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chris330

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Everything posted by chris330

  1. Hi! Not sure if this is already common knowledge but I've worked out how to use the setvectordirandup command to set a unit (aircraft at least) to any pitch and/or bank you wish. The command takes two arrays: [x,y,z],[x,y,z] The command reference lists the variable runs as different but from my own testing the above criteria is correct. The first array sets the axis along which the aircraft will point. It cannot take 3 zero values as far as I know, this causes the command not to execute or hang. So for example if you wanted to point your aircraft at dead West you would enter [-1,0,0] in the first array. The x co-ordinate is read positve facing east (right) and negative west (left). The second array is used to set the aircraft's rotation about the axis specified in the first array and it too cannot take a [0,0,0] input. This second array also has some odd workings. The x and y part are not what you think. The x value simply represents roll in the right handed direction local to the vehicle's frame (i.e. not world coordinates) and the y value represents the vehicles roll in the left handed direction. You can basically just leave the y column blank and work with negative values of x value when you want the aircraft to roll left. Also they sum together arithmetically. A value of: [1,0.5,0] in the second array gives the same result as: [0.5,0,0] :) So for example if you wanted to point your vehicle dead West and have it at an angle of 45 degrees bank right in respect of that axis you would input something like: _aircraft = setvectordirandup [[-1,0,0],[1,0,1]]; And that will do it. If you wanted to point it dead North East and have it zero degree bank but pitched 45 degrees down you would do the following: _aircraft = setvectordirandup [[0.5,0.5,0.707],[0,0,1]]; Note the '1' in the second vector just means 'no rotation' about the axis or also translated as 'upvector just point straight up' i.e. do nothing. ---------- Post added at 06:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:12 PM ---------- This actually fits in well with what I've read about up to date Physics engines. They use a thing called a Quaternion which holds an axis with three components to represent that axis - and a rotation value for the rotation about that axis. Seems this setvectordirandup command is very closely related. It means ocne you've learned to use this properly you don't need to use setdir and then setvectorup to set pitch. You can set direction, pitch and bank all in one go. ---------- Post added at 06:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:36 PM ---------- I'm off out now for a few hours but I'll do some more testing later to make sure these findings are correct. I've already done alot of testing to make sure the findings are solid before posting but as anyone who's been around even just a little bit will know, it only takes one small observation and suddeny everything's on its head! God Bless :)
  2. chris330

