shinRaiden

There was a case earlier of a US aircraft firing on a UK light motor infantry column, the radio comms are actually on the intardwebs for download somewhere. The aircraft was doing patrols, and spotted something suspicious. Closer investigation showed military vehicles with which the pilot was unfamiliar with. The vehicles also had what appeared to the pilot to be orange IFF panels. The pilot radioed to control that he was observing an unidentified force, but it appeared to have IFF panels. Control stated that there were no friendlies in the area. Pilot repeated his concern, and was cleared by the control, and began his 'cowboy run'. Almost immediately afterwards, control then called the pilot off when the coalition liaison radioed in the report of FF casualties. Clearly a trigger-happy yankee imperialist vindicating all the mass media hysterical stereotypes. The news report gives no operational details, only that CAS was called and friendly forces were casualties from the CAS strike itself, and that an investigation is pending. Wait until there's some usable info before rushing to judgment and condemnation.

Very valid points and as you have stated you are a BIA employee also very accurate i would assume,so a no brainer to argue that. But for clarification of a misunderstanding incase you was replying to my post. 1, i was reffering to the fact that pre tools OFP and pre tools ARMA , information was leaked by BIA employees(or the chosenfew pre ofp) to friends be it on ts or by pm, these "FRIENDS of BIA Employees" then so fit to post a pic and or video of there new found ways ,which lead to full inboxes saying "wtf how ?? etc". these friends logically could not say "how hwy etc" which lead to false accusations of elitism and or two tier community, from which people left . this was also made worse with the addition of the "CWR TEAM" in arma because this then gave another group of "FRIENDS" chance to leak ,suggest there superior knowledge of how things worked you only need to read the old Bas threads and new cwr threads to see evidence of this . Then that was in violation of the NDA, doesn't matter how much of 'friends' they may be, that isn't sufficient grounds for breach of contract. There have been cases where BIA has been made aware of them, and has dealt with it as appropriate. As you've pointed out, those leaks have multiple problems, including the fact that it inadvertently fuels the whining and flame wars. For the the CWR project, of which I am only an observer/adviser, public discussion of what they do was curtailed because the community as a whole was unwilling to accept the notion that the internal BIS tools needed to be tested and documented. Given the content of the initial threads indicating the lack of understanding and complications the community is having with the pre-packaged tools where everything is done for you, it is pretty clear that that policy was the best course of action on the part of CWR. The CWR and beta teams were also cherry-picked for their ability to constructively and collaboratively provide targeted feedback to BIS as to how to make the entire process work in a context outside of BIS's office, and it has taken at least three quarters of a year for a group of a couple dozen or more individuals between the two groups. They were also involved with transcribing the internal documentation so that there would be the large quantity of information in the community wiki for the rest of the community to work with. Interpretations of this tend to be run totally backwards. The common misguided assumption is that BIS is dividing up and segregating the community. This is the position taken by those too impatient to consider alternative viewpoints other than their own impertinent lusts. On the contrary, BIS needed a tiny group of individuals that could be relied on to give consistent and useful feedback in a manner that BIS could work with. Secondly, the intent was that these individuals would also form the seed nucleus for the next generation of community content developers. In response to Torni's opinion, the real fact of the matter remains that the available material that exists is pretty much all on the community wiki now. Complaints about the lack of documentation have less to do with alleged conspiracies that in actuality do not exist, and more to do with the simple fact that the sought after documentation does not exist anywhere, not even inside BIS.

Hey, I saw this totally awesome picture on the UK Daily Mail's web site of this guy getting caned in Tehran, Iran. There's also a video clip I saw once of someone being stoned, you could see the blood running out from under their burqa as they crumpled. The screams would be great for reference material too. I think it would be totally awesome if you could put that in game, so it would pump up the gore factor because that's really cool and awesome. The guy was all purple from the 80 lashes, and he was bleeding too. That would be really awesome, and I bet you guys can do that too. Seriously, get a friggin life.

