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Flexman

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  1. Flexman
    As I sat down to implement the generic event system I was reading Game Coding Complete which discusses something similar, the Actor class. I was reinventing the wheel...badly. The wheel is overrated as an invention. By far the greatest invention was the second wheel, lets face it, the unicycle isn't the most practical form of transport.
     
    I digress. Actors. If you want to know more about them see Actor model at Wikipeadia
     
    Then I came across this public domain implementation by Otus which also has a remote sockets version. Should work nicely as we need these to fire n-times every t-seconds for displaying alerts.
     
    Also David worked on analogue flight gauges. There's different ways you can implement gauges. Did we want lighting? A glass face? My initial though was to build them like real instruments with different layered discs (hi-res textures with alpha) rather than 3D objects. Looks like we're going 3D for now, the kinds of instruments we have don't need anything complicated.
     
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  2. Flexman
    AD posted more Chinook goodies at SimHQ Link here >>> SimHQ - AD Chinook Update
     
     



     



     
    What am I looking at?
     
    It's a little creepy, crew heads now reflect the pilot helmet sight (PHS) and gunner helmet sight (GHS) Vec2 offsets, so using trackIR, mouselook etc will operate the appropriate crewman head position (with suitable organic tweening). These positions are stored in the aircraft state so will work across all aircraft (AI and player) as well as multi-player. How creepy is that?
     
     
    "Everyone gets everything he wants."
    "All I wanted was a mission,"
    "and for my sins they gave me one"
     
    Shot on my iPhone. This is what TrackIR and mouse movements do to the crew head positions.
     
     
    *edit*
     
    There's a few pages in the system that are informational only, the FUEL page was one, I fleshed it out a bit tonight, adding a working cross-feed system complete with animation (yes the real one does that too). It's lacking the fuel check and bingo settings (to be added later). Setting the bingo stat is part of your start-up checklist, it would be a shame to leave it out.
     
     



     
     

     
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  3. Flexman
    AD's SimHQ Dev Diary - Road works
     
    Interesting post on improving the look of the new roads which are meshes exported from 3DMAX using a number of different post processing techniques to level them to our height-map. He touches upon adjusting the height-map to sink roads into the terrain, thus ageing them.
     

    Note that the heightmap images in this post are flipped vertically. If you plan to use them as a map at a later date and get confused then this is why.
     
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  4. Flexman
    Sound is an impressive tool. And something I worried a great deal about from the start. Just adding various audio sources to the Apache, from the Betty, to various computers tones, compressor noise, all adds to a sense of cockpit space.
     
    The Chinook needs similar attention, as a non-hero aircraft (currently a non-flyable). The game engine uses OpenAL, which employs a system of 3D positional audio. In the Apache most of the noise is behind your head, looking left and right appears to pan the audio. Externally the engine and compressor sound sources are attached to a helicopters engine positions.
     
    The difference between the hero-ships such as the Apache and AI units is the way audio is initialised. Apache audio is split between interior and exterior sounds; interior sounds are built during the player boarding process which initialises the cockpit and switch status, the exterior audio is created as soon as it enters the 3D world.
     
    Our CH-47 Chinook like the Apache, will have engine sound sources attached upon the object creation process, and the LUA update function, called every frame will swap in and adjust the volume and pitch of various audio files.
     
    Getting really good audio requires at a number of digital recorders positioned around the aircraft. As we don't have local access to a Chinook and a bank of digital recording equipment, the modern internet age comes to the rescue with numerous video web sites rich with source material of variable quality.
     
    After auditioning a few choice videos, using a Firefox web-browser plugin that downloads the video files from these sites, the process of ripping the audio for processing can begin.
     
    VLC Media Player is a free video player with a number of conversion features. And allows you to batch export audio from a video files using the Convert option.
     
    Selecting the video we want to convert and the destination file then choosing the export format. We want audio only and in OGG format.
     
     
     
     
    I have the Audacity
     
    Don't leave home without it. Audacity is in my price range (free) and works well with OGG format audio files.
     
    It's reasonably easy to find and build audio loops but before you can do that you need to turn it onto a mono audio file. OpenAL's 3D positional audio requires a mono-sound source, it will split the sound to different channels depending on the source and listener position. So having flattened the audio file, the work of finding and snipping loops can begin.
     
    In the next blog update I'll detail the processing of adding and loading the sound files in the model's LUA script.
     
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  5. Flexman
    We're going to edit the LUA script for the CH47. Helicopters are somewhat complex and incredibly noisy machines, you thought your XBOX 360 was loud?
     
