chris330

I think it's parent is Class Default. I'm really not sure though I've not made anything for ArmA sorry.

Apparently it is only available to folks with ArmA 2 which is where this was intended to go anyway. Placebo has been pm'ed and I would imagine be along shortly.

We'll it really helped me and that's just the first video. Thanks alot, this side of things needs much more work in general throughout the OFP community. Things like this cut people past loads of stuff that would sap their strength and resolve. Thanks alot for making it ;)

Thanks frog and others for the replies that's great!

Hi I re-installed this game and had a play around on the air field on the small island. I knocked right down aload of graphics settings and just used 1 marine to run around the air tower building and huts. I have to say some serious words in its defense this is an excellent game alright there's real potential here. I had no idea collision detection on indoor levels was as good as this. It's pretty much up to almost Deus Ex standards or F.E.A.R., not quite but good enough alright. I must say the improvement here from OFP days is staggering. This puts the game in a whole new light for me. Credit where it's due the developers have done an amazing job on this part of the game. It's also visually head and shoulders easy above any other game I've ever played. You can run around on the upper level of the control tower on the outside balcony with NO collision detection anomalies whatsover. That is extraordinary for a game which models so much expanse of environment per load out. Hmm... I think I am going to pick this up and start working on some small scale stuff and see where it goes. I just didn't get a flavour for how good this was when I played it first time round but having the chance to play quietly in the editor has really opened my eyes to this. Collision detection is so good even indoors that if you crouch you can't side step out of a door way because your weapon is preventing you from getting out the door. Hats off here alright, the game's theme scope has now gone astronomical. Just about ANY mod you'd want could be made using this platform now. The only bit I don't like is that the animations are too large in the displacement (change in position) they produce and are rather too long for really sharp indoors stuff like Deus Ex and F.E.A.R.. It creates a bit of a jerky and clunky feel. Resolving this along with - I would guess - some model geometry LOD rework (i.e. just removing any geometry LOD for the weapon) would leave you with a near perfect platform depending on how mod-able the AI is. For sure this game IS worth the time of a hard-core thinker and modder. Anyhow I thought I needed to share that because I was so impressed with how that marine moved around the tower balcony I knew I'd made an incorrect judgement in my first pass of the game. If anyone can give me some insights of how the anims could be made sharper please let me know. I think they just need to be more 'interruptable' with a shorter execution time once intiated by user input. That and some probably minor geometry resolving should really create something extra special here ;)

There is no need to bow or retreat. My post above contains ego as do many other peoples across the internet and the world. To feel the need to respond as I did in a superiorirty tone shows ego is being hurt and also defended at the moment the host mind in this case my own, senses it is being disagreed with. This is very common in my life and that of others. That's all it is. I'm growing in elightenment but ego is a constant enemy. The posts prior to this all seem to have valid technical data to me from all posters. If the person dis-likes the game or some aspects they need not point it out in a public way. If the person desires to defend they may or may not choose to do so depending on their faith in their reasons and their own personal sense of morality and the many reasons that may be present. It is ego, the ever present menace that causes defensive-ness and frequently incorrect or inflexible views. With regards the technical aspects it may or may not be possible to improve the AI within games generally. If I feel strong enough about it I will journey into it to investigate and then find my answer during the course of my life. Freewill remains exercised by those who enjoy to remain in the company of something that gives them pleasure and those who seek their own goals. Long may it be so.

Your post up to here was good. The above however, is - I suspect - patronising and argumentative, which is why I've chosen not to reply in any depth. I believe I see something you clearly don't. I also don't think your argument of large scale AI has any basis whatsoever when contrasted with the fact that the AI is no noticeably better than it was 8 years ago. I have no wish to discuss further, I am completely confident my point of view is extremely well established from the place I see it from. If you wish to discuss further it will be to an empty space ;)

That is your point of view. This is mine. If you play Battleground Europe sometime (try it for free for a bit) you'll see there they have very good tank controls, good flight model and all that sort of thing implemented well without having gone off the deep end. Graphics are ancient though and they have the advantage of not having to code any AI - it's an MMOG. It's not unrealistic to want two tanks to be able to drive down a road without stopping every 10m to re-adjust direction and not slam into each other and get stuck for ages in a game that's supposed to be 8 years ahead of its predecessor. Implementing good and believable vehicle control is not impossible, and even just a reasonable flight model would be acceptable. You can't know much about flight models if you think the current one is acceptable with all due respect. Asking for MS Flight Sim/Falcon standards is unrealistic. Asking for something that at least vaguely resembles a flight model is quite acceptable. It's unbelievably hopeless. If you're happy with it then great but believe me it's poor to say the least. This is not an excessive criticism of a flight model that's 75% accurate instead of 99%, this is an accurate statement that there is virtually no flight model for this game at all. If the coders at CRS (who make battleground europe) can code an acceptable flight model BIS should certainly be able to. There is a culture of asking far too much of developers in modern times often due to lack of understanding how much work goes into even apparently simple things. A flight model which is more advanced than either throttle up, throttle down, most instruments not working and a Hercules not being able to achieve positive climb rate in a 10 degree pitch up full flaps down and full throttle is not an outrageous request. One ends up chasing one's tail however. One group sees it's potential and says it should go further or be brought up to this standard or whatever, the other says be happy with what it is. It depends what the individual plays for. It's clear nothing's going to move with the game so I think the best thing is those who wish to make something better/more suitable for them should go start working on something themselves whilst those who find its standards acceptable should just carry on playing and buying.

