increased its capacity to 256 in multiplayer(as long as there aren't too many polys i'd guess) First person to make a good WW2 game(hopefully something a bit like WW2Online or a flight sim) with 256 in MMP could be a giant killer. Just a thought, since you must have all the required skills.

Edited: Fixed the link, duh

It's not really much like Sudden Strike, though it is meant to be a strategy game as much as a sim/action one.
The gameplay is basically similar to that in online games like Warbirds, Aces High and WW2OL, in that capturing
of fixed locations (mainly towns and airfields) is the main way to victory. (Might seem unoriginal but real wars are
generally about capturing territory and key locations too..) However there's a much greater emphasis
on managing factory production, supply etc, as well as fixed defences and radar stations. Aerial attacks on factories etc.
are also important.
You normally play the game from a first-person viewpoint, controlling one vehicle and giving orders to the AI, but can
also issue orders from the top-down map screen (haven't added that feature yet though..)
The game is not mission-based but consists of a single campaign including all of Europe and North Africa. It is "dynamic"
in the sense that only the starting conditions are (roughly, and in a scaled-down form) historically accurate; where things
go from then is up to you, and the AI-controlled nations.
New aircraft/vehicle types become available at the date (month and year) they historically went into operational service.
I -might- add research instead of this, but probably not.

Regarding the realism level of the game, all vehicles, weapons etc. will have stats taken from real-life data wherever possible
(some of it may be guesswork as it can be rather hard to find things like the MG ammo capacity for a particular type of obscure 1930s French tank..)
However my flight/physics model is very crude so aircraft behaviour, for example, is very simplistic, only maximum altitude, speed and approximate
stall speed being modelled. However I will in the future try and implement a speed/altitude factor where (as in RL) each aircraft has an optimum operating altitude.
In the current tech demo most values are either incorrect or "placeholders". (Most noticeable with tank cannons which have far too low
a muzzle velocity, giving their shells ballistic properties more appropriate to thrown sucker darts). The next version should have a complete "data set".


Though I've never actually played it (yet!) the strategy game "Hearts of Iron" sounds very much like a more detailed, 2D
version of my game. (Particularly in the way you can choose to play ANY nation, no matter how obscure..) If you've ever played that, or read much about it, you'll have an idea.

(Note, most of the above is referring to what I want the game to be like in its finished state, not what it's like in alpha tech demo
form! Many things including capturing towns, radar stations, and vehicle availability dates are not working yet)

I'd certainly like to use a better 3D engine in my game, however there's no way I'd want to use another
GAME engine (as well as 3D engine), like the Torque one; apart from the fact that I'd have to rewrite most of the game from scratch, I think
my game is really too complicated to fit into a FPS-type game engine.
However, with just a new 3D engine, I'd only have to rewrite the rendering parts of the code, and leave the game parts
intact.