    The Illuminati

    Greetings, I've been meaning to begin a thread on this subject for a while. Having just seen a programme about it on the television I've decided to post it to see what others think as I'm sure it will produce some interesting discussion. Personally I have been convinced for at least a year now that the entire world's fortunes are controlled by no more than a tiny handful of people perhaps numbering no more than say 4 or 5. It makes sense that to control a large number of people you need to find a way to make them afraid and desperate as it appears to be the most reliable way of governing their behaviour. In days gone by we could rely upon religion to perform this task, and I believe it served the Illuminati (or their forerunners) well for several centuries. Obviously now the world has been opened up by television religion is losing its grip. At first I suppose this would seem like a logical progression. Until that is you dare to question why. One has to wonder if the Illuminati through either boredom or through insight decided to shift the means by which they control the majority of the world's population. What other means does anyone have of instantly transporting their words, images and opinions straight into someone else’s living room without so much as a word of complaint from the occupant. Would anyone in a position of power miss an opportunity like this. I doubt it somehow. So I wonder did religion really lose its grip or was it selected for gradual retirement by the Illuminati. That's open to debate. I suspect the latter personally. I've come to realise that independent thought is incredibly more absent from the majority of people when viewed as a group than we are taught to believe in the modern world. The general sub-conscious non-voiced opinion today at least in the West is that we the population are responsible for recent advances in human rights awareness and the betterment of our life conditions. Personally I do not agree anymore. I think that we are being drip-fed independence as part of a plan to usher in a solution to a problem which didn't exist in the first place that will ultimately make us easier to control. It's the basic formula that has been used for centuries. Say you wanted to exercise a certain amount of control over people in a certain area, or you wanted to implement something you know you wouldn't get away with outrightly. The solution is to create another problem which will require your original intention as the solution to it. Hey presto, you've got what you wanted. I wonder if the new human rights and free thinking revolution is something which has been intentionally started to create what was a virtually guaranteed over-reaction by bitter people and by those who wish to make a career out of catching whatever the latest public thinking wave happens to be such as lawyers and rights campaigners. Wave catching has even spread to non-professional areas such as committees and forums and the like. Indeed any public place really. This is such a good sign to the Illuminati that they are being tremendously successful in getting people to sing to their tune. Then of course will come the backlash. In the United Kingdom last week there was yet another story in the paper about a criminal receiving thousands and thousands of pounds in legal aid to fight the United Kingdom justice system. He was an illegal immigrant who had already been convicted of raping a 13 year old girl at knife point. He committed this crime in the United Kingdom after coming here illegally from Somalia I believe. I'm de-sensitised by the details now. In fact I'm almost de-sensitised to the implications also. I think that might be part of their plan too, but not to worry about that. He is set to receive a very large sum of money for some reason as compensation of his treatment by the United Kingdom justice system. The minimum and dare I say it average wage in this country today is £5.35 an hour. A 2 bedroom terraced house which is furnished in some areas of the country will cost anything up to £300,000. A house in my neighbourhood which in the mid seventies cost £8,000 is now worth almost £200,000. So now we have the stage set for a major racial backlash against immigrants in this country. Doubtless this will, and was intended to spread to any non-white non-native faction also. On top of that we have what I and many believe to be the intentional destruction of the World Trade Centre by the Illuminati to turn us against Muslims. Add to that the staged events in July last year in London by the Illuminati and the massive over exposure of radical Muslim groups in the press in the United Kingdom and a major amount of racially orientated civil unrest is now certain. Hmmm. To make sure it will take hold though, the Illuminati have been irritating the hell out of this population for some years now with speed cameras, tax increases, dismantling of the police force and excessive leniency to criminals and anti-social groups such as gypsies and travellers. They've also been de-sensitising us to emotional issues with television shows such as Love Island and Jerry Springer and then they've been trashing our self confidence and the worth of the personality of the individual abstract from its abilities with shows like the X-Factor and such like in a bizarre and yet simultaneously occurring venture to pretending to be promoting free thinking and self importance. All perfect pre-cursors to a volatile, uncaring and readily violent and moral-less society. I applaud their abilities and their intellect as it is truly immense. Only a true Grand Master could manipulate people to this extent without taking any of the blame for the consequences. I don't even dislike them for it anymore. After all without them one does have to wonder what the hell people would be doing to each other without a constantly furious circle to be going round in. Perhaps they are in fact something to be very grateful for. Who knows. Given that someone involved with them somewhere will be reading this within 5 seconds of it being posted can I request in advance that before the new fascist revolution you're going to start in the United Kingdom begins, could you perhaps get me off to Australia before hand as I've always wanted to go there, plus I have no intention of injuring a single non-white citizen legal or otherwise in this nation as I'm aware of exactly what's going on so I'd be no real use to you here anyway. Makes you wonder just how many other things have been orchestrated in days gone by. I mean AIDS, HIV and wars are a pretty good way to keep people occupied and keep the population down I suppose. Of course all that written above is meant entirely tongue-in-cheek and is not meant to bear any resemblance to observed trends or actual events I've witness during the course of my life to date, naturally.....
  3. Hi, As the topic title says can anyone recommend any good online MMOG's other than Battleground Europe (I already play that one). Thanks, thought you chaps would have some good info on this one
  4. That's great thanks for your help! I've just ordered one, cheers ;)
  5. Thanks for the reply! 500W sounds ok then thanks :) I just need a new PSU (present one is very weak) and a card. I think I've got a PSU nailed down but unsure on the card. Any suggestions at all? Doesn't have to be too much;)
  6. Hi had to re-post this I posted in the wrong section - haven't been around here for a while :p **** Hi :) I'm looking to start playing wwiionline again, but I've sold all my old hardware :rolleyes: I know a bit about code but bugger all about hardware. I'm looking for a middle of the road graphics card and straight forward PSU to back it up. I don't want to spend a load of money on some fancy Corsair PSU again if I don't need to. Can anyone recommend a reasonable power supply unit and graphics card to go with it? I'm a bit worried about buying PSU's which are not 'single rail' as I've heard these are prone to problems, but I wouldn't have a damn clue what any of it means. I'm thinking of a PSU up around 500W with just a basic card costing around £40. Any ideas - thanks for any help offered ;)
  7. chris330

    Clueless about PSU's!!

