AngusHeaf
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Posts posted by AngusHeaf
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Ok so here's the skinny, forgive me for being an O2 noob (don't laugh too hard and loud or I'll never release the Chaparral just to spite you)....
So I'm working on these new bunkers right. Plenty of people know about that. The new bunkers have mounds of earth on 3 sides and I'm texturing the mounds to match a variety of textures on Everon, Malden, etc. Well the problem is that even after using the EXACT same texture color for color from the everon pbo (tn.pac) the damn thing is way too dark in game.
I have tracked the problem down to a lighting issue and something with the face and point properties. But here's the thing... If I set the point properties of the mound to be "Always Lighted" then it matches fine in areas of full light but is always bright even when in shadow. If I set it to "Normal" it's always too dark. If I set it to "Half Lighted" it looks ok in full light from the sun but is still too damn bright in shadow areas. So what gives? How do I set up the texture of the model or whatever needs to be set, so that it lights the model the same way it lights the ground? How do I make it so that if the bunker is in shadowed valley it looks dark and nice and bright when in full sun?
I'm going insane here. I've been messing with it for probably 4hrs now and testing every single last setting and still can't figure it out. Is it not possible? Ugh.
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Good islands pick a theme and stick to it religiously. Islands can't be all things to all people and I think that ultimately if you pick a concept (war torn, idealic and clean, low lands and hills, european, north american, etc) and stick to it you will end up with a much better result than trying to pack all areas of combat (desert, forest, hills, mountains, streams) into one island.
Size matters. If you create an island that's so huge you lose all will to live before you've placed all the foliage and stuff nicely, then it comes out half assed with parts that look great (the early parts) and parts that look not so hot (the later parts when you got bored with island making).
Infrastructure!! Islands need roads. Main drags where lots of traffic goes and less travelled roads in more remote areas. A paved road through the mountains is pretty hokey. Think, folks.
And my #1 advice as a player and possibly a future island maker....
LESS MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN!!!
I know it looks great in your screenshots for ofp.info. You know what I mean.... You make some big ass mountains really close to a city, maybe a beach, set the mission at 4:50am right when the sky is all pink and pretty, install Kegety's highsky addon, maybe throw a BAS Delta into the shot, and snap away with your shadowy mountains in the background. Then when it comes time for people to download your map, hey these mountains are enormous and right out of nowhere?! WTF? Big mountains that reach 100s of meters high don't spring up out of the friggin' beach people. Terrain like that can only be found in tiny portions of the earth (vulcanic islands? south pacific?) and definitely not in the areas that match your european textures and trees from Everon. Foothills exist for a reason. Not only is it unrealistic but it's also no fun to play on when your tank can only go 2mph or you are forced to sidestep everywhere.
So I guess my biggest advice is to make fewer mountains and make them lower, because they're not good playable terrain. Everyone should look at Everon or Malden and see that rolling hills is the way to go.
P.S. This rant is not directed at anyone. I'm just cranky cause someone stole my lolli.
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I know it's probably bad form to dig up old threads that haven't seen any action....
What's the status on this project? Is it dead? Stalled? Finished? Did it yield anything like a big CPP rewrite of all the units? I'm quite interested in seeing where this went since I can see a lot of areas of OFP that would benefit from standardization especially with so many mods being released that are trying to be realistic yet balanced against regular OFP stuff (which is inherently unbalanced and not as realistic as it could be).
If someone has a jumbo CPP with lots of changes maybe they could email it to me? Angusheaf@rocksraiders.com With all the new found interest in cooperation between addon teams to standardize stuff (mags, ammo, etc) I think it would be good to get the ball rolling on this massive balancing task again.
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i noticed some people were getting LOD texture errors of the white variety. I dunno if anyone mentioned it but I found another possible issue.... When the BMP3 and BMD3 are destroyed and smoking, if you fly overhead there's a point where the model goes from proper "all black" to just black tracks and green body/turret.
P.S. Shorten engage range on BMP3 and BMD3 rockets. Hehe.
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Evis I'm a huge fan you are my favorite of all the BAS!! Eviserator, I choose you!!! *L*
Email me screenshots of all your latest greatest stuff!! Send it to Angusheaf@rocksraiders.com pleez!! Thanks guy!! Suchey and Earl if you're reading this... I loooooove you!!! Please let me beta test! I betatested DOOM back in the day and I gave good reports!! If you look in level 4 where there's a titty bar you can see a tiny little shout-out to ol' AngusHeaf!! No lie!! I have good machine you send beta and I test it on full details!! Pleeeeeeeezzzzz!!!!