    Yesterday we trawled through some online video, ripped the soundtracks and used Audacity to get some loops of the compressor, and rotor beat. That's two discrete sounds that when mixed together should give a good representation of helo noise. Using Audacity it's possible to mark a region, and use that as a 'sample' to remove that noise from another. So we took some of the compressor/engine noise and removed (or reduced) this by around 16db from the rotor noise.
     
    Next task is to add these two looped audio sample sources to the CH47 model script. As we want all instances of the CH47 to use there we'll add them at class level....
     
    local class=CreateClass(...)<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" /> class.soundcompressor = LoadSound("abstract::ch47_compressor_loop.ogg")<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" /> class.soundrotors = LoadSound("abstract::ch47_rotor_loop.ogg")
     
    The compressor noise can get on your nerves. We want to emphasise the rotor beat so we have set a volume ration of 1:2 between them. Setting the volume of the rotor loop to 1.0 and compressor to 0.5
     
    function class:CreateObject(model) if class.soundcompressor~=nil then <br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" /> object.source_compressor = object.model:EmitSound(class.soundcompressor,75,1,1)<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" /> SetSourceVolume(object.source_compressor,0.5);<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" /> end<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" /> if class.soundrotors~=nil then<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" /> object.source_rotors = object.model:EmitSound(class.soundrotors,250,1,1)<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" /> SetSourceVolume(object.source_rotors,1.0);<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" /> end
     
    Note, LoadSound() returns a source which we need to store for later when we change volume and pitch. When the Rotor Speed is increased either by the AI pilot or engine/entity update, the blade flap function is called to update the relative positions of each blade. And here is a good place to update the audio for the blade thumping. It seems better to place it here than in the update/render which is called every frame. Here it only is updated on changes to the rotor state.
     
    function object:BladeFlap()
    local flapangle = 7 - (object.rotorspeed*0.6) + (object.bladeangle * 0.08)
    local offset = 120
    for i=0,1 do
    if object.bladehinge~=nil then
    RotateEntity(object.bladehinge[0], Vec3(flapangle,0,0))
    RotateEntity(object.bladehinge[1], Vec3(flapangle,-offset,0))
    RotateEntity(object.bladehinge[2], Vec3(flapangle,offset,0))
    offset = -offset
    end
    end
     
    -- CHANGE AUDIO PITCH
    SetSourcePitch(object.source_rotors,object.rotorspeed * 0.045)
    end
     
    We added additional code to turn on/off audio for static and parked helicopters. We can improve on this by introducing a "start-up" and "shutdown" state that will wind-up/down the compressor noise whenever the aircraft is flagged as "live" or "dormant".
     
     
     
    Such a simple method that greatly adds a sense of weight and presence to an object. Here's a video of the result.
     

     
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  6. Flexman
    I updated my work-map today with a more recent one and still in the process of fixing up missing objects. I think I have half of a city missing. The cockpit is now in it's own world space resting at the origin and no longer effected by floating point error, but I did leave in some rotation 'noise' to give the cockpit a vibration effect.
     
    I pushed the tree LOD out a bit more which you might see in the following screens. If you have an uber PC you'll be able to render some really sweet scenes. The ETADS has a temporary green tint because I've not yet added the desaturation filter, it's on the to-do list.
     

    Some of the systems such as the helmet mounted display are not operational as it thinks the power is off. I only just found the ground radar mode from September. It's amazing some of the things you forget you added.
     

    One day soon there's going to be ZSUs in those tree-lines.
     

    I'm missing a chunk of city here. There should be rows of stores and back alleyways around the urban compounds. I have the models installed so I don't know what's going on yet, I suspect they are missing from the SBX.
     

    Gets awful lonely out in the plains. Stopped for a photo-op.
     

    With the cockpit rendering modification almost complete it's back to core systems.
     
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  7. Flexman
    Not a Combat-Helo post. I'm engaged in a spot of design and research but was looking for some old material online and found I had left a digital trail pre-dating commercial internet use.


     

    28 Years ago I drew this. I was in high school. Shocking really. I used Z80 machine code to generate the 'impressive' sound and visual effects in this game. *wince*


     



    A lifetime of programming and tinkering, stacks of hard drives of unpublished projects ranging from Spanish school time-table generators to a Black Shark snapshot campaign generator.
     
