20 replies to this topic

[flyingjock1]

Hi Folks

I was wondering if anyone had a copy of Sarge's Military Macros that he released last year. I have tried Sarge's website and unfortunately the URL for the zip download was "not found".

I realise that Sarge has been very unwell and would like to wish him all the best from across the big pond. It is a dedicated man who will carry try and carry out his hobby whilst lying in his hospital bed.

Weve never met Sarge, but if you read this, keep your chin up and you'll get there. Youve got so many friends on here from all over the globe.

Take care.

Tom

[IBtheSarge]

Thanks for the good wishes; unfortunately, while I was horizontal, the Check Six! forum MySql database went down.  The previous packages were removed due to redesign of the objects.

There will be two (or more) new packages forthcoming -- at least one each of military-related objects and civilian-related objects.  These are primarily buildings.  Each zip will contain:  a small JPG of the object (source), an API file (for use with placement programs like FSSC), an SCA file, a LibObj file, and the necessary textures if other than the default FS9 textures.

Military Package(s) will contain:  taxi-in fighter, bomber, and transport maintenance hangars built to specs for each type of aircraft; two (or more) BOQ/BAQ quadrangles; fire/crash rescue (both closed bays and two "drive-in" bays), CSG complex, CES complex, SPS complex, Base Operations and Control Tower, JP-4/Jet A-1 bulk storage tanks, at least one MAC terminal, munitions storage igloo, hardened and soft aircraft flow-thru shelters, warehouses, and others.

Civilian Package(s) will contain:  ILS transmitter site, NDB transmitter site, VOR/DME/TACAN facility, warehouses, two (or more) terminals, taxi-in maintenance hangars for GA and Commercial aircraft, two or more control towers, fire/crash/rescue facility, and others.

Terminals will NOT have jetways; by doing so, I would be forcing you into my idea of what your parking set-up should look like at that terminal and which size aircraft could park where.  Runway 12 Object Placer has a sufficient number and variety of jetways that can be added once you have determined your parking set-up.

When they are ready, they will be uploaded as "selectware" -- only available from sites I select, which will be limited to my site, FS2004.com file library, and possibly the AVSim file library.  Check Six! Designs (under the J&L Enterprises umbrella) will hold all copyrights and intellectual property rights to the packages and the individual objects contained in them.  Still FreeWare, but still with copyrights deriving from the designer's efforts.

[IBtheSarge]

Sample screen captures:

Wing Hq & Staff facility, or Weapons Center complex (for large bases) -- comes with chainlink fencing, guard shack/ECP, and a centered stand for the flagpole (search AVSim for animated flag/flagpole by Jeff Stanyer)


BOQ/BAQ quadrangle, style 1


Civil Engineering complex -- with chainlink fencing


Bomber Taxi-In Maintenance Hangar -- tested with B-1, B-2 and B-52

[flyingjock1]

Hi Sarge

Thanx for the quick response. Your new api look excellent and i cant wait till you get round to releasing them. Am very new to scenery design and am planning to contribute something back to the hobby which has caused my dear wife to become another Fs2004 widow lol.  Take care and keep up the good work.

Tom

[IBtheSarge]

flyingjock1, on Oct 30 2005, 11:53 AM, said:

Hi Sarge

Thanx for the quick response. Your new api look excellent and i cant wait till you get round to releasing them. Am very new to scenery design and am planning to contribute something back to the hobby which has caused my dear wife to become another Fs2004 widow lol.  Take care and keep up the good work.

Tom

Thanks.  The objects are as framerate friendly as I can get them; there are NO extraneous polygons and each is generally in the 3? - 6? polygon range, including the complexes like CES, SPS, and the BOQs/BAQs.  A combined Base Ops/Control Tower comes in at 71 polygons because of the tubular construction I had to use and the four antenna atop the CT's roof.  A mobile GCA comes in just a bit over 100 polygons because of (again) the tubular construction for the wheels.


