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engen

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Posts posted by engen

  1. Posted

    @engen: thanks for your detailed suggestions, your interest is much appreciated! Let me adress a few things.

     

    There is a lot of white and grey, that's true. And in real life, as you stated correctly, soliders are probably wearing rather green uniforms and carry white ponchos or similar with them. However, this is not feasible in Arma 3 as maps have no seasons and by that snow can't melt away. Plus you've got engine limitations on top of that. Of course, one could model a poncho and configure it as vest. That way, units could put it on when needed. But what about their original palte carriers then?

     

    The second reason is simply design. Or call it artistic freedom if you want. (Though I wouldn't go that far and call my amateur work art. :D) I wanted to make the different themes stand out at bit, hence the white boot and glove accents. Believe me, using the same green on the same boots everytime gets boring.^^ Plus, since I have a dedicated woodland scheme already, my aim was to create a real snow camo, with dominating white and grey tones. Plus there is the M05 Digitalised Flecktarn version with dominating green tones

     

    Then there's the thing with real life camos. Of course, I've looked up a few, but let's face it, snow camos are pretty boring. For example, MARPAT winter:

     

    Pretty meh, no highlights, no accents. (Though it looks like an overall put on top of the real uniform.) Then there's Multicam winter, also pretty flat:

     

    And finally, the super effective but really crappy looking German Schneetarn. Looks like someone shit their pants:

     

    Again, these are all overalls, probably due to cost reasons. However, Arma doesn't have the possibility to create full-body, attacheable jumpsuits. Let's get to vehicle camos. This HMMWV here uses a lot of white (or maybe it's just amplified by the snow), grey, and some green / black parts:

     

    It's true that most vehicle camos are probably just spraypainted by the crew when snow falls and they have to mask their otherwise green tank. I mean, even the US convoys passing eastern Germany to get to Poland or the Baltic states were still in desert colours if I remember the newspaper images correctly. Probably due to cost reasons. (There was actually a US convoy getting lost east of Berlin, quite funny story. :D) Anyway, back to the topic. A few words on colours in general. What you perceived as black is in fact a very dark green (source file below). But in general, black is widely spread in camos as it closely resembles natural shadows and by that helps masking the soldier.

     

    And lastly, you propbably have to see my work from my perspective. These addons were originally meant to support my upcoming campaign project, hence I needed a lot of variety and some extremes. I still have a load of unreleased and unshown camos here. Let's see, these two INDEP schemes are far more greenish:

     

    And one I think I haven't really shown yet. A BLUFOR alternative based on Multicam, only with less saturation, fitting the dirty-snowy-grey landscapes of mixed islands like Helvantis quite well:

     

    And finally, an attempt to incorporate a greyish ATACS version:

     

    You see, there's at leas some variety coming, also more green tones. As for your suggestions, I might refine my stuff when the time comes. There's always something to do and everything is subject of change. :)

     

    Hey,

     

    I fully understand your thoughts and reasoning on the subject! Thanks for hearing me out regarding the ideas though, and for the very thorough reply. :)

     

    Cheers

  2. Posted

    Hey Pete, let me just start off by saying: Awsome work, much appreciated! 

     

    Love the fact that you're using swedish m90 splinter camo as a base for several of the uniforms. Got a small suggestion/idea if you're willing to hear me out, regarding the winter version of the uniforms.

     

    In the current version (as in most winter-camo-mods) almost all parts of the uniform is recoloured to fit into a winter environment, often using a scale of black and whites to simulate this. However, green or brown is often a far more common color in winter landscapes. The problem that arises is that often we think of winter as a binary thing, it's either fully snowed or no snow at all, were it's often somewhere inbetween. In other words, there's still trees, rocks, and other things that aren't totally covered in snow. So a totally "white/black" apperance, including white guns, white gloves, white boots etc wouldn't really work that well, atleast not if it's in an area where there isn't that much snow. Here's some examples:

     

    Swedish winter M90, here seen used by Arctic Rangers in the far north, where everything actually gets very white. Here's a full uniform picture (in a not-so-snowy climate). Most of the time however units are simply issued a snow-overall-kind-of thing, that you put over your regular uniform. This is of course very much a cost-related issue, but could perhaps give a certain difference between regular infantry and more "SF"-type units for your mod. 