    Some material I doubt will ever be revived, the Memotech MTX 500 version of Next War was stored on cassette tape, probably oxidised beyond recovery. However the code lives on in other forms, the dynamic campaign system was enhanced and put to some use in a PC build. Some of which will form the backbone of the Combat-Helo campaign. One day I hope to merge the big war game with the Apache simulation and revisit the forgotten Fulda Gap scenario.
     
    More unreleased WWIII fun and games
    NATO vs Warsaw Pact at the Fulda Gap
     
    Even my own attempt at producing a self-indulgent comic based on our exploits in the Star Wars Galaxies MMO...(PDF dug out of the old SONY Online game forums).
     
     



     



     



     


    Even though the game will soon have the plug pulled the footprints we leave behind in the digital space will live on...for a bit.
     
    I've rescued the original PDF and made it available here... Orion Outpost Chronicles part 4 - PDF
     
    Anyway back to work.

     
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  8. Flexman
    Updates to the green-zones, incremental improvements to the billboards, painting 'shadow' under vegetation.
    Dev-diary update at SimHQ
     


    It's looking great considering how much detail we can't use. Currently we can't use the 2.32 engine due to lack of LOD distance control, and loading the levels with all the vegetation takes three times as long in the new version due to the extra processing required for veg culling. The detail in our production level map shows little performance difference between versions. Upgrading to a new version of the engine is becoming less attractive from a performance viewpoint. Which seems a bit silly but there you go.
     
    In the background we have started preliminary design work on an all new rendering system, not for Combat-Helo but for a later project (again simulator related). This will incorporating object streaming and allow for very large terrains. This work isn't interfering with Combat-Helo, there will be no unnecessary delays in production.
     
    I'm currently working on aircraft data import, the part that takes a data-file (profile) of an aircraft (helicopter, fixed wing, hot-air balloon etc) and builds an instance of a class that tells it how it flies. Our FFD (Free Flight Dynamics, or Freds Fantastic DLL) class is pretty flexible, a specialist physics engine of it's own.
     
    One of the more interesting features are the virtual helicopter controls. Your control inputs are sent to "virtual controls" which then have any necessary trim by AI/AFCS or other input shaping applied. The virtual cyclic can be set to match throw of your actual joystick, you set the ratio of your joystick to that of a full size 70cm cyclic. So if you're using a 20 cm tall stick, setting the joystick length to a value of 20 will correct the input as if you have a 70cm floor standing cyclic. It uses a non-linear function to still give you 100% cyclic throw (shaped after 20% so you can still apply fine control inputs).
     
    We'll be discussing the Auto Trim feature at a later date. It's so simple most pilots will never know it's there.
     
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  9. Flexman
    Not convinced this a a great way of arming the Apache. But what we will do I think is provide some quick defaults, option A and option B.
     
    Only the client sees the weapons appear on the ground ready for selection. The crewman loading the weapons clicks the weapon which is then sent to the highlighted pylon. Internally the helicopter entity receives a message to load pylon x with missile y.
     
    To do: Tooltips for the pods to say what they are and I think highlighting the selected pylon might be a good idea.
     


    I can optimise memory usage a little by pre-loading the Apache stores and instancing then missiles which I meant to do earlier. Pre-caching some of these objects will reduce that awful machine lag that occurs when it needs to show a model for the first time.





    TrippleHead2Go vision


     
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  10. Flexman
    If you're in the UK on August the 28th and can make it to RAF Cosford for the Astrasim Expo flight simulation show, there's a chance that one of the more haggard and tired members of the Combat-Helo development team (me) will be hanging around Komodo Simulations.
     
    http://www.astrasimexpo.co.uk/
     
    Some of my favourites will be there, Sky Blue Radio, Flightstore (who were always good at sorting out my Saitek woes).
     
    So fingers crossed we get the demo completed in good time and hopefully we can pair it up with Rich's replica Apache cyclic and collective prototypes.
     
    Fingers crossed, all being well, see you there. Did I mention the show admission is free?
     
     
     

     
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  11. Flexman
    AD made some atmospheric screen-shots when playing with lighting and environment settings. SimHQ Diary
    Starting with the only major airbase in the region. AD is responsible for some Strike Fighter mod aircraft models, one of which is a Tornado GR1 (?). Which he's used here. I don't think these will be in the game unless we get permission from the original mod maker to use it. But it does look nice.
     

     
    This is our early version of Camp Stone complete with a half-court basket. You wouldn't have a pair of M1A1s on the doorstep but they do look interesting.
     

