Jump to content
Ultra Engine Community

Flexman

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    916

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Blog Entries posted by Flexman

  1. Flexman

    HMD virtual symbology

    By Flexman,

    HMD = Helmet Mounted Display
     
    Remember when Virtual Reality was going to be the next big thing? Seems odd having to re-create something virtual in a game that is virtual, the modern Apache has evolved a bit since the late 1990s. Being able to display in the pilots 3D monocle (yes that's a joke) a lot of data to the crew about targets hidden behind objects, terrain contours. These 'virtual' items are matched 1:1 with the crews head movement unlike a lot of the symbology that is static.
     
    The first one we're going to look at is the "head-tracker". This is a broken diamond that represent the nose of your aircraft. As you look left you should see the diamond maintain a relative position to the nose of the helicopter. For give my "Novalogic" terrain map.
     


    I had a bugger of a time getting the function to match up to the outside world until I worked out I was missing the aspect ratio of the window (the HUD has a scale factor too in case it's too big or small for your resolution). We're ready to add the waypoint indicators and LOAL/LOBL missile constraint boxes. The flight path indicator is another one, that represents the position of the aircraft in (I think) one second? Have to check my notes on that.
     
    You might see some alerts on the UFD that shouldn't be there, as always it's not final and I know about them.
     
    The cockpit seems slightly offset from the absolute outside world position, now the crew does seem to sit off axis but I'm checking this out. The camera positions are absolute and bang on the X axis zero line of the aircraft and not directly centred on the crew seats. It looks a bit odd otherwise. Looking into that anyway.
     
    Source
  2. Flexman
    Remember the spinny radar thingy in Longbow 2? Scan sectors sizes and off-axis settings for the Longbow FCR (Fire Control Radar)? No?
     
    If you look at the heading tape of the screen-shot you'll see in the heading tape the "butt-cheeks" (two Ds back to back) on a heading of 225, off axis by 45 degrees. This indicates the direction the radar is pointing, as the FCR display is 'always up' in GTM mode. This can be a little disorientating and the radar footprint is mirrored on the TSD, this paints a clearer picture of where it's pointing. Failing that you can see the radome outside the aircraft turning as it seeks out the designated offset.
     
     



    (And why are all our aircraft IDs Z666? We shall never know. If you have a TrackIR and explore the cockpit nooks there's even a Clint Eastwood reference in it).
     
    Radar offset angle is set by clicking on either of the two LEFT RIGHT arrow buttons on the MPD or your designated sensor left/right control input when the FCR is your selected sensor. (If TADS is selected the sensor control steers TADS instead). NOTE: The offset can not be moved while the FCR is active, although you can queue movement by hitting the offset control then quickly cycling the FCR burst key. Got it?
     
    It will be in the manual. Promise.
     
    Vectors - all vectors, no bitmaps
     
    In the front seat, TEDAC view of the FCR

     
    Source
  3. Flexman
    US Army released video showcasing the new Block III Apache in a virtual training environment.


     
     
    The video covers in a nutshell...
     

    Weight reduction
    Improved software upgrade pipeline
    Increased engine power 701-D engines and improved drive system
    Better digital battlefield intergration
    UAV commanding
    IFR certified instruments
    Reliability and servicing improvements
    RFI range triangulation
    Maritime classification
    Awesome new logo

    Further reading

     
    Source
  4. Flexman
    While I'm spending hours pouring over interfacing the flight model, AD has been tinkering with billboards again, finding a blend of shadows. There's still more to do, I want a ground fog layer, multiple layers, realistic light scattering and a more dynamic LOD system which we can't do yet. AD is reducing the tree poly counts from 1,500 to 500 on the LOD1s. This should improve shadow performance a little.
     

    Looking at shadows again, I came across a GameDev.net post that I might look into. It's similar to the shadow system used in Brano's Outerra whole world engine. I'm not sure what it would do to a high bandwidth environment like a 3 monitor wide system. Probably no worse that using HDR or other post-processing effect.
     
    Source
  5. Flexman

    GROME 3.1 is out

    By Flexman,

    Quadtree software has released the 3.1 update to Grome.
     
    Grome is a fantastic terrain editor I've been playing with for future enhancements and rolling out a larger terrain systems in the future. If you play flying games and RPGs on consoles chances are you've probably already seen a Grome edited terrain. It's used by nearly every major player in the simulation industry. Incorporating a plug-in system, OpenSceneGraph and now new improved Unity integration.
     
