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Author
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Topic: The coolest single addition to SDOE...
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Cpt Farrel
Pilot
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posted 03-28- 04:25 AM
   
...Dirk the mad bomber! It looks so damn "alive" with the pilot moving his head in the cockpit! I'd say it's the coolest addition to just about any sim ever! Is it possible to do more? It would be really cool to be able to use handsignals instead of radio messages in WWI planes...
This might not be very useful, but it gives such a huge boost to the atmosphere of the game. Any more ideas? Cheers! / Cpt Farrel IP: Logged |
juzz
Pilot
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posted 03-28- 05:37 AM
Dirk rules!  Idea: How about an animated bailout sequence for the pilot, like in WW2 Fighters? IP: Logged |
Burkey
Pilot
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posted 03-28- 06:04 AM
Two great ideas here. The hand signal is cool and would be great for WW1. The bail out sequence in SDOE is horrible and something likethat in WW2 Fighters would be fantastic. I think adding little details can increase authenticity very much, and Dirk is a great example of this. See ArgonV's post on Dirk in the WW1 forum for some more pilot ideas..... IP: Logged |
Raider
Pilot
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posted 03-28- 09:25 AM
Thanks guys, Yes hand signals are possible, Zoycite looked at that, but you would have to use large arm movements so you could see them from a distance. (raised arm overhead moving left to right) You could have the following movementsArm raised overhead or extended out to the side
Arm moving back and forth
Arm moving left to right
Arm moving up and down
Arm moving in a circle It would be hard to see unless you are really close. Good idea about the Pilot eject. I have already started working on this. When you eject, as the parachute opens the pilot would reach over his head as if to reach for the control toggles. Or we could just make him flap his arms real hard. I read that originally the pilot had moving joints on eject. But I think they said it killed framerate. I am not sure why, each limb has its own polys now anyway. Zoycite and I are working on a DeadDirk. When he is killed in the cockpit he will slump over with his head down. and thanks to Burkey's suggeston he will jam the stick to the wall and/or mash the rudder. The only problem with animated pilots is that each plane has to have it's own pilot. You can not share one because the DOF must specify it's Parent. I don't know how much if any this may slow down performance. They could however still share the textures as they do now. We will keep you posted on the progress.
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Raider 33rd~GS
[This message has been edited by Raider (edited 03-28-2000).] IP: Logged |
jedi
Pilot
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posted 03-28- 09:29 AM
 I can get him to open the canopy, but "Pappy" says he don't jump outta perfectly good airplanes... ------------------
--jedi-- IP: Logged |
Raider
Pilot
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posted 03-28- 09:43 AM
jedi, you da man...you did it. This is way too cool. Arm slides back the canopy...Cpt Farrel, Pete Hawk (Father of SDOE) is the one that came up with the head tracking. I want to be sure he gets the credit he deserves. This community is really great the way we all share and help each other to make this the best sim out there.
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Raider 33rd~GS IP: Logged |
Burkey
Pilot
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posted 03-28- 01:06 PM
This sounds great Raider, I'm really looking forward to it! Jedi, That looks very cool! [This message has been edited by Burkey (edited 03-28-2000).] IP: Logged |
Nat
Pilot
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posted 03-28- 03:15 PM
awesome Jedi think we're gonna have new pilots SMs soon, the all sing all dancing (and brew making) version!IP: Logged |
Von
Pilot
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posted 03-28- 03:31 PM
That is the coolest thing moving him around like that. Great work to all involved!
Say when you kill Dirk and he slumps over can he grunt or give an audio death spasm.
I always found this satisfying in RB3D knowing you got a kill shot by the sound of his pitiful scream.
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IP: Logged |
Raider
Pilot
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posted 03-28- 10:04 PM
Von, there is an injured.wav and a killed.wav that are normally used when the pilot is killed. We used a different method to kill Dirk that is more reliable but we still have a few bugs to work out.------------------
Raider 33rd~GS IP: Logged |
jedi
Pilot
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posted 03-28- 10:14 PM
The only drawback is that the DOFs used to animate the pilot apparently must use the aircraft model as a parent.That means for an animated pilot, you must make a separate one for EACH plane. The head swiveling, target following feature IS independent of the model, so a single German pilot, for example, would work for all planes that reference it. But if you want that pilot to wave or open his canopy or thumb his nose at his enemy, you have to make a specific pilot for the specific plane. No big deal, but makes for a larger download and a slower process of creating the new pilots. What IS kind of a big deal is that the aircraft model .sm file must reference the CORRECT pilot figure. That means you need to open, edit, and rebuild that part of the file, and THAT might create a mismatch for online play  What we should probably do is get the "surgeons" together and come up with a standard set-up for the pilot figure that can be easily applied to each pilot, make one for each plane, and then modify the aircraft files to use the correct pilot in the next Plane Pack release. Although I guess we could test a couple of plane/pilot combos online to see if they mismatch or not. If not, they're not all that time-consuming to build.
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--jedi-- IP: Logged |
Raider
Pilot
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posted 03-28- 11:00 PM
jedi, I think what most people want is the head tracking. We could use the standard (shared) pilots (just modify their heads with turret properties) and modify the planes loadout.ppf. If this was done on the next plane pack it would not cause online mismatches or add to the files loaded. Only problem may be how the head tracking would look with the hose from the masks. If it looks ok then great, but if not I would take those cool looking masks and forget the head tracking. You are right, to add any animation to the pilot you have to match a pilot to a plane. Although this is easy to do it, if wanted it should be done in a Plane Pack also. Other than your great work with the pilot opening the cockpit, I don't see much need for pilot animation in the WW II planes anyway. You could hardly see a pilot Flip the Bird behind a canopy.  The pilot death we are working on uses a lod switch-in like the damaged wings so this should work with (Shared) pilots as well. ------------------
Raider 33rd~GS IP: Logged |
jedi
Pilot
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posted 03-29- 12:16 AM
Yep, what I've got so far would work fine as a "default" pilot if all that was wanted was the head tracking. The average guy could modify his loadout file easily enough.Pretty sure I could rig up the pilot with the O2 mask without much trouble, and the old default Allied pilot is the same as the Corsair pilot but with different .tifs. I also modified the bailout shape so that the pilot has his arms up on the "risers" instead of hanging down at his sides. Too bad we don't HAVE any risers Maybe something for one of the WWI "guy wire gurus" to tackle? ------------------
--jedi-- IP: Logged |
Spanky the Mad Dog
Pilot
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posted 03-29- 12:24 AM
Spanky here.. K Jedi thats the shit. And your idea about putting the hands on the risers is good too. Lets give him a revolver and let you still be in control.
LOL
IP: Logged |
Raider
Pilot
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posted 03-29- 08:14 AM
LOL jedi, you are getting way ahead of me. Way to go man. I will send you a cleaned up version of Dirk.sm so you can do the same with your pilots. Basically I renamed the RadioGun to HeadTracking and got rid of the hidden gun lod.I have been working on the Dead pilot switch in and it looks good so far but still needs work. jedi, could you send me your bail out pilot I will see if Zoy or nuum have time to add the lines to it. (Really I want it too) Keep going buddy, we will have the best pilots in all the sims. ------------------
Raider 33rd~GS IP: Logged |
jedi
Pilot
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posted 03-29- 09:50 AM
Excellent! I'll add the bailout figure to the model (replaces "torso" if I recall correctly) and send it back to ya. It's basically just Dirk with another arm DOF and altered parachutist.
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--jedi-- IP: Logged |
Jerry
Pilot
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posted 03-29- 11:04 AM
While you're modifying the bailout pilot can we get rid of the damn cigar? IP: Logged |
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