    Poster child..."never alone"
     

    We have been hard at work on getting a simple flying demo ready for a public showing, we've had to make it playable and gave me an excuse to put some more time into the mark 1 flight model which is a much simpler easy to fly model for general consumption. This approximates the mass of the helicopter, rotor thrust from engine power and semi coordinated turns. The landing gear desperately needs some joints to make it easier to land but I don't think I'll have time for that.
     
    Following the road north our of Camp Sone you eventually approach Herat, our version is perhaps more idyllic taxi-free version, and perhaps more green to make efficient use of geometry. Enough to fill enough area to represent a small city.
     

    No orange sunset here. Looks much more natural.
     

    Freecam mode lets you move anywhere you want to take snapshots. Contemplating broadcasting a regular call to prayer from the towers at the appropriate local game time.
     

     
    Nice choice of sky. You can see what we had to do to the rivers to prevent a lot of clipping and z-buffer fighting. Hence the "Death Star Trench" name we use.

     
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  12. Flexman
    hehe well the XPatcher2 software worked great for the upload, but the client program doesn't seem to want to work at all, requesting a file that wasn't supplied or exists.
     
    Might have to look at other some other software.
     
    Converting all config files to use XML format, this will make editing control inputs a bit easier later. They are rather messy atm and adding new options should be a lot easier.
     
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  13. Flexman
    Quick update. Busy working on a lot of small things. We have a cockpit update coming to update MPDs, internal and external night lighting. MPDs taking to the TStores class and working towards having a number of cockpit functions up and ready for the start-up. Dave added the CP/G throttle panel too (which removes the power switch and engine startup).
     
    Experiencing a problem with fps slowdown over time again. Mostly down to repeatedly running combat-helo, stop, edit, re-run. FPS drops to single figures. I'm not seeing main memory leaks and it doesn't effect other games. I'm not clear what is happening, a reboot fixes it.
     
    I wanted to see what the TEDAC would look like later so I was cheeky and borrowed a still from another game as temp background.
     


     
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  14. Flexman
    Today we looked at a neat little program called SMAK which is a neat little program for generating normal maps for low poly models by using high poly models. It also can bake ambient occlusion shadows onto your diffuse textures.
     
    This is also a feature of 3DMAX so Dave tried a little experiment.
     
    Before, no baked AO
     
    After, with baked AO
    You might want to click on those images to see the full sized renders. Certainly the cockpit area could benefit, and the buildings we have with ground proximity shading for compounds and city blocks. Best of all, no fps impact. There's still work to do to improve normal maps.
     
    We started an audit of game textures and will extend this to include QA for each texture layer, ensuring it's as good as we can make it and optimise memory usage into the bargain.
     
    There are subtle things, such as the DXT5 compression that results in acne. Using a different DDS format and reducing the resolution can result in a better image and smaller memory footprint. See pic below.
     

     
    We made some material changes to the cockpit, specular, glow maps. I'm not sure the grips should be backlit but it makes them easier to read in the dark.
     

     
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  15. Flexman
    Hey it's a blog, I'm blogging. All this talk about fluids.has brought on a nasty head cold. Up at 6am searching for the Lemsip (a horrid lemon flavoured drink with decongestant) and watching "Dogfights" on DVD.
     
    The History Channel series "Dogfights" prompted the next three to four hours of viewing since I realised just how bad it really was from the simpleton "Top Trumps" presentations to the seemingly good idea at the time computer graphics. To be fair I did learn something new every episode but given the subject and use of 'state of the art' CGI to tell the tale of classic air-wars why did it come over as really dull? Maybe current affairs news programs are to blame, their overuse of 3D graphics to portray everything from the invasion of Iraq to Tiger Woods getting kicked out of his house for a case of the "not-wife" has dulled the senses to the point where I really don't care about news any-more. It no longer gets read, watched or listened to. My mornings are happier and stress free since I'm no longer aware of what the children are up to in Westminster. The media seem to be outraged for me, it's one less thing to worry about.
     
    The downside of forgoing traditional media is a sense of isolation. Feeling I might have been missing out on the recent Battle of Britain events I decide to check out what the BBC have been up to for the 70th anniversary.
     
    *pause to drink my Lemsip - yuck*
     
    Back again.
     