    What's new in 3.1
     
     
     



     
     



    I'm quite keen to see how it works in the up and coming Leadwerks 3(D) engine which is looking to sport threaded streaming of assets. If this could be incorporated alongside the vegetation system it would be perhaps the most powerful and complete 3D engine for less than 1,000 USD.

     
    Source
  6. Flexman

    CH-47D - work commenced

    By Flexman,

    For the record, practical work on the detailed CH-47D interior started yesterday.
     
    The CH-47D is a great machine better suited to the environment in which it will operate in Combat-Helo. The Chinook (prn: shin-uk) is a surprisingly nimble and small helicopter, not the large lumbering giant as is often perceived. What you may find surprising (I did anyway) was that it's about the same size as the Apache. See the comparison image below.
     
    Apache / Chinook size comparisonIn Afghanistan, the CH-47 usurped the role of the UH-60, having a larger lift capacity, no energy hungry tail boom, armed protection from it's ramp and door gunners as well as a range of countermeasure devices. It's range, power and speed has saved the lives of many Afghan civilians and troops in the region. Additionally, transport helicopters reduce the reliance on vulnerable road convoys and are important in maintaining remote security outposts.
     
    The AI CH47 will be included in Combat-Helo. If we hit our sales target we hope to release a flyable CH-47D with detailed cockpit and systems as an addon (or stand-alone version - to be decided), as Combat-Helo Operation Pegasus. This will add the CH47 as an option to fly on medevac, armed escorts, insertions, extractions, transport, search and rescue missions as well as a new variant of the counter insurgency campaign.
     
    We feel that this is the better choice, it lets us explore the portalised aircraft technology we started with the Apache which will enable a level of interaction between crew that hasn't been seen in any other PC simulation title to date.
     
    Source
  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.

     
    Source
  8. Flexman
    Dave who is the artist on Combat-Helo is currently in the process of evacuating his home in Thailand as the floods in Bangkok have made living difficult. With no fresh drinking water for days, no supplies in the shops and place of work closed, services breaking down it's time to jump ship.
     
    Blue indicates server flooding (clearly) Red=flood defence
     
     



    BBC carries the story here
     
    Dave's last act before evacuating was uploading the latest Chinook work to our server alas there was no time to upload the PSDs. Good luck and fingers crossed we'll hear from you in a week or a month...

     
    Source
  9. Flexman
    AD has been finishing more of the villages and green zones around the region. You can read more about it here...
     
    SimHQ Dev Diary update
     
    This is "Dara" in the Northern region (See map below)

     
    Source
  10. Flexman
    HUDs often used in simulators adopt a green hue and use an additive or alpha blend. It can be hard to read them in some conditions and this is something I was thinking about so I tried a few experiments, non of which I like fully.
     
    First: To improving readability of heads up displays by down-sampling the HUD buffer to a smaller buffer (I called the hud_fx_buffer) with a texture filter, a poor-mans blur. Using the resulting 'fuzzy' version to reduce the intensity level of the background image.
     
    Has potential, reduce the resolution of the hud_fx_buffer too much and you get a darkend 'strobe' effect around the symbology which is akin to what you see on video tapes. It think with a Gaussian blur effect and a higher res buffer it might be a winner.
     

    Second experiment, the ubiquitous drop-shadow.
     

    Yuck. Looks like a drop-shadow. It's the same down-sampled hud buffer with a small offset. It works though, can clearly see the symbology against the lighter parts of the horizon without resorting to 'orange' or black.
     
    The hud 'clarity' will remain a user option, off by default.
     
    *update*
     
    One last toy, a twinkly hud glow. This is actually quite pretty in motion and again reminded me of some old HUD tape footage shot in old Jaguar aircraft.
     

    Good for simulating what it's like to have certain eye-conditions. Another one for the cutting-room floor.
     
    Finally, below we have hud glow mk2, a more subtle variation which is just a glow applied, mipmaps help soften out the hud image.
     




     
    Source
  11. Flexman
    The 3 active IR-LED head-tracker clip was never made of study stuff, constantly falling apart as soon as you put it down on the desk. Now it's finally disintegrated, I might have to resort to super-gluing the tattered remains.
     
     
     
    Microsoft Kinect apparently shoots out hundreds of IR beams in a grid pattern and uses that to build a set of data points from which the software can pull out a skeleton, track body motion. It's a motion capture studio in a box. Brilliant, for indie game production I like the idea of using it for creating motion capture files.
     
