31st Normandy mod -WW2

[Oddball 0]

Oh yeah, While i'm at it... is anyone working on the WC-57 Command Car? I was just browsing Ebay when i came accross it, otherwise I almost forgot about that one (I'm sure Rip31st wouldn't want me to forget 1 vehicle ).

Oddball

[rip31st 98]

Willy's Jeep ready to go.  Thanks again to Atomic & Enigma.

And the M26 Pershing is also ready to go...thanks again Enigma for the textures on this one:

UPDATE:

-M101 Howitzer still in work.

-Horsa glider in work.

-Waco glider about to go into work.

After these items are done, the mod will be nearly ready to go for beta release.  Oh so close!

Pic of the Horsa in work:

Just want to say thanks T_roc for the Horsa glider! I will have it ingame soon.

[Grishnack66 0]

is there going to be any willys ambulance with field bed on the front or anny other willys with a .30 cal?

[Enigma85 2]

as i remember the jeeps will come in various different versions.

medical version with field stretchers  

and a armed version mounted with a rear .30 or .50 cal.

I'm not sure about the status of said versions.

but you can guarantee they won't be ready for the beta.

the more stuff gets added to the beta list the longer everyone will be waiting for it.

and you don't want to be waiting for ever surly?

[Tomahawk1 0]

that tank looks kinda wierd...

[tisse 0]

does look more like a peice of lego than a Pershing

[Törni 0]

Low poly model and bad textures. Pershings were not even around in Normandy 1944. But this is a beta so I guess things will get fine tuned as the time goes by.

[rip31st 98]

Low poly model and  bad textures. Pershings were not even around in Normandy 1944. But this is a beta so I guess things will get fine tuned as the time goes by.

The focus from the beginning was never on artistic talent as I have clearly stated I'm no artist.  The models are low poly for multiplayer performance.  If something looks weird, state what looks "weird" specifically, maybe someone can change the way it looks along the way.  Were always willing to look at it.  Not everyone will be happy with the results.  That's just the way real life is.

One thing players take for granted is the amount of memory taken up by objects.  OR alternatively they don't think about that factor at all.  For example if I sat and made a tiger tank for 1 year to perfect every feature of a real life tiger tank chances are number one, someone would complain it wasn't accurate, but more importantly a high poly model takes up more memory while playing.  If I go with a 250,000 high poly model and put 4-5 of them on your screen your computer will become a slide show and that my friends doesn't make for good gameplay.  You also must consider that the 4-5 tigers your seeing won't be all that's there.  Who's fighting those tigers?  Ahhh - Exactly!

Our models are below 10,000 polys - most of them.  IF when I receive a model and it's beyond the threshold, I start taking polys away and dumb them down.

On the topic of textures.  There is always room for improvement.  The reason why we release the first phase as a beta initially is due to the fact we are willing to support the community and their opinions and make changes later.  Something most mod makers don't do.

I can make models that take a year to make, or a day to make.  I think your understanding the point now.

The other item brought up was historical accuracy. Again I have to state were not exactly tracking that down to the "T" or chasing that down at all. Were well aware the Pershing's and Jagdpanther's weren't exactly a commodity in 1944. Again that's not the focus. The focus is gameplay for the ww2warfare mission and creating an equal balance of equipment. The idea is to release the models to the community in hopes that they will take it upon themselves as in so many times before and create good content and missions. Were giving you the WWII warfare mission. You guys can come up with the rest. I've got two historians on my tail all the time reminding me what equipment was in theater. I do plan on doing some of the cooler stuff like the pegasus bridge scenario which I am working with a historian for all the proper equipment. That will come in another pack. There is a list of about 12 scenarios which I have mentioned throughout this thread that I will carefully package and try to create them as closely to real history as possible.

A lot is on our plates, were doing this for free for the community. Most of us in our spare time. Don't slap the hand that feeds ya.

[=(97th)=Atomic 1]

For the willy's jeep i have designed a 30 cal version, 50 cal version and i'm working on the ambulance version as we speak. But i dont know if they will be released in the beta, but we will have them you just gotta wait ...

[Törni 0]

Don't get me wrong here it is better to get all this stuff in the game and start playing. Individual models can be worked on later on. You have already done a huge amount of work.

What comes to 3D models it is always a matter of what to keep and what to throw away. On top of that players have different kinds of computers.

Keep up the good work

[rip31st 98]

I've got some beatiful work given to me that will make phase 2. Some of those models like the pz4 given to me by T_roc will replace my pz4. But not until then.

[Aqu 0]

I have no problem with the looks of the models as it has been said many times what is the bias in the first phases.

