Anybody be intrested in this

[stiz]

that does look good. 1 tip though you should texture as you go along because your gonna love going through all those tubes again  :P

I had a word doc somewhere on me PC that had a list of everything that was going to be included but i cant find it quickly and i'm in a bit of a rush so i'll copy and paste it into a new post later if i can find it.

Stiz

[Hagar]

Just a quick comment on the frame rate issue. After a lot of experimenting we've found that multi-LOD models are the way to go for all aircraft used in missions. Where possible most of the Fox Four aircraft have now been updated to multi-LOD. Providing you have the original source files, poly count can be reduced considerably with a little thought & the extra models are easily added once you understand the principle. Collin has done the same with his ships & nobody could say they're not highly detailed. The improvement in frame rates is dramatic & makes those furball type missions possible even on low-end systems.

Highly complex visual models are very nice to look at but this makes them very graphics intensive. When you're in combat all you're likely to see of the Player aircraft is the DVC if it has one. You won't get close enough to the AI aircraft to notice small details. The ideal is one model for both Player & AI aircraft. This is not always possible & if necessary you can create special low poly unflyable AI drones without a DVC & all the other bells & whistles.

PS. To save time we tried updating a couple of our old CFS1 AI Only drones for our new Red Star campaign. This works very well as being comparatively simple visual models these are far less graphics intensive than FSDS2 or Gmax models. This works fine for jets but might not be ideal for WWI aircraft as the animated prop disks will not display. They obviously don't have breaking parts or a DVC. Here's a shot of the ex CFS1 F-84E drone during testing of the DP. The MiG 15 is Fang's latest multi-LOD Player aircraft with full DVC & breaking parts.

[stiz]

Yes Hagar i think that the LOD way of things is better except for the large bombers like the Zepplines and the HP 0/400

--

Heres the whole word doc.

WW1 add-on

Planes

Allied
Airco DH.2 (have front and side views)
Avro 504C + 504K (have 3 views)
Bristol F.2B
HP0_400 (have 3 views)
Nieuport 17
R.A.F SE5A (have 3 views)
Sopwith Triplane + Camel (started)
Spad VIII

Axis
Albatros Dva
Fokker Eindecker + DRI (started) + DVII (have 3 views) + DVIII (have low quallity 3 views)
Halberstadt CI.II (have 3 views)
S-S DIII (have 3 views)
Zepplin Airship + Staaken R6 (have 3 views)

Scenery

Allied
Le-Mines
Artois

Axis
Cambrai
Lagincourt
Burgge

Other
New ground textures - so that the area round the trenches has more of an European look (partially done)
The trenches

[Hagar]

Yes Hagar i think that the LOD way of things is better except for the large bombers like the Zepplines and the HP 0/400

Why not large bombers & Zepps? Collin's ships are bigger than both & making them multi-LOD increased frame rates dramatically.

If I was doing this I would choose a couple from your list to use as Player aircraft & create your own fully flyable versions with multi-LOD models & DVC as you wish. Depending on how much time you have there are existing CFS1 versions of most of the others. These are very small files & could be easily converted for use as AI Only drones for your missions. AI Only drones don't need panel or sound providing the folders are left intact so removing these could make them even smaller. Some might need the AIR files tweaking to perform properly in CFS2 as AI aircraft. The DP files might also need updating. They all have fixed gear so the only missing animation in AI would be the transparent prop disks. I've tried a couple in QC & that doesn't seem a problem. Of course, you should seek permission from the authors to use them but if it's done properly I can't see them objecting. These can always be replaced with your own versions when you have the time to do it.

You or someone else could create basic AI Only versions of aircraft you can't find. This would take less time than fully flyable versions with all the bells & whistles & allows you to get on with other aspects of the campaign. If this is an ongoing project these can always be replaced with flyable versions later. This is the way we do it at Fox Four.