My T-hangars to reopen Pease AFB and Plattsburgh AFB are in the 100 polygon range and have textures taken from photos of the real hangars; ditto with the "Mole Hole" for both bases.  There are two different munitions storage igloos -- one is a basic igloo, concrete covered; the other is a complex igloo with natural terrain covering that changes as the seasons change.  (The "Mole Hole" also changes earth-covering textures as the seasons change.)


Naturally, the complex versions have more polygons; but, if you use XML to place them, FS9 only loads the initial set of polygons no matter how many copies of the object you place in the scenery.  It might get a little intense if you use placement programs like FSSC since those programs load a complete set of polygons into memory for EACH COPY of the object that is placed.  In those cases, just do a representation of the scenery (3 or 4 igloos instead of 12).  I'm not absolutely certain how Runway 12 does it, but I believe it's an XML based placement program so the polygon savings should be there, also.

[IBtheSarge]

Anyone need a munitions trailer?

Couldn't keep this one below the century mark ... it comes in at 146 polygons.  (Textures to be added later today/tomorrow)  Also working on a whole range of munitions that it can carry, including AGM's, AIM's, CBU's, GBU's, AMRAAM's, SRAM's, and a lot of dumb iron.

(Don't send requests yet; it'll be part of the military objects package.   )

Edited by sarge, 10 November 2005 - 10:16 AM.

[TechnicolorYawn]

You know you could get rid of 96 polys (24 per wheel) just by changing from 16 sides to 12 sides for the wheels.

[IBtheSarge]

TechnicolorYawn, on Nov 10 2005, 11:27 AM, said:

You know you could get rid of 96 polys (24 per wheel) just by changing from 16 sides to 12 sides for the wheels.

Hmmm ... 4 wheels, save 4 polys by cutting 16 to 12 .... that's only 16 polys saved.  (I don't do multiple sections; the tubes are 16x1 or 8x1 or 12x1.  If I cut the 16x1 to 12x1, that would only save 4 polys per wheel.)  But that is a DEFINITE alteration and will drop the total to 130 polys.  And, because the trailer is so low to the ground, it's unlikely that the sides of the wheels facing into the trailer will ever be visible -- that's another 4 polys that can be eliminated; down to 126 now.

[TechnicolorYawn]

Working it out now, I get 64....

For one wheel, 4 from both ends, which makes 8, plus 2x4 for the polys taken off the edges (one square is 2 triangle polys), making 16 per wheel, and 64 less for the whole trolley.

[IBtheSarge]

TechnicolorYawn, on Nov 10 2005, 12:17 PM, said:

Working it out now, I get 64....
For one wheel, 4 from both ends, which makes 8, plus 2x4 for the polys taken off the edges (one square is 2 triangle polys), making 16 per wheel, and 64 less for the whole trolley.

I make the wheels using a tube on the Z-axis that is created with 16 sections (8 per side of the tube) that is 1 polygon per section (16x1).  That's 16 polygons, plus 1 for the right side and 1 for the left side, for a total of 18 polygons per wheel.  x4 wheels = 72 wheel polygons


If I change it to 12x1:

I save 4 polygons per wheel (14 vs. 18), x4 wheels = 56 wheel polygons.  Savings going from 16x1 to 12x1 is 16 polygons.


Exaggerated tube as an example:

Edited by sarge, 10 November 2005 - 02:40 PM.

[enterprise134]

Looks cool.

[TechnicolorYawn]

It doesn't work quite like that. Any polygon that is more than 3 sides is split into several polygons that have 3 sides each. So those sides, although they are displayed as one 16-sided polygon, they are actually rendered as 15 3 sided polygons. The same with the tube sections. They will be split into 2 three sided polys, making 32 polys for the tube.

So what you have actually looks more like this:

Edited by TechnicolorYawn, 10 November 2005 - 04:16 PM.