     

    As for vehicles, Here's a good example of a sort-of-snowy-climate, regarding vehicle camo, and here's another one. They simply painted the brightest green parts into white instead. There's also this image however, but i've seldom seen vehicles painted that much white in any other place. Could perhaps be a good example of what a "fully winterized" version of a vehicle could look like.

     

    As you can see in these pictures (and that goes for other nordic nations aswell), there's seldom a full-white-coloured gear-set issued, and I don't think it's a 2035-related thing either, as it's seldom 100% winter in many parts of the world. It's more often than not "sort of winter with alot of gray, brown and green". And even in 100% snow-covered landscapes the full gear is very seldom all-white. Swedes are for example issued specific winter boots that aren't white-coloured. Equipment is however often covered in different means in order to winterify them, while maintaining flexibilty in regards to weather (the snow could melt away pretty quickly, given the right/wrong circumstances). It'd sure suck to be stuck with fully-white coloured gear when there's no snow. Alot worse than being in a fully snowy climate with green gear, i'd reckon. 

     

    So, on to my suggestion after this wall of text. :)

     

    1) Reduce the amount of white/black-coloured winter-specific gear and make "full winter gear" a mix of ordinary coloured gear combined with some specific winter-coloured sets, preferably introducing brown, gray and dark green. SF-type units might have more specialized fully-white coloured gear available to them however.

    Edit: Totally missed the m05 inspired version you've already made. This amount of green perhaps would also work for the splinter camo?

     

    2) Give vehicles "splotches" of white colours instead of having them being fully white. 

     

    Again, these are simply suggestions/ideas and is not meant as criticism of your work. 

     

    Thanks for reading through this heap of text, and keep up the good work! :)

  3. Posted

    I completely agree with granQ.

    There are several examples of older games using flat faces with a texture as muzzleflashes, where this fact was not as obvious as it was/is in ofp/arma/arma2. At the moment the flash seems unchanged since OFP, only transparency, colour and resolution(?) seems changed. As granQ suggests, have several flashes that differs, blur them out more and give them a realistic size, aswell as making them more rapid so they don't "linger".

    With a slightly lower than average fps, firing at night, this issue becomes very clear. More than often i've wondered why there's a bright yellowredish flower sticking out of the barrel of the M249.

    Also, there's the issue with using several alpha-channels ontop of eachother. Each texture uses an alpha channel to simulate transparency, this however creates for rather odd texturebugs when placed on top of eachother, for example when seeing the different textures from an angle. Hard to describe, but i'm pretty sure everyone that played the game(s) have noticed it. This is especially noticeable in firstperson when you often see the "front" muzzleflash-texture and the horizontal and vertical ones all at the same time. A very ad hoc solution to this that we applied for SFP4 was to simply remove the horizontal and vertical muzzleflash. Only the "front" muzzleflash remained, and as such the flash looked alot better and there was no alpha-channel issues with seeing buggy textures by looking through other alpha-channel textures.

    I also agree on the previous statements made regarding smoke. The smoke moves too fast, and is most often too "puffy", and too white. Gray it out, make it slower so it lingers. This of course will affect fps. Also, most of the smoke comes from the housing where the casing ejects when firing a weapon such as an assault rifle. I believe adding this would not only add to the immersion, but also add to the "realism" that everyone strives for. Just a small suggestion, really.

    Finally, there's always the discussion regarding on how the "small details" such as this would affect the "overall experience" of immersion in the game. Would fixing the muzzleflash issue really solve alot of problems regarding to immersion? Just like many of the other small things that people comment on? Of course not. The problem is however that the "overall experience" of the game is in these small details. If one would keep arguing that the "overall experience" is the most important factor, not the details, one would be missing the point. By only looking at the overall experience you miss the details. It's in these hundreds, if not thousands of small details, that makes a real difference in immersion and gives the game the true recognition it deserves for people other than hardcore fanboys/girls who already know how to score an RPG kill on a moving Hind from 800m's away. ;)

    I'm not claiming that BIS should fix every single little detail, that would not be realistic nor reasonable to expect. I'm just bringing up that it's all the small things (No Blink 182 pun intended.), it's all these insane amount of details that truly makes ArmA great. The whole experience is in the details and the attention to them. I'm not saying BIS haven't payed attention to these details, however. OFP/ArmA/ArmA2 are full of them. And it's that fact that keeps me playing these games on and off since 2001.