    Horray. The BBC declared war on boredom as the Battle of Britain Weekend has given us a season of themed documentaries, dramas and ...er...entertainments. The first and one I recommend to everyone to catch is a fascinating film based on the book "First Light" by RAF pilot Geoffrey Wellum, at just 18, he was among the youngest pilots who saw combat and subsequently wrote his memoirs which I must read after watching this erm, docu-dramatainment film. It charts the slide into "VoidComp" (no compassion, the first of two Blade Runner references in this blog post), loosing your humanity and identity through combat on a daily basis.
     
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/tv/comingup/first-light/
     
    Geoffrey Wellum was also in the BBC's "The Battle of Britain" documentarytainment 1hr 30min special in which Colin and Ewan McGregor try to ... I'm not sure what. Trace the steps of those pilots? Train up for a once in a lifetime joyride at the controls of a Spitfire? Establish the significance of the events of August/September 1940? I'm not clear what it was about but features lovely photography of Duxford and classic aircraft. Colin is like what Ewan would be if he grows up (and I mean that in a good way). The look on Colin McGregor's face after his flight at the controls of the Spit was priceless. And a great 3 point landing with no bouncing down the airfield.
     
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00txy2q
     
    Not much more to add, except a plee to all documentary makers.
     
    If you're going to raid photo archives for genuine images, is it really necessary to add that off-putting 3D panning effect to EVERY SINGLE BLOODY ONE? You're not making Blade Runner, clearly they weren't using Holographic technology in WWII, photographs only move if you're attending school at Hogwarts, so please lay off the stupid effects, it just looks wrong. There's no replicant hiding behind Winston Churchill, Hugh Dowding or Sir Douglas Bader.
     
    I should know, I was just seven years old and in short trousers when I met Douglas Bader, I vaguely knew who he was from my fathers stories. My father was not a pilot, but he was in the RAF doing what he did best, build things, repair planes, make do, valuable skills for the war in North Africa. While posted somewhere in England when Duggie needed some change for the pub phone, my father was there to loan him that sixpence. Which was never returned I should add. Not that this reflected badly on his character, Duggie was often legless in or even out of the pub (as he would be the first to joke). Both have since passed away. But bless the BBC for letting us remember those who have passed on in such a way that celebrates the present.
     
    Through the experiences of those before might we learn something about ourselves, if we care to listen. Watching Dogfights you'd be forgiven for thinking that all you needed to be to win was be a great pilot. It's a blinkered armchair general point of view that lacks any basis in reality. In "First Light", Mr Wellum reflects that it didn't matter if you were a good pilot or a great pilot, you just had to be lucky.
     
    Never a truer word was said.
     
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  16. Flexman
    Making notes on discussions of blade flapping.
     
    Definite gravy but easy to add. Currently blade flexing is done via blended animation controlled by the simulation sending key values to the model. The CH-47 has quite a large blade system (almost doubling the length of the helicopter to 100 feet) and low ground clearance.
     
    Most of the droop comes from the flapping hinge Dave has indicated in white (adjoining the red highlights). These pivots allow the blade to horizontally move upward when the blade is advancing, and down when retreating.
     
    Additionally the blade model hierarchy to allow for visible blade pitching and the Apache blades retro-fitted to do the same.
     

     
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  17. Flexman
    Last night we added rotor blade coning which resulted in realising the helo was just a little slightly off axis, now corrected. The Apache has been attacked by an angle grinder on more than a few occasions, might be showing signs of wear.
     
     
     
    Some LUA issues came up which erroded confidence in relying on it for so much. I've ditched arming through scripting. It's prone to misuse.
     
     
     
    The pylons are now ready to take the 3D models of the assigned loadouts leaving the final stage of the arming process and then the WEP page for the avionics which I can't wait to get back to.
     
     



     
     
     
     
    Dave has been working on compounds for the region...
     



     
     
    And he gave the scoop on the campaign we are featuring in what I hope is the first of many...
     
    Herat is a very pro-Iranian province and historically Iran has long believed it to be a province of their own. The local warlords are all Iranian funded. Most of the natives of the area are Tajiks, they speak Persian. When the Taliban came to power, and attacked Herat, Iran very nearly invaded Afghanistan. They had apparently massed along the borders back in 2000. They canned the plans after the NATO invasion of 2001.
     
    Our campaign follows on from the current real world conflict in Helmand province. The concept is that should the Taliban retreat, they might choose to retreat north-west into Herat. NATO forces would follow, expanding their position at camp stone south of Herat, and begin engaging Taliban positions. Local Tajik civilians get caught in the crossfire, Iran decides to move in to backup their warlords, and secure the civilian population. One too many stray arty rounds and NATO is in a full blown conflict with Iranian armoured forces.

