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[Stainless]

Well I'm finding a lot of problems I wasn't expecting.

The msh files from the game include surface normals, but they are wrong. You can see on the screen shot of the B17 G some parts of the mesh are lit incorrectly.

You can see in the plan view that the middle section of the fuselage has the hi-light on the opposite side to the nose and tail.

This makes me think the original game didn't actually use the surface normals.

I am also going to need help from you guys. When I am a little further along I will post some of the GUI graphics here. These are graphics I have drawn, and hence are shit.

I'll need some of you guys to rework them to make everything look perty.

I also want to write a high quality renderer, and for this I will need someone to mod the mods, adding things like normal maps, displacement maps, specular maps, maybe reflection maps, illumination maps, god knows what.

Anyway, my next task is to import a map from here and use it to generate a whole landscape.

[glynn007]

I am willing to help with the perty GUI bits if I can.

[Stainless]

Cool.

Anyone who helps out will get their name in the game and can put a game credit in their CV.

It's not much, but since it's a free game, I don't have any budget for anything else.

[Maty12]

Stainless, I know it might be too late to suggest a feature, but I suggest 3 difficulties:
Arcade: Crosshairs and bombsight in external view, full controls
Realistic: Those do not appear unless in cockpit view
Simulator: You can use the mouse to move the stuff in the cockpit. You know, clicking and dragging. If a certain key is pushed, the new selection is added and both are controlled (Useful for throttle, prop pitch, etc)
Just brainstorming here.

[Ass Eagle]

Skinning help, no problem. What format will the skins be? .dds? Hope so. Mips makes everything easier, prettier.

[Stainless]

Skinning help, no problem. What format will the skins be? .dds? Hope so. Mips makes everything easier, prettier.

I can add support for DDS no problem, I am supporting the same file formats used in IL2 as well though. I want you to be able to just drop a mod from here into the game when it comes to the 3D side of the game.

The animation and flight model will be different though. Everything is done in C#. This means you can do live modding. Pause the game, edit the C# file. Un-pause and test.

[Stainless]

Stainless, I know it might be too late to suggest a feature, but I suggest 3 difficulties:
Arcade: Crosshairs and bombsight in external view, full controls
Realistic: Those do not appear unless in cockpit view
Simulator: You can use the mouse to move the stuff in the cockpit. You know, clicking and dragging. If a certain key is pushed, the new selection is added and both are controlled (Useful for throttle, prop pitch, etc)
Just brainstorming here.

Yes I am designing for multiple levels of realism.

When it comes to the cockpit, I have a "zoom" mode. This allows you to design 2D high detail cockpit panels with working switch gear. All of the panels, key mapping, and clickable regions are moddable.

You put them in your aircraft's C# file and they work. Simple as that.

I will give full examples and common classes so you can put them together easily.

[Ass Eagle]

Skinning help, no problem. What format will the skins be? .dds? Hope so. Mips makes everything easier, prettier.

I can add support for DDS no problem, I am supporting the same file formats used in IL2 as well though. I want you to be able to just drop a mod from here into the game when it comes to the 3D side of the game.

The animation and flight model will be different though. Everything is done in C#. This means you can do live modding. Pause the game, edit the C# file. Un-pause and test.

Brilliant! I love the idea of say, taking my FXEvolution pack and dropping it into another game with relative ease. If youR skins are in a DDS format, count me in a thousand fold. A standard canopy Spitfire Mk.14e LF in DDS format is my dream come true! hint..

[Maty12]

Another suggestion: When selecting the aircraft, another list pops up showing that aircraft's variants. When one is selected, a screen pops up to use field mods. Ex:

B-17>
B-24>
B-25v
  B-25A>
  B-25B>
  B-25C>
  B-25D>
  B-25G>
  B-25H>
  B-25Jv
    Nose v
      Greenhouse (J-1); 2x .50 cals
      Greenhouse (J-20); 3x .50 cals
      Solid Nose (J-22); 8x .50 cals
    Ordnance v
      Empty
      Default
      12x 100 lb bombs
      8x 250 lb bombs
      4x 500 lb bombs
      2x 1000 lb bombs
      10x 100 + 1x 1000 lb bombs
      6x 500 lb bombs
      3x 1000 lb bombs
    Fuel v
      Full Tank
      1/2 Tank
      1/4 Tank
      Empty

[Stainless]

That's a long way down the line.

Today was a good day.  I have lot's of code spread around in several projects and it was getting annoying.

So I have started writing a test flight app. This pulls all the various bits of the code into a single place for testing and refining flight models.

The display is a 3D view of the aircraft with several cameras, the main one being a chase camera. I have wired in all the flight control systems and attached them to the animation code.

So when you move the control services you see them move on the aircraft, and they are passed on to the flight dynamics model.

In effect you can fly the aircraft in a safe environment. No terrain to crash into, no one shooting back.

The app records a hell of a lot of flight data and saves them to disk. So you can do standard flight tests and record the data and then check them against real world figures.

Should make tweaking flight models a lot easier 

I am defining control systems as I go along.

So I currently have things like ...

Direct<system>                e.g.    DirectElevatorControl       Direct connection between pilot control and system
Kinematic<system>           e.g.    KinematicFlapsControl      Time delayed system for things like gear and flaps
Dynamic<system>             e.g.    DynamicRudderControl     System that is situation dependent. Typically takes a value scaled by mach number

All of these have per airframe variables. So making a new aircraft flight control system is simply a case of getting values for these variables and adding the correct types of controls to the airframe.

Bit like lego

When I've got it fully working I'll stick it on line and you can try porting your flight models from here to my system, you can use the same meshes and the animation code is virtually identical, just not in java.

[Stainless]

I know it's not much to look at, but it's exciting for me.

I now have all the basic flight control systems wired into the flight dynamic model.

Very close to first flight now.

[Tran Long]

Awesome job!