    Hi :) I'm looking to start playing wwiionline again, but I've sold all my old hardware :rolleyes: I know a bit about code but bugger all about hardware. I'm looking for a middle of the road graphics card and straight forward PSU to back it up. I don't want to spend a load of money on some fancy Corsair PSU again if I don't need to. Can anyone recommend a reasonable power supply unit and graphics card to go with it? I'm a bit worried about buying PSU's which are not 'single rail' as I've heard these are prone to problems, but I wouldn't have a damn clue what any of it means. I'm thinking of a PSU up around 500W with just a basic card costing around £40. Any ideas - thanks for any help offered ;)
  8. Did they ever get round to this yet? I always wanted to write AI takeoff scripts and stuff and maybe try out some collison detection and some physics but if I recall whenever using the command the disables simulation it knocked everything out, killed the engine, made some weird camera stuff happen and all kinds. All we really need is something to just knock out automatic engine core collision detection and physics simulation. Everything else being left in would open up scope for a community made flight simulator and other stuff. I'm heavily into C++ game coding right now and it would help alot on the future to have an easy platform I'm familiar with to use as a stage for some physics code and stuff rather than have to use my own engine, which will not have an easy to use editor like this game does.
  9. chris330

    Best infantry models?

    **dumbass question post removed by author to prevent a witch hunt beginning**
  10. chris330

    Best infantry models?