    That's it for now.
     
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  18. Flexman
    I apologise for lack of updates, long time since the last one (weeks it seems although I have two unpublished ones which are no longer relevant). I've been avoiding online spaces during this time, work has been bogged down with the multitude of tasks not just relating to the Combat Helo game.
     
    I'm working on the flight model again this week so don't expect any updates in a while. I did get started on an updated FAQ and will publish that ASAP. Lots of things happen around this time of year with concerts and church services, when you have a musical family there's a lot of evenings taken up with those.
     
    So I don't know when we'll have something to show for all this work. It'll happen when it happens, there's no budget to finish and I've got huge debts that require me to stop at some point and take time off to do other work.
     
    On the plus side I did get a nice pressie from one of my brothers which is going to buy a nice cheap car (sensible, used K car but importantly has a working HEATER, a nice to have feature for UK winters). Something to be said for being happy just by virtue of being in a car that's warm.
     
     
    "Do you know what’s killing Western democracy, George? Greed, and constipation. Moral, political, aesthetic. The economic repression of the masses institutionalized." - Bill Haydon from John le Carré's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy 1974.

     
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  19. Flexman
    Connection time-out now resets the connection status to "disconnected" Apache canopy glass, lighting issue fixed GUI input controls that receive key-presses still occasionally hogging the keyboard. (fixed) Some speed improvements to OpenGL DrawCurve function.
     
    New GUI style as submitted by Spac3Rat in place. See Facebook image
     
     
    Next week: Back to weapons and more multiplayer functions.
     
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  20. Flexman
    Another update of map progress on the SimHQ Combat Helo forums. Showing how the City of Herat as a sprawl of densely packed compounds and commerce is being built. Using blocks of prefabs and arranged on a grid. This is a selection of my favourite.
     

    Meant to be viewed from a low altitude, the prefabs do a good job of keeping the eye busy. Here is half a city already with parks and minarets to add. All built to be frame-rate friendly.
     

    And a mini-game for your base, the "Hello World" of physics engine programming, shooting hoops. Camp Stone has it's very own half-court.
     

     
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  21. Flexman
    Dave sent me his first bridge work for crossing the Death Star trench across our terrain.
     
    Pictured below is an editor scene showing it in place with some of our other 3D assets rolling across it.
     
    Five brickwork textures were used to break up the surface detail with colour matching used to make it blend with the terrain textures.
     

     
    Last night I finished playing around with the cockpit night lighting thanks to Bushmaster and his reference photos and nudging to fix the colours. Three rotary controls by the pilots left side control levels of the panel lights, dome light and backlighting. Having an little issue with the backlighting levels as I'm setting the levels by sending a uniform float to adjust levels of the glow shader, with mixed results, I'm doing something wrong.
     

    Have some details on the MPDs and navigation to sort out. The direct-to menu to add on the "M" key, rocket submode and the master arm on/off. I've borrowed some nice bullet code that I plan to adapt to the chain gun when these pages start driving me crazy again.
     
    The next month will have me looking at our iPhone game which is a way of supporting longer term development by using existing 3D assets in a two-minute finger shooter. We've been experimenting with the dev kits just to get a feel for the workflow and HID considerations. Our game is not ambitious, take-it out, play, spank some bad-guys. The platform is capable of a whopping 6k-8k polys with around 30 draw calls per frame, which is a little smaller than the typical 250k-500k poly scenes in Combat-Helo.
     
    Here's a parting shot of the CP/G station with panel lights and backlighting, again with the mock TADS image from another game (image supplied by Gary Wright). Hopefully it won't be too long before we get ours in place.
     

     
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  22. Flexman
    While Dave is away hopefully keeping his head above water (all those Bear Grylls survival videos should come in handy) I've got not much else to do except worry and get on with my to-do list.
     
    C-SCOPE was something I remember saying wouldn't make it but turned out to be a freebie since everything was available to simply drop it in.
     
    [C-SCP] button on the FCR page overlays FCR target symbols on TADS video and HMD. Makes finding those hard to see vehicles a piece of cake.
     
     



     
    C-SCOPE FCR symbols presented on the HMD
    ref: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/docs/ah-64-mfp-1-33.htm
     
    The High Action Display is currently getting an update for the ACQ interaction (I've tried really hard to work through what this does and how I can gamify it to make something both usable and understandable by normal people).
     
    Also I'm overjoyed at getting news of our ATC audio recordings and looking forward to playing with that.

     
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