Hooray for Royal Mud Marines! http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....t=66902

A few points are due here. First, and I give it as my personal opinion, is that the community here and now is substantially different than 7 years ago, for variety of reasons not entirely involving the BIS created products. The initial OFP community was in large measure the gleanings of established and mature groups from other games, which gave in my opinion an abnormally high degree of cooperation and collaboration. As those individuals have moved on due to real life obligations, they have been largely supplanted by a new generation of players that have grown up in the generation of Halo Griefers. I personally detest that, but that is the market economics that has transpired. I would even go so far as to suggest that the points raised about the inconsistencies in ArmA and QG content are further indications that this cultural shift has permeated through even the available professional developer pool, and BIS has to respond to the market realities. Many of us old timers would love it if BIS were to decide to go to a totally niche market focus, and make a finished product that would make OFP feel like Hello Kitty Combat, but A) I don't think it would be economically viable right now, and B) finding the developers with that sort of vision would be imho increasingly difficult. I also want to point out a few misunderstandings about the BIA situation. Yes it's true that BIA has cherry-picked a number of people from the community and required NDA's for employees, myself included, but that is no different than BIS who has also cherry-picked the community and likewise required NDA's. I would argue that the greater cause of the so-called secrecy is that when you're dev'ing all day for your day job, you go offline after hours to do something else so you can still pretend you have a real life. Nowhere in the NDA is any BIA employee prevented from participating in community content creation, the only stipulation is that company resources, tools, and content may not be used. That means no BIA employee, if they have the free time to still make community content, has an unfair advantage over the the rest of the community. One of the other tricky points brought up is the whole DARWARS affair. The secrecy about that is not by choice, it was imposed by lawyers in the whole debacle. I don't think the community has accurately guessed what all transpired, nor who all the parties were, but the key point to remember is that the matter was settled. BIS wasn't going to let them off with a resolution that would allow abuse of the community goodwill, and also they weren't going to heap punitive abuse on them to scare away customers from the real fact that the presence of DARWARS has created a lot of popularity for BIA products. So that whole episode really needs to be buried, and people move on. Lastly though, in regards to the original poster's suggestion that the development be community driven, I think that actually goes counter to the community's best interests. BIS being completely independent, doesn't have to be accountable to anyone for the design of their platform. As a result, they can sensibly progress on the development, without meddling or interference or distraction. They can focus on what they do well, and what they enjoy. They then can create a platform that the community can play with to implement what they would rather see in terms of content.

Got a Ph.D in theoretical mathematical models of botanical vegetation structures?

Yes they can remodel unbinarized content, but that's a principal cause of increased section count and poor performance. Avoid doing that if at all possible. Depends on how you intend to implement them. The modelspace/worldspace commands should be sufficient to give you offsets without having to resort to model modification. Tracer model and behavior is controlled by the engine. BIA programmers developed their own tracers independent of the ArmA team for a specific military customer requirement. What do you intend to do with what you've got already?

No. Suma's already commented on the forums that Maps will not be importable into Visitor, as the structure is so significantly different that they have to be entirely reworked anyway. With models, there is a very slim maybe. If the model was already developed using professional grade 3d modeling processes, and the the model structure was made in such a way to be coincidentaly optimal for both the engine's section count and a suitable model skeleton, maybe. Characters are likely a no-go on conversion as the models are designed around a totally different set of selections. -edit- I'd also like to point out a little nugget in O2. Open up your old OFP MLOD's, and look on the lower left for a sections count. If it's anywhere north of 10~15 sections for a complex vehicle, you might as well take it back to Max or Maya and start over. Stuff like the RHS Hind, sitting in at well north of 150 sections, is absolutely intolerable, and is a principal cause of lag and instability on user's machines.