    Well I was thinking of paying the folks who made them. They are of professional standard in my opinion and I'm sure many others think so too. Maybe it's not such a good idea. Thanks anyway ;o) No need to start a witch hunt. I'll just make my own. I might still make an extraction tool so folks can edit binarized models though. Or I might just dick around with code to open up an existing file for the hell of it. I'm undecided at the moment ;) ---------- Post added at 06:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:46 PM ---------- Might still do it actually if any author's are willing. I was thinking of around £100 a model for a good one. I don't think that's an unreasonable price. Depends how it fits in with the fact that they've been made with Bohemia software though. That might exclude any possibility for some reason. No doubt someone will be more than enthusiastic enough to point that out if it's true *sigh*. It has been pointed out to me by a mate in the last few min that if I'm willing to spend £100 a model I might as well buy from Turbosquid. And that's what I'll probably do. Shame though. I think some of the community made stuff for OFP and Arma is easily good enough to be sold - and isn't available anywhere else....
  11. Hi, I'm in the process of actually making a game. It has finally happened after many years of waffling and talking stuff that sounded good. I've pretty much got to the end of my DirectX learning curve for now I can do most things I would want. I can load an animated mesh with the Hierachy function and allocation class, load textures, load models, select objects on screen, make a game display make lights all that stuff. I'm also ok with physics and stuff now having spent alot of time thinking and reading about it and I'm also into collision detection. Pretty familiar with the game loop and hierachy layout and how all this happens after being called from within a windows function. Great. But. The last area of my DirectX learning has wandered me into pixel shading. The correct term I believe is HLSL - High Level Shader Language. Seems now it allows one to address the graphics card processor directly to produce nice effects. Ok fine. It also however means extra compiling to be done and I'm worried about this might be happening at run time as it's quite an abstracted language above even C++. Ok but modern processors should be able to handle this right? The further thing I'm worried about is compatibility. I do have the money to get another graphics card if I want but I intentionally have run all my directX stuff so far without a graphics card using the processor to do all that emulating stuff. I wouldn't have been worried but the first time I tried to compile and run the C++ source file with the effect file (the effect file is a .fx file which holds the shader language) the machine went blank, nothing showed and windows complained of a problem and had to close the application (program). No doubt because of a bad communication between the shader language and on board card simulator being run by my processor. I thought however shader language was supposed to hold a technique function. The shader file I have does have one yet for some reason it could not properly source an acceptable technique for my on board card emulator and crashed the program. So with that said here's the deal: The game I'm writing is based on out and out gameplay. Having played WWIIOnline I've seen just how much market there still is for very basic graphics (by today's standards) provided they're backed up by amazing gameplay - which World War II Online (also termed BattleGround Europe produced by Cornered Rat Software) definitely has. So I'm wondering do I *really* need to use HLSL and pixel shaders? The DirectX effects I've seen so far looked very good to me and quite capable of rendering an acceptable game world that's lit very nicely and accurately. They also give access to all required texture filtering such as Anisotropic and all that stuff. I do not want to write a game which irritates users at the sharp end by refusing to run due to compatibility problems. I've also noticed that with DirectX I can access pixel level I believe so I could even code my own basic stuff into that for things like blur effects or haze effects usng some sort of circle around which a mean average of pixel values was took, and this average was then redistributed back to the pixels - creating a blur. I really don't need my models to look like they're covered in crude oil during a gorgeous sunrise. So to summarise my two camps of thought: 1) Leave pixel shaders alone. Pros - Big bonus in compatibility and speed. - Can do everything I'd want to anyway. - Avoid what looks like a giant non-standardisation based mess in the industry. Cons - Can't have easy to use special effects. - I'd have to make any effects I wanted myself. - Game doesn't look as pretty especially around water and stuff. 2) Use pixel shaders. Pros - It's reasonable to expect a gamer to have a low level card. - Easy to use effects. - Extra nice looking game for not much effort. Cons - Get drawn into compatibility mess caused by multi manufacturers. Maybe some cards (no matter how expensive) may not work at all if they don't support a specific shader no matter how powerful. - Risk irritating customer base and forcing them to spend money (which is something I don't believe in doing when you're supposed to be providing a paid for service to someone). So there it is. I'm not sure what to do. I have LOTS of sympathy with people on a budget or having to use their friends/parents/aunties machine. I do not want them to be excluded. At all. I'd prefer a less nice looking game with more time spent on improving gameplay rather than just drafting in 3rd party made shader files to make the game look good so it sold and then dumping the responsibility of that onto the customer by making them having to pay yet more money to get it to run (which is something I'm sure is rife in the industry at present). :rolleyes: So please can someone help me out here? I just want the best compromise between nice effects and compatibility, but very much leaning towards compatibility. Thanks ;)
  12. chris330

    HLSL (Pixel Shaders) Should I just walk away?

    Ok I go it in the end :) Here's a link to a short video on youtube showing a landscape scene with a vertex shader going around it to mimc sunlight or moonlight but speeded up alot. This should be ok I managed to run this on the on-board card which is the Intel G33/G31 I think. Was clocking about 30-40 Fps at the time even though the counter says 99 for some reason. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWBpOX2dKZA
  13. chris330

    UDP Transfer Protocol and Online Games

    Some good replies there thanks to you both. Deadfast: Thanks mate I think I'm just about with that one, but how they can they appear so fast on client machines? Does that mean that when I see someone shoot on screen in reality they actually fired about half a second ago? (client to server then server to me - 200ms + 200ms). So do most client machines just try and follow the server's absolute sort of rippling up and down trying to chase the average all the time - in respect to game events? I get the feeling there must be some pretty good prediction code going on. I've thought alot about it over the years. Something I once saw in industry might work well here. I'm not getting too worked up about it yet though. I'm still yet to successfully send data from one program to another - on the SAME computer!! :mad: ;)
  14. Hi, I'm going to post this elsewhere too perhaps a more appropriate site. I always come here first though just in case I can catch the eye of a wandering expert. I've generally found over the years that the help I get on here is alot better than most other sites. My question is about UDP versus TCP data transfer in networking. I'm sure someone on here will know something about this. I was checking my ping to the USA last night and discovered a latency of around 167ms when downloading. I was wondering then how on earth do multiplayer games ever manage to effectively render small arms fire accurately across all client machines? Surely if you had to wait anything up to 300ms the game would be horrible to play. I'm wondering therefore are ping times here produced because of the use of TCP during the transfer? Is UDP effectively a much faster ping? If one client shot a machine gun and that's all their machine had to tell the server would this information go alot faster than 'normal' ping times if using UDP rather than TCP? I know about packets arriving out of order and duplicated with UDP and that the application (read 'game') has to have error checking code using a timestamp with any data that's sent and received across the network. But assuming things arrived ok does UDP drastically reduce data transfer time? Surely you couldn't ever have a game with pings like 300ms if you were making an FPS action game! I don't really know though to be honest. So I'm asking ;) Thanks.
  15. chris330