If you have limit of 10,000 polys, I think I have to start dump stuff out of my P-38 and Stug  (bit over the limit)

To clarify that means triangles and in the highest LOD? Does it have effect how big, complex or common object it is? If someone makes HMS Nelson, I bet it is quite hard to keep it under 10k polys if keeping same accuracy as in smaller models. But I think it wouldn't matter because there won't be 20 Nelsons cruising around at the same time.

Other matter. So far I have used linear approximation how powerful HE round is based on the amount of explosive material it contains. This seems to fit the values default weapons have quite well. V1 had 830kg of Amatol and for example US 2,000lb M66 GP bomb had 1,061lb (481kg), so it clearly is more powerful than e.g german 1,000kg bomb. doing some math I get 13,000-13,500 hit points for it...quite a block buster.

Also all sort of AP rounds should have a much higher hit value than the HE rounds for the same gun. Otherwise it would make HE rounds quite tempting to use in AT role. So far I have used penetration of armor (mm) in 30deg angle at 100m distance multiplied by 3. I.e. if penetration is 120mm, then I have put 3*120=360. But because this is only c. 3 times higher than HE round, it means if you can destroy a target with 1 AP round, it is often done with 3 HE rounds too. To go around this a higher multiplier than 3 could be used (e.g 10), but then the armor values need to be increased too. Also all AP rounds of all types should be fully kinetic (or at least very very close to 1.0) no matter what they were IRL, so taht they could not be used like HE rounds.

Anyway I have come to conclusion it makes no sense trying to balance stuff to the default Arma vehicles, because already my 75mm StuK40 L/48 can blow T-72 from the other end of the runway and I still think AP rounds are too weak compared to HE. I would put normal tanks tougher than T-72 and Abrams.

[rip31st 98]

I have no problem with the looks of the models as it has been said many times what is the bias in the first phases.

If you have limit of 10,000 polys, I think I have to start dump stuff out of my P-38 and Stug  (bit over the limit)

To clarify that means triangles and in the highest LOD? Does it have effect how big, complex or common object it is? If someone makes HMS Nelson, I bet it is quite hard to keep it under 10k polys if keeping same accuracy as in smaller models. But I think it wouldn't matter because there won't be 20 Nelsons cruising around at the same time.

Other matter. So far I have used linear approximation how powerful HE round is based on the amount of explosive material it contains. This seems to fit the values default weapons have quite well. V1 had 830kg of Amatol and for example US 2,000lb M66 GP bomb had 1,061lb (481kg), so it clearly is more powerful than e.g german 1,000kg bomb. doing some math I get 13,000-13,500 hit points for it...quite a block buster.

Also all sort of AP rounds should have a much higher hit value than the HE rounds for the same gun. Otherwise it would make HE rounds quite tempting to use in AT role. So far I have used penetration of armor (mm) in 30deg angle at 100m distance multiplied by 3. I.e. if penetration is 120mm, then I have put 3*120=360. But because this is only c. 3 times higher than HE round, it means if you can destroy a target with 1 AP round, it is often done with 3 HE rounds too. To go around this a higher multiplier than 3 could be used (e.g 10), but then the armor values need to be increased too. Also all AP rounds of all types should be fully kinetic (or at least very very close to 1.0) no matter what they were IRL, so taht they could not be used like HE rounds.

Anyway I have come to conclusion it makes no sense trying to balance stuff to the default Arma vehicles, because already my 75mm StuK40 L/48 can blow T-72 from the other end of the runway and I still think AP rounds are too weak compared to HE. I would put normal tanks tougher than T-72 and Abrams.

All the damage models will be adjusted based on feedback we receive.  I am trying to keep all the hit values reasonable relative to the other models in the mod.  For example a tiger has a hit value of 1200 pts, while a sherman has one of 250.  Obviously the 88mm on the tiger is a lot more effective then the sherman's gun.  Also the armor has a higher level of hit points on the tiger then the Sherman.  

This is a discussion for down the road after the beta is out.

Total face count in oxygen is what we are concerned with.  I haven't seen your models on my desktop yet so I don't know what to consider.  10,000 is a benchmark.  It's not an absolute.  I need to see what you have before I can either remove some faces or optimize and make more efficient the ones your models do have.

T_roc's tanks are under 10,000. They look great!

[rocket 9]

To clarify, detail should not be in the polys, it should be in the normal/spec/shadow texture.  I make/beg/borrow/buy extremely high resolution models and then "bake" them down into textures, tidy them up, and place them on a low poly model that I have made.

I would consider that the models you have made have plenty enough detail in poly's, and probably all they would need would be a quick texture pass.  An ambient occlusion render-to-texture would make all the difference.