    Source
  12. Flexman
    The game world clock is now synced across network clients, time advance and day-night cycles locked. Accuracy is down to round-trip packet times plus a few milliseconds. More than enough to keep entity spawn times and waypoint navigation in close sync.
     
    I'm as yet unsure how often to send clock updates, currently it's every half-second which is quite aggressive, it's easy enough to tweak. Clocks run on client and frame-rate independent so they don't need to be updated often. They just need the occasional time sync from the host or when the host is changing the time-of-day.
     
    Chat channels work well, need to add the player name to the prefix. We have a player profile set in the game config but this carries no player name or any other data as yet.
     
    Almost ready to test that NAT punch-through.
     
    Source
  14. Flexman
    Another "gravy" feature which I wouldn't have spent time on had David (part man, part 3DSMax) hadn't made it so easy. He detached the existing low res wipers from the exterior model and created a single 100 frame animation cycle of both wipers complete with slight wobble. The two blades operate at different speed ratios too.
     

    The cockpit wiper control was set to send it's setting as a key to both the exterior and interior cockpit model. Allowing for dual speed wiper control and a park mode (turn off and wipers return to stop position at end of the next cycle).
     

    The ETADS display had it's round inner bevel reduced and is much more square, you can make that out as the bright green screen in the above image. Also the cockpit instrument normal maps were edited to remove raised lettering and other markings that were out of place.
     
    My project planner has me working on the generic event system (GEST) for the next four days. This is a new dependency for completing the start-up procedure and mob animation.
     
    Source
  15. Flexman
    Most of the IHADSS modes are complete except for a couple of elements in hover and bobup, and the flight-path indicator in TRANS mode.
     
    Also added for Dave's benefit a small map which I'll use later as a background underlay for a tactical situation display (TSD) and easy nav mode.
     
    RichP has supplied an authentic start-up sequence complete with appropriate caution and warning signalling that fits our bird nicely. Once we're done with the arming set-up I'll get back on the cockpit sequencing.
     


    There will be an easy start option but you'll like the complexity of starting your own chopper. Modern helicopters with computers are pretty easy to start though.
     
    A new version of the 3D engine is in the works which has a new improved Octree, vegetation culling and I think lets us do a little more with terrain texture blending. Might lets us squeeze out higher detailed areas.
     
    So there's a lot of stuff being worked on at the same time. Not much time for big blog updates or making new videos. I suspect the next video will be the cockpit startup when it's ready followed by a short test flight



    *edit* I also made some improvements over the past day or so to lift calculations, by no means complete but much better handling during turns. Managed a roll and a loop (unloaded helo, only hit the ground once). Blade stress isn't calculated yet. But you can get sucked out of the sky if you descend too quickly.

     
    Source
  16. Flexman
    I wasn't going to add a complete gui system, we don't need anything complex. The address book needs to accept input from mouse and keyboard and when I thought about it, the planned map viewer/editor will require it too.
     
    It had to be a simple gui system with input focus and keyboard entry. Since the chat console had functions for filtering keys and the input mapper directed keyboard input into it when active it was simple enough to change it to send to a gui class and whatever control input had focus.
     
    GUI drawing and input handling is as far as I got this evening. Should be functional by late evening tomorrow. Address book will store entries as XML, not sure if passwords should be stored or not. My professional hat says no, my lazy hat says yes. It's non-critical so it seems reasonable to store the last used password no?
     
    Source
  17. Flexman
    Periodically I'll create a debug build to see if any OpenGL errors popup and sure enough one did. Tthe MFD buffer mip-maps are created after rendering the contents with a call to buffer.GetColorBuffer().GenMipMaps()
     
    Not much had changed except some additional meshes, animations, all the specular maps, actually quite a lot of material changes to the interior and exterior this past week. But the debug ran fine after building and running it on the laptop. My desktop wasn't having any of it.
     
    EF2000, EECH Enemy Engaged Comanche Hokum and others, not working right? Please update your drivers. So what did I fail to do on my desktop that I did recently on the laptop (due to installing a Windows 7 upgrade). Yup, update my drivers. And lo, all is now well and good.
     
    The moral is, always heed ones own advice. Check your drivers.
     