[stiz]

Depending on how much time you have

I'm not in any rush  :)

As for the LOD on the bigger aircraft it was just an idea..never occurded to me that collins ships are bigger  :P

Stiz

[Staiduk]

Just curious - what's 'Multi-LOD'?

[Stratobat]

Just curious - what's 'Multi-LOD'?

Please correct me if I'm wrong on this, but Multi-LOD (Level of Detail) basically, from my understanding, means that you make a few models of the same aircraft in whatever design program you use so that as you zoom in and out, various levels of detail are shown to increase the framerates.

Regards,
Stratobat

[Hagar]

Please correct me if I'm wrong on this, but Multi-LOD (Level of Detail) basically, from my understanding, means that you make a few models of the same aircraft in whatever design program you use so that as you zoom in and out, various levels of detail are shown to increase the framerates.

Regards,
Stratobat

Basically correct. The M$ default aircraft are Multi-LOD (Multiple Level of Detail) - sometimes known as Multi-Resolution -

[Mathias]

Allow me to add a little correction.
multi LODing is possible since FSDS1.4 if I recall it right which was available since late 2000, just most modellers didn't see the need to bother with it
The first community multi LOD plane was Joe Amodea's and Jorge Alsina's P-40, some of the oldhands may remember, Defense of Australia if that rings a bell

Whatever, FSDS cheats when it comes to counting triangles, actually it counts just poligons, regardless of how many triangles these persist.
Having said that you can double the results of the FSDS poligon counter and you are close to the true results, mind you, each game render engine deals with triangles, that's what counts and what sucks the fps.
As a side effect many of the older FSDS birds are way beyond budget without the designer really being aware of it.
Other trap is the famous self-cheating (I'm guilty, too, LOL).One tends to leave out this one badly needed LOD level, or makes the other one yet with a way too high polycount, the possibilities are endless.
Why all that talk?
You can have good detail in the main model in CFS2 but make shure to follow the LODing guidelines and your plane will work flawless fps wise, there is really no need to mess with AI planes.
Feasable guidelines would be fairly as follows:

LOD_100 = 7000 - 20000 (whatever you think) triangles
LOD_90 = 3500  triangles
LOD_70 = 1500 - 2000 triangles
LOD_50 = 500 triangles
LOD_25 = 150 - 200 triangles
LOD_5 = 10 - 25 triangles

[Falcon500]

well stiz it seems u have a small platoon or ?squadron? anyway i think someone should have a site that we can work things out. lol or give eachother email adresses so we can console.

[Stratobat]

Like the Yak, Hagar (Are there any Docs out there about Multi-lodding?)

Falcon's got a nice idea with the Website/ E-mail (Not sure where to find hosting though)

Regards,
Stratobat

[Hagar]

Like the Yak, Hagar (Are there any Docs out there about Multi-lodding?)

Thanks but it's very basic. As Mathias mentioned, Joe Amodea & Jorge Alsina pioneered the multi-LOD concept with the help of other developers including Louis Sinclair the FSDS developer & members of the CFS2 development team. Their P-40 was the first 3rd party multi-LOD model I ever saw. (This also had the first DVC with functional gauges so was a real breakthrough.)

[Threadkiller]

that does look good. 1 tip though you should texture as you go along because your gonna love going through all those tubes again  :P

thnx, hahaha for the tubes and stuff, ive seen in pictures that they were of a matte finnish, so im gonna start fiddling with the material definitions so i save on textures...i will texture the seat, floor boards and all the big parts.

i already have the textures assigned for most of the fuselage areas...im in the process of cutting the wholes in the cowling. lemme know if you reallly need this plane for the campy

[Staiduk]

Thanks for the explanation.
Hagar; that Low-detail model looks about as complex as I'm capable of building.

On the missions front; just letting you all know RH and I are banging a few ideas off one another - we can firm plans a lot better once the devs produce scenery and airplanes. (But no pressure! LOL!!!)

[stiz]

lol Staiduk