DaSquade

Good job on the helmet. Some things might be a bit off but always tricky when making organic shapes. Imho the ear pieces are a bit too smooth and not 100% sure about the shape of the shield. Never the less, good job. You might want to check PEOsoldier (on FlickR). They have some decent very high res pictures of the air warrior helmet and gear, including the new apache aircrew helmet. http://www.flickr.com/photos/peosoldier Some old pictures of my take on the helmet (here and there some mistakes and overall not too high poly): http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9771621/1.JPG http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9771621/3.JPG http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9771621/559.JPG *URL linked the pictures out of protest of the 19th century old '100kb' restriction. Invest into webspace, instead of flashgame :p . EDIT: I hope you will integrate clear-coated AND sunreflecting visors with custom actions.

@Khugan: The joy of the pro's and con's of high versus low poly baking :). You could photoshop the normals but tricky... What you could do is adjust the high poly model to match the curves of the low poly model. As you know your high poly model (in subdiv mode) will try to relax your shape, unless you controle it with extra edges. My suggestion: Same can be done on the edge between the two corners, personally i would leave that edge out in the low poly model. Otherwise you can add a bevel to the sharp corners in the low poly model with or without the modified high poly bake. In the end, it will always be a hunt finding a balance (polycount versus normal map).

@floating geometry: i must say i haven't tried it and i think i will also never border to try it aswell. It just has to much side effects and needs a lot of tweaking...if you ever manage to fix it. But again, i'm pretty noob when it comes to normal map baking. I rather do high poly modeling for decent AS bakes that also serve good in the difuse texture. Personally i still find the 'old school' bump map convertion (for text, bolts, logo's etc...) the best and fastest methode. I do use the high poly model capture for several other normal parts, but it needs to be setup perfect for good results. Like some said, in the end, in bullodzer (game) the normal map is equal to 50% of the true output. So you can get away with slight imperfections. Someone familiar with how things work and should look will spot it pretty easly (like i used to have an eagle eye for sharp edges :p )... *At least you tried.

No problem at all. If not mistaken Adumb make this topic years ago to show and LEARN from each other :) .

Well what i mostly do regarding RIS rails is: *In the game model (highest res lods) i make the base rail solid often with the end ris tips attached. So one piece. *Make all the additional ris tips single shapes, be it individual unwrapped pieces or duplicates and thus stacked on top of each other on the uv. Part one (the solid piece without ris tips) allows you easier lod building and since it has less seams the unwap will be less deformed. With a few edge deletes and rebuilds you quickly have an 'old style' ofp ris (so no ris tips) for the lower res lods. The AS (ambient occlusion) texture will need some cleaning depending on the bake distance, but at least it is easy to handy once done. Part two (the ris tips). In the past i tended to stock the ris tips, but that doesn't give you much room to character the gun in terms of wear as all details will be identical on all the tips offcourse. On the other hand you can always mix, have some stacked and have some individual pieces (maybe those that need more dedicated wear..optic area, corners). As for the unwrap, basicly self-explaining imho. Like always have as less corners as possible, but try to keep deformation in controle. Personally i rather split something then get deformation. Like the ris tips i unwrap as you would unwrap a box (seams along all corners with the top as center with a cross unwrapped shape). Ha, unwrapping suck big time but imho it is the step that needs to most concentration and time. I also always take the time to allign each edge that is possible, mean horizontal and vertical edges are 100% straight if they should... Hope the explanation helped a bit (if wanted i can post a few pics). Not sure if it is 'the way' to do it, but worked for me on all my previous and current weapons. *Just put your mind on zero and do it (some good music and a locked door helps a lot). And like Pufu said, quality (-> read: pixel ratio) is often the key. I hate to do it sometimes, but often you need to upscale parts that need the detail and downscale parts that don't really need it. Like ironsights if they are part of the weapon, certain bolts, basicly all non linear stuff that can suffer from jiggy? pixelation. If you keep your texture art work in ratio, no one will notice the difference in pixel size but your work will look like it used high res texture sizes....

Wish i could help out, but honestly i'm still fighting sharp-smooth edges when it comes to normal map baking. It is something special and i think it is something that will never be perfect (i want to believe panda :p ). But beside that, i had pretty good results with high poly - low poly model baking. AS (ambient occlusion) and normal map details come out very nicely. Maybe a small tip when it comes to AS (-> modo ambient occlusion maps) is to run over you sharp adges in paint mode with a soft blur brush. That helps out fading and colour matching the two seperate sides of the edges. Guess you are aware to try to prevent to have non matching faces in the UV as it will not help out the AS and normal map colours (mismatching). You mentioned parts are high poly and some game model. I'm guessing that won't work for the baking. But with some quick edge loops and sub-d you could make a decent high poly model out of your game model parts. Good luck, nice looking weapon!

Looking pretty good! Reminds me of my 'on hold' high poly MSR project. Good luck. *Will check with Scuba if the MSR project will ever be picked up again, other wise i might have a high poly silencer (and maybe a few other parts, like muzzles) if interested. Bit hard to tell, but is that the high poly model you are working on or the actual game model?

hm, maybe a very silly and noob question, but where exactly should the F16's show up in the editor? I thought under USAF... I should have version 1.2 and CBA and GLT misslie box 3.2 etc. Running ACE though and other stuff. *GLT missile box works just strange they don't show up in the editor.

