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Flexman

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  2. 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.

     
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  3. Flexman

    Rockets and Rails

    By Flexman,

    This entry is not about the life of pioneer George Stephenson. The pylons seem capable of configuring themselves, got some elevation in there for aim assist if/when we add that.
     
    I removed the LUA based weapon loading, it wasn't working out the way I hoped it might. There's a level of disconnect between LUA and the game-engine which added to the complexity of something that is already complex, when it didn't need to be.
     
    Can finally get started on the arming now. Got a little sidetracked with testing what I call compound entities which seemed like a good idea but don't actually work outside of the editor due to some engine bug. It would have been a great way to make villages but we've adopted a different approach. Both would give us destructible buildings.
     
    * update * Stores jettison is working too well. The whole things comes off the rail...and drops through the floor. All corrected. Rail and pod weights are effecting the centre of gravity a little too well, that's going to require a bit of tweaking to correct. I need to check my notes on stores weights and extrapolate how heavy these pods and rails are when empty. Then I had to create a custom physical shape to fit flush with the Hellfire rails as the connectors and actuator were causing collision events to trigger. And it turned out that my function to set those collisions was never called, it was removed after the 2.31 engine update. Restoring the function worked a treat. Now I need to add to the SFX required list, store jettison and stores hitting ground.
     
    Overall it's been a frustrating evening but a result at the end. Lots of fixing up to do to complete the arming, might take until the end of the weekend before it's fully functional. End of April is pencilled in as the blowing things up milestone, the campaign map is well under construction and I think we're almost at the point where the campaign data that sits on the map can start going in.
     



    It's bloody hard work, often tedious but the results make it almost worthwhile. Tomorrow however I have to face a reality I've not been looking forward to. And it might scupper everything.
     
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  4. 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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  5. Flexman
    Still working on the loadout system, as it happens I totally forgot to do the pylon classes. While I'm working on polymorphic classes to deal with that (lot of cases to think about). During lunch I played with some more dust effects, this time for rotor downwash. This uses the roaddust pixel shader so it picks up the colour of the terrain it's currently over.
     



    With no wind vector applied, brown-outs, where the crew can't see outside are occurring. Not sure why the canopy isn't blending as it should, it's located in the same transparency world as the dust particles. I'll have to check the shader settings in the material. Back to pylons.
     
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  6. Flexman
    I was thinking over some official forum posts and one gentleman indicated that they were partly colour-blind. Accessibility issues are something I think about whenever I'm writing software or web site design work so I kicked myself when I didn't apply that to the interface. I added some GUI elements that link current selection to the tooltip, this should avoid ambiguity in the menu system.
     



     
    So that's all working as it should, just have to fix up the weapon selection system which will be based loosely around this mock-up...



    We has some debate about walking around in ground mode clicking on weapons displayed on the ground like in the above picture. Or some other mechanism involving a fixed camera that cycles through each pylon and a vertical list to choose from.
     
    On the whole, there's not much difference in workload, both are fairly trivial to implement. It's become a style choice. But I'm torn between traditional as above, or flashy console panning cam and up/down list.
     
    Either way it's a far cry from Gunship 2000...or is it?



    Which method will I implement? Stay tuned for the next thrilling blog post when all will be revealed.
     
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  7. Flexman

    Player profiles

    By Flexman,

    Writing this up for reference later.
     
    Thinking about players, names, callsigns, current rank, medals, changing characters. The 3D base metaphor avoids a lot of GUI work. Using 3D lockers (since I have one to hand) is perfect. As it turns out, as easy as setting user keys on Locker entities. Simple.
     
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  8. Flexman
    On the whole, I'm starting to warm to using text for user options, the nineties style. Dave showed me some icon screenshots from ArmA and remembered why I didn't like them. Is that a steering wheel? Desk fan?
     
    Below is an in-game shot showing the menu and data displays for helicopters. Not unlike something you might have seen in older games using pre-rendered art. All interactive objects around the base will have these. If you don't want the floaty status text, CTRL L (for labels) is your friend.
     
    Eventually each helo flight will pull it's call-signs from a datafile (Twodogs, Ugly, Badman, Goody etc.) which will go in placed to the current auto-generated ID. Status refers to the ground crews work time to prepare the helo for it's next sortie. Fuelling and weaponeering.
     
    The play process is typically pick-mission, go to aircraft, pick weapons if default not to liking, hit the fly button. It's been the same in games from Wing Commander to Black Shark. Pretty much universal. And we don't want to break that. Reading how UK operations conduct Apache helicopter turnaround, the Apache lands, is guided into an arming bay and re-armed immediately so it's ready for the next flight whenever that may be. No hanging around waiting for a bird to be armed if you're urgently needed in a support action.
     