1) OFP2 is completely OT here, it's unrelated FUD from CM. Absolutely irrelevant. 2) Game2 is the code name for the 'trunk', and is the sandbox that new technology is developed and tested in. Always developing, and never shipping. 3) OFP Elite, ArmA, VBS2, ArmA2, VBS2 VTK, are 'branches' off the Game2 trunk. Snapshots in time/tech. 4) PC and consoles means that it would be DX10 based 5) There is nothing to 'see' with DX10. DX10, as with DX6, 7, 8, 9, etc is only programming libraries. Preliminary screenshots are showing content designed for DX9, in a DX10 renderer. As a result, there's a lot of not seeing the forest for the trees. Once the renderer is stabilized, then content that optimally utilizes it can be created and visualized. 6) Looking at the calendar would indicate that ArmA was developed too early to sanely use native DX10. Unfortunately, it got stuck in-between the end of DX9 and the start of DX10 and thus got the worst of both markets. From a business management standpoint, the same reasoning is being used for Supreme Commander. The promised DX10 patch has been shelved, with the next game/sequel being built on DX10. The amount of work involved, in engine and content, should make it evident that it is not just a Resistance style patchup and enhancements. It's a major rework of substantial portions of the engine, and heavy content creation requirements as well. From a business standpoint, ArmA is in a very annoying position. Better to cut your losses/risks/liabilities and do it better now. 7) I think it's pretty clear now that the market direction is irreversibly moving in the direction of the culture of halo kiddies. Let BIS do whatever they feel like they're going to do, and if you have a problem with it, 'fix' it in your own private un-coordinated mutually exclusive and incompatible mods.

1) OFP2 is completely OT here, it's unrelated FUD from CM. Absolutely irrelevant. 2) Game2 is the code name for the 'trunk', and is the sandbox that new technology is developed and tested in. Always developing, and never shipping. 3) OFP Elite, ArmA, VBS2, ArmA2, VBS2 VTK, are 'branches' off the Game2 trunk. Snapshots in time/tech. 4) PC and consoles means that it would be DX10 based 5) There is nothing to 'see' with DX10. DX10, as with DX6, 7, 8, 9, etc is only programming libraries. Preliminary screenshots are showing content designed for DX9, in a DX10 renderer. As a result, there's a lot of not seeing the forest for the trees. Once the renderer is stabilized, then content that optimally utilizes it can be created and visualized. 6) Looking at the calendar would indicate that ArmA was developed too early to sanely use native DX10. Unfortunately, it got stuck in-between the end of DX9 and the start of DX10 and thus got the worst of both markets. From a business management standpoint, the same reasoning is being used for Supreme Commander. The promised DX10 patch has been shelved, with the next game/sequel being built on DX10. The amount of work involved, in engine and content, should make it evident that it is not just a Resistance style patchup and enhancements. It's a major rework of substantial portions of the engine, and heavy content creation requirements as well. From a business standpoint, ArmA is in a very annoying position. Better to cut your losses/risks/liabilities and do it better now. 7) I think it's pretty clear now that the market direction is irreversibly moving in the direction of the culture of halo kiddies. Let BIS do whatever they feel like they're going to do, and if you have a problem with it, 'fix' it in your own private un-coordinated mutually exclusive and incompatible mods.

Marketing BS my ass. So are you saying that he shouldn't have upgraded his system for other games using it because they cant figure it out? Going from a P4 to Q6600 was totally worth it. Anyways, i'm going to hold my judgement about Arma2 until we see details(hopefully in a couple days). I'm sure they have something nice stuck up their sleeve and are rofl at some forum posts(i hope *gulp*). But I really hope they make the 2008 release date. Mid 2009 i'll be in USMC boot camp. Again, the BS is on your side, not mine. Performance gains from a P4 to a C2D has nothing to do with the core count, it has to do with the fact that the entirely different architecture within any one of the Core core's is vastly more efficient than the hotplate legacy P4's. Secondly, I call shenanigans on the other games that claim to be 'optimized' for dual cores. I cite the mountains of threads of people pointing out how their applications run smoother and faster when they lock their affinity. Additionally, the so-called optimization is generally little more than forking off little nigglies like more smoke particles, which are intrinsically multi-tasking friendly, but a minuscule part of the entire linear simulation cycle on CPU load. The more serious and complex parts still remain sequential - AI, viewport, collision, visualization, all those inherently require preceding logic to be executed, in sequential order. Guaranteeing that they will be executed in proper order across multiple independently scheduled threads is an entirely impractical mess.