[IBtheSarge]

TechnicolorYawn, on Nov 10 2005, 05:07 PM, said:

It doesn't work quite like that. Any polygon that is more than 3 sides is split into several polygons that have 3 sides each. So those sides, although they are displayed as one 16-sided polygon, they are actually rendered as 15 3 sided polygons. The same with the tube sections. They will be split into 2 three sided polys, making 32 polys for the tube.

Not in FSDS2 .... that little box in the center of the screen captures?  That's the total polygon count for that object.  18 in the first shot -- 16 one-sided polygons to form the length of the tube, and one polygon for each end.  FSDS2 does not render "sided" polygons, just a geometric shape that has only one side; there are no other sides to texturize or manipulate.  If you switch to "point" view of a single polygon, there are only 4 points - top right, top left, bottom left, bottom right.

Each of those 16 polygons that make up the tube are single-sided; if you didn't close off the ends, and flipped the image around to look down the tube, there would be no polygons around the circumference.  In fact, to texturize the inside of a tube in FSDS2 (like the eye on the tow bar), you have to copy/paste an exact duplicate of the tube right on top of the original tube, then go to "poly" mode for the duplicate and flip the polygons to face inside.

That's why when I create a surface that sits flat on the terrain, I can't use a polygon (single sided); I have to create a box (six sided) and delete the left, right, front, back and bottom polygons.  If I use just a simple polygon, there is no opposite surface to block the default terrain from trying to represent, and that's what causes "flashing" of the surface I'm trying to place.  With the box minus 5 sides, FS9 still reads it as a box and presents the texture on the top surface as priority over the default terrain texture.

[TechnicolorYawn]

Interesting.. I always thought polys with more than 3 sides were split into lots of 3 sided ones. I wonder if all modern games use this method for optimisation reasons? I started 3D design about 10 years ago, and you could only ever work with 3 sided polys - if you made a 4 sided one in the editor, it would be split into 3 sided ones once you exported it.

I may just be behind the times...

I'll also have to find out if the box thing works in Gmax too. I have a feeling it won't, as a box with the sides and bottom removed is indidtinguishable from a plane in Gmax. Certainly I'm going to have to experiment. Possibly make a 'proper' tube with the multi-sided polys, and a 'complex' one made up of entirely 3 sided polys, and make 2 sceneries, one with loads of copies of one, and one with loads of copies of the other. If this is right, then one should be noticeably slower than the other.

Edited by TechnicolorYawn, 10 November 2005 - 05:05 PM.

[IBtheSarge]

TechnicolorYawn, on Nov 10 2005, 06:01 PM, said:

Interesting.. I always thought polys with more than 3 sides were split into lots of 3 sided ones. I wonder if all modern games use this method for optimisation reasons? I started 3D design about 10 years ago, and you could only ever work with 3 sided polys - if you made a 4 sided one in the editor, it would be split into 3 sided ones once you exported it.

I may just be behind the times...

I'll also have to find out if the box thing works in Gmax too. I have a feeling it won't, as a box with the sides and bottom removed is indidtinguishable from a plane in Gmax. Certainly I'm going to have to experiment. Possibly make a 'proper' tube with the multi-sided polys, and a 'complex' one made up of entirely 3 sided polys, and make 2 sceneries, one with loads of copies of one, and one with loads of copies of the other. If this is right, then one should be noticeably slower than the other.

The only "detailed" information I've been able to find about how FSDS2 treats polys and boxes is this:

Polygons are single-sided surfaces with only 4 vertices (points).  A six-sided box has 8 vertices (points) shared between the six sides.  If you remove a surface (polygon) of the box, there are still 8 vertices, but only 5 texturable surfaces.  As you remove more and more surfaces there are fewer and fewer polygons to texturize, but the 8 vertices remain (just invisible).