    ...Aaaaand there we go! Four(ish) years of silence on these forums has ended. Had to make all that absence up with a bunch of text. ;)

  4. Posted

    Very nice AfrographX, looks far better than the old version. smile_o.gif

    Any chances there'll be a "high-cabin" version, like the ones used by the Swedish military? whistle.gif

    The flightmodel also feels alot better compared to the old version. Even though I had a go fiddling with it for the SFP4 version, this feels alot better and nicely 'sluggish'.

    (Using a joystick atm)

    It used to have the problem that it would tip easily over when you tried to land with it, especially when landing on a sloped surface, haven't noticed it with this new version though.

    The only minor gripe i've got is the darkness of the window tint from the inside. Flying over a normal Nogova-type island, I have problems making out some objects. Might be due to the fact that i've got a TFT monitor, however. This applies especially to the darker edge surrounding the window.

    Once again, many thanks for improving this already awesome addon.

    Cheers,

    Shar

  6. Posted

    hm... found some things to be repaired:

    all 3 versions of centurion tanks has a visual bug, just look to it's left side wheels(the last one), it doesn't rotate, but in right side it rotates...

    tgb-1111 that suppose to carry rbs-56(bill) doesn't have any ammo, just tripod and missile tube, when mounting tube on tripod you will see no ammo...

    tgb-1111 with MG should have that sight, when pressed V or Ins keys

    how to get in that HAWK missile launcher when it's like empty object?

    and it would be very great if helicopters(Puma, Nh-90, Sea Knight) would have opening doors... icon_rolleyes.gif

    and maybe more winter camo vehicles?

    nevertheless, effects when fireing MG are awesome! PV-1110 recoiles gun effects are just amazing... thumbs-up.gif

    notworthy.gif

    Regarding Centurion bug; Will be fixed asap.

    Tgb 1111 Rb56 Carrier: That's really odd. There's been complaints about this in previous patches, so last night I made sure it was working properly - and it did. The ammo is stored in the vehicle, you just have to get it separately, apart from the tube and tripod. smile_o.gif

    Tgb 1111 with MG lacking sight; This was a gameplay decision, if you'd have a "sight" like you would on the PV-1110, the soldier manning it would clip badly (1st person, and to the driver) through the vehicle. The current solution was found most suitable.

    Not being able to get into an empty HAWK: That's also a gameplay decision, IRL the HAWK isn't manned per se, but controlled by a radarstation. However for them to work properly in OFP, we had to man them with an AI. So, ingame they are meant as "remote turrets", and not something you're supposed to play and fire with yourself.

    Opening doors on the helo's has been suggested, perhaps in a future version. More winter camo vehicles aswell.

    Thanks for your comments. smile_o.gif

  7. Posted

    Hi,

    Excellent work! This improves an already very good set of addons.

    The download file for the full version at the location mentioned in the announcement of 4.1.0 (http://swepack.game-host.org/files/SFP4.1.0.zip) did not contain the SFP_Visby.pbo. This causes an error message to appear at startup. Since I had downloaded a previous full version, I could add it to the folder, but this might be a problem for people who give SFP4 a first try with this version of the full download.

    Regards,

    Sander

    Ooops. I think some dev had one too many beers before checking the uploaded file. whistle.gif

    New file (with Visby included) will be available within the hour. We're sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused. smile_o.gif

  8. Posted

    Thanks for all for the kind words everybody!

    One thing that is very strange is the flood of CTD's and lock-ups that SFP seems to cause for many users.

    I promise you, not a single team member or beta tester has experienced lock-ups or CTD's using any of our addons. We have no idea why suddenly so much stuff is causing these critical errors. We are trying our best to resolve it, but it's difficult when you don't really know where to start.

    It's also quite interesting to see several bugs arise that wasn't in the pack the day before release. banghead.gifconfused_o.gif

    Three quick questions for everybody having these errors:

    1) Are you using the -nomap command?

