sakura_chan

Well i've been trying to get myself motivated to release this but what is really holding me back is the body aft of the wing. The original model is based on the prototype v-22 and somewhere between there and the mv-22b they changed the whole contour of the body behind the wing leading up to the tail. Fixing this up to mv-22b spec will require editing all three layers of textures, the model and the uv maps. Another hurdle is my use of transparent decals for all the markings, which i later learned cannot recieve shadows :( making it look stupid because all the decals will be glowing in the shade. I may have to settle for having all the features work and fix these annoying problems in a later update. As far as I know the detail level is acceptable, the instuments work and the animations and lights are complete. All i really need to do is fix up the copilot seat and instruments and do some cleanup here and there.

I need to make an object that only casts a shadow on the ground but doesn't receive its own shadow. How can I do this?

I was going to post some screenshots but since I had fraps going I made a video instead. watch?v=t5IHh8_BJZA&list=UUuW7yIyjH9Yj6E5TmiHjnDw

Perhaps post your solution?

It might be a long shot, but I've found that using texture types other than _ca or _co can affect the mipmap/blur of textures. I've been able to convert a texture perfectly 1:1 without any blurring but I've forgotten how :) You could also try upscaling the image, if it is a low-res image then resizing it using a pixel rescale would make it appear similar but should reduce the edge bleed that you are getting

In response to wheels not touching the ground, if I remember correctly the solution is to move the wheel_x_x_bound points to the INSIDE of the tire. The actual tire height is determined by the distance between the wheel_x_x_bound point and, I think, the posun wheel_x_x points. Just scale the _bound points inward until it sits correctly. I'm sorry, I actually did put together a fully working example model that had everything that an A3 vehicle could have, including visually damageable wheels, but I didn't quite finish it or post it. I stopped because I thought the A3 sample model would be sufficient.

Is the pilot in the squad's group? Either way he may be trying to land to pick them up again, I've seen this before. It usually means that the soldiers weren't properly separated from the plane, like there is a command telling the game that the soldiers should still try to get back in the plane causing the pilot to return to the nearest airfield.

This is pretty stupid, but what it does is add a doomsday level tide to stratis. Depending on the time/moon the tide will come in and flood stratis completely. Might be good for a laugh. It will generally destroy any existing mission haha because all the guys will be underwater. http://www.sakumods.armaholic.com/Arma3/sakuswimarma/sakuswimarma.pbo it is so small it is just the .pbo

But it doesnt work that way, its not rendering two different points, it is simply warping the red and blue channels of the rendered image. The 3d effect is just an illusion caused by the separate channels when viewed with 3d glasses. There is no way to actually make it work, it is just a coincidental illusion

There are already a few ways to do red/blue 3d in arma, most video cards nowadays can do it out of the box. Arma has a bunch of things that makes 3d mode unplayable though.

Lol this is simply called chromatic aberration and has nothing to do with 3d effects.

oh look an update worthy of April Fools day I spent a few free hours on the hardest to draw, most difficult to animate thing on almost any model: windshield wipers (still missing a few details like the pivot arms and wiper rests) What makes them so difficult is that they are always "off axis" ie rotated at some arbitrary angle. Lining them up on the model is difficult in and of itself, but it is a real pain to animate them for 2 reasons. One, because they are off axis you pretty much have to guess where the axises go and "walk it in" to get them to rotate correctly. Two, wipers move in three axis: the rotating "motor" axis as it goes up and down; the arm's vertical spring loaded axis as the arm follows the uneven curved surface of the wind screen; the wiper blade pivot axis as the actual wiper conforms to the window. It is pretty finicky to line everything up, but ArmA's animation system is pretty robust and I was able to get a fairly decent result. There is a great command in o2 called "look at face" that rotates the view to look directly at a face, which can then be used to rotate an object along its relative axis even if it is off axis in the model. It made lining up the wiper downright easy compared to the repeated trial and error technique. I've been doing a lot of reading and researching on the Osprey, and I have changed or removed almost every detail and animation on the original model at this point. I've also got trackIR working well with it, it is neat to lean over and look down the cargo area behind you, especially when you have a troop load. More later! bee tee dubs: Check out this article, it gives a great impression of what flying an Osprey would feel like. http://breakingdefense.com/2012/09/flying-the-osprey-is-not-dangerous-just-different-veteran-pilo/ Its really interesting about how the center of gravity changes as it switches flight modes. I applied some of the techniques from the article to my flying, and it really helped with my crashing and slow takeoff. basically the trick is to keep the nose up when you accelerate in flight mode, otherwise it just sinks or slows down. Using a rolling landing also makes it easier, if you have the room of course. The Osprey has a plane-based cockpit so there isn't any visibility beneath you. If you have trackIR you can look to the side,there is a small window by your feet that gives you a little better view, but generally I just use the flir.