Suchey you're my favorite BAS developer too!! Hit me on AIM and we can chatz!!
 
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I knew that would bring you out of hiding M9!! Hehe. M9 wsa the original source of my info on who deployed the Chaparral during Desert Storm, and the source of the info I lost on my desk somewhere. Thanks dude! And thanks DM, you wealth of info you.
Anyhow... I know this isn't a fancy textured screenshot and you're not going to get one because I'm saving those up for a little bit while I learn O2 and continue RE-texturing the M730. But here's a shot of the SAM Revetment that will accompany the M730 when it is released. The camo net texture is just a placeholder so you can figure out wtf it is. Hehe. As you can see the revetment will cover all but the top of the turret and a bit of the front cab. The ring will be made of dirt reinforced with sandbags on the inside of the ring and some 4x4 posts. It should ultimately protect these valuable resources from low angle attacks. Entrance is sitll vulnerable of course.
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Haha. At least that last pic is of a relatively good looking airsoft replica from a company called Armored Gallery who happens to build replicas, many times, out of real steel parts. The asian airsofters are real sticklers for accuracy in their replicas. Not so much in this country but definitely over in asia. Hark I have strayed off topic!!
::Flees::
P.S. It's not a real sniper rifle unless it's bolt action!!
Oh and from airsoft sniping I can tell you in my limited experience Harris bipods are annoying as hell. Long live Versapod since you can adjust the cant on the gun on uneven terrain without having to fiddle with the legs.
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So I was flying a Kiowa around the other night to check how good the BMP3 and BMD3 are at shooting it down during attack runs. Well to make a long story short the AI of just 1 BMP3 or BMD3 will put head right through my head as a pilot incredibly often and many times. Usually I die right as the 3rd or 4th FFAR hits it and destroys it. I'll let you guys decide if that's good or bad.
But that's not my bug....
While flying around I noticed that all of the vehicles show up as white squares on radar. That's right, no red squares on radar. Might want to test this out.
Oh and a few comments....
The sounds are fantastic. Top notch work is hard to find and I think that the 100mm cannon sound is truly a high watermark in the addon community. Don't go switching them just to use the crappy standard sounds.... might want to make them louder though. Hehehehe.
Keep up the great work! Oh and don't forget to make the AI engage range shorter so they're not always blasting other AI manned armor from beyond visual distance and before the target AI even realize what's happening!!
Caio!
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Yep, that should be pretty easy to do. My side project will include desert textures for many of the objects such as the bunkers and fighting positions. Simple texture changes and stuff shouldn't be a problem or that much added effort.
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I'm working on a side project right now that will include a number of new camo net pieces. They will use the existing camo netting texture so that things match and can be used alongside the existing camo nets. However, the shape of the netting will be different since a big box arrangement of camo net (like the standard) isn't exactly realistic.
Look forward to camo nets that will go over vehicles, bunkers, and other small to medium objects. I don't plan on doing anything large enough for an entire house since I have never seen enormouse camo nets in real life over anything much bigger than a small fighter jet.
Oh and the pack of things will also include a bunch of objects for making more realistically fortified positions. Things like earthen revetments you can park vehicles in, better walls, better sandbag configurations, etc.
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Chaparral was retired after the first Gulf War where it was fielded by a few different companies. I have the information written down somewhere on my desk but if you saw my desk you would understand why I can't find it. Anyhow... It was phased out, replaced by the Bradley Linebacker and (damn I forget the official name) that hummer with the big ass stinger pods.
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I found it....
Need to set IRTarget=0 in the CPP class of whatever it is you're doing. Hooray! Now the buildings in WGCTI will be invisible on radar, effectively negating any advantage choppers had by being able to sit at 1000m up and fire in FFARs. And no more nighttime fly-by recon by looking for boxes in the dark. Whoo!
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I'm curious about this and wondering if anyone has a relatively simple answer. I am making some structures (not vehicles) and would like to make them invisible on radar so that helicopters and planes do not see the white box on the ground as they fly over them. Is this at all possible? I have been told by a few sources that it was but that they didn't know how. All I have to do is find someone who is way smarter than me who knows CPP type stuff to tell me the answer.... So which one of you is Mr (or Mrs) Right?
;)
Thanks in advance!
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Yes I apologize for my lack of updates. I have joined forces with (read: been abducted by) BAS to finish this vehicle. However, in their immense wisdom they have shown me that I was doing a bunch of stuff all wrong. So to make things right (you want things right don't you?!) I have had to go back to my model, fix some problems with it, and start texturing all over again.