Works for me: 1. Get into the pilot seat. 2. Order your AI gunner to get in as gunner. 3. Switch to manual fire. In case of the AH-64D or any other heli that has a AI controlable gun 4. Set your Ai gunner to DANGER - SCAN - ENGAGE AT WILL. Might need to give him targets, although most of the times when he spots a unit he will engage it. *Respawn is BASE here and i have highest rank. Afaik it isn't possible to fire hellfires or other 'lock' missles when you don't have an AI gunner.

I suppose you are refurring to this pic: If not, it should do the job.

Any idea how come sprocket installers still don't add the registery value MAIN and the installation path when you install arma2 (before or after OA)? Got a friend that got interested in ArmA and i convinced him (well he convinced himself) and he bought combined operation with all the DLC's and as expected he had issues combining. I had hoped BIS fixed it somehow for new gamers. Luckly i had gone through the troubles before and was able to guide him quickly but i can understand for new gamers it is a big pain and a point of frustration.

Haha, and i thought you told me you had enough of the modeling for the next 7 years :p . City job/school didn't turned out like you planned maybe? Welcome back :) and good job as always.

Indeed a good marketing point. Made good use of it and so did a few friends of me that are new, and already addicted, to the series :). Like they said, for that price you can't buy any game...

Afair you need at least the view pilot lod (with view pilot memory points) otherwise the game will crash aswell. At least that happend to me in the past...

Nothing new, but she is lovely SA. Good job chap, model, texture and materials! Looking forward to see what those other wonderboys make out of it... *Where is the Model of the Year poll? ;) Any triscount numbers for those who are interested? Same for detailed shadowlod. Not that i really care, but always good to know. (goes back continue on 20k tris M240H :d ).

The links you pasted still don't work for me, but those Synide posted in his first post work http://pufu.kellys-heroes.eu/modo_p3d_plugin_v0.0.0.5_novid.7z versus http://pufu.kellys-heroes.eu\modo_p3d_plugin_v0.0.0.5_novid.7z/

I kinda forgot to host the files aswell (unless you don't want too much hosts for you wonderfull FREE plugin ;) ): http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9771621/modo_p3d_plugin_v0.0.0.5_novid.7z http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9771621/modo_p3d_plugin_v0.0.0.5.7z *Pufu: your links don't work for me.

For what it is worth, i remember 'solid' color as background isn't adviced. I'm refurring to the solid grey and black of the panels. I kinda remember having that issue, but could be wrong. You might want to give all solid color some noise (or add the AO map as multiplied layer).

Just noticed it on the other forum, as modo user i would like to thank you for making it public. Congrats and big thanks.

That is one of the reasons you should stay away from O2 UV mapping and learn a decent 3D program that allows you to reduce your models while keeping your UV mapping intact (not always possible once you mess with the UV island border, at least you will get a long way if you kept that in mind). *Do it once decent and enjoy the ride...

Might want to check into this old tool: P3D2OBJ Very old tool and you need to save your model first as 'old p3d'.

Thank you for the UV set. You are safe and get my blessing. Good job :) . *ST errors are UV mapping error (faces not unwrapped but on one line...might gives visual errors when you apply a normal map to it). You can check your models (and i advice you always do that...part of the optimization) by going to Structure->Check faces. If nothing comes up in your named selection window, you are fine. But i think you unwrapped them properly. Again thanks for clearing things out. But i had already figuered out your build is slightly different. Good luck.

Good stuff but i hope you don't have too much ST errors. Meaning, it looks you used several real life photo's but only planar mapped them. Could be wrong though...refurring to the A.R.M.S levers on the Eotech for example. I hope you made the Eotech yourself aswell as it looks very simular to what i made...mind to share a pic of the UV map or wireframe?. Don't consider it an other police message. I couldn't care less, but maybe BIS does. If you did make it yourself, congrats and i can only support it :) .

First of all, been following this topic with big interest (mainly because of the detail....). Since this will be by default a pretty high poly model (even heavly reduced) and i hope you will somehow consider this project a future proof one....that will last for years. Anyway, about the 'maintenace' model. You could make two models. One for 'gaming/flying' and one for static/display use. On the other hand you could always work with hidden textures. Good luck...

I was looking yesterday night to the belgian tv show called Gunk TV witch was showing the Gunk TV Top 40 games. Missed the first two games and although 85% of the following games were either PS3/XBOX360 or WII...i decided to watch it out. Knowing there isn't much info found about Operation Arrowhead on belgian websites or forums i had already put the idea of seeing one of the Arma series in the top 40. To my suprise Operation Arrowhead was shown and.....on nr. 4! I was very suprised it was shown and the place it had received, especially since the show tends to favor console games. I'm aware Belgium isn't much international (we are a very small country), but still it turned a smile on my face. I don't know on what the guys of that show base themself (sales numbers, own review, pole, whatever...). Fact is like mentioned Arrowhead doesn't get much attention around here beside a few topics on various forums. Heck, i can't even find info on Arrowhead on the site of GunkTV. Anyway, guess that is good news and free commercial for BIS from little Belgium. *I did emailed then around the release date of Arrowhead if they were aware of it and if it was possible to showcase the trailer or something. Never received an answer though....