They will be releasing the karts for real, given the fact that there is already a full kart track on Altis

Glad everyone likes it so far. I have run into a rather nasty problem with the co-pilot seat though. There is some sort of bug that removes engine control from the copilot when the stupid thing is not moving. This means the copilot cannot take off, but if given control mid-flight, everything works. You can still start the engines, so the throttle still works but there seems to be a throttle limit that prevents it from getting enough power to lift off. This is only using "airplaneX" class, switching to "airplane" class fixes the problem. So I am torn between the two simulation classes: AirplaneX class ---------------- Pros -less bouncy ground movement -physics always active so it can be moved by other vehicles and sits correctly on the ground -the 'flaps' act as huge airbrakes that slow down the Osprey due to airplaneX specific flapsFrictionCoef variable Cons -severe stuttering in certain situations, it looks like MP lag. Maybe caused by BIS's separation of the simulated and visual models. After the switch to PhysX this system seems to be broken and causes jumpiness on all 'X' class vehicles -unusable copilot Airplane class ---------------- Pros -always appears to move smoothly -seems slightly more responsive and can ascend more quickly in hover mode -copilot works perfectly -improved ground turning capabilities, it can rotate 360º on the ground without forward speed Cons -fairly bad ground control: bouncy, looks like an RC toy when it lands on an uneven or sloped surface. It seems to have no weight to it. When the rear wheels make contact first, the nose comes down and bounces like a lowrider. -physics are only working when the engines are on or if it is hit with a weapon. Due to the way the landing gear is set up, this means the front wheel is 1/2 ft off the ground at start up. To address some of the above posts: -rotor mounted lights are YES -door window is fixed, as is the whole door system. The osprey's upper door does not open outwards like a hatch, it retracts inwards and then slides upwards, bringing it to the roof behind the cockpit bulkhead -packing animation has been preserved and improved, but there probably won't be a built in option to pack it, due to trolls, AI not being able to use it and the fact that it only works on a Osprey that hasn't had its engine turn. The script will be included for manual use though. -armed version is not impossible but not planned and won't be in the first release for sure.

Here are some pics of it in A3 with mostly finalized materials. The first skin will be "Lady Ace" from VMM-165 the "White Knights" The Osprey is SOOO curvy and sexy :) I've made a lot of changes to the model, adding or moving antennas, adding missing parts to match more recent models. I've added a lot of detail into the shadow lod as well so all the little details pop out more now that they have shadows.

Update! I moved the Osprey over to its own addon folder, which is a HUGE hassle. Because this is going to be an open source addon I took the time to convert everything I could into #define texture paths, so you only have to change one path per file instead of having to change it for each entry. Well the Osprey was actually further along than I realized. I spent some of today working on it and all it really needs is the co-pilot instruments and controls, some damage textures, some config tweaks, and a few missing sounds. I fixed the annoying bug that most ArmA vehicles have that causes the ocean and sky to disappear when viewed through the cockpit windows. Any ideas what liveries I should make? I would like to include the USMC (default), USAF and a 2035 NATO skins. I would like suggestions on actual FGs that I should use.