I was under the opinion that anything over 7000 polys (in the highest lod) was a pretty high polygon model?  Remember also that GEOMETRY is actually pretty easy for a modern PC to handle (even in quantities).  Also, ArmA instances geometry as well.  I've had ArmA handling massive amounts of polygons (by breaking objects into many parts) without it batting an eyelid.  The key is achieving a nice balance between the geometry and the texture. I'd argue (and really, its hard for me to back this up) that we're not limited so much by geometry with our addons (you can break models up) but by texture memory. High resolution textures can really cause the engine to chug!

In your examples above. If you texture it with flat color it will look "weird" because the lighting will be poor.  But if you bake some detail/shadow it really brings it out.  

Good work on focusing on function over form, I'm sure there's plenty of folks waiting for this to come out!

[rip31st 98]

To clarify, detail should not be in the polys, it should be in the normal/spec/shadow texture.  I make/beg/borrow/buy extremely high resolution models and then "bake" them down into textures, tidy them up, and place them on a low poly model that I have made.

I would consider that the models you have made have plenty enough detail in poly's, and probably all they would need would be a quick texture pass.  An ambient occlusion render-to-texture would make all the difference.

I was under the opinion that anything over 7000 polys (in the highest lod) was a pretty high polygon model?  Remember also that GEOMETRY is actually pretty easy for a modern PC to handle (even in quantities).  Also, ArmA instances geometry as well.  I've had ArmA handling massive amounts of polygons (by breaking objects into many parts) without it batting an eyelid.  The key is achieving a nice balance between the geometry and the texture.  I'd argue (and really, its hard for me to back this up) that we're not limited so much by geometry with our addons (you can break models up) but by texture memory.  High resolution textures can really cause the engine to chug!

In your examples above. If you texture it with flat color it will look "weird" because the lighting will be poor.  But if you bake some detail/shadow it really brings it out.  

Good work on focusing on function over form, I'm sure there's plenty of folks waiting for this to come out!

Yeah I understand the concept of baking in the lighting issues into the texture. Again, I'm not an artist. I do have some skills, but I don't have that much time. That's why some have stepped forward to help out.

The Geo LOD's is different from a face. Face properties reference textures. having too many faces with texture(s)cause computers to bog down. One thing mod makers have to take into consideration like I do is some of the folks are playing on much older PC's. I want to give them an oppurtunity to play as well.

[DaKa 0]

Awesome guys, can't wait for release and some MP Tiger vs Sherman.

[rocket 9]

The Geo LOD's is different from a face.  Face properties reference textures.  having too many faces with texture(s)cause computers to bog down.  One thing mod makers have to take into consideration like I do is some of the folks are playing on much older PC's.  I want to give them an oppurtunity to play as well.

By geometry I mean, geometry in the general sense.  All the vertex data is called the "geometry" of the object. Game developers call all this vertex/face data "geometry" collectively.  BIS just happen to also have a Geo LOD, which is one kind of "geometry" data stored there, so I wasn't meaning that.

And your assumption about faces and textures isn't necessarily correct.  If you have a small texture, and its repeated over many, many textures... that is no problem.  If you have several massive textures, used on many different objects, thats no problem either.

These days, ANY PC that can run arma, has a pretty major supply of graphics memory (holds the textures in memory).  What tends to run in short supply is graphics bandwidth (swapping the textures in and out of memory).  People that buy poor graphics cards notice this lack of bandwidth (bus speed). Flying across sahrani and noticing stalls? thats when you're computer is swapping texture files in and out of your video card... and the hard disc & video card bus are going crazy.

What you need to aim for... is normal mapping.  It has a VERY low cost compared with replicating the detail in the mesh and/or (particular) the diffuse bake.  Looking at the BIS UH60, I noticed they have baked their ambient lighting into the diffuse - but that does result in the model requiring ~ four 1024x1024 textures.

As I said, the function over form approach is one I think is great.  If you've made sure the models are well UV mapped, someone can easily knock up a new normal map and additional shader details for it later anyway.

[Aqu 0]

Total face count in oxygen is what we are concerned with.  I haven't seen your models on my desktop yet so I don't know what to consider.  10,000 is a benchmark.  It's not an absolute.  I need to see what you have before I can either remove some faces or optimize and make more efficient the ones your models do have.

T_roc's tanks are under 10,000.  They look great!

The total face is count is bit iffy. I have 9000+ faces in my P-38, but many of them are quads. The count of triangles is higher. If I triangulate it I get 12000+. In Stug I have even more, but in that I have multiple versions in the same model and I always hide part of the details in the config.

To my experience I get more problems with models which have complex multilayered textures rather than models which have bit more faces. I dunno why but e.g Sigma-6 vehicles take much longer to load than any other. They have hi-res skin and normal maps and they do look great but  if you create them on the fly then for the first load it freezes system for some time.