    To facilitate this into the traditional game flow, brief>arm>fly, the ground crew servicing timer starts after landing and shutdown. But as the player may change weapons seconds before flight and we don't want to delay, we'll let the players arming choice count as the arming done after landing. With a realism option in to have "Real-time arming" for sim pilots who love to thrash themselves with birch-twigs - metaphorically speaking.
     



     
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  9. Flexman
    I had a couple of hours with Just Cause 2 which I hesitate to recommend, it a really fun game but you're stuck playing an unlikeable character. Cheesy dialogue abounds and that's no bad thing in games, I scripted plenty of cheese for Longbow Combat Helo. Think about the lines of dialogue from old games you might remember.
     
    The Playstation 3 was needed by the children for Final Fanstasy n so Rico, Scorpio (whatever the slab of MDF you play is called) was parked for the evening.
     
    So back to doing some little things on the project. There's an expectation of standards, a language of gaming to follow. To guide players through the work-flow by implementing cues and guides, can something be too obvious? I think so. I might expect to see the following (see picture below) on an XBOX or PS3 title but not a Combat Sim. Maybe some funky looking icon suggesting "mount".
     



    The advantage of icons over text is that they don't need to be localised. English, French, German, one icon says it all, even if you don't understand apparent meaning the first time, you associate the action with the icon afterwards. So I think we'll go down that route.
     
    So what is the internationally recognised symbol for "Board Helicopter"? Agghh, just stick any old **** in there, people are smart, they'll work it out.
     
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  10. Flexman
    Check off the list, working external canopy doors, flip up/down, will indicate available crew position as well as letting you chat to your mounted team-mate while you're on foot. You could even arm the pilots chopper for him.
     
    Internal doors and wipers next followed by external lighting system. Hopefully we'll have the cold start-up sequence in a few days, we need that so we can get on with more vital systems.
     
    (I just noticed the text on the rail is reversed)
     
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  11. Flexman

    Just BeCause 2

    By Flexman,

    No work will be done tomorrow. Just Cause 2 PS3 is released. The acting sucks, the actual game doesn't seem all that hot from the demo either, but the stunt playground aspect is brilliant.
     
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  13. 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
     
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  14. Flexman
    I've been using this for testing and making profiles for Combat-Helo since the weekend. This is a really odd stick. It's perhaps the best built joystick out of the box I've ever had the privilege of using. And quite a looker too. The textured metal feel, the metal triggers and even a couple of the HATs. Oddly this level of build isn't consistent with several hats made from what feels like a poor quality plastic. But it wasn't broken or badly assembled, and nothing has broken yet.
     
    If you didn't know, the X65 is a force sensing stick. It doesn't move and is really sensitive to tiny amounts of hand pressure along the x/y and rotation axis. The amount of pressure you apply is translated into a direction. It makes fine control a joy since there are no springs or rubber boots to interfere with your intent. Apart from the plastic hats I don't have anything to say about the stick. Just really nice to hold, use, and with no moving parts it should be reliable. Guiding the Apache in Combat-Helo around for landing can be tricky made easier by the X65.
     
    Then there's the throttle. *sigh*
     
    Again beautifully made except for the dual throttle tension adjuster, a tiny hex screw on the underside made from the softest metal on the planet designed to dissolve on contact with anything heavier than neutrinos. The dual-throttle operation set to the weakest tension setting requires quite a lot of force. More force than is comfortable or practical for a helicopter collective that might require a good percentage of travel quickly. The perfect combo would be a separate collective controller and then just use the dual throttle for the engine levers. Also it has a rather unpleasant sounding 'gloop' noise when operated, like there's a lot of grease inside being moved around. The noises are almost pornographicly sticky.
     

     
    So we have a super sensitive joystick perfect for fine control. And a near impossible-to-move dual throttle controller that needs to be nailed down (which is why it comes with a heavy steel plate).
     
    All in one neat package. A tale of two joysticks.
     
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  15. Flexman
    All the things we want to show but can't. Still making some final hour changes to get a robust demo working that can be operated by Joe Public (I'm told he's coming along). A simple flying demo that will show the technology, Afghan map, lighting and cockpit. It has the mark 1 flight model I keep tweaking. sounds could be better. I wish I had time to do the landing gear joints, it's hard to land without wheels.
     
    Better stop with the bloggin and get back to writing.
     
     

     
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