Why so few tanks?

[granQ 293]

sometimes you predict the future and you are right, sometimes you are wrong and you don't understand why.

I been wrong...

for ofp people did tanks, apc and so on but the problem was always the internal model, to just rip a BIS one wasn't good enough, people (or addon makers themself) demaded proper interal models which was hard. (hard to model, hard to get reference) and it was to be honest, not really used.

You took a look around and went into scope view.

With ArmA2 you could suddenly forceOptics and there was no longer a need for making internal models of tanks, however still for APC and so on.

I predicted we would get flooded by tanks..all WWII tanks, modern, cold war and so on.. but it never happened... and to be honest I don't seem to understand why, anyone else have foughts about this subject?

[Apocal 10]

Aircraft are sexier, men are easier.

[modemmaik 53]

Although, the A1 tanks lack the interrior (while most APC's have one for the cargo), they still are nasty beasts. :o

Dampers are hard to implement, also mass center modification is needed to avoid upside down's. Plus animations, when the crew is turned out.

Planes and choppers are still easier to bring them ingame.

Although I guess many tanks have been converted from OFP to ArmA, but getting permission to release it to the public was impossible, because most of the creators have left the community.

Edited July 29, 2009 by modEmMaik

[oyman 0]

uv mapping the inside of a tank would make me do suicide

[da12thMonkey 1943]

It's still early days fella, but there were loads of community made tanks in ArmA, and I can't see why ArmA 2 will be any different.

Off the top of my head I can think of all of these post-war ones being released:

Leopard 1

Leopard 2

T-90

T-80

T-72

T-64

T-62

T-55

M60

M1

PT-91

Merkava

And there were others like Challenger 2, Leclerc and Type 90 in development across the community.

Most of them were released as larger mod packs (almost all the WW2 tanks were in mods); so maybe the 'impact' of their release wasn't so great?

[arma2mods 10]

Yeah I bit miss the military encyclopedia aspect of oOFP, it had so much more content that I still havent played with half of them .

[soul_assassin 1750]

Bmd :p

[modemmaik 53]

Oplot T-84 by Sigma-6 :p

but I have released the A1 version to the german community only...

[Shadow NX 1]

Fear not, RHS is silently working on closing this gap a bit.

Currently were updating Kenjis T-80s for ArmA2 with improved textures and normals and also a Extra model the very first T-80 prototype so to say.

Also we work on a pack of T-55 and 62 that will include several variants and even some neat special bonus variants like the rocket tank hunter version and the maybe even a flamethrower one.

The T-80s should be out very soon the T-55/62 follow right after.

And if all goes well the 55/62 will feature a new complete interiour by Kenji.

On the T-80s its planned to add this feature too later.

---

Oh and if there are any good mission makers intrested to make something for these then please PM me ;)

Edited July 30, 2009 by Shadow NX

[JdB 151]

Yeah I bit miss the military encyclopedia aspect of oOFP, it had so much more content

5,5 years (2001-2006) to 2,5 years (2006-2009) makes a lot of difference. Then there also was a part of the community that wasn't happy with ArmA1 for one reason or another.

As for us, we do plan a lot of tanks (divided into 3 priority levels), the first release being the highest priority ones without interiour. We do hope to add them later on, because even though you might not use them much, it would be a shame to leave out the interiour in a "realistic" game.

There are plenty of WWII tanks in ArmA1, but as da12thMonkey has said, they are almost all in mods. OFP had more "loose" addons because certainly early on, there were no big mods, and most addonmakers had to learn how to make addons from scratch. Making a good addon is hard enough when you're a novice, making a mod is nearly impossible. Now that people do have the experience, and teams are around that can make mods, it is a logical evolutionary step to do more extensive projects (similar to the evolution of human civilization).

There are teams concentrating on separate addons or addonpacks, but now they seem to be concentrating mainly on aircraft and helicopters, where as OFP had a better balance. Well you know what they say. When something you want doesn't exist yet, start working on it yourself.

[Big Dawg KS 6]

Lol. The man asked for tanks, and you gave him a huge story about the evolution of modding in ArmA.