That sounds like something I've thought of too. The releases are indeed very buggy and need fixing before release not after. Things like proper AI coding though are I think beyond the scope of proper play-testing. A whole project is required to do this and I don't think BIS are up to it resources wise right now. To be honest I heard they're making so much money with VBS that ArmA releases 1 & 2 were just afterthoughts released to make a bit of money which they aren't really taking seriously. The fairly obvious unchanged aspects of most of the game since the first great one in 2001 would tend to support the idea that someone noticed OFP then paid them to produce VBS and they've had almost all their resources aimed at that since. There was a time when the programmer's would post on the forums fairly often, not anymore I think. If I get anywhere with C++ and OGRE/Unity I might just throw open my project all open source at the world wide web so folks can make a game whatever way they want. I wouldn't buy any game made by someone else anymore for anything other than fun or a bit of entertainment along the way.

I'm glad to see really good debate here. Remember however my post above, although long and well thought out, is just a point of view and nothing more. It might be shared by many and thus considered 'the truth'. It might be shared by few and thus considered 'false'. It's just a point of view that's all. It has value provided it is expressed without negative emotional drives and motives. The last post by the way pretty much sums up my feelings on the game. It *could* be scripted. I'm not convinced ArmA 2 is up to a full AI re-work and by the time one considers a hopeless flight model such as that demonstrated by the Hercules in full flap config, and also the stuttering and far too low view distance especially obvious when flying around the ultimate question for me is... Wouldn't I just be better learning C++ and building from scratch? As it happens I am. One thing this place has and always will have going for it though is how helpful & knowledgeable people are in the off-topic section shown in the replies by Balschiow and others in my recent threads. If I ever need a technical question of almost any form answering I head here first. Some of the C++ forums stink of elite-ism. I also found the OGRE forums and implementation a tad over-whelming. Worth it I think in the end though. I'd have preferred OFP with tidier and more optimised graphics and more scripting commands and possibly even the option to somehow compile code so it ran as fast as the engine code. You could have put that package together several years ago (not bothered with ArmA and ArmA 2) and put a price of £100 on it I'd have bought it if it meant total functionality access and continued developer optimisation of graphics engine. To be frank I think with the community support Bohemia has had I don't know why they didn't even just release an expensive version with the engine code open. Christ this community would have made stuff for them to optimise and improve things and this could have been checked by BIS developers to ensure quality and stuff. So you'd have had loads of work done by the community which users wouldn't have even charged anything for and essentially increased the staff base of the game hundreds of times or more and made this by now the most user interactable and best game of all time. By now if they'd followed that route it could have morphed into a serious platform producing whole game genres like role playing games and stuff as well as military games. Could even have used it to make puzzle games in some bizarre way. Stealth play could have been coded into it by now too. The current format of producing a game as a stand alone product with basically almost unchanged AI (by comparison to where it could be) from the original but with more graphics and gimmicks yet denying users total game access yet also trying to tempt modders to buy it with more and more bolt-on afterwards yet still limited means of editing....... means basically it's got its feet partially in both camps. No good. Either make 1)An uneditable action game (limited appeal) or 2)A fully editable yet unpolished game (not really attractive enough to sell) or 3)Do something novel like above by making it open source and accepting developer approved user made code into the game so as to produce something that can be made into anything - this can very quickly become anything you want it to be. Given I'm mainly interested in making something how I really want it to be, I'm not interested in having to perform keyhole surgery on a half/half action/editable game like this one only to find a whole host of stuff I'd need access to, to make something good is barred from me because the Dev team were too short staffed to be able to include that functionality in the release. Yes I could if I wanted to write a big script which made giving orders to tank crews alot easier with regards to having the tanks actually steer properly and sensibly from commander view, or write code to get AI drivers to avoid collisons much better than they do now etc... but what's the point sinking all that time and effort in; knowing that at some point in the future I'll hit something which is a brick wall - like the setpitch problem in OFP, which completely destroys my scope of making the game what I want. I'm better off going with my own engine, I understand physics engines well enough to develop my own with some good books I've read (Ian Millington's was good) and my education background. Given a year or two I'll be manipulating OGRE/Unity3D well enough and probably have begun to understand collision detection and the like. So by the end what's a serious developer/gamer left with in ArmA 2? Not much really. The chance to add a few very sophisticated bolt-ons to the game which take the form of either yet more ultra sleek addons - said with sincerity not sarcasm - or some fancy scripts to simulate special graphic effects or one time unit behaviour which isn't transferrable to the game as a whole. Adding unit behaviour changing scripts is a waste of time because if you really want a complete solution you need to do it for all unit types in all environments, this means access to standard AI coding for all units, and collision detection and object detection etc..... Making more addons is pointless for me because they'll all still be limited to accessing the game through the same unsatisfying behaviour producing interface no matter how nice they look. Most addons in OFP were never even used in any missions, including some of the really sopisticated ones. I did toy with the idea of using markers placed inside buildings for ofp. A certain marker type for a certain building, which means an AI unit nearby could access the nearest marker and work out where all the buildings walls were and so behave very appropriately. Why bother? I'd have to run this script for every AI unit. Would this be fast enough like the compiled engine code which defaults AI unit behaviour? Unlikely, I'm not sure tho, still it's no way to be having to go about things. So for me it's either done entirely or not at all. The present format is too limiting and frustrating to take seriously.

