Talk armour and tank addons

[coporal_punishment 0]

If you would be kind enough to send me the T-90 i'd take some shots for you  

EDIT

Oi what did you say before the edit i missed it  

Well I don't think anyone saw, but I suggested ShadowNX becuase he is in RHS and he's really good at screen shot posting, I too know that you are but ShadowNX has already got the tanks.

[Shadow NX 1]

Do i hear my name

Well i deleted the latest T-90 pics i made it seems, one of them can be seen as Banner at our homepage atm.

Maybe someone saved the ones i posted on our forums and could post these ...

[aj_addons 0]

i dont mind the locking ability has anyone here ever tried to hit a tank at 2500m in game even the AI has trouble at that range so thats when you use the at missiles

[coporal_punishment 0]

btw like the heading said talk amour and "tank addons", I would like to make a request SIMGA PLEASE MAKE A BRITISH TANK PACK

[Sigma-6 29]

Probably not. . .

Don't you think UKF ought to do that?

[Acecombat 0]

They have made one i think its up at their site

[munger 25]

UKF haven't released anything yet, although their soldier pack is getting close. Their Chally 2, whilst looking amazing, is far from finished AFAIK.

Maybe you've thinking of Hawk's Challenger 1 Ace?

[Aeon 0]

Discuss about .cpp is interesting, but don't forget 3D and textures !

I know SIG or RHS armored, but I always ripped them and modified model parameter : I take back BIS default model

Of course new model look better, but they have TOO MANY polys (or perhaps too large texture resolution?). A battle with a bunch of SIG_XX tanks decrease dramatically my frame/second rate, while it's still low-consumer CPU with BIS's tank.

So for the incoming addons, I just hope addon-makers will make more efforts with optimization

[Sigma-6 29]

Hehe. . .

Funny that you should say that. I did quite a bit of optimization on the SIG and RHS tanks. . . You wouldn't believe what the polycounts *could* have been. . .

You know, you can set the detail level in OFP to use the lower poly LODs at closer distances. . . that should solve your framerate probs. . . The lowest poly LOD in any of those tanks is under 300.

[DKM Jaguar 0]

UKF haven't released anything yet, although their soldier pack is getting close. Their Chally 2, whilst looking amazing, is far from finished AFAIK.

Maybe you've thinking of Hawk's Challenger 1 Ace?

There's another mod making one, not too far away.

[Tannethal 0]

I'm against giving the gunner the radar bar to simulate thermal imaging capabilities. It's gives the gunner far too much battlefield awareness.

IRL a gunner has to heavily rely on his commander feeding him with target directions and has to constantly sweep his assigned fire sector to scan for treats. The optics servely restrict the gunners field of view, esp true in high magnification.

A thermal imager improves the spotting capabilities in adverse wheather conditions but only within the limits of the optics, it doesn't give you the godlike "I know where every enemy is!" insight provided with the radar bar.

I know OFP doesn't simulate thermal imaging devices and that is just a workaround to overcome the shortcomings of the ofp engine.

But being aware of what's going on around your tank should as in real life be the job of the Tank commander. Even so for sake of realism i would give the commander only radar if the tank has IVCS.

S!

[DKM Jaguar 0]

I'm against giving the gunner the radar bar to simulate thermal imaging capabilities. It's gives the gunner far too much battlefield awareness.

IRL a gunner has to heavily rely on his commander feeding him with target directions and has to constantly sweep his assigned fire sector to scan for treats. The optics servely restrict the gunners field of view, esp true in high magnification.

A thermal imager improves the spotting capabilities in adverse wheather conditions but only within the limits of the optics, it doesn't give you the godlike "I know where every enemy is!" insight provided with the radar bar.

I know OFP doesn't simulate thermal imaging devices and that is just a workaround to overcome the shortcomings of the ofp engine.

But being aware of what's going on around your tank should as in real life be the job of the Tank commander. Even so for sake of realism i would give the commander only radar if the tank has IVCS.

S!

The gunner does rely to some degree on the commander but the commander is relying on information gathered by friendly forces, reconaisance and helicopters. Seeming as recon is almost impossible in ofp without being shot to bits, this information can be nearly simulated by this extra awareness. For example, the scorpion is armed with a 76mm cannon for self defense, information gathering being it's main purpose. If the lightly armoured/armed scorpion tries to recce an area then it will be fired upon by anything in the area, as ofp does not know that some stealth can be used.

The radar compensates for this, by presenting enemy equipment positions.

Another thing, the commander is the only crew with the radar enabled, AFAIK. For the others it is not shown.

[Aeon 0]

Hehe. . .

Funny that you should say that. I did quite a bit of optimization on the SIG and RHS tanks. . .  You wouldn't believe what the polycounts *could* have been. . .

You know, you can set the detail level in OFP to use the lower poly LODs at closer distances. . . that should solve your framerate probs. . .  The lowest poly LOD in any of those tanks is under 300.

I tried SIG_T72B.pbo and SIG_T80.pbo

Lowest LOD seems ok, but what about the very first LOD (the highest) ? and how many for the reference BIS's T72/T80 ?

We shouldn't set again the detail level, because it could affect all others 3D objects (included those wich needn't high graphic ressources).

