posted 12-18- 06:35 AM               

The model side has been done now, with lots of things now physically modelled to back up the damage model. Each wing is now a complex structure, full of targets for those axis fighters!

The basic wing structure is made up of a spar, which gives the structural support, and the wing sections. The spar is in 3 sections, with each wing a child of the spar. Damage lods arebeing made up on a similar basis to what has been done for the Ki61. Fun bit is, since the wings are childs of the spar, you could shoot out a whole wing middle section, and not lose the wing! The wing sections go when the spar is shot away! A good shot could blow a wing off, or heavy damage, or fire, could be passed along the chain to the spar and burn a wing off, but firijng away at the surface just damages the surface!

Engines are now made up of Nacelle ( child of the spar ), engine, cowl, oil tank. Gear damage etc. results from nacelle hits on the inner pair. Hits to the oil tank will kill the engine in a little while! Still, got 3 more....

Also in the wings, are seperate fuel tanks, each modelled, with a pair of engines feeding from 1 main ( inner ) and 1 reserve ( outer ) Wanted it this way, rather than having 1 tank per engine. Hit the tanks, and fires can result. Since the tanks are also child objects of the spar, damage will be passed to the wing, which can result in total loss of the wing....
Also, the oil coolers in the wing fronts are modelled. Hit these, and your motor will lose power, and may doe altogether from oil loss....Couple this lot up with fire extinguishers, and brake failure, with gear damage to come next, you have a wing-ful of damage effects. The motors / cowls are the ones I re-did for the B17 update, and look 'round'. Old engines are level 2 lods!

Also on the way are killable crew positions, with each gun now a linked to a hidden box that kills the gun when hit too much. Need to find out if you can have a visible object the child of a hidden object, coz this will make things easier!

This will need damage models for crew and turrets, and these are on my 'things to do' list. I also want to try to find a way of triggering red-smoke when you drop the gear after a crew position has been hit. Red flares to signal wounded crewmen!

Hope to have something up and running soon, for limited tests. but...

I have a problem! The plane is causign a CTD, and I am having real trouble pinning it down. The only bits I have changed are the wings so far. Can changing the model tree for the wings cause problems with the root definition of wing objects? Only the old wing parts have wing properties, but the spars etc. are not listed. Also, since a lot of the properties for on-detach etc. haven't been changed yet, could this cause a CTD?

All CTD's are before the game has finished loading 'aircraft' and before it actually starts. Something in there is not good, and I could use some possible ideas on what causes CTD's!

posted 12-18- 09:16 AM               

1. Makes ure all airFoils used are in the startup.ppf file, and they exist in the correct path.
2. Make sure any file references actually exist
3. Make sure the corect parts are refered to in the 'wings etc. prop list on your main root part.
4. Make sure that your control objects point to the correct child part - like ailerons. If these are bad then all is fine until the surface moves, then CTD
5. Check inertia boxes. Make sure that the weight of all combined child parts for any parent part does not add up to more than the parent part. This causes CTD
6. Make sure you have at least 4 airObjects. Any less and the AI will not fly it correctly and will bail out.
7. Bad meshes can cause CTD, I do not know why, and I don't know what makes a mesh "bad" in this way. Make sure your meshes don't have any free floatinfg verts, non-planer polys, or concave polys.
8. Make sure the wheels are correctly stated in the main root part.
9. Make sure damage replacement (or unhiden) models exist as called for or you may get CTD on damage.
10. Make sure that functions and obChildDetach stuff referes to parts that exist.

...and many more

Also, save a version each time you change ANYTHING. This way you can roll back step by step until you find the bug, almost always this makes it easy to find and easy to fix. If you get to far and did not notice a bug, then you camn get into more trouble, so test often, especially the AI!!! Make sure the AI can take off, fly and bomb with it - once the AI gives up it can be very hard to fix.

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-Sv =FC=

WWI in SDOE!

posted 12-18- 02:47 PM               

if your definition of it not happening anymore....

Seems I had hosed my ini file! played with SDOE control before hand, and got it confused between my 2 setups. My fault!

Cleared everything out and re-installed my development install, and it works fine! Need to sort out a few DOF's which get hosed when I use OL to re-model. I really wish there was a cure for this. I think it stems from OL and AC3D moving the centre. You move things back, but the dof values are all out. On the wings, this has blown the gear and the ailerons. Flaps too. A cut'n'paste will sort this out. None of these model parts have been changed.

Framerates were good with the new engines, even up close. Woohoo!

posted 12-18- 07:02 PM               

What key command do you want to use? I suggest "Alt E" it is avalible.

posted 12-19- 05:20 AM               

This is the stuff that makes the game fun! The little touches, like brake failure, fire extinguishers, etc.

I even modelled a few extra trucks for the airfields. An ambulance too! Textures will get slapped on when I get some time.

posted 12-19- 08:49 AM               

It is in the old "B-17 Campaign" that I did. I am looking forward to using that campaign again with your new B-17.

posted 12-19- 03:23 PM               

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