[Stealth[cro]]

Okay, here's the general idea. I have a mod/near-TC on my mind and I'm still brainstorming over it. Basically, I'd attempt creating (or just send my ideas to someone who is willing to do it) a quasi-atmospheric flight game out of FS. FS2_open engine, modified weapons, new ships, the usual. If anyone's played M$ Crimson Skies, that's kind-of the idea.

The problem is (aside from the fact I still have to do some reading on modelling and all ) that, IIRC, FS2_open doesn't have movement-dependent model changes. Translated, if I bank my ship left, no ailerons will move, if I pull "up" or "down", the elevators and/or the engine submodel (in case the ship has Thrust-vectoring) won't budge.

Is there any way to make this work? If not, is there any chance this might appearn in revision 3.7 or some such?

[kasperl]

AFAIK and IIRC, i think not. the FS source wasn;t made to this kind off stuff, really. also, if you are thinking seriously about this, you might want to note that moddeling one ship is hard, but modeling an entire atmospheric fleet is insane. also, gravity isn't implementable in this engine.

note, please, that i am no coder and these facts could be wrong. but i have been around quite long now, and these are the standard answers IIRC.

[Lightspeed]

You didnt read what he was asking for.

He was asking for WC-style movement-dependant subobjects.

I.e. you have an 'engine pod' which will move around with your ship. Just like air stabilizers and the like.

[Stealth[cro]]

Gravity isn't an issue here - I said it'd be quasi-atmospheric flight. Nobody mentioned anything about gravity

Thus spoke kasperl:
...moddeling one ship is hard, but modeling an entire atmospheric fleet is insane. also, gravity isn't implementable in this engine.

Yes, I know just how hard it is to model anything. I've been fiddling with Bryce for some time, and since that thing has no vertex-per-vertex modelling... you get the drift. Booleans kill people.

Of course, I wouldn't do it all by myself, though I already have the schematics for the ships - after all, russian plane schematics aren't that hard to come by (some export companies actually have them available for download, not to mention fansites), and somehow I hope the same will hold true for USNAF and other planes. I don't suppose anyone would try dogfighting in a MiG-29K?

Lightspeed: Exactly my idea. I'm talking about modern jets here - air stabilizers won't add much to the game itself, but more like an eyecandy of sorts

[Flipside]

Maybe there could be something that links with the engine glow vectors, but is limited to a single axis, and is limited at a certain angle, so a hard right on the throttle, would cause the right 'Stabiliser' will move at the same angle as the thrusters?
The only problem would be limiting the angle so that both stabilisers work, but they don't move 'inside' the hull on opposite sides, if that makes any sense?

Flipside

[mikhael]

Among other things, the POF format doesn't allow for animation channels beyond simple rotation. You might want to look into something like Flux (I-war2's engine) for this. Source is not available though.

[Lightspeed]

yet it would be possible.

you could calculate the degrees the subobject with the percentage the axis is turned and rotate it that way.

I think it would be pretty complicated to code, though.

[Kamikaze]

If Kazan's uber-engine project gets going, that may give you the means. With the current engine, it'd be hard to impossible.

[Goober5000]

This is another example of non-coders having no idea how much work it takes to add a feature.

The infrastructure for this is in place already, and I could probably have this coded in an afternoon.  Not until after 3.6, though.

[Kamikaze]

[Taristin]

That's thrice, now.

[mikhael]

Originally posted by Goober5000
This is another example of non-coders having no idea how much work it takes to add a feature.

The infrastructure for this is in place already, and I could probably have this coded in an afternoon.  Not until after 3.6, though.

How basic would it be, Goob? I'm interested in seeing something like what I-war2 has: complex motion based on channels (Ie, things triggered by player firing primary, firing secondary, pitching, banking, yawing, accellerating or decellerating, dropping a counter measure, triggering communications, triggering docking... IE: anything the player can do can be trapped and tied to an animation event). Animations is defined, in this case, as firing of special effects (afterburners cones or trails, glowing engine bits) geometry changes to the model over time (with reversal of those changes on a reversed curve, etc), appearance and disappearance of subobjects, etc.

[Stealth[cro]]

Originally posted by Goober5000
This is another example of non-coders having no idea how much work it takes to add a feature.

 So very true... I know, the idea is a bit far-fetched.
Seriously, I didn't expect you people to jump on the idea right away, more like gnaw on it for a while first... though, the sooner it gets implemented, the better!

mikhael - sub-objects tied to keypresses would be very nice - for one, that'd finally let some weapons have a kickback effect on the cannon barrels. That even goes in regular FS2 - if memory serves, a Maxim cannon still acts like a mass driver. If it fires solid slugs, it should at least give some barrel recoil.

[Goober5000]

Essentially, when I set up the lock-rotating-subsystem and free-rotating-subsystem sexps, I took a look at the subsystem code.  It's very easy to start and stop rotation in response to various events.  All that would be needed is to tie subsystem rotation to various keypresses.

It doesn't mean that it would be simple to actually use, though.  Take an aileron for example.  You'd have to specify the aileron as a rotating subobject in the POF file.  Then you'd have to specify the speed, direction, and maximum amount of rotation.  Then you'd have to specify what triggers the rotation (banking, in this case).  And there'd be no way to scale the amount of rotation to the amount of bank.  But at the basic level, it's doable.

[mikhael]

What about non-rotational motions, Goob? And why link it to SEXPs? That limits animations to mission based events.

[kasperl]

what i have suggested before was a table based system, that would add certain SEXPs in a mission, the moment the model is put into the mission. the designer could then change the SEXP's at will, and a modder could include standard stuff in the table.

but, read the siggy, i am talking out of my ass here.

[Goober5000]

mikhael: It doesn't have to be linked to sexps.  I could add a hook to link it to any AI behavior or motion.  As for non-rotational motion, if it can be represented by a rotation or partial rotation, it's doable.  If not, well... the infrastructure for that is not in place, so that probably won't get done.

[phreak]

you can always script it using the properties box in the pof editors where you specify turret rotation and such

Code: [Select]


$rotational axis: (0=x, 1=y, 2=z)
$maximum angle:
$max speed:
$bind to:


[Goober5000]

That's how I did the spinning barrels thing for primary weapons fire.

Code: [Select]

$pbank =

[Trivial Psychic]

Something like this could also do well for the SW conversion, with "s" foils and all.  Would this system also allow swing doors on the hangar of a ship or instellation?  I realize that sliding doors are something all-together different, but would the swing doors work?

Later!