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Author
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Topic: MH/Mighty.. Open Plane Tools?
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Nat
Pilot
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posted 10-03- 05:32 PM
   
OK, I'm posting here incase it gets missed in a seperate thread in the tech forum.The question is: Where are the Open Plane tools? You gave us SDOE for which we are all eternaly grateful, and even better, you made it open, you designed it to allow and encourage user addons, Wonderful! You gave us no tools, not wonderful at all. I know Unreal and others are also open in that they allow user addons, and hey, they even gave us the tools to do it, so where are our tools? It's great that Hippie and Bryan have made us some, but they shouldn't have to do that, and I'm pretty sure that the tools you guys use are better than those we have, I bet you didn't have such a rough time for instance when building terrains, yes we can do it, no it's not easy, infact, building aircraft is easier. So, after now what, 18 months, are you going to give us the tools we should have been given from the start? ~Nat~ ------------------
7./JG3 "Naturlich"
"SDOE... What and where would you like to fly today?"
Nats FS-SDOE Site</B> IP: Logged |
Condor
Pilot
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posted 10-03- 06:03 PM
Are you refering to tools created specifically by parsoft to help us make planes and flight models and damage models, because there are many tools listed/available under "Hosted Sites" on the main FSIC web page. I hope this helps.Condor out
[This message has been edited by Condor (edited 10-03-2000).] IP: Logged |
Nat
Pilot
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posted 10-03- 06:31 PM
ofcourse specificaly made by Parsoft, as I said above.. well, just read it again, saves me typing the same stuff over.. IP: Logged |
Hippie
Pilot
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posted 10-03- 07:34 PM
Nat,Parsoft used multigen creator to do the
FS terrain and models. Multigen is a very expensive commercial package. MH has made the multigen -> openplane converters
available but you still need to buy multigen
to use them. Hippie. IP: Logged |
Nat
Pilot
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posted 10-03- 07:56 PM
thanks Hippie, it's a start knowing what was used, thats cool, is there a way then of getteing an explination of how the large terrain model was cut up, cause that part baffles me, see it could be that I can build a terrain in Max with some of the plugins that are out there now, but then it needs splitting, would be cool to know how it was done, this might not be something MH knows, but hey, never ask never find out right.
I was also told that MH helped you with info when you built your tools, and that MH gave us OPtools (unbig etc) but I was kinda more expecting tools that we can use similar to OPS but made by Parsoft ofcourse, since a marketing pint of SDOE was being able to build our own addons.. lets face it, without you(hippies) tools and OPS we probably wouldn't have a single addon now.
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Spanky the Mad Dog
Pilot
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posted 10-03- 09:21 PM
Spanky here... Nat I think the official standpoint of inertia is, They supplied a couple tools and the openplane doc, not for us plane makers but for the tool makers to make some tools. One company was going to make one and sell it, I guess they figured the user base to SDOE wasn't large enough to make money off of though. Ah well for all we know it could have sucked eggs AND cost us money.
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Pang
Pilot
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posted 10-03- 10:00 PM
It's crunch time at Inertia guys, check Michaels plan page.
http://lynx.inertiagames.com/~michael/finger.html Just in case no one answers right quick.
Pang IP: Logged |
Pang
Pilot
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posted 10-03- 10:24 PM
...and I'm not quite sure I understand why they owe us all these tools in the first place. Poor ol' Hippy and Bryan, they were dragged kicking and screaming down the developement path, huh?The fact that the code is easy enough to make all these incredible new planes with such individual flight characteristics is using an incredible bit of foresight in my humble opinion. While it wasn't Tolstoy, the documentation for OP pointed us all down the path, and we have some great planes to show for that. Heck, we figured out why the planes wouldn't stall or spin within months, and the FM's have continued to improve. We seem to agree here, at least. I'm not saying some great tools wouldn't be fun, but your tone seems to indicate that you think they somehow let us down, and intended to do it! This is a group of what, like 3 to 5 guys, not Hasbro. They rescued this game from certain obscurity when Activision threatened to trash it before it even came out because they believed in the OpenPlane format. They've put countless hours improving their code, and they've released it here without any hope of revenues, only asking for some feedback in return. I don't understand why we're whining for this now. IP: Logged |
Pang
Pilot
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posted 10-03- 10:27 PM
Sorry, one more...Don't forget that GTT had promised us all some fabulous glitzy dev tools and just faded away into obscurity, either. IP: Logged |
Nat
Pilot
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posted 10-04- 12:58 AM