    2) Are you using a modfolder or are you putting everything straight into the addons folder?

    3) What are your computer specs? Processor, GFX-card, memory.

    From what we've seen, using the -nomap command seems to solve many of the CTD/lock-up issues.

  9. Posted

    That's right folks, this is the day you have all been waiting for since the end of 2003, the day that SFP 4 is released to the public!

    Two long years have we worked on this, and boy have we made some changes since SFP 3.0. No part of SFP 3.0 has been left unchanged, everything has been updated, modified and in some cases completely redone. A lot has been added to what was already present in 3.0, and we can guarantee that the SFP 4 experience is heaps better than the SFP 3.0 experience.

    Over 50 small arms and support weapons are available, over 250 soldiers to choose from in the mission editor. You can drive around the country-side in 5 different vehicles, roll around safely in 10 different armoured vehicles, or soar above the battlefield in one of the 9 aircraft available.

    Every part of SFP 4 has been tagged in a so called Stringtable-file, allowing us to offer both a Swedish version with all-swedish names as well as an International version with all-english names. Both of these versions are 100% compatible with eachother, so that if you play with them in an MP environment you will have no problems at all.

    We have a Player's Manual as well as an Editor's Manual available, even if you're a seasoned OFP veteran it would be a good idea to at least browse through the Player's Manual before putting on your M/90 helmet, picking up your AK 5 and charging into battle.

    As we mentioned in the previous press-release, we are counting on you guys to make SFP 4 a better experience for us all. We encourage you to find and fix bugs on your own, but if you do not have the time or necessary skills available we want you to send us a bug report.

    This is done using our fancy new bug report tool, where you can log in with the username 'sfpuser' and the password 'password' (without ' marks) and write a bug report to us.

    If you have any questions about SFP 4, the weekly release system, the bug report tool or why Gudrun Schyman is a man-hater you can contact us on our forum or on our IRC channel (#swepack @ irc.quakenet.org). However, it would be nice if you could read through the manuals first before asking any questions about SFP 4. Chances are you'll find your answer in there.

    Now go out and have some fun with SFP 4, we know we will!

    *** UPDATE ***

    See this page for url and info about the latest version, 4.10.

    Download: Swedish Forces Pack 4 Full Download

    Download: SFP4 4 Swedish Patch (swedish names for everything)

    Download: Players Manual

    Download: Editors Manual

    - Swedish Forces Pack Crew

  11. Posted

    First off; Sorry for not replying sooner, but i'll try and answer your questions now. smile_o.gif

    Quote[/b] ]Damm cool vid, how do you get the cartriges to rotate out of the ...the .. the light tank/IFV. whistle.gif

    STGN

    Magic! Hehe, can't exactly answer that question as i'm not one of the codejunkies.

    Quote[/b] ]only thing im missing are better engine sounds, any chance they will be changed ?

    Offtime

    To be honest I didn't hear much of the engine sounds in the video? I can assure you they sound very good with the version I have. smile_o.gif

    Quote[/b] ]One question - what about addon pack configuration? Is it BIS compatible, would you use JAM3?

    Przezdzieblo

    Good question! As SFP is an addon and not a mod, we've tried to make it compatible with a multitude of mods, ECP, WGL, etc etc. We'll look into the possibility of adding JAM3 to the pack.

    Quote[/b] ]What about including some nice tracer effect script for the 120mm maingun? Or do Strv 122 not use tracer ammunition? Also reloadtime of the maingun seems very long (more than 10 seconds), maybe you can cut that down to the half.

    King Homer

    Yes, that would be a very neat effect. Now if we'd just be able to contact INQ for use of their wonderful tracer effect. Reloadtime is not above 10 secs, I believe it's similar/same as the INQ M1A2 SEP.

    Quote[/b] ]i don't know exsactly, but swedian leos should be upgraded with new Leopard-2A6 smoothbore gun...

    will there be recently used version and upgraded?

    Gedis

    Afaik, there are no plans of upgrading the L44 to the L55 sized cannon. Personally however i'm hoping for the old "Strv 2000" design to be continued working on. (140mm cannon, 40mm bofors, 40mm Mk19, 7.62mm MG)  crazy_o.gif

    Quote[/b] ]Will it also have a working backdoor?