[granQ 293]

no, its nice.. i been around since early days as well, doing addons and stuff but its nice to hear some other peoples thought on the subject.

and seems i was wrong again.. there seems to be more tanks then I first seemed to notice :)

[Big Dawg KS 6]

Yes I know, he has some good points. I just found it funny that he decided to offload them in this thread. One thing I'd like to add though is that there are also a lot of new modders who haven't been around since OFP (or even ArmA), and so I still expect their to be a lot of independent releases. Of what quality I'm unsure though.

[Shadow NX 1]

While were at it, want to support us with some scripts for the tanks Kyle? ^^

[dk-vcb 31]

well atm we also have a leopard 2A6 model coming in to arma2 aswell.. with or without slat armor thats just gonna be the case..

[Big Dawg KS 6]

While were at it, want to support us with some scripts for the tanks Kyle? ^^

Sounds tempting. I still have 3 weeks to kill before school starts and this job of mine is sooooooo boring.

[JdB 151]

I just found it funny that he decided to offload them in this thread.

Well I thought it was appropriate, since the lack of (separately released) tank addons imo is not necessarily restricted because of more work as compared with other things, or because of the personal preference of the addonmakers, it's got many reasons that when added up cause this (perceived at least) lack of tank addons(packs).

I just used many words to say it (like usual), a shorter (and therefore prone to generalization/misconception) explanation would be: Hardly anyone wants to make them.

Mods can make it harder to find a particular item that you would like to play with (the search function on a newssite may not always point out that i.e. a Tiger tank is included in Invasion 1944 for OFP), and makes it harder to combine things together (modconfig i.e.), but ultimately, the switch from addons to mods that some people made (especially after the public release of the modding tools for OFP) has extended the life of OFP by several years (which doesn't mean that I don't respect the achievements of people that have made addons, since it was an important first step) because of the extensive ... re-birth to the game that mods like FDF, CSLAII and others have achieved (making the games feel like totally new ones). The same can be said of addons that have had missionmakers support it by making missions with those addons (which for some excellent addons was sadly lacking).

Ok, I'll stop typing now ... :j:

[CameronMcDonald 146]

Sounds tempting. I still have 3 weeks to kill before school starts and this job of mine is sooooooo boring.

One day when I get serious about actually doing something about this game I should probably bother you about getting some decently performing grenades in the game. All this upright bouncing BS has gone on wayyyy too long.

[Hvymtal 1251]

sometimes you predict the future and you are right, sometimes you are wrong and you don't understand why.

I been wrong...

for ofp people did tanks, apc and so on but the problem was always the internal model, to just rip a BIS one wasn't good enough, people (or addon makers themself) demaded proper interal models which was hard. (hard to model, hard to get reference) and it was to be honest, not really used.

You took a look around and went into scope view.

With ArmA2 you could suddenly forceOptics and there was no longer a need for making internal models of tanks, however still for APC and so on.

I predicted we would get flooded by tanks..all WWII tanks, modern, cold war and so on.. but it never happened... and to be honest I don't seem to understand why, anyone else have foughts about this subject?

WWII: T34

Modern: M1A1/A2

Cold War: T72

already in game, happy?

[.kju 3245]

I appreciated the post of John. :)

[granQ 293]

WWII: T34

Modern: M1A1/A2

Cold War: T72

already in game, happy?

no :)

[digitalcenturion 20]

Shadow NX would it be totally uncool to ask for some screenies of them tanks rolling in Arma2) :P I know you got 'em ;)

[Shadow NX 1]

Screens will be posted soon but first we wait till Jarek / Topas is done with his edits on the textures as he adds mud and dirt effect and other details atm.

Its amazing how a texture can change once you start adding realistic dirt and dust here and there.

[Big Dawg KS 6]

One day when I get serious about actually doing something about this game I should probably bother you about getting some decently performing grenades in the game. All this upright bouncing BS has gone on wayyyy too long.

Believe it or not, I actually found the way ArmA handles collision with small objects to be worse than OFP. Thus it would be necessary to use a completely new method for implementing realistic bouncing/rolling. Haven't looked much into it, nor have I looked into if it's improved in ArmA 2.

Lack of time/interest is also something to consider...

Anyway go on with the tanks...

[norsu 180]

Its amazing how a texture can change once you start adding realistic dirt and dust here and there.

Indeed. And because of this it's best to create some general dirt and scratch layers you can apply to pretty much any texture. It really speeds up the texture making as you only need to paint the small details and even parts taken directly from photos work with very little effort :).