If you've planned to build and release new vehicles and if you can, think about this issue. Low-end PC owners will thank you

[Sigma-6 29]

Quote[/b] ]If you've planned to build and release new vehicles and if you can, think about this issue. Low-end PC owners will thank you

I've done all I can. Tanks with as low poly count as BIS' old ones are bound to look much like them.

[TermiPete 0]

Hear hear!

One of the prime motivators for people (well me anyway) using excellent third party addons is the leap in visual quality that they bring to Flashpoint.

And hey - 3GHz P4s are cheap now!

I think you've done a fantastic job Sigma

[Bobby - CSLA team 0]

Concerning LODs and HW requirements.

It is not important how many vertexes has the lowest LOD, but what is important is how many vertexes has the most detailed LOD (LOD1), how many of LODs you have and what are the distance steps among them. If somebody will make for instance every ERA brick as a 3D box using 4 vertexes, it is pure ignorancy, because it can be solved different way (via texture e.g.). If somebody makes 4 or 5 LODs for a tank it is not enough to optimize HW requirements. Generally if somebody wants to make superdetailed model in the nearest view, it is a must to make new LODs to optimize the model. Good model is compromise between model vs. texture usage for details and mainly LOD optimization. It is not true, that model with low HW requirements would look as a BIS model.

[Sigma-6 29]

It's true enough for my purposes.

I've had a look at OFRP's Leclerc (very low poly), and I'd have to say, for certain types of vehicles (like those which are mostly square or sharp angles), it might not be true, and it's entirely possible that it's not true even for certain types which are more bulky and have more external parts.

As for ERA, while I only have 4 resolution LODs in my models, they usually go from 4000/5000 to 2000 to 500 to 300. (sometimes higher in all, so the ERA usually isn't the defining factor in the high polycount (since the M1 series is pretty much consistent with this). . .

What it is is a desire to model all the parts with an overall increase in visual quality. While I certainly feel for people with low-end systems (I started modelling most of these on a 500mhz P3 with a 16 meg card, and I'm now on a 1.6g P4) , I do think they're going to have to upgrade anyway if they want to play OFP2, so overall, I'm not too concerned.

Clearly there are differences in philosophy here, however.

[Bobby - CSLA team 0]

In my view it is important to make addons as optimized as possible. It would prevent serious lagging even on high end HW. (If some player put more units into mission) I can't agree with philosophy to create high demanding addons for OFP1 without proper tuning and major quality increase with excuse that everybody will upgrade for OFP2...

ERA in my previous post was only example. Concerning lods. Four LODs are enough if model is about under 2000 vertexes. Above mentioned "LODding" could be good (in terms of HW demand) only in case when L1 is used only for veeery very near of vehicle and than L2 will take place. But at the same time no major quality increase will be shown because most of the time L2 will be seen. My armor addons have 6 lods at least e.g. 4800/3500/1700/850/500/250 in case of tank. Even round wheels can be used in this case.

Another rule is that lower LODs are made not by deleting some details from higher LOD (how it is often happen) but simplifying the model including details.

There are several other ways how to tune model using another types of LODs (cargo view geomety etc.) for better performance.

Also what is not best practice - all those models of APCs with openable doors and detailed interior in L1. If it is used for longer distances, it can cause serious lagging. All this possibility has limited usage (although looks nice) and for ofp fighting does not bring any added value.

Alot of details can be made by textures to reduce vertex number.

[aj_addons 0]

what only four and 6 lods i usually use 8 but saying that i do have a nasty tendency to model everything in polygons(dam graphic comunication telling me that the more acurate something is the better ) and then reduce it down until its a nice polygon count. saying that i think the ofp engine copes remarkably well with high poly models what it does cause it to die on dodgy machines is the amount of objects or ai on the map

[Sigma-6 29]

Quote[/b] ]all those models of APCs with openable doors and detailed interior in L1.

I'm well aware of the problems that causes. That was a workaround for that class. It has to do with the lack of turnouts in the wheeled class, and it was the only way to simulate it (it's also not done).

[SILESIAN 0]

2 videos with T80 - good for inspiration with making tank addons

http://www.army.lv/Tehnika/T-80/T-80.MOV

http://www.roe.ru/video/t80u.wmv

[SILESIAN 0]

and tanker black dream

http://www.jodyharmon.com/t72attack.jpg

[Sigma-6 29]

Man, that Harmon is a hell of an illustrator. . . the rest of his work is just as fantastic.

[miles teg 1]

Hey Sigma any chance we might see a Stryker APC based off of your LAV-25? But... with Slat armor?

That would be nice to see with perhaps an armor value similar to my mod's Zelda APC which can take about 2 hits from Kegetys's RPG-7 before being destroyed.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[denoir 0]

Sigma, could you (or anybody else knowledgable in the art of armor) clear something up for me? During my military service in Sweden, I was taught that t-62's and above have an automatic system that if the tank gets hit by an RPG automatically points the turret into the direction from where the RPG was fired. Later when I was with KFOR, I talked to a Croatian former tank commander. He told basically the same story - that the normal 55's didn't have that system but his '62 had it.

A while ago I talked to another guy here on the forums who had done his service in Finland. He said that he had been told the same thing and asked me if I knew any details about it. I took a look around on the web and could find absolutely nothing. So, I've had three independant sources saying it is so, while at least the normal military sites don't have anything on it.

You wouldn't happen to know something about that system?