Sure it looked really good in 3dsm but egads, the textures looked so horrible in O2 and OFP that I wanted to throw myself out of a skyscraper window so as not to dishonor my family or BAS! No screenshots of that abomination will EVER see the light of day!! Give me a few days and I'll have some stuff to show. Also, I've had a lot of real-life obligations come up and that has made time hard to come by.
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Fantastic addon and a welcome addition to the littony of american addons. It's great to see things evening out a bit for the ruskies. A few notes...
I would really love to include some or all of these vehicles in the WarGames CTI League edition of CTI (aka RRCTI) but see a few balance issues with the vehicle weapons.
The BMD3's missile reload time does seem a bit short. Intensional?
The russian missiles in both the BMP3 and BMD3 seem quite strong against the Bradleys. Against the M1 they are fine and it seems to take about 3-4 missiles to dispatch an Abrams (from the front). Maybe just the Bradley is weak? Either way I think that it would be a good idea to tweak the BMD3 and BMP3 down a bit in missile strength to better match the M2A2 for game balance.
AI in the BMD3 and BMP3 definitely have a longer engage range than the M2 which, if you ask me, is more of an unbalancing thing than even the missile strength because they will both fire far sooner than AI driven M2s. They should be equal view and engage range I think. And we can't tweak the M2 so it's best to tweak the new russian armor (i.e. make it shorter).
Sounds are definitely a bit low for the engine and tracks during movement. Can't hear them very well at all (though they are good sounds).
Keep up the great work!! I look forward to the final because I'm now planning on replacing the wimpy-ass BMP2 with the BMD3 (or BMP3 or both, heh).
EDIT: Some statistics for reference....
BMD3....
4 rockets = frontal attack on abrams = death
150 AP rnds = frontal attack on abrams = death
80 HE rnds = frontal attack on abrams = death
BMP3...
4 rockets = frontal attack on abrams = death
4 100mm shots = frontal attack on abrams = death
I haven't done formal BMP3 and BMD3 tests against the M2A2 yet but I know that both missiles from the BMP3 and BMD3 will kill the Bradley (and send it flying through the air). I don't mind this but I think that the Konkurs should be roughly the same power as the TOW since in real life they're very equally matched missiles.
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I'm still working on the front as you can see. But so far I'm about done with the headlights and the various bits of gear between them (except the spare treads) and the front axle bulges. The tracks came out better than I expected. Then again they took me a couple hours to figure out how to get them looking right. Main wheels are done but I still need to do the corner (guide?) wheels. I'm not happy with the canopy bars on the front of the cab and will probably redo them. You can see my newer style of doing mud and dirt on the front and side of the cab. Gone are the over exaggerated dry mud dribbles, replaced with a nice little "we rolled in the dirt" look. But you get the idea... I just felt like posting a screenshot. Â
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Elendil... I would like to include that function. Coding it is beyond my own ability but that's why I have the help of others. Hehe.
Scorpio... Sweet. I haven't seen the 2.2 pack and I must be using the first release of it. Knowing this though I will definitely NOT make the missiles yellow.
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Hehe. Olive seems appropriate but like I said, the SA13 has yellow which is a bit of a disadvantage. I'm really sort of torn on this issue since painting them olive would mean the unit is starting to turn into one big olive drab beast. I may go with a dark brown in the interest of not going insane because I"ve been looking at the same damn olive color in photoshop for 3 straight weeks. Hehehehe. But I'm still open to suggestions of course.
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While on the subject of graphical upgrades I have a few to add that I haven't seen addressed specifically. Although admittedly I haven't read EVERY post on this entire section of the forums, so forgive me if I am saying what someone else already has. I did read the FAQ though. Heh. Anyways...
1) Ability for water to occupy multiple levels is the world. Currently there's one global water level with tides and such. I would like the ability to do water at more than one elevation and water that slopes (such as a stream running downhill). A game I used I play all the time was Myth: The Fallen Lords (an RTS) and it had fixed water level. Later Myth 2: Soulblighter came out which included multiple water levels. It was accomplished simply by using a greyscale water elevation bitmap.
2) Ability for not all water to have tides. Pretty basic and probably mentioned before. But streams don't go up and down like the ocean.
3) Ability to go below mesh level. Right now if you place an object on the world mesh it sits right at ground level. If you were to make a basement of a building and set the building so that the basement was actually below the world mesh you can't go into it. Need to fix this (well, not fix, just add/update). This will add an entirely new element of tunnels (great if OFP2 is during Nam or something similar) and sewers and the aforementioned building basements. Things like true foxholes and fighting positions could then be done also.