    HLSL (Pixel Shaders) Should I just walk away?

    Hi just to let you know thansk for the help I have now got a very good reflective (specular light) shader file to run and understood it top to bottom too. Even had to fix a major error in the online tutorial's shader file that wasn't returning proper data from the function that displays stuff onscreen. Pretty much nailed now to be honest. If I need any more depth into shader files I'll be ok myself from here on in. Thanks again, this forum always feels like *home* in some weird way ;)
  16. chris330

    HLSL (Pixel Shaders) Should I just walk away?

    Thanks for the replies you three chaps/chapesses ;) Sure deal I'm trying to find help as this is actually going somewhere now. But not having much luck. Did have a great artist over the Christmas period who was really keen and has worked in the industry. Sadly he went back to drink and got beaten almost to death somewhere locally. I think he's now brain damaged for life :( I'm also off work due to mental illness so got lots of time to work out my 'area' if you know what I mean. But I'll need someone else to help in the others sooner or later. @Dadl I bought a cheaper book on Algorithms than the one you recommended me in the thread I started sometime back just to get me started. But I've favourited the one you did recommend and I'll buy it as soon as more money comes through from social security. Thanks!
  17. chris330

    HLSL (Pixel Shaders) Should I just walk away?

    I'm not sure - I'll head over. Normally if I have an question I always come here first. Always. The expertise on here is amazing and the attitude of posters very good. Not always the same elsehwere sadly. I'll go over there and re-post it. ---------- Post added at 12:29 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:35 AM ---------- Ok thanks pal I posted it over there. Be interesting to see what replies come. I did get a shader to run in the end. Looks very nice. Still got a long way to go before I understand them properly though. To be honest I'm surprised more people who make addons for the Operation Flashpoint family of games don't get into this. I've made some addons in 2003, and it was very difficult. I never got anywhere near the levels of complexity some people reached in later years either. On balance to be entirely truthful, although it sounds complex I'd say it's probably not been any harder so far doing this than making a complete working addon in OFP. Sure I could bask in the limelight of all these new concepts and terms I've learned but to be honest it really isn't that bad. Here's the link to the site I got started with. The first 10 lessons are free then it's only a one time £20 fee for access to all the others. http://www.directxtutorial.com/index.aspx Thanks again;)
  18. chris330

    HLSL (Pixel Shaders) Should I just walk away?