Ya I would agree OFP at the time to me looked awesome. ArmA1/2 I would have preferred less graphics and much better AI or modd-able AI. I can tell just by playing very little has moved on since OFP in gameplay just some more upgrades no real change to the fundamental principles. To me it seems a dreadful waste. Also I still see poor viewing distance issues and lots of stutter when flying. I do wish a setvector command could be made for OFP. I've been learning OGRE anyways. If I want a game to be what I want then there's a long road ahead :rolleyes: I'm not even criticising BIS they have to make games to an established business model or they are finished. So much more could have happened in the gameplay since 2001 though, and it just hasn't. Anyways I've got nothing left to say ;)

There is an immense amount of wisdom in both these statements. It took me years to understand and be aware of this concept. I would agree exactly. To be honest I don't like ArmA or ArmA 2. Both to me feel like Flashpoint with just better visuals. In ArmA 2's case incredible visuals, the best I've ever played in my life. I've always wanted to program my own game and I agree I would want it to look slightly cartoony to retain the fantasy element (i.e. it's not real life) and also keep system overheads down while focussing most of my time on rock solid playing experience quality. It seems once a game looks too good something changes in the mind and it starts almost to feel bad in some weird way because it's so far advanced the brain is now comparing it to something else. I'd best describe it as saying I'm 100 times more excited looking at a model railway than I am looking at an exact replica of that model in real life 100% scale. Also I see no improvements whatsoever in the AI in ArmA 2 from OFP. It's all visual improvements with some bells and whistles added on. Tanks still crash into each other, there's no inside rendering of vehicles for crew anymore in some vehicles - BMP for example - it just feels hollow to me with hopeless AI but the visuals I could get lost in for days they're so nice. If someone could release a setvector command for OFP or allowed game engine code access I'd have stayed with that to be honest cos I could have done whatever I wanted with it. I really think the time's come for me to get an engine and start making my own stuff outside of the bounds of using other manufacturer's products. Really good post mate ignore the no brainer one-liner put down merchants. Counter Strike kids are sadly where alot of today's market is which is why games always skimp heavily on AI to produce brilliant graphics as this is the only real way for them to operate because otherwise they are running on a business model which is not viable and no company in a capitalist real world can afford to do that. As long as it looks and sounds good and gives good short term satisfaction the CS kids will buy it in droves. You can see that on here there is a clear distinction between intelligent players and players who just like the idea of playing a soldier. It always follows the same pattern. The bright ones get annoyed at seeing something with so much potential under-achieve and try and do things to bring it up to standard through code and the like, whilst the others either just make fancy signatures and do loads of MP playing or make yet more addons to use within a game which does not need any more work done on vehicles but needs work doing on improving the game play experience. Given the considered and generally far superior nature of those with brains - or those that use their brains - they often get very fed up with the attitude and one liner rude comments of those who are less gifted or enlightened at the time due to attitude or younger age or a combination of both. BIS seems always to try to run the fine line by providing something for both uptight teenage internet warriors and genuine serving or ex soldiers whilst also giving something to attract more intellectual players too. I think most of the time however the status quo benefits mainly the less gifted shoot em up players. The brighter lads just get fed up and move on, occasionally dipping back in now and then only to be reminded why they moved on before. Thanks for your post it was really good! ;)

That's great thanks I'm not installing the game till tomorrow I'll try out that command then thnx for the heads up ;)

Hi! Is it possilble to capture user input from a joystick? I know Kegetys made a tool that enabled us to capture user input through key commands. I bought ArmA 2 (arrived today) to give me something to do and I want to look at improving the flight model as a personal hobby. I don't want to try to do anything with an existing vehicle type however as the game's built in flight model will start making planes re-act in relation to its own rules when the user inputs a joystick command. This won't work, I need to capture user input from a joystick, run the changes to the control surfaces (ailerons, elevators) through my own flight model calc engine and produce a resultant change in the vehicles's pitch bank and heading using the vector commands. Anyone any idea how this is done? I know it can be, just not sure how yet. Thanks!

