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Author	Topic: B-17 Upgrades?
Hawk JAG	posted 08-04- 10:38 AM Is there any interest in upgrading the B-17. Adding more detail, engine starting smoke, crewmembers in place, in cockpit enhancements, ect. All this could be added so one could use the standard B-17 or the enhanced for off-line use. ------------------ Hawk http://rcwarbirds.com/ IP: Logged
wakeup tailgunner Pilot	posted 08-04- 11:06 AM YES THERE IS Already working on some of those things Getting engine start up smoke already, but it's not finished. Working on damage modelling for engines, learning as I go. I want to model the people too. I have made a rough 'gunner' and a 'dead gunner' ...well, actually I nicked some quake frames..... Just need to work out how to get these to unhide on damage and move with the guns. The idea is that if you man a gun position and look around, you won't feel quite so alone! I made a blood spattered glass lod too, which I want to unhide when a turret cops it. If you are looking for a prtner in crime to work on this, Step forward one tailgunner. I'm just learning this damage model stuff, but I am keen to get stuck into this. IP: Logged
Whirlwind Pilot	posted 08-04- 11:24 AM To keep things interesting, gunner, I tried increasing my current project's engine obHits to 600, and reducing the engine percent damage levels to 1,2,4 (currently they are 1,4,9 or something) and it doesn't seem to affect anything at all. Darn prop keeps getting knocked off at the slightest ammount of damage... IP: Logged
Flash Gordon Pilot	posted 08-04- 12:09 PM Hey, that's cool that gunner's are being added. Whenever I manned the guns on the old B-17G and looked around, it was sort of eerie seeing as how the damn plane was completely empty - I felt like I was on a doomed ghost plane or something...also sitting the pilot's seat and looking to the right at where my co-pilot should have been was strange - oh well, I guess he took a break to go to the head or something. IP: Logged
bighog Cadet	posted 08-04- 02:43 PM I havent play this in a while but I'm back playing and I can't load or have the options of loading diferents bombs ordenance. Also when an engine is on fire, Do we have extinguishers? Don't think so. One more thing, online can other players join on one plane in diferent guns positions? IP: Logged
wakeup tailgunner Pilot	posted 08-04- 03:28 PM Unfortunately, to man the positions in online as a team will have to wait until B17II pops out of the woodwork. Still, this should make things a little better if I can make the gunners look half decent without ruining the framerates!. Can't show what I've done so far, because screenshots don't seem to work. Produces a bitmap image that can't be opened. Oh well. IP: Logged
Aladar Pilot	posted 08-04- 03:43 PM Tailgunner, I have that same problem too, but know how to fix it! Take a screenshot, open it in windows paint, save it as a jpeg, then go to your quality paint program, do what ever you need (cropping or whatever) then save it as a gif. There you go!! ------------------ "Don't move, if we scatter, he'll pick us off! Stand Together!"~~Aladar Thats 24 times to see Disneys Dinosaur and counting!! IP: Logged
Hawk JAG	posted 08-04- 06:09 PM Great news guys. Crew members would be fun to see. I am glad things are being considered for the old girl. I would like to see a real detailed version for off line use, to heck with frame rates. Hawk IP: Logged
FarmerJoe Pilot	posted 08-05- 01:04 AM I would love to help someone with this...The modelling and everything! Damage modelling is always hard..Trying to figure out how many hits and object should take. Just let me know! ------------------ Subaltern FarmerJoe Axis West Three Amigo IP: Logged
wakeup tailgunner Pilot	posted 08-05- 08:14 AM People live in my B17's ( well waist gunners anyway )I have a dilemma now. I don't know whether to leave them as static people, or try to avoid the problem of people clipping through the fuse. Watch this space. I'm an offline player myself, living in the UK the timezone thing gets me... IP: Logged
wakeup tailgunner Pilot	posted 08-05- 08:50 AM Big thanks to ArgonV, Scrrenshots now functional! Need to set up a homepage with someone other than Xoom now..... IP: Logged
ArgonV Pilot	posted 08-05- 03:31 PM Wakeup, go to tripod.com They have 50 MB of free space to post screen shots from. If you still cant post screen shots of the B-17, send them over and I'll post them here. IP: Logged
FarmerJoe Pilot	posted 08-06- 12:51 AM Hey tailgunner do you need any help with the modelling? I would love to make a model of the B-17 that is highly detailed =) As matter of fact I will redo the nose area of the b-17 and send it to you and you can tell me how you like it. Mmmkay ------------------ Subaltern FarmerJoe Axis West Three Amigo IP: Logged