Haven't touched it in months...maybe I will hand it off to someone else I don't know. Its a pretty boring project at this point, not much motivation to finish it up. It is far enough along though, I may man up and release it. I am really just stuck for sounds and only have tedious little details to work on like animating the co-pilot controls and debugging the cargo ejection. All the lighting and animations are fairly complete, the textures are somewhat ready for reskinning as well. One major annoyance is that I used another one of my mods to quickly get these in-game, but that means I will have to make a new config and re-path the textures to get them to work as a separate addon. I'll keep you guys updated

I did occasionally have trouble getting the inventory from a dead soldier, it has something to do with the ragdoll positioning I believe. Sometimes you would have to find the right angle or position in order to get the command. I might replace the default inventory system with a scripted one at some point. As a temporary solution I could add an option in-game that would give you the option of turning the inventory action on/off. Also, I will add the controls changes in its own addon for the next version. Also, two teaser pics of whats coming in the next version :)

One step ahead haha...the C-130J cant use JATO so its totally unrealistic. There ya go ;) Its still cool and i'll keep it on file incase someone makes an earlier c-130 model

I got the JATO script working, I just used an existing afterburner script and added some vertical lift to it. Somehow the AI has absolutely no trouble with it?! This is ArmA, a trouble free feature just isn't right ;) The AI actually goes nose up and then levels out like in the videos. There was definitely some Thunderstuck blaring in the background on my first JATO heh.

I hate the ArmA2 sounds, and it would be hard to adapt flightsim sounds to arma due to the difference in how they get played. As for the runways, the C-130 has great braking force, it slows down as though it was using reverse thrust. It has no trouble stopping on the smallest grass airfields on Altis. I think the shortest one is in the north-west of Altis just below Ammolofi Bay. If you are careful you only need about 75% of the runway to stop, but you need 200% or more runway to take off at full flaps. Right now, with flaps down, it rotates at 180kph (100 knots). I've read that it is capable of rotating around 75ish knots, and sometimes as fast as 122 knots (225kph). I don't want to make it BF4 instant liftoff, but I don't want it to be unusable on dirt runways without using the JATO every time. The shortest runway only lets me reach 130pkh (70kts), so thats even cutting it close for the JATO.

I did check the dimensions... the length is perfect, the wingspan is about 0.5 - 1 m short. I will fix the inside door as well. I have the JATO effects almost done, I was able to do everything without scripting so far. I configured the system as a rear-facing eight barrel gun, so at launch the player or AI just has to fire the JATO "weapon" once. The main advantage of this is that you don't need any fancy scripting to arm or disarm the JATO, you simply add or remove the ammo. You could also refit the rockets from a supply vehicle or point. It shoots a 500 round burst of ammo, and the neat thing is that it easily handles all the smoke and spark effects because each barrel shoots and can have its own particle effects. The "ammo" will actually hit the ground during takeoff, so it simulates the smoke, sparks and dust that hits the runway. The ammo only "lives" for about 0.1 second so the liftoff effect has a realistic range. I haven't worked on the actual script that will increase the thrust though. One MAJOR problem I'm having is the lack of good sounds. I can "get by" with chopping up youtube audio and I can make loops and stuff, but I don't have any talent* for it and I am somewhat baffled by the sound code. Perhaps some kind soul would like to help out? I just need the sounds for the MV-22, the C-130, the JATO rockets, and the powered ramps and landing gear. Right now the osprey has most of the sounds, the C-130 is completely silent though. If you want to give it a shot just PM me. I would like to capture the bass of the c-130, while the osprey sounds pretty unique and sort of quiet at a distance. *by talent I mean I know what I like, but I don't have the experience or software to modify sounds to my liking.

yeah so I heard you guys like short runways?

Good luck to you, I know anything relating to A3 ships is so frustrating. Its so very brutal to get even the simplest thing to work. Keep us posted!

Just a personal observation...AirplaneX is JUNK. It causes major stuttering in flight, it looks like multiplayer lag almost. Take the buzzard out, do some maneuvers and you will see the wing vapor trail make "dashes" instead of a smooth line. This is because the model is actually jumping around! Also, drop a bomb and watch it fall, it will appear to jerk back and forth all over the place. The bomb is actually doing just fine, it is the plane that is twitching around. It is really bad, if you try to fly in formation in singleplayer the other plane will be clunking and jerking along horribly. The first thing I did in A3 was switch the buzzard back to airplane class.