US Army showcases AB3 - Apache Block II to Block III in video

US Army released video showcasing the new Block III Apache in a virtual training environment.

The video covers in a nutshell...

• Weight reduction
• Improved software upgrade pipeline
• Increased engine power 701-D engines and improved drive system
• Better digital battlefield intergration
• UAV commanding
• IFR certified instruments
• Reliability and servicing improvements
• RFI range triangulation
• Maritime classification
• Awesome new logo

Further reading

C-SCOPE

While Dave is away hopefully keeping his head above water (all those Bear Grylls survival videos should come in handy) I've got not much else to do except worry and get on with my to-do list.

C-SCOPE was something I remember saying wouldn't make it but turned out to be a freebie since everything was available to simply drop it in.

[C-SCP] button on the FCR page overlays FCR target symbols on TADS video and HMD. Makes finding those hard to see vehicles a piece of cake.

C-SCOPE FCR symbols presented on the HMD

ref: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/docs/ah-64-mfp-1-33.htm

The High Action Display is currently getting an update for the ACQ interaction (I've tried really hard to work through what this does and how I can gamify it to make something both usable and understandable by normal people).

Also I'm overjoyed at getting news of our ATC audio recordings and looking forward to playing with that.

Rain Stops Play - Bangkok Floods

Dave who is the artist on Combat-Helo is currently in the process of evacuating his home in Thailand as the floods in Bangkok have made living difficult. With no fresh drinking water for days, no supplies in the shops and place of work closed, services breaking down it's time to jump ship.

Blue indicates server flooding (clearly) Red=flood defence

BBC carries the story here

Dave's last act before evacuating was uploading the latest Chinook work to our server alas there was no time to upload the PSDs. Good luck and fingers crossed we'll hear from you in a week or a month... :(

Don't Panic

Yes Panic.

When you're rushing to get a reasonable build ready for hammering out problems I'm finding I'm making all new problems. Going over the HMD code I realise how badly it needs rebuilding, there are existing elements that need updating, a few new ones that require adding. There's no way to rebuild the HUD in time.

Another problem. LUA in the Apache entity. Works in the first instance, but fails in subsequent entity spawns resulting in the inability to mount the aircraft. It's an issue relating to LUA accessing keys stored in the model. I want to rip out all the LUA code from models except for the model initialisation that puts on pylons and attaches the rotor models. Not much time to deal with that either.

Dual Seat configuration.

The interaction between front and rear seat was not well thought out early enough, instead I opted for a 'duality' where all features could be operated from either seat with just some interface differences. I should have opted for a strict seat A can do xxxx and seat B can only do yyyy. This was a mistake in my attempt to simplify control but ended up introducing more complex logic.

It's not too late to undo this but a difficult process to start. If I have to design this game all over again I think I would probably nail down all of these problems from day one. Hindsight being wonderful.

TrippleHead - lot more pixels to post process, looks great but a GPU strain

Amazing what you can find on the internet today.

Not a Combat-Helo post. I'm engaged in a spot of design and research but was looking for some old material online and found I had left a digital trail pre-dating commercial internet use.

28 Years ago I drew this. I was in high school. Shocking really. I used Z80 machine code to generate the 'impressive' sound and visual effects in this game. *wince*

A lifetime of programming and tinkering, stacks of hard drives of unpublished projects ranging from Spanish school time-table generators to a Black Shark snapshot campaign generator.

Some material I doubt will ever be revived, the Memotech MTX 500 version of Next War was stored on cassette tape, probably oxidised beyond recovery. However the code lives on in other forms, the dynamic campaign system was enhanced and put to some use in a PC build. Some of which will form the backbone of the Combat-Helo campaign. One day I hope to merge the big war game with the Apache simulation and revisit the forgotten Fulda Gap scenario.

More unreleased WWIII fun and games
NATO vs Warsaw Pact at the Fulda Gap

Even my own attempt at producing a self-indulgent comic based on our exploits in the Star Wars Galaxies MMO...(PDF dug out of the old SONY Online game forums).

Even though the game will soon have the plug pulled the footprints we leave behind in the digital space will live on...for a bit.

I've rescued the original PDF and made it available here... Orion Outpost Chronicles part 4 - PDF

Anyway back to work.

Minigame...I mean gun

AD has started some great work on the armaments of the CH47 that will form the first major DLC pack for the full release of Combat-Helo. Each door position will offer a fun interactive activity, usually in the form of throwing out obscene amounts of virtual lead.

For more pictures please see: ADs SimHQ CH-47 blog update thread

Mini-gun, I don't get the mini part though.

Random Pics of the Day

Starting to feel the pressure now. Both the financial and stress factors are weighing in. Doesn't stop me working but it's hard to switch off. On the business side there's a ton of things on the to-do list, it all eats time taken from production.

Spooky, ok so the lip light isn't actually on his mic.
If it was you wouldn't see this.

Boeing sent me a poster back in 2002, this is a homage to that.

This time with the rear seat.

Taking out bad guys without damaging the good guys is a challenge.
Experimenting with simple TSD display and labels.

On top of this I'm studying some Unity material and shader programming. I could use a beer, a real one.