wakeup tailgunner Pilot	posted 08-06- 08:39 AM Any help from anywhere always welcome! Have got reasonable results now with waist gunners. Rebuilt the gun lod to include a gunner. Only prob with that is when you look backwards, you don't see much! Need to play with the viewpoint some. Have had some problems with OL and AC3D. Seems the B17 uses a lot of memory and causes some odd errors. Had the DOF's for the turret guns moving at different rates onone build! Switching to plan B - Doing the work in pieces. Texturing is a struggle with AC3D for this model. There are 70+ textures used for the B17. AC3D seems to stop at 36! Don't know why the builders di dthis, since most are small ones. I would prefer to map many objects from a larger texture. Frame rate issue maybe? IP: Logged
wakeup tailgunner Pilot	posted 08-06- 09:22 AM damn double post....I posted this five minutes ago, and the update didn't show... Still, lets use the space anyway.... When I get a page set up on Tripod, I have some screenshots of what I've done. I'll get em posted. Watch this space [This message has been edited by wakeup tailgunner (edited 08-06-2000).] IP: Logged
ArgonV Pilot	posted 08-06- 12:50 PM Here are the screen shots of the updated B-17 wakeup tailgunner sent me. Kewl eh? I made them brighter so everyone could see them with out turning up their monitor brightness. [This message has been edited by ArgonV (edited 08-06-2000).] IP: Logged
Hawk JAG	posted 08-06- 02:26 PM Very cool! This is exciting. We could make this B-17 as good as that other one that will maybe someday come out. Our old girl is looking better! IP: Logged
wakeup tailgunner Pilot	posted 08-06- 02:41 PM Thanks again to ArgonV for posting my progress shots! Texture on the gunner may need to be re-done. It's relatively small (64 x 64) so the detail blurs close-up. To fix the 'head through the plane' problem I'll play with the switchin distances. Are they in feet? If I set it to 5 feet, you'll not likely see them. Next step will be a tailgunner (naturally) though he won't be visible really. It's the principle. The damage modelling comes next. I want to give these gunners obhits and I have a 'corpse' to unhide. Since the gun is part of the figure, when it gets detached along with the gun position, no gun. Still a way to go, but I like it so far! IP: Logged
Aladar Pilot	posted 08-06- 04:19 PM Hey, could you send that to me so I can check how multiple bodys work?? IP: Logged
FarmerJoe Pilot	posted 08-06- 11:33 PM That looks beautiful! I couldn't help but notice though that the pilot has some "faceted" edges to it and it doesn't look very smooth. If you send that .sm file to me at jameso@cdsnet.com I will make the gunner's model look smoother. The way graphics work in computer games is by only allowing so many polygons to appear in a "scene" I know for Halflife this number is 3,000 at a time or maybe 30,000...Well It won't hurt to have these airmen modelled realisticaly, have two lods for each airman, (One lod having a low Switchin Value "The highly detailed lod", then the other lod has a highter Switchin Value and that would be the low detail lod. ------------------ Subaltern FarmerJoe Axis West Three Amigo IP: Logged
Falck Pilot	posted 08-06- 11:36 PM Maybe I should actually get around to trying to model the norden for it someday instead of the bombsight we currently have. IP: Logged
wakeup tailgunner Pilot	posted 08-07- 03:46 AM I'll post you the gunner LOD when I get in tonight...6pm British time, and feel free to detail him up. There are a few other things I want to fix for Mr Gunner, which while you're there you may want to tidy up. some bits of the .50 calibre are messed up. I wasn't going to fix them until I had everything else sorted. Also, the texture. It was pinched from another pilot, but is only a 64 x 64. This does not help. The texture needs to hold more detail and definition. Perhaps if you do a more detailed figure, a new texture would set it off nicely IP: Logged
FarmerJoe Pilot	posted 08-08- 10:57 PM I need you to post me the .lod and .obj please...Sometimes OPS doesn't like lods too much. I started smoothing out the "pilot" models for the pilot and co-pilot in the b-17. Yeah I was thinking the same for texture files...We could really go off and have a 256x256 for the gun or just stick to a 128x128 would be more better. But for the gunner I believe I am gonna go 256x256 on him...That way when you take that glance over your shoulder it'll seem like your in that damned plane =). Also I might be able to get some pictures of gunner in b-17s in WW2 and use them to make the textures file the gunners =)...Give it a real nice 32 bit touch...to bad SDOE doesn't support 72 bit that'd look sweet...Well later guys ------------------ Subaltern FarmerJoe Axis West Three Amigo IP: Logged
FarmerJoe Pilot	posted 08-08- 11:56 PM Also I just thought up an idea! Okay your having problems with the gunner's head going threw the roof right? Well those gunners were usually a certain height...Remember like they needed small people for the ball turret. Well We need to either shorten the models or bend them over as if they are lookin out the window for a target Just a thought ------------------ Subaltern FarmerJoe Axis West Three Amigo IP: Logged