You have hit=1,200 for AP shell in Tiger's 88m and 250 in Sherman 75mm. Do you use some formula? If you use some sensible formula like I told above it kind of gives you the values easily without too much thinking. That feels bit too high difference. Part of the Tiger superiority came from the higher velocity gun (easier to hit, more range), thicker armor and also early Shermans had a bit tendency to catch fire too easily.

[rocket 9]

The total face is count is bit iffy. I have 9000+ faces in my P-38, but many of them are quads. The count of triangles is higher. If I triangulate it I get 12000+. In Stug I have even more, but in that I have multiple versions in the same model and I always hide part of the details in the config.

...

You have hit=1,200 for AP shell in Tiger's 88m and 250 in Sherman 75mm. Do you use some formula? If you use some sensible formula like I told above it kind of gives you the values easily without too much thinking. That feels bit too high difference. Part of the Tiger superiority came from the higher velocity gun (easier to hit, more range), thicker armor and also early Shermans had a bit tendency to catch fire too easily.

Depends largely what shader you're using with your material file. I find if you're using 512x512 or 1024x1024 textures, you're okay because they can be swapped in and out easy. ArmA is going base lighting calculations on your textures anyway, so essentially the normal map is almost a "freebee".

Personally, 9000+ faces is not necessarily a problem for an aircraft in ArmA. My B1B Lancer is ~13k faces, but then, its pretty darn big! And use your face count as the default un-triangulated... only triangulate what you need too, the engine will triangulate it all before processing anyway I believe.

Rather than using a formula, I've tried be really critical once I've made my model. I did that with my B1B landing gear, posted the wireframes on the forum, and I got great constructive feedback that allowed me to reduce it from a whopping 3500 faces down to 320, with and INCREASE in detail through the normal map! Keep up the great work!

[rip31st 98]

Total face count in oxygen is what we are concerned with.  I haven't seen your models on my desktop yet so I don't know what to consider.  10,000 is a benchmark.  It's not an absolute.  I need to see what you have before I can either remove some faces or optimize and make more efficient the ones your models do have.

T_roc's tanks are under 10,000.  They look great!

The total face is count is bit iffy. I have 9000+ faces in my P-38, but many of them are quads. The count of triangles is higher. If I triangulate it I get 12000+. In Stug I have even more, but in that I have multiple versions in the same model and I always hide part of the details in the config.

To my experience I get more problems with models which have complex multilayered textures rather than models which have bit more faces. I dunno why but e.g Sigma-6 vehicles take much longer to load than any other. They have hi-res skin and normal maps and they do look great but  if you create them on the fly then for the first load it freezes system for some time.

You have hit=1,200 for AP shell in Tiger's 88m and 250 in Sherman 75mm. Do you use some formula? If you use some sensible formula like I told above it kind of gives you the values easily without too much thinking. That feels bit too high difference. Part of the Tiger superiority came from the higher velocity gun (easier to hit, more range), thicker armor and also early Shermans had a bit tendency to catch fire too easily.

Yeah once again were not going to dive into damage models until after the beta is released. Many things have to be taken into consideration based upon many arguments and opinions. I'm not going there now simply because it would delay the release quiet a bit.

[MehMan 0]

7k triangles is no biggie for ArmA. As long as you make efficient LODs it shouldn't make a diffrence. Then the next big thing to worry is textures. That means unwrapping. That means, keeping one tank to one 2048x2048 file, with the tracks in a seperate 256x32 file. Or a 2048x1024 and a 1024x1024 file, if you want ultra details and a nice comfy unwrap.

[rip31st 98]

Right now most of the vehicles in the mod are on one 2048x2048. Just so people know. We're trying to be as efficient as possible and make multiplayer smooth.

[madrussian 347]

@Rip31st

Don't know if this has been covered before, but I am very curious... Considering the flurry of everything you are accomplishing, do you work a full time job too?!?

Just wondering if we are ever going to lose all this ongoing effort due to any upcoming employment.  One way or the other, keep up the good work man!

[rip31st 98]

@Rip31st

Don't know if this has been covered before, but I am very curious... Considering the flurry of everything you are accomplishing, do you work a full time job too?!?

Just wondering if we are ever going to lose all this ongoing effort due to any upcoming employment.  One way or the other, keep up the good work man!

I spend some time working Just don't let the boss know. Oh wait that's me!

Nah this effort won't lose steam anytime soon. When I want something I go for it. Were so close!

[eble 3]

slightly off topic.... cough i saw that @ icemotoboy

Quote[/b] ]My B1B Lancer is ~13k faces