    Manhunter09

    Negative. The 9030/35 models have a door that folds down afaik, the 9040 has a door that swings to the side, not much use for an openable one then imho.

    Quote[/b] ]Whats the poin? You wont anyway release anything! Your showing now 3 years only screenshots!  

    nx_illusion

    Thing is, we've worked on and off this project. Basically working whenever we feel like it, the persons in the team (the core consists of 3-4 persons) also have social lifes to take care of, school, work, military service and so on.

    And given the time since we started, several projects have been remade several times, just so they'd be up-to-date and still look good. The team started out knowing nothing about modding, and we've kept on getting better and better at doing things. Learning by doing.

    Lastly... After SFP3 we sort of went haywire with the amount of new units and projects to made for SFP4. We almost took water over our heads. But trust me.. It's close. Closer than you'd think.

    There. Now if I missed anyone's question, thy may slap me. whistle.gif

  13. Posted

    Some short first-hand info:

    The island looks awesome from above. Down below that kind of texture needs to be really high-res in order to look good (imho) the one on that island looks a bit lowres when you're on the ground.

    The Swedish Army has an early version of SFP4 for testing purposes, so it does *not* represent the final version which should be released shortly.

    The SFP team was invited to the Ground warfare School (Markstridsskolan MSS) at Kvarn to demonstrate SFP/OFP last summer.

    whistle.gif  icon_rolleyes.gif

  14. Posted

    nice pictures on the swedish forces pack, what are those units Swedish SF?

    What kind of weapons are they useing, also modded with extra kit...

    Thanks. smile_o.gif

    The unit in the pics is the SOF-unit SSG; 'Särskilda Skyddsgruppen'.

    Regarding the kit; They are wearing AN/PVS-14 NVG, black M/90 helmet, Bollé X800T goggles together with an AK5D(F) w/ attached silencer.

    The sniper is using an Accuracy International AW Covert rifle.

    DBR ONIX: Point taken. Un-blurred version can be best viewed when the units are released. wink_o.gif

  16. Posted

    The only issue I ever had with the Minimi was that it tended to get stuck in the webbing alot. The Para version felt better, seeing as the compactness of the weapon made it easier to handle. Although I disliked the stock, never felt comfortable firing with it. Also, the bipod on both versions felt a big jiggly. Can't fold it in if you've pulled it out to max length etc.

    Never thought the weight (loaded) was an issue either, but then again I was used to lugging around the FN MAG. The big difference between the MAG and the Minimi here is the way they are used. The Minimi is and can be fired standing up, firing in short aimed bursts against a target.

    Where-as the MAG is difficult to stand up and fire from the shoulder & actually hit anything. That's where the kg's of the Minimi are felt, patroling with the weapon trained at "hostile directions".

    The MAG you carry at your hip and aim in the 'general area'. ;)

    Just my two cents.

  18. Posted

    Thanks everybody for your help, i've sort of solved the problem atm, and the thing that helped me was:

    Quote[/b] ]- ( C ) keep the object radius small to make z-ordering easier

    Had mempoints far from the model, for an autocannon recoil. The "bug" still seems to be there however, if you are close to the vehicle.

    Also, those mempoints made the vehicle rotate on the spot when it stopped moving, and it did so until you told it to move somewhere else.  rock.gif

    Again, many thanks. smile_o.gif

  22. Posted

    Dunno if this has been brought up before, did a search but it didn't give me anything.

    Anyway, the problem is that i've got a vehicle which can be seen through smoke. When it fires, the smoke from the cannon comes from "behind" the vehicle. The same happens with the dust it creates when moving. This is a bug i've seen on many other addons aswell.

    It's sorta pointless if you discharge your smokelaunchers and people will still be able to see your vehicle.

    Anyone know a way around this?

    (I noticed on my lower resolution lods, the problem doesn't exist btw.)

    Cheers,

    Shar. smile_o.gif

  24. Posted

    Minolta Dimage G400. 4 megapixel, lightning fast at starting and taking the pics, and at good quality. Unlimited time to record video (memcard size). Can take two different cards at the same time. Small size, and dirt cheap today.

    These pics were in 2272x1704 as standard.

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