Tuesday, 15 March 2011

Ground crew arming at night

In case some of you have suggestions for this, here's a little problem. At night, arming looks like this....


It's not exactly safe, can't see bog all. What I propose is to add some 'crew lights' when the stores are laid out. AD looked at light stands of different types but they are unsafe to use around helicopters. He's putting together a model of some solar lights that crew can position around the work area.

With shadows it sort of looks like this...


And this...


Which looks ok with shadows, powerful light sources with shadows eat FPS, without the extra shadow detail it looks a bit flat like this...



It's better than nothing and we'll try and make it look a little neater. My main concern is probable shadow z-fighting on larger maps.

9 comments:

  1. Well I'm glad you like how it's coming along. Polishing is something that happens towards to end of a project but we're pushing it a little as we've stepped up the schedule.

    We can certainly do better.

    I fixed the shadow artefacts you can see in the above screens by increasing the shadow-map size. Really need another rig here with an ATI setup to check it over.

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  2. Hi Flexman
    You and your team make a big job! Looks realy good! But i mis a little detail on the fuselage - where is the "cablecutter" on the underside, neer the gun?
    Go forward and thanks for your job.

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  3. Hey Flex, what about a NVG view for night ops, or a simulated red filter headlamp?

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  4. First, I wanted to propose some kind of BW screen with noise,...you know, like in news or NVG view, but this looks veeery nice.

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  5. Perhaps you could look up how it's done in reallife? I'd assume they'd re-arm at night too in reallife, or have plans for it anyway.

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  6. I made a hugely exciting 'Avlite AV425-RF' to light the flight line. Rick will probably post some pics soon me thinks.

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  7. There's a pic in the next blog update that's scheduled to go up in about 10 mins. It's not taken at night though :)

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  8. 10 minutes? You must be joking. If people don't get to see an Avlite AV425-RF in the next 2-3 minutes there will be a riot, minimum.

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  9. I would add: I listened to what might be done in theater, as well reading Ed Macy's references to this in his books.

    It depends on what tactical light discipline is in effect. So I thought about it and decided to stick with comfort. That is; being able to see clearly what you are doing. I think there's more pleasure to be had in seeing these helicopters and ordnance in dramatic lighting conditions than using a red LED headband.

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