Pic Thread

[Deltapooh]

I'll be using this thread to post new vehicles being added to ATF. The first image is of an CH-47D Chinook I completed today for OIF: Village Attack v1.2. Believe it or not, I was able to get both rotors to turn. Unfortunately, I forgot they don't rotate with the vehicle like turrets. So it's back to the drawing board. If all else fail, I'll have to stick the rotors on the vehicle with no rotation.

Hope everyone has a happy and safe holiday.

[KG_Norad]

Nice!:love:

[Deltapooh]

UH-60L Blackhawk and MH-60K Special Operations helicopter complete. The UH-60L is for Iraqi Village 1.2. The MH-60K is just something I felt like creating. :nuts: I might start releasing just vehicle pieces. I have a number of vehicles completed that are just sitting in folders.

[CPangracs]

Releaseing pieces is fine, Delta, but what about the database build to go with them? There are subtle differences/weapons in each vehicle that should at least be posted here so those who want to use the pieces can build the vehicles in their db.

Just a thought.

[Deltapooh]

Releaseing pieces is fine, Delta, but what about the database build to go with them? There are subtle differences/weapons in each vehicle that should at least be posted here so those who want to use the pieces can build the vehicles in their db.

Just a thought.

Good point. I'll also release detailed information on the vehicles, which will include pk stats already released, which can be copied. I believe every level of protection is already covered. Fine-tuning some stats might be in order though.

[John Osborne]

Good point. I'll also release detailed information on the vehicles, which will include pk stats already released, which can be copied. I believe every level of protection is already covered. Fine-tuning some stats might be in order though.

Also as soon as this Christmass madhouse is over. I will post the pictures and detailed information for the Stryker vehicles. The way it is going it will be most likly around the middle to end of January.


---John

[kbluck]

I've been thinking about the CH-47 for some time, since approximately when you first brought up designing the vehicle, and I've come to the conclusion that it will be impossible to add turning rotors to that piece. The engine simply makes no allowances for dual rotors. In this case, you have to forego a separate rotor for the CH-47 and just draw it directly on the fuselage.

Actually,I've been toying with the idea of using "blurred" rotors anyway. In Photoshop, try modifying your rotor image with "radial blur" effect and provide two such tiles, one rotated 180 degrees. I think it produces a somewhat more convincing illusion of rotor motion. It would also be less noticeable that the CH-47s rotors aren't actually "turning".

The difficulty, of course, is avoiding that darn "rosy glow" of blended mask pixels. It would be nice if the graphics engine understood partial transparency; DirectX certainly can do it, its just not programmed to do so in the game.

--- Kevin

[Deltapooh]

I've been thinking about the CH-47 for some time, since approximately when you first brought up designing the vehicle, and I've come to the conclusion that it will be impossible to add turning rotors to that piece. The engine simply makes no allowances for dual rotors. In this case, you have to forego a separate rotor for the CH-47 and just draw it directly on the fuselage.

Actually,I've been toying with the idea of using "blurred" rotors anyway. In Photoshop, try modifying your rotor image with "radial blur" effect and provide two such tiles, one rotated 180 degrees. I think it produces a somewhat more convincing illusion of rotor motion. It would also be less noticeable that the CH-47s rotors aren't actually "turning".

The difficulty, of course, is avoiding that darn "rosy glow" of blended mask pixels. It would be nice if the graphics engine understood partial transparency; DirectX certainly can do it, its just not programmed to do so in the game.

--- Kevin

Yeah, I've abandoned the ideal. Instead, I just combined the rotorblades.

I would like to see the blending issue, along with picture lag go away. It's managable in game play. However, in scenario editing, it can really be a drag.

[Deltapooh]

I've completed the Air Assault Piece Set which will be used in Village Attack 1.2. All vehicles used in the scenario (accept the helicopters and MLRS) are airmobile.

New Vehicles:

1. HMMWVs have been reworked and given turrets for the M2 .50cal HMG and MK-19 40mm AGL

2. M119A1 105mm given improved piece

3. UH-60L given improved piece

4. CH-47D "Chinook" added

5. "Technical" vehicle with NVS 12.7mm added (including turret)

6. ZPU-4 added

7. Ammunition palettes added

8. Civilians added

9. New sound for M270 MLRS (Thanks to Kbluck)

While the game is designed for air assault operations, I believe players can exercise some restraints to make it work. I'll establish rules for moving vehicles. The ammunition packs can only be moved by helicopter, and can be killed easily.

http://img9.photobucket.com/albums/v25/deltapooh/aaslt_unit.gif

[CPangracs]

Yeah, I've abandoned the ideal. Instead, I just combined the rotorblades.