Yes I do think we were let down, but no I don't think it was intentional, it's just wrong to use the fact that the game was designed for users to build add ons and yet not give us the tools to do so, lets face it, if Hippie and Bryan hadn't have done what they did, where would we be, there simply are no tools given to do what we've done whereas other games supply them, but yes, it's a critisism, late but still, if you're wondering what brought it on it was a post from Bryan explaining about OPS2, and all I could think was thats really cool, but he should "have" to do that, these things should have been packed with the game, since it was partially sold as " flight sim that users could build addons for... but only if you know how to write you're own program to do it cause we're not going to give you one so there :P"It's wrong, thats all, but if there are any "tools" lying around over there in the bottom draw that we could make use of I'd like to have them given out here cause we sure as hell could do with them (not detracting from OPS Bryan) the more helpful progs the better This wasn't really a sim for user addons until some people that could write good programs got into it.. and hell, everyone wants new terrain, yet only 3 or 4 of us have really attempted to create new terrain, and then we've had to use exhisting terrin and "mod" it extensively, believe me, terring is THE most tedious, annoying, slow pain in the ass thankless jobs you could take on in OPS (ok, maybe not thankless  ) Basicaly, OPS/OPS2 is pretty much exactly what we need for aircraft and the likes, but we could do with much more inside info on how terrains were built IP: Logged |
Nat
Pilot
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posted 10-04- 01:20 AM
Hey look, I really don't mean it to sound like I'm stirrin it up here, hey I love SDOE and Open Plane obviously right?So if I sounded harsh, then my appologise to you Micheal, unintentional, just a little frustration at what I/we want to do but don't have the tools or path to get there, and I'm sure you know how that feels. But really if there's anything at all you can give us about the production of terrain it would be a great help, info on the process any small tools etc you know. ~Nat~ IP: Logged |
Bryan Russell
Pilot
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posted 10-04- 01:54 AM
If it's any consolation, the Mg.exe tool parsoft released does do the dicing up of terrain meshes, as well as convert from multigen to aircraft, only problem is that it needs a terrain in the multigen format.The source is there for any enterprising programmer, but be warned, it looks like Activision was getting tight on alphabet budget or something and limited parsoft to one and two letter variable names. Big band the head on table material that. OK maybe not that bad, but still a tough read. The basic concept of the terrain dicing is similar to the way MAX does its slicing thing. Just pick a plane to slice on and then cut any polygons that cross the plane. Actually, is there some way to create a big terrain in MAX and then slice it up using the poly slicing tool? You would still have to line it up, but if you centred each origin of the newly created tile, you could probably procedurally modify the translations in the terrain file. Just a thought...
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Sv
Pilot
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posted 10-04- 09:10 AM
Nat,
Open just means open, it implies nothing about tools. It is better, in the end, for the tools to be made by people other than Inertia. Isn't that the point of an Open system? Now we can do it any way we want, we do not have to do it their way.There is more passion for things of one's own... An Open system is far more powerful than just an included editor, and the work produced by SDOE is final proof that this is indeed true! I hope MH and everyone involved with creating OpenPlane feel a large sense of victory, they have taken a risk and creating something new and wonderful, and it worked! I include the likes of Bryan, Hippie, all the great initial aircraft designers -and us among the ranks of those who have been invloved in creating OpenPlane. We rule  ------------------
-Sv =FC=
WWI in SDOE!
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Nat
Pilot
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posted 10-04- 10:45 AM
Thanks Bryan, I'm still new to Max in that I only really know how to do what I need do, and even then I could do with knowing a bit more! But you've mentioned a couple of things there that are worth me investigating, yes each tile would have to be centerd but only on the XY axis, not the Z or we'll have problems lining up the height, but thanks, I'll really have to look into the Slicing, it's something I didn't know about.SV, I agree, we've done amazing things with Open Plane, and as has often been said, things that weren't ever expected, MH has given alot of help, but I'd hoped that Parsoft might have been a litle more forthcomming, yes I know they didn't have to be, but think about this, if they had given us more help possibly in the way of editing progs, but certainly in the procedures I'm sure we would have learn as much ourselves, but just think how much further on we could have been. Here's a dream... imagine where we could have been with a little more help from Parsoft themselves, and how everybody would look at this game now throughout the Sim comunity, I can honstly imagine that SDOE would still have had bad sales at the start, but would have picked up greatly as we produced a massive inventory of aircraft for every era, with terrains being built for any part of the world we desire, take your A10 up along the Wadi Al Batin (Iraq Saudi border)attacking the hull down T72's, or jump into your Pup and fly out over the trenches, attack the Bismark in your Swordfish after taking off from the Ark Royal at sea.. yeah I know.. but we can do this, we could have done this already. Thanks MH cause you've have been a great help even though we've pissed you off a few times, you've stuck with us, I wish the company itself though had been just as supportive. "I have a dream" IP: Logged |
Sv
Pilot
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posted 10-04- 11:12 AM
In the end, where the real help is needed is in a new patch. The networking bugs of this game are what holds it back.But patching SDOE would not be something for Inertia, they do not own it. But they do own OpenPlane, and that means a better dream would be for a new OpenPlane based flight sim - now this is my dream -Sv IP: Logged |
Nat
Pilot
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posted 10-04- 02:23 PM
maybe a compiled list of Open Plane enhancemants would be a good idea, but then obviously only thoughts/ideas from those of us that actually use it, I know that might sound concieted, but quiet often we get posts on a subject from someone that knws nothing about the subject matter, so I think if all the plane/terrain and ground unit builders posted thoughts on enhancements it would be a good ideaIP: Logged | |
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