Those 3 are my big big hopes. Finer mesh detail, deformable mesh (craters) better foliage and all that is just prettier windowdressing but doesn't really expand gameplay like the above suggestions would. I mean let's not get spoiled guys... we already play a game with probably the largest playing area that you can roam freely. Sure a 20km x 20km island would be great but can you imagine how long it would take to foliate (is that a word?)?
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Well yeah... it will be matched against the SA13 which means I will probably have to keep the missiles unrealistically underpowered and roughly in line with the strelas the Gopher fires, and not the sidewinders it actually fires in real life. That's not a big deal really, and I'm not a total slave to realism when it means defeating the purpose of why I am making the unit (to match up against the SA13 and replace the vulcan after the SA13 replaces the shilka). But hey, I doubt I will do anything that seriously hinders the ability for it to be balanced. If It needs ot stop to fire I will just make it a bit stronger to balance things out. Don't worry. Hehe.
Question...
You guys think I should go with yellow missiles? I have pictures of units using an olive paintjob and yellow missiles. Yellow obviously isn't great for camouflage but the SA13 uses yellow missile pods and it seems only fare to give both side an equally non-camo missile. I could also go with black, brown, and I've seen green with yellow stripes. Does anyone even care? Haha, probably only me!
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I'm pretty sure these don't fire while on the move so I'm wondering if it's possible to make AI stop before firing, and make players have to stop or slow down before firing. That would be a huge bonus. Animating the turret going from storage to active mode would be pretty sweet and I'm hoping I can do get that done. I would also like to get it setup so that it can be deployed in different modes. One mode I'm looking into doing would definitely be with the roll of camo netting stretched over the whole thing except the turret. That would be pretty awesome.... We'll see though. The guys at Red Star Studios have volunteered their services (in exchange for my soul) and who am I to argue with that?
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The grenade launchers on the OICW and OCSW (crew served version to replace MK19s) is probably the thing that makes it what it really is in real life. The whole idea of having a laser rangefinger give you the distance to an object then passing the distance info to the grenade which will air-burst over the target is what makes those guns unique.
I think a lot of people don't quite understand the idea, and sadly I doubt someone will come up with something to recreate it in an addon. Though I can sort of work through what would need to be scripted in my head to do it... I wonder if anyone has tried the air-bursting grenades using scripts and stuff. It would be pretty sweet though if they pulled it off. The idea of lobbing a grenade from a launcher over someone's head while they hide behind cover, then blowing up the grenade and fagging them from above seems pretty novel.
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I actually happen to agree a bit with Scorpio on the mud (there's no rust). I went a tad overboard with it on the bottom edge of the body and have since figured out a better way to do it that looks more natural. It shouldn't be a problem to fix since it's on its own Photoshop layer. So it's no big deal.
The observation about the current's maximum upward angle is a good observation. But that's why the turret actually raises up on the center column before firing. Hehe. The wireframe model pics from before were doctored slightly and I raised the turret to the ready for fire level and then swivelled the rockets. The textured shot is with the turret in the travelling position that lets it fit below a canopy.
I'm not sure if I will do a completely canopyed version but the curved pieces on the front of the vehicle are actually 6 separate curved bars that connect to the corner posts on the back of the body. There's actually 5 more posts per side (that I left out) that connect to the little pyramid shaped things on the side of the flatbed. Then it's all covered with fabric (that's rolled up on the nose) like a 5T truck.
I've been working on this thing for a week straight and haven't played CTI in about 5 days. I'm having withdraw symptoms. Oof. I need to start playing again!!
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If you're going to self-bump a thread, do it in style!! I finally finished the tedious task of skinmeshing my M730. Before you get too excited, skinmeshing is just the process of setting up your texture map with coordinates for mapping it onto your 3d object. [/end noob 3d lesson] It actually takes about twice as long as making the model, sadly. But anyways, I've been texturing, texturing, and more texturing for the last couple days for a copule hours at a time. And here's what I have so far... It's not Marfy quality [yet] but I'm still far from done.
Let me know what you think please. Good and bad, I'm not about to go crying about my fee-wings. Thanks!!
Oh and if you're really interested in seeing the textures as I worked on them piece by piece just check out progress01 - 05 (look at picture url for details). Not as interesting but some people might care.
Texture lighting
in ADDONS & MODS: DISCUSSION
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Oh crapola.... Posted in the wrong forum. Sorry. Well, shit like that happens when it's 3am and you've been pulling your hair out for the past few hours. I'm sure one of those mods will sort things out for me. ;)