wakeup tailgunner Pilot	posted 08-09- 03:32 AM I could list the things that have happened in the last day or two, but I'd run out of room! As a taster, busted throttle cable on the moto Guzzi, trapped nerve in my neck, wife's birthday, 3 weeks (proper) work down the pan coz management moved the goalposts.... Left me very little time to do anything. Still, it'll be in the mail tonight, along with the top turret gunner....he looks better. Looked at the amount of space those waist gunners had....not a lot for real! Made the man 10% smaller, and the clipping is less noticable. His feet still tend to disappear, but with a low switchin value, this doesn't look too bad outside. What I want to do is to make the high level LOD look 'right', but give it a really low switchin. 2nd level LOD should be small enough to avoid clipping, but still switchin around 20-30 feet. Any less and you can't see them from the pilot position. Current LOD model is good enough for 2nd level LOD. Tailgunner is sorted now, but since you can only see him from outside, and he had no room to move anyway, he was easy! Not sure what to do about the radio operator and his gun. At his post or manning the gun? Also, do you have any pics of the top turret which show the gunners seat/stand etc. Something must hold him up, but I have no pics of how it looked. Finally, there is the nose...... Bombardier is easy enough, but, again, what about the navigators gun and the spare flexi gun in the nose? On top of all that, now that I've had a look at Laika's DM'ing on the Pe2, I have some cracking stuff to try out on the B17! Three cheers for Laika, THE dm man! IP: Logged
FarmerJoe Pilot	posted 08-09- 03:43 AM The top turret gunner on a b-17 stood upright in a turret. His shoulders went under some metal brackets and he manned the guns standing up. That should be hard to fix if clipping is happening. I can sort that out with Max rightquick. ------------------ Subaltern FarmerJoe Axis West Three Amigo IP: Logged
Hawk JAG	posted 08-09- 10:12 AM You guys are the greatest! New damage modeling, wow! Crew! What else, how about the smoke on startup ala P-47? IP: Logged
wakeup tailgunner Pilot	posted 08-09- 12:42 PM smoke on startup......coming right up! IP: Logged
wakeup tailgunner Pilot	posted 08-10- 03:32 AM Yep, smoke on startup working. Needs some adjustment to get it going fully the way I want it. It's just a cut and paste of the P47 at the moment (credit where credit is due) and I want to add more smoke. Watched the startup sequences from 'Memphis Belle' for reference, and there was quite a lot of smoke kicked out. Have to work on that! IP: Logged
Whirlwind Pilot	posted 08-10- 08:30 AM As of last night, I am looking forward to having the crew being able to bail out. Especially since no one bails out when the pilot gets killed. I hate loosing experience crews IP: Logged
FarmerJoe Pilot	posted 08-11- 01:47 AM Man funny that you should mention the thought of all the crew being able to bail out. I know it can be attained but how? If the bomber gets shot in half, then only half the people are going to bail out because the other half can no longer accept commands. But in the tail section you could have onDetached obDetach all the crew positions right? But then what about the parachutes? Are those automatically delt with when a pilot model is "detached"? I never really messed with crew positions as I have mentioned before...So I was just stating the above in case someone over looked it Oh and btw the modelling is coming along superbly on the gunner LODs this baby is gonna be sweet! ------------------ Subaltern FarmerJoe Axis West Three Amigo IP: Logged
wakeup tailgunner Pilot	posted 08-11- 04:04 AM Update on B17 so far....... Farmer Joe has the gunner models well in hand judging from his post, and things are moving nicely at my end too. 1) Smoke on startup in placeand looking better 2) Damage modelling much improved. Modelled it on Laika's Pe2, but seem to be having some problems with unhiding a damaged engine. Will look into that next week. Gonna be away for the weekend! 3) Put in a basic bombadier, crouched over his bomb-sight , added a radio op. seated at his post. It was going to be way to messy to put these people in their guns. This might change, I can't see a way of solving the problem for the front guys. There will be no way to put a navigator on his gun, with the bombadier manning his too. No room to move! Still, they look good as they are. When I get the models from Farmer Joe, I will replace the LOD's I have with good ones. I want to add damage modelling to the Gunners themselves, detaching them when killed. If I can get this to work, we should have proper loss of firepower when crew get hit. P.S. Had great fun testing the damage modelling, shooting up B17's on the airfield a parked plane! The engines smoke, burn sometimes, but don't blow the wing off! If you want to blow off a wing, shoot the wing! Anyway, when they are moving, you can't be as precise as I was. Also, the prop doesn't just fly of now. IP: Logged
Whirlwind Pilot	posted 08-11- 08:35 AM I've been looking (not too intensly yet) at how to keep the prop on after the engine gets hosed. How did you do it? IP: Logged