    Hi thanks for the reply. There's not that much to show yet to be honest. I'm devoting much more time to learning than making anything. I could if I wanted to start making all sorts of things but I'd rather not until I've covered all the theory and code I'll need to get started properly. Most of it has just been developing things beyond the tutorials. I could post a few things up but they'd look mundane, whereas in actual fact what's going on behind it is quite deep and that's the bit I've been learning to understand which I now mainly do. Took alot of time but anyway I'm not that far off being able to start in earnest on generating terrain and things like that. Pixel shaders are a new thing to me though. I found out my on-board emulator does have support for pixel shading up to level 2.0. However the damn things still refuse to run even when just rendering the good old Teapot mesh. Seems shaders above a certain level crash the program whilst those those beneath it will actually run without crashing but the light effects don't render. I just see a black screen or whatever colour I cleared the back buffer to. I'm very much hoping I don't *have* to use pixel shaders to get shadows! Or perhaps I will yet figure them out and find out they're not so bad. I have my reservations though.
  19. Hi! Just browsing through an amiga emulator site and I was looking at the release notes and the things they referred to. It got me thinking about how much I still don't know about programming and how it all fits together. At present time there is no concept in my mind of how things like C++ and something like say a games graphics engine relate to each other in the programming pecking order. I do know that C++ and C are very close to machine code which is the lowest language form you can input into a processor. I wonder though is 'machine code' a universally accepted standard throughout the globe which manufacturers of processors must make their equipment compatible with or are there several 'machine code' variants and if so what implications does this have on processor design? Is 'machine code' even a low enough language to be loaded into a processor or is there an even more rudimentary level it must go to before being dispatched to a processor? My second main question lies in language translations: I also know languages like Java and the like are more distant from machine code than C++ and thus have to be translated several times before going to a processor hence them being undesirable game languages. What actually does the translating though? For something to run a program coded in say Java or something do you have to have another program which specifically does the translating from Java language to machine code level stuff before sending tasks to the CPU on the host machine rather like say Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator converts web based languages into CPU level instructions on your home machine to display pixel images on your monitor? Third question: Graphics and hardware. I know I can go and pick-up a book about C++ and other languages off Amazon or wherever or study a college course in them etc... but how the hell do you learn how to relate things like graphics rendering code to hardware devices? I've seen it on here before people talking about the specifics of how their graphics card handles code and the like and how all the hardware bits make a difference to this and to that. How do you learn about stuff like this, what discipline 'title' or 'categeory' does that kind of knowledge come under? Also with regards to an operating system (Windows/Linux) how much are they responsible for graphically? For example does the graphics engine in your average game perform language translations down to machine code and then talk directly to the CPU or does the graphics engine only talk to the Operating System which then talks to the CPU? I have other questions but I think I'll leave them for a bit. I'd appreciate any help thanks. Please keep your replies simple if you can as I don't know much about all this!
  20. chris330

    Operating System,C++,Hardware languages, etc...

    Hi just to add I have followed some of this up and I've been learning about C++ and DirectX. Here's a link to a compressed file that contains source and ready to run binaries (they run fine on my PC anyway). They're very basic DirectX programs. But I tinkered with them successfully eventually. They're slight modifications to some of the lessons on the DirectX Tutorial site. http://rapidshare.com/files/394991506/Read_Only_Completed_Programs.zip.html
  21. Hi, I'm missing being able to fly quite alot right now, was wondering if you chaps could give me some ideas of the best flight sim to have a go at. I used to do alot of rough ground landing stuff in wwiionline but I hope I never go back to that fiasco again. I do miss that really engaging low flying stuff though and landing big-ish planes like C-47's and Ju52's on rough ground. As such I'm looking for a decent flight simulator. But I have no idea what all the latest stuff available is. Here's what I'm looking for: 1)Very realistic simulator definitely nothing whatsoever arcadey. 2)Chance to fly transport planes like Dakotas and such like. 3)If possible chance to fly a fighter and dogfight - this is not so important. What do you reckon? Anything will do even games a few years old will suit me fine, and hurt my wallet less too! Any ideas? Thanks :o
  22. Wicked! I am indeed drawn to the larger planes. I am also amazed at how good the dogfighting AI is in this game! Almost like being online! I will have more questions about flight theory soon but I will make a new thread for them, thanks Beagle ;)
  23. I will indeed check that out, thanks!
  24. Ahh thankyou! Thou art indeed correct. I set up a mission and found AI C-47's available, they even have the Bristol Blenheim!!!:cool: Thanks pal. I could use some help regarding prop pitch and mixture theory. Does anyone understand this well enough to help me out here? If so I'll fire a few questions away. This really is a great game.;)
  25. Thanks again guys that's all great stuff! One question though, I have seen many pics of a C-47 in game in IL-2 (which I have now bought) but I do not have it in my loadout selection and I have also installed what I believe is the latest patch. Anyone know where I can get it? Thanks ;)
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