Marketing BS my ass. So are you saying that he shouldn't have upgraded his system for other games using it because they cant figure it out? Going from a P4 to Q6600 was totally worth it. Anyways, i'm going to hold my judgement about Arma2 until we see details(hopefully in a couple days). I'm sure they have something nice stuck up their sleeve and are rofl at some forum posts(i hope *gulp*). But I really hope they make the 2008 release date. Mid 2009 i'll be in USMC boot camp. Again, the BS is on your side, not mine. Performance gains from a P4 to a C2D has nothing to do with the core count, it has to do with the fact that the entirely different architecture within any one of the Core core's is vastly more efficient than the hotplate legacy P4's. Secondly, I call shenanigans on the other games that claim to be 'optimized' for dual cores. I cite the mountains of threads of people pointing out how their applications run smoother and faster when they lock their affinity. Additionally, the so-called optimization is generally little more than forking off little nigglies like more smoke particles, which are intrinsically multi-tasking friendly, but a minuscule part of the entire linear simulation cycle on CPU load. The more serious and complex parts still remain sequential - AI, viewport, collision, visualization, all those inherently require preceding logic to be executed, in sequential order. Guaranteeing that they will be executed in proper order across multiple independently scheduled threads is an entirely impractical mess.

Ok, Mr I-got-totally-suckered-by-the-marketing-bs-so-I'm-demanding-anybody-but-me-justify-my-money-whoring, would you care to proffer an explanation of how to apply asynchronous multi-threading to a linearly sequential simulation system? I'm eagerly awaiting your profound wisdom, nobody else has made a comparable game that actually utilizes multiple threading. Since you so clearly know how to do such high level process scheduler control programming, what are you doing spamming here, and why aren't you making your own game?

Ok, Mr I-got-totally-suckered-by-the-marketing-bs-so-I'm-demanding-anybody-but-me-justify-my-money-whoring, would you care to proffer an explanation of how to apply asynchronous multi-threading to a linearly sequential simulation system? I'm eagerly awaiting your profound wisdom, nobody else has made a comparable game that actually utilizes multiple threading. Since you so clearly know how to do such high level process scheduler control programming, what are you doing spamming here, and why aren't you making your own game?

DX10 doesn't have a 'look' at all. It is merely a programming interface, packaging whatever artwork the developer makes in such as way that the system can turn it into pixels to display. You never see DX10, and you never see the 'advantages' DX10 gives the developer.

DX10 doesn't have a 'look' at all. It is merely a programming interface, packaging whatever artwork the developer makes in such as way that the system can turn it into pixels to display. You never see DX10, and you never see the 'advantages' DX10 gives the developer.

So long, and thanks for all the fish. That alone should be ample evidence that there has been a fundamental shift in the market, where the 'old timers' clamoring for a 'true sim' are out-voted by the pocket books of the halo generation of griefers. As for modding, the 'cost' of development skill and resource investment has in my opinion crossed the threshold to the point that it exceeds the personal satisfaction reward. In OFP, you could make a significant amount of contribution with a minimum of effort. With ArmA, and countless other current gen games, the complexity is too much for the avg modder. That is the price of eyecandy, you can't measure up. It's been a fun ride while it lasted.

So long, and thanks for all the fish. That alone should be ample evidence that there has been a fundamental shift in the market, where the 'old timers' clamoring for a 'true sim' are out-voted by the pocket books of the halo generation of griefers. As for modding, the 'cost' of development skill and resource investment has in my opinion crossed the threshold to the point that it exceeds the personal satisfaction reward. In OFP, you could make a significant amount of contribution with a minimum of effort. With ArmA, and countless other current gen games, the complexity is too much for the avg modder. That is the price of eyecandy, you can't measure up. It's been a fun ride while it lasted.