Do you mean: "Hi that's interesting but that'd be best in the editing forums where they'd be more use as it runs the risk of going offtopic :)" Great idea! And seeing as you asked so nicely I might just start a thread there on this particular topic :rolleyes:

Great that sounds far more sophisticated than the horrors of having to use drop arrays to get pitch and bank data like in ofp. What about height above sea level? Does (getpos _unit select 2) return a value above 0 or the terrain height in ArmA 2? In OFP it was the terrain height only.

That makes perfect sense, thanks alot for the reply. What's it like retrieving information on the vehicle's bank and pitch and other data in this game? In OFP days it was a bloody nightmare without access to engine code!

Great thnx! I'm going to buy it today thanks! ;)

Hi quick one chaps, To cut a long story short ArmA was terrible for me. Much worse than OFP I thought. Seems ArmA 2 is getting good reviews and stuff. Having become dis-illusioned with main stream games some years ago, and now also completely tired of Battleground Europe's increasing counter-strike player base attitude and impossible bugs (unplayable) I'm looking for something that'll give me something to do which is more up my street. I'm doing some private learning about coding and the like - game orientated - but that's got nothing to do with this post. I want something where I can do some tests on AI coding concepts and even if possible implement some rudimentary flight simulation. Is ArmA 2 edit-able enough to have complete control over AI units? Does it have good editing functions like OFP and is there a setvector command available so you can do whatever you like with a given unit? If it's up to it I'm going to buy it, thanks ;)

I know it's generally mod-able I've been around since 2002 and written lots of stuff for OFP and made addons too (my own SA-80 and also made the LAW-80 for the first releases of PUKF's stuff). Can anyone answer the specific question being asked with regards is setvector command present like it was in ArmA and does it work for people or just vehicles. The demo just lost con during d/l 1 Gig in aaargghh! Think I'm going to buy it anyway I need something to do now I ain't playing BGE ;)

Hi quick one if you haven't seen this: This looks really big at first. However as was rightly pointed out the boat is side on to the wind which wou can see from the spray with the wave that occurs just before it strikes. Looking at other videos on freak waves this just doesn't seem to have the right profile of a proper freak wave. I think maybe it is either just a wave which is just substantially larger than those around it or... the tail end of a huge freak wave which has broken a few hundred feet away to the right side of the boat. Anyone think the latter suggestion is possible? They were in a suitable sea state for a monster to develop. Was this just a bigger than normal wave or is it possible they were unbelievably lucky and just missed out on a huge steep wave that broke some distance away in the darkness?

Thx Drew I'll download the demo and have a look cheers!

Hi quick one chaps anyone any knowledge on this? I want a reasonable graphics engine to make a game on but I want it to be fast. I've done a bit of research on OGRE and Torque. I hear OGRE is becoming dated which concernes me in the sense does this mean it is too slow? The visual quality of effects does not have to be extraordinary certainly not compared to todays standards. I was thinking of something on par with Novalogic's Delta Force 2 games. That's more than good enough for what I need. Can anyone throw some general advice my way regarding this issue thanks ;)

Balls :( I can still see a way round it actually the game does look rather good enough to warrant the work. I tried breaking up OFP's animations into smaller blocks of 8 I think so they could be stopped alot better at a higher resolution. Does this game have a decent animation editor? I'm not sure I could handle OFPanim all over again! Setpos can be used alongside high res (small translation size) anims but if I remember correctly setpos will set the unit bolt up right at a set point facing whatever dir it was when the command ran. To get really nice control over AI units I'd need to be able to set their pitch and bank and stuff in combination with animations, which leads me tooo... Is there a setvector command and does it/can it work on people? I basically just want a more sophistcated use of my free time than the circus of battleground europe and the dregs of games like far cry variants. Oh and I'm bored of flight sims too so I need a new friend :286:

That's lovely! I'm really interested in the cockpit gauges the most. How tricky is it to write scripts for gauge programming? In Micro Flight Sim there (2002) was a special file that bundled with the plane files which handled gauge programming. How does it work on here? Can you mimic or recreate the same files/methods BIS have used to make them or are tricks needed? Cheers!