I would like to see the blending issue, along with picture lag go away. It's managable in game play. However, in scenario editing, it can really be a drag.

The trick for this effect is to initially use a light or white background, do the blurring using about 126 tolerance and "best" quality on the radial blurr, then use the magic wand to select the white in the pic, using a "1 px" tolerance, and delete the selected area after ensuring your background color is set to 255, 0, 255. Switch to the line tool, select the color closest to the "edge" of the blurred area, then draw a line 1 or 2 pixels wide, with antialias OFF, to clean-up the blurred edge. Or, to leave a more blurred edge, leave as is. Make sure you save it as an Indexed BMP.

Merge and copy the first "cross", then paste a new one and rotate it 45 degrees. I think that should work, although I haven't tried it.

Edit: Here's what I did in about 3 minutes using the above. BUT instead of using a white bg, I used a gray bg.

http://www.pangracs.com/Crap/rotorexample.bmp





On another note, Delta, I like your graphics. The overhead shots go well with the maps. Unfortunately, I went a different direction for Raging Tiger, so there is less "action" in the pieces, but more realism and pieces are essentially more easily recognized by sight.

I'm thinking this will look good AND decrease the horsepower needed to run things on an already huge map, as the pieces only have ONE tile each.

[Pat Proctor]

Kb,

Does Curt's technique solve your problem? If not, shoot me an e-mail with a little more detailed description of the change you would like to see...

[Deltapooh]

The trick for this effect is to initially use a light or white background, do the blurring using about 126 tolerance and "best" quality on the radial blurr, then use the magic wand to select the white in the pic, using a "1 px" tolerance, and delete the selected area after ensuring your background color is set to 255, 0, 255. Switch to the line tool, select the color closest to the "edge" of the blurred area, then draw a line 1 or 2 pixels wide, with antialias OFF, to clean-up the blurred edge. Or, to leave a more blurred edge, leave as is. Make sure you save it as an Indexed BMP.

Merge and copy the first "cross", then paste a new one and rotate it 45 degrees. I think that should work, although I haven't tried it.

Edit: Here's what I did in about 3 minutes using the above. BUT instead of using a white bg, I used a gray bg.

Not bad. I'll have to give it a whirl.

On another note, Delta, I like your graphics. The overhead shots go well with the maps. Unfortunately, I went a different direction for Raging Tiger, so there is less "action" in the pieces, but more realism and pieces are essentially more easily recognized by sight.

I'm thinking this will look good AND decrease the horsepower needed to run things on an already huge map, as the pieces only have ONE tile each.

Thanks for the complement. I'm getting better in certain areas, allowing me to be more daring with Photoshop. :D

I was somewhat concerned about how the engine might react to the Korean Pennisula. The game seems to slow down with maps like Bihac, and the Fulda Gap. I was worried the ATF engine would struggle to handle the maps and pieces. So it is likely a better decision to go with single pieces.

[kbluck]

Does Curt's technique solve your problem? If not, shoot me an e-mail with a little more detailed description of the change you would like to see...

I didn't really consider it a problem... I know how to use Photoshop and probably would have come up with something similar if I'd been looking to actually do what I suggested. I was just thinking out loud.

Partial transparency would allow some advanced effects, for example shadows under helicopters. It would also make blurred motion much more realistic. In general, it would make the pieces look nicer, especially at odd rotation anges, because true edge dithering would actually work instead of producing an obnoxious pink border.

My only update to Curt's masterpiece is that I think the blur should only be on one side of the blade, the trailing edges. A good way to do this is to blur it hard so it all whitens up, repaste the original image slightly rotated so it falls onto the "leading edge" of the blur, and use a blur tool (not a filter) to blur the interface between the two.

If partial transparency were available, I'd also make the blur longer, about halfway to the following blade. That would block out a lot of detail below without it, though.

--- Kevin

[CPangracs]

...
My only update to Curt's masterpiece is that I think the blur should only be on one side of the blade, the trailing edges. A good way to do this is to blur it hard so it all whitens up, repaste the original image slightly rotated so it falls onto the "leading edge" of the blur, and use a blur tool (not a filter) to blur the interface between the two.

If partial transparency were available, I'd also make the blur longer, about halfway to the following blade. That would block out a lot of detail below without it, though.

--- Kevin


This is true, but if you take my original concept, then just tke the original rotor blade and past it over with it at the leading edge of each prop graphic, this might give the desired effect.

[Pat Proctor]

After Thunder & Lightning and a few other projects are out of our shop, I plan to overhaul the graphics engine as part of the Air Assault Task Force upgrade. I will take the partial transparency suggestion under advisement.

It is pretty diffcult to do gradient transparency in a single image, though. Usually, transparency is set by image, which will still not solve the problem you are describing.