I've got the demo for UnderSeige, it uses the Genesis3D engine and the visual detail is what ordinarily we gamers would consider laughable. That said, they could be even Wolf3D rectangular sprites and still be effective, as the primary purpose of the software is for political indoctrination, to give users a virtual method for anyone to go and 'take the edge of their joneses' while murdering Zionists. There's ample evidence as well that OFP has been used by organizations on the US State Department's terrorist organization watchlist, and there are reports as well of nearly every other game from the Battlefield series through Halflife and likely even America's Army. What is often overlooked is that Political Indoctrination, and psychological buildup, are just as useful applications of virtual applications, as is tactical and doctrinal training. -edit- http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....t=44614

6DOF controllers like these work very well in their intended purpose, as a secondary controller for camera or viewport control. What they are inefficient or impractical at is in primary manipulative control. If you look at the usage of those devices, and comparable controllers in use over the past 20 years, you'll find they have a consistent 'two-fisted' usage approach. For right-handed users, the right hand will control the mouse, using the normal mouse functionality for selection and two-dimensional manipulation. The left hand controls the auxiliary controller, which is used for 3D viewport re-orientation, or one dimensional manipulation of locked selections. To replace the primary controller, you end up having to implement a solution comparable to the wii controller, where you have a two dimensional controller in 3D space with orientation attributes. Finally, the 3DConnexion series are not DirectInput devices, and would need a kludgey software wrapper to interface, unless BIS were to add full support via the developer SDK. At that point then you get another practicality question. I've got a Thrustmaster Cougar HOTAS, I ought to get a set of pedals, I want to get a Thomas SuperWheel steering wheel, and the large numbers of customers who've expressed frustration over the 'simple' WASD+Mouse controls means I'm going to go get me a Xbox 360 controller Monday for testing. I also happen to have a 3DConnexion Space Pilot as well. That's 5 USB input devices, because I'm still an old PS2 crank with my keyboard and mouse. Add to that a USB security dongle, USB printer, external DVD burner, and a couple of USB hard drives, it gets to be a real spaghetti mess. Having ArmA support multiple directInput devices is imho a much more useful and higher priority than the limited application of adding native support for this device, based on the target market. Secondly, as 3DConnexion does not make their device a native DirectInput controller, that means every other game that the user has will have to be kludged via key maps as well. Even if they made it a DX device, a lot of games don't have the controls oriented in such a way as to readily adapt to this kind of controller. Their controls are designed for 1D or 2D input, not 3D.

As I've said before, VBS isn't about the config params, it's the bigger picture. VBS2 is a managed and scalable simulation environment. VBS2 is a customer driven platform designed for the specific requirements of military training organizations. VBS2 is a framework for conducting evolution of forces research. Now the config params happen to be pretty good imho, but that's not the real magic of VBS2. VBS2 is about changing the ability to learn and train. To do that requires a lot of 'boring' features, and stuff that just doesn't work in entertainment settings. VBS2 does that too Pics here Now if you want to have a fun time with good config values, WGL is a better bet for you. If you are looking for a platform for modernizing learning methodologies, well that's what VBS2 is for.

No on the instancing. Rather, the maps were done by a close collaboration between artists and map makers, doing high level automated engine analysis to determine lag zones, and model optimization. There was a target view distance roughly double that of a typical ArmA environment, and the content was developed to meet that target in a team effort.

Not entirely, part of is is the lower unique object count, higher repetition rate, also simpler model structure. The target tunings on the broad spectrum of content dev are significantly different. For example, all the content that went into the VBS2 maps was tuned for high-FPS long range view distancing. ArmA content on the other hand looks much prettier up close. It's not really practical to have the content be able to meet both situations. You kinda get one or the other.

The RVMAT's are dynamically created by Visitor3 during the texture map importation process. They are created by slicing and analyzing the layer mask files, and creating as many linked rvmat's as are required for each tile based on the different zones found in the sampling of the tile section from the layer mask file.

Ha this is funny. If he would have completed his Modeling software. He could probly sell it to people on a commerical level an then people could make commerical addons. lol But congrats man. QFT + RTM. You of all people should know the rules.