    Still a little curious as to what was wrong with mipmaps in those drivers. I wonder how well auto-generation of mipmaps are supported across cards and is there a safer way to test it?
     
    Source
  18. Flexman
    Quite a scrappy day. Installed Microsoft Flight Simulator X and the SDK, there's an interface I want to try and build as a gauge in FSX. I've used the Simconnect API to interface to my own radio panel, now I need to build a gauge to talk to the Simconnect DLL.
     
    I re-worked the avionics menu page using the new vector glyphs, adding some commands to toggle the chat console, about page for version information. The UTIL page sets the FMS channels (Flight Management System or FLCS FLight Control System) in the Helicopter State.
     
     
    FMS_AXIS_PITCH:Int = 1;
    FMS_AXIS_ROLL:Int = 2;
    FMS_AXIS_YAW:Int = 4;
    FMS_AXIS_COLL:Int = 8;
    FMS_AXIS_TRIM:Int = 16;
    FMS_AXIS_ALT:Int = 32;
    FMS_AXIS_HEADING:Int = 64;
    FMS_AXIS_HOVER:Int = 128;
     
     
    These are bitwise settings as we need to be efficient sending helicopter stability settings over the network, seems sensible to use a single byte to do this. There's a lot of data needed to set up a complete helicopter if you're coming in over a network and jump into one ready to take-off. Console states won't be updated that often but when we do, we don't want a bottleneck.
     
    Time to sit back and examine the feature list, clear up where are priorities are and how far away are we from the major milestones. It's important to get this bird ready for some serious flight testing, there's the terrain LOD system to work out as we don't want ugly popping, Raleigh Scattering for the sky dome, additional fog and integrating FFD (FreeFlight dynamics tm) flight model.
     
    We might strip down the FCR a bit, the TSD we'll keep on a par with Longbow 2. There are lots of things it can do for designating fire zones and splitting them into groups which we just don't need for this version of the game. Even considering dropping the MPD cursors as they won't do much except mark areas on the TSD.
     

     

     

    I learned something interesting today, In 1980 Ken Perlin of Perlin Noise fame worked at Magi, the company that worked on Disney's film "TRON". His paper on a function to generate non-random "noise" was publish in 1985 and is often the basis of many shader techniques today. I read this today when looking at how we might introduce more ground detail into surface textures. That's the problem with shader programming, once you start, it's difficult to stop. Good job Dave knows when to stamp on my toes.
     
    Source
  19. Flexman

    Camera views askew

    By Flexman,

    Taking a little time-out from debugging to recharge my batteries, something slightly less frustrating, camera views.
     
    Not helped by my original program flow which had camera commands in-line where needed, and I still have to go through and fix up TrackIR to work with the new class but shouldn't take long. TrackIR is really simple to implement in this kind of software.
     
    Crew positions are parented to a pivot and then offset so it was important to retain any camera/parent relationships, add offsets to source entity location and target entity location (in case the view needs to point-at some object but add some fudge factor, such as trackIR offsets or something).
     
    So I untangled the inline camera code and added a new class with SetPostion() Move() SetParent() SetOffset() etc.. and added GameCamera.Update() which does the final camera positioning. Now changing cameras is as simple as updating the GameCamera class you wish to render the viewpoint from. It will be possible to add camera views from an external source with a bit of extra code.
     
    These screens are not using the current terrain so still a bit washed out and using the old veg (will update my test build in the next few days, it just takes longer to load which doesn't help testing).
     
    Blade tip cam will be added again shortly. And I need a key to toggle the canopy doors (yes they do swing open and closed).
     




    And I remembered to increase the TADS camera range to 6km, I'm not using deferred lighting on the TADS buffer, just shader effects for light amplification and edge detection but need some atmospheric fogging to fade into the distance. Scratching my head on best way to implement that one.
     
    Source
  20. Flexman
    Dexsoft's Middle East City pack has been tweaked by the Dave-9000 supercomputer and has produced a low poly high density city block of 1038 polys. Requiring heavy edits of UV co-ordinates and placing all the textures onto a single surface for blinding performance.
     
    Perfect for iPhone and as a building block of the high-density city of Herat.
     

     
    Source
  21. Flexman
    I want to thank Komodo Simulations for inviting me down for Summer Sim 2010, even though it didn't go according to plan we all learned a lot, I certainly did and this was really a chance to meet people and forge connections.
     