FS9 sees the vertices but only loads/draws the surfaces that remain, assigning a higher priority to the called-out texture, so that any conflicting default textures are suppressed.  In the case of a polygon, however, FS9 sees the 4 vertices and single surface; since it isn't a solid object (which I'm guessing FS9 needs to see more than 4 vertices to consider it a "solid" object), it gets the same priority as the underlying default texture and "flashing" can result, sometimes even if the Zbias has been adjusted to "1" rather than the default "0".  Why flashing occurs with adjusted Zbias, and why its an inconsistent occurrence in FS9, has never been explained; it may well be something internal to FS9's coding that sometimes accepts the new Zbias and sometimes doesn't.  The coding guess would be my guess as well, since it also happens when the underlying surface is an AFCAD-called texture, which is supposed to be a non-layered presentation.

Edited by sarge, 10 November 2005 - 06:37 PM.

[TechnicolorYawn]

Ah right - the vertices/surfaces thing doesn't really work that way with Gmax, probably as its a more general 3D editor, rather than being FS specific. Gmax will treat every object as just a collection of vertices joined up to make surfaces, no matter what the primitive shape you started with. It sounds like FSDS2 remembers what shape you originally used, and part of that original shape is tied to the object you make, no matter what shape it ends up in.
If I create a box, it will be the standard 8 vertices, with 6 4-sided polys. If I delete one surface, then I still have the 8 vertices as they are all part of the remaining 5 surfaces. If I delete a surface that would leave a vertex that is 'hanging' - not attached to any other surface, then Gmax gives me the option of deleting it or keeping it. I can also create just vertices on their own and then join them up to make a surface later (This is how I make all my ground polys).
Zbias has to be add manually when you create a material before assigning it to an object. All materials have a zbias of 0 by default.

[IBtheSarge]

TechnicolorYawn, on Nov 11 2005, 03:52 AM, said:

Zbias has to be add manually when you create a material before assigning it to an object. All materials have a zbias of 0 by default.

In the FSDS2 "Object Properties" box, there's an option to change the Zbias (which I've done numerous times).  For some unexplained reason, though, it's a "hit or miss" deal -- sometimes FS9 will recognize the changed value and no flashing occurs, other times it's as though I didn't do a thing to it.    I've even decompiled the object code and, sure enough, the changed value has always been there, so it isn't FSDS2 failing to pick up the change.

I may have to explore this oddity further once I'm finished with the first three airbases.

[TechnicolorYawn]

I don't know how much it applies to FSDS2, but I've found from looking at various forums that the FS2004 version of the makemdl routine for exporting mdl files is hopeless at producing ground polys - no matter how good you get it, you will always get a bit of flash. The version supplied with FS2002 is much better, producing ground polys with no flashing effects at all. You need to tweak the mdl file slightly but the final effect is much better.

Search for 'ground polys' on http://www.scenerydesign.org for more as I can't explain it very well...

[IBtheSarge]

TechnicolorYawn, on Nov 11 2005, 09:11 AM, said:

as I can't explain it very well...

Really?  Coulda fooled ME!!!!  

Thanks for the link; will check it out.  

[IBtheSarge]

Preview:  Munitions Trailer with Mk-82 bomb and nose fuze extender



Now there are but two questions I have to resolve:

a.  Do I assemble the 146 polygon trailer + three 98 polygon bombs (440 polygons total) and THEN place the object; or,

b.  Do I place the 146 polygon trailer then place the three bombs on it individually?

Also considering two polygon-saving steps:

a.  The tire texture is a square, photo centered on a black (transparent) background.  Instead of four 16x1 tubes with the texture applied, can I get away with a five-sided box (bottom polygon removed), apply the full texture to front and back of the box, and a segment of the tire on the left, right and top polys?  That would save 52 polygons on the trailer.

b.  Remove the fuze and fuze extender from the bomb (and reduce the polygon count).  Fuzes and extenders aren't installed on the bombs during movement from the Weapons Storage Area (WSA) to the flightline; they installed just before load-up or after load-up.