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Flexman

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  1. Flexman
    After close checking of memory usage when boarding and exiting the Apache there's feedback saying that objects are getting freed and memory dumped, except it isn't. Only a small percentage. There are object references that are keeping the cockpit and avionic entities alive and preventing them from being released.
     
    Going to take a little time to track each one down.
     
    *edit*
     
    The large memory leak located, was the TADS camera world not being released. It's been removed for now.
     
    Source
  2. Flexman
    I've just moved on to doing research into co-ordinates and floating point accuracy.
    Going to make a few test projects to try different ideas. Dave has been posting updates on the greenzone development.
     
    Welcome to Afghanistan
     
    Source
  3. Flexman

    Arming almost done

    By 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


     
    Source
  4. Flexman
    Looking at the pieces we have and project roadmap. Our game, like football (soccer for American readers), is a game of two halves. Side A and Side B. One campaign is the thinking man's approach; counter insurgency. The other game is the more familiar tank spanker; survival in a high-tech hostile environment against well armed self-sufficient mechanised infantry with air-defence units.
     
    Compounds are anchor points of the campaigns, in groups they form the villages, strategic points you're tasked to provide security for. In the side-B campaign, the role is slightly different but as important.
     


    I'm still a little bothered by LOD and shadow ranges, you can go mad tweaking these to find something that works well for different modes. Maybe I'm stupid but it only occurred to me last night to make the LOD settings dynamic. Which is ironic, as the very very first multiplayer wargame I worked on back in the late 80s used an LOD system based on view height.
     
    In the real world, at ground level the horizon is around 11km away, it's a mathematical function based on your height and the curvature of the earth.
     
    1.17 times the square root of your height of eye = Distance to the horizon in nautical miles
     


    So I'll be experimenting at some stage with adjusting the Leadwerks Engine LODs for shadows and vegetation based on player mode and viewer height.
     
    Just using a depth of field filter on the far horizon seems to greatly improve visual quality, making hills blend a better into the haze, masking the smaller details.
     
    First things first, we have to complete our Apache and it's operational systems. Arming is almost complete.
    With breaks for Easter, familiy time and re-writing internal systems for handling weapons THREE times (it got better each time). It's taken a week longer than I said originally. The menu system is in place and the visual manifestation of the ordnance is left to do. Rocket pods will require one click per zone (3 zones or 3 kinds of rockets per pod).
     


    Presently it permits arming in proximity to the Apache which is fine on the base. But we'll have to implement some object, like an ammo truck (hmm, seen that somewhere before), or some invisible object we can attach to any entity via some LUA code (much like player spawn locations).
     



    DOF blending the horizon.


     
    Source
  6. 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
  7. 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.
     
    Source
  8. 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.
     
    Source
  9. 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.
     
    Source
  10. 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.
     
    Source
  11. 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.
     
    Source
  12. 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.
     



     
    Source
  13. 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.
     
    Source
  14. 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)
     
    Source
  15. 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.
     
    Source
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