    Rich was clearly deep in thought and concerned about hardware performance. I was lost in deep thought and concerned about software. Everyone else didn't seem to mind very much. What happened was, early in the day while I was re-compiling the demo to fix a stupid inverted axis problem, FSX was running a helo demo and a visitor came and stomped on the left pedal, ripping out the weld and smashing the Hall sensor. We had to make do with alternative hardware (thanks to Flightstore for the loaners etc.)
     
    The "Virtual Blade", but nothing virtual about it, very real.
    What you would have seen today.
    If you came along, thank you very much to coming up and saying hi, I'm really sorry you didn't get a chance to see (much) of the game. Things just conspired against us from the start. But we'll get a new movie done showing some of the things we wanted to show this weekend but didn't. Oh, please email me if you were there as I'd like to get your names for future reference.
     
    Laptop demo, not a flying toy
    I came away with a Saitek X62; a stupidly knobbly joystick that has more buttons and hats than you thought was possible to put on a joystick. And also a Saitek Instrument Flight Panel which are those little LCD panels with VGA resolution (320x240). This morning I installed the Saitek OpenOutput SDK on my laptop (which continually gave me a memory errors after compiling till I rebooted *grrrr*) and got the 512x512 MFDs in Combat-Helo supersampled down to 240x240 to fit Saitek's panel. It was readable, not great, but certainly readable. The SDK is quite nice, a lot of callback hooks and functions for sending JPGs, BMPs and text to the screen. It's actually a good resolution for the Upfront Display, some nice chap at the show asked about (sorry I forget your name, even though I asked I'm pretty terrible with them). I'll post a pic later when I get a chance.
     
    I'm going to have to get a new stick of RAM for the demo laptop, it was one more thing letting me down. Yesterday it was crashing randomly when trying to run the demo and same again today when compiling. What's more the changes I made to fix one issue caused enough which I didn't notice till later (collective at 230%??), silly typo.
     
    The Komodo team comes equipped with a deadly "nice-guy", a chap so full of charisma he could (with apologise to Douglas Adams) charm all four legs off an Arcturan mega-donkey except perhaps the manager of a local restaurant who insisted it was perfectly normal to wait two hours for your starter. But at least the conversation was good and I learned fascinating things about horses.
     
    Thank you "Cyclic" (aka Rob) for being my point man again, have a good trip back to Saudi. Phil, I know you couldn't make it but the photo you sent of the Blackhawk Down fish pond decoration was a real ROFL. Every pond should have a crashed helo in it. (Rob, can you send it to me?)
     
    Day two and the chair was fixed, sorry I couldn't stick it out the whole day but there was a lot of interest in the chair and it was a really busy Sunday. We'll be looking to have a special Combat-Helo software/hardware package with a replica Apache control system consisting of a cyclic with magnetic force trim and full length collective. Unless it all goes pear shaped of course. How much will it cost? We'll you know but estimates sounded reasonable and not far off a certain A10 replica stick soon to arrive.
     
    Actually we all had a long chat about the Thrustmsater A10 and while Rob in particular voiced how nice it looked, the fear is that they will drop the ball again like they did with the Cougar. The trust isn't there anymore. A scary thought.
     
    *edit* The X65 force sensors are amazing, apart from the **** plastic HAT2 and POV (also plastic) it's pretty slick. Most of it's metal including one of the HAT, so why skimp on the rest?
     
    Sunday: the Komodo Simuations camo tent "FARP"(Rich, forground left looking pensive)
    (and YES I finally got my bloody PC Pilot subscription, can you spot where?)
    Thank you to my hosts, Rich, Mac and the nice lady who needed chocolate. Good luck at Duxford next week (it's also Battle of Britain weekend there so it's going to be mental). Take a spare
     
    Source
  22. Flexman

    Minigame...I mean gun

    By Flexman,

    AD has started some great work on the armaments of the CH47 that will form the first major DLC pack for the full release of Combat-Helo. Each door position will offer a fun interactive activity, usually in the form of throwing out obscene amounts of virtual lead.


     

    For more pictures please see:
    ADs SimHQ CH-47 blog update thread

    Mini-gun, I don't get the mini part though.

     
    Source
  23. Flexman
    Compounds, the Herat map contains approx 500 of them. Each one consisted of a number of walls and out buildings. Turns out, these sub objects chewed through a bit of processing time. In effect there were 7500 objects getting worked through. That's a lot and it was reflected in the performance in LE 2.31 on a fully dressed map.
     