wakeup tailgunner Pilot	posted 08-11- 08:48 AM I 'borrowed' the DM from Laika's Pe2, which seems to be the way to go. Rather than causing explosions right away, his approach is to degrade engine performance and fuel consumption to take out the engines. More and more smoke is called, with mall explosions right at the end. It seems to be the 'rapid explosion' of the original DM that blew the prop off. Obhits on the prop is 2000 while the engine was only 50/60. Mine is now 125 for the engine. Also, rather than blowing it up, I am changing it to unhide a damage LOD showing a wrecked motor. The prop goes eventually, but only when the motor goes. This is unchanged, it just happened to quick. Can't get the unhide bit to work just yet, never tried it before, so it's probably something I'm not doing right..... When it works, on engine destruction, make the damage LOD an engine with bullet holes + a mangled prop. Have the prop disappear on detach when the damage lod unhides. Job done! IP: Logged
Whirlwind Pilot	posted 08-11- 09:18 AM Hmm.... I forgot about that explosion thingy. I've had engine performance degradation on the 17 for a while (probably not as granular as LK's or tested ), but since flak is it's greatest threat, I rarely saw it take effect. I have seen oil smoke coming from a real picture of a B-29 and the plume appears to expand to 2x the diameter of the engine nacel. IP: Logged
wakeup tailgunner Pilot	posted 08-11- 01:00 PM I figured flak would take the wing out anyway,the DM on the engines is for the benefit of people who like to try shooting up a B17! There is only si far you can go with an exisitng model without all but starting from scratch. But, with gunners in place, a more intresting DM and some tweaks to the existing model, it should start to look a little better. Then, armed with a few select B17 bits + a new model I've started (big fanfare....) A B24 I know what a bitch bombers are to work on. A fighter is hard enough, but the sheer complexity of these big birds is a real pain. Makes me realise why so many people have tried and lost heart. ( B24, Stirling, Betty) The interestign bits take no time at all, then there is hours of drudgery with internal bits and pieces, gun positions, DOF's to align, viewpoints to set...... IP: Logged
Whirlwind Pilot	posted 08-11- 01:11 PM If you need pit pictures for the B24, B17, etc, try the WPAF Museum web page www.wpaf.af.mil They also have some shots and stories about 'Little Miss Behavin'" (the B24 that disappeared in the Libian desert, found in 1954, crew found much later). Picts and cockpit views of the Allison powered B-17 and B-29. Good page. IP: Logged
FarmerJoe Pilot	posted 08-12- 03:32 AM Welp I finished the pilot models...Need to texture them now! First before I start the texturing. Should the nose be polygons or a texture file? Since when you look over from the pilot position toward the co-pilot position if the nose is made out of polygons then it will look like a nose. If I leave it as is then his face looks like it has a nose but without definition. NURBS is a BITCH!!! But I'm nippin right on the ass So lets take a vote...Polygoned nose or non-polygoned nose? ------------------ Subaltern FarmerJoe Axis West Three Amigo IP: Logged
wakeup tailgunner Pilot	posted 08-14- 03:37 AM Polygons - no question. If you've taken the trouble to make the model look good from every other angle..... At worst, it'sa few extra polygons for the game to play with. With detailed crew models in the plane, this won't make a lot of difference. Unless you want to model nostrils etc.... IP: Logged
FarmerJoe Pilot	posted 08-14- 04:17 AM I already made them with noses now =) The polygon count on the pilot models are leaning more toward 3k polygons. It looks so nice...I send you some pics of the model so far tailgunner...Whirlwind your site didn't work that you posted BTW bubby. Hey tailgunner we need to find some pics on the uniforms the gunners wore so we can make some better texture files. Oh yeah and another question...Do I need to model masks on all the "aircrew" models or just leave them as faces? I totally forgot about the masks. On the pilot models I left the legs and everything below them alone...I only worked with the portion that you will see when you look over at him from either of the pilot views. I am trying to make a texture file going off of a screenshot for b172 but it's being a pain in the ass. I am gonna try to just have a regular texture file zoom in really close in 3d Studio and render the scene to a .tif file edit with the shadows from max's shadow system and then use that rendered scene file to make a shaded texture file. Well I am trying to do that, but I can't seem to be satisfied with the way his face turns out I also need to figure out a way to just have one texture file for his whole head. I guess I could use a 128x128 for his head and have the front,side,and back just mirror the same side onto the other side. His ears have to go though...I am going to put those big ole headphones they wore in their place instead. I haven't figured out if I am going to model the headphones or just make them a texture file. Need a little feedback there too. So yall just give me some feedback that way I know how much futher to push it...I don't think people without 3d cards are going to be able to use this mod without it lagging the computer down...Hehe that's cool! IP: Logged

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