    By collapsing the compound models into a single object for the lower LODs we saw a large increase in fps in LE 2.31. Although LE 2.32 shows not much difference (it's a better performer anyway) due to it's quad-tree culling system. Even so there lots of fine tuning to do, cockpit switches to be instanced, general code trimming. Entity view ranges, material combining and a dynamic detail function to add.
     
    Today I've been working on fixing the lighting buffer for the cockpit entity but I'm having problems copying the cockpit buffer into the main view buffer. Much strangeness, it's some alpha/blending issue I can't quite get a handle on but I'll get there.
     
    I spent some time looking at Open-flight as a specification for storing lots of scene data. It's not really designed for high efficiency 3D engines. And not surprising that other engines that use it have adopted some conversion process. Initially the idea was sound but on closer inspection it's just plain awful. Maybe I'm missing something in the organisation and construction of individual objects.
     
     
    Here are some random shots from today.
     
    Cockpit interior now moved to it's own world for rendering lighting. Materials are not happy but it's steady as a rock. You can see the GPU terrain mesh with it's 10 meter resolution rendering a DEM of mountains in the NW of Afghanistan.

     
    Not much to say about this. Pre optimisation and post debug slowdown. Not happy at all. It was just this slow on my dev machine. My laptop is much happier.

     
    The saturation and contrast levels adjusted on the "fly" can change the look of the game.
     

    I like heavily saturated games which is probably due to my first colour computer, a Sinclair ZX Spectrum which was a train-crash of colours, all eight of them. I still have one of the later models hanging around my desk (see photo I just took below). This one has an Interface 1 for Microdrives. If you don't know what they were, have a bit of fun and look them up. Strange to think that that kind of technology is still used as a backup system today. In the 80's my first games didn't get very good reviews, we had a laugh looking them up on the internet last week. They would make good mobile games today I think....hey I just found my keys.
     

     
    Source
  24. Flexman
    I'm happy to announce that Combat-Helo will incorporate Frederic Naar's HTR Helicopter Total Realism technology for advanced helicopter flight dynamics. (link: Hovercontrol forum, HTR section). Developed as an external physics model that interfaces with Microsoft Flight Simulator via Pete Dawson's FSUIPC, HTR is an impressive implementation of blade theory using door-stopper text-books that designers of helicopters use as source material.
     
    Fred invited me over for a few days for a mutual show-and-tell and I got to see first hand how detailed the model is from the author, who better? First with the Bell 206, which had a tendency to side-slip to the right as weight comes off the skids, which left unchecked could potentially result in a fatal roll-over. Then I got a lecture on stabiliser wings and how vertical stabilisers depending on angle of airflow go from "sail area" to a wing generating lift. Blade flap and pitch is calculated per physics update, the amount of detail resulted in me experiencing a full frontal happy-attack.
     
    After the Bell 206, Fred introduced me to an early Apache flight-model. I didn't find flying with a Microsoft Sidewinder easy, also I'm now used to flying with my joypad (I have shame). Stick in hand, trying desperately to keep the nose on a tree while slipping sideways to gauge the tail drag and weight, with limited success. Apache seemed to make all the right movements with changes to collective and airspeed. Even attempting the classic Apache hammerhead turn, HTR delivers sweat inducing concentration required for advanced helicopter flight. HTR also offers stabilisation and a most impressive auto-pilot function, checking boxes required for Combat-Helo's assisted flight mode. Trim seemed to be a non-issue except when the autopilot was flying to a stable-hover when the pilot was fighting excessive trim while attempting to slow down.
     
    Given that HTR has to work within the limitations of Microsoft Flight Simulator, the implementation for Combat-Helo allows us to use even more parameters; feeding information about local terrain conditions for calculating updraughts, downdraughts , a detailed powertrain simulation as well as the ability to monitor rotor-behaviour via the nausea inducing blade-camera.
     
    The flight-model should also be able to handle a load carrying CH-47, applying all the right moments of inertia. Pretty elegant stuff, a masterful use of OOP.
     
    With Fred's addition we have completed the triad of physics, systems and technical art.
     
    Finally I'd like to thank Frederic and family for their hospitality as well as the staff of Corte Dei Tusci hotel who were always friendly and manage to create the most amazing foods daily.
     
    Source
  25. 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.
     
    Source
Copyright © 2024 Ultra Software.
All rights reserved.
×
×
  • Create New...