[kbluck]

It is pretty diffcult to do gradient transparency in a single image, though. Usually, transparency is set by image, which will still not solve the problem you are describing.

I'm not sure what you mean by "set by image". All transparency is set by the state of bits in the image. In current ATF, you've chosen to render a "magic color" as transparent, in lieu of a proper mask. This results in only binary transparency being possible, and probably is in fact the best you can do with solitary Windows BMP bitmaps. Other bitmap formats (PNG and TIFF come immediately to mind) support an "alpha channel" integraged directly into the image, which offers partial transparency (or partial opacity, depending on how you look at it) support without a separate mask image being required. PNG files would also have the advantage of not taking up so much disk space. DirectX, of course, is also capable of taking advantage of the alpha channel. DXSurface, for example, will load a PNG file directly and take advantage of any alpha bits present without any special intervention. (P.S. --- it can also take care of the rotation for you, with nice dithering, rather than bulking up your bitmap with redundant tiles that can't utilize any real edge smoothing.) None of this strikes me as particularly difficult to implement, although depending on your code the legacy design assumptions may cause it to be difficult.

--- Kevin

[Pat Proctor]

To clarify...

DirectDraw, however, will not render the transparency, unless the video card supports the capability (which most do not [i]for DirectDraw). Direct3D and its descendant, DirectGraphics, WILL support gradient transparency and Alpha blending, but I did not use those technologies.

DirectGraphics is one of the things on the list for AATF. I hope to redo the LOS fan using this capability.

[kbluck]

Like I said, legacy design assumptions might cause it to be difficult...

Well, at least you can comismerate with the legions of other developers who eagerly embraced various heavily promoted Microsoft standards, only to have the rug pulled out from under them when the Redmond Horde abruptly decides to go another direction and to hell with all the legacy code out there.

May I suggest OpenGL, if you're going to be porting stuff anyway? :) Or, maybe something like SDL, which is open source and can camouflage all the proprietary dependence from your point of view.

--- Kevin

[kbluck]

As a further aside, for anybody like DP who has the desire to fool with this graphical stuff:

You can simulate translucency to a certain extent by the "stipple" technique. You create a pattern of pixels with various concentrations of the desired color interspersed with pixels in the transparent color. The more transparent pixels in the pattern, the more translucent the image becomes. This is crude, and a bit difficult to do quickly, but it will work with the game as is if you want to try it for something like the blurred rotor blades.

--- Kevin

[Pat Proctor]

Last message first: That is how we did the smoke clouds. In paint shop pro 7, from JASC, you can use a bitmap pattern as a brush. We created a black background and a brush that was just a white and black checker board, with one-pixel squares. Then we chose the brush and applied it with different pressures over the big black image (so that it was lighter in one spot than others). Then we edited the pallet and replaced solid black with the transparent pink-purple color. It turned out, I think, great.

You can see the image yourself. I think it is called "admin_smoke.bmp".

We did the same thing with illum, except in yellow instead of white.

On your first message, we are actually going to convert the engine to DirectGraphics, the successor to Direct3D that first appears in DirectX 8.0.

A subset of DirectX 8.0 is the SDK foundation of the XBOX operating system. Oops. Did I say that? :cheeky:

[kbluck]

On your first message, we are actually going to convert the engine to DirectGraphics, the successor to Direct3D that first appears in DirectX 8.0.

The thing about that is, you'll still be shackled to the whims of Microsoft. How long before they break *that* code just like they broke your DirectDraw code before you even released it? Using a wrapper like SDL, you are insulated from that sort of thing. SDL provides a stable interface, and your code need not be changed in a massive way when the underlying proprietary Microsoft interface changes. Get an updated version of SDL, possibly make some relatively minor tweaks, and you're ready to go with whatever the latest and greatest Microsoft "vision" might be this year.

SDL is also highly portable. There are ports for PS2Linux and Sega Dreamcast, and of course the whole constellation of Linuxes, Unixes, and MacOSes. Microsoft, in their usual proprietary lockdown mode, has made it technically and legally difficult to use outside tools in XBox, unfortunately. Still, if you see game consoles in ATF's future, I think you'll have a much easier time making it happen with SDL than trying to ferret out the myriad of subtle requirements for DirectGraphics to work properly on Windows *and* XBox.

Of course, if you've already made everything else so dependent on MFC that you can't compile with anything but VC++, you're probably stuck with Windows-based platforms, barring a full rewrite. SDL can still insulate you from the evasively maneuvering target that is DirectX, though.

--- Kevin

[Pat Proctor]

e-mail me a link, if you have one, and I will check it out. Have the ported it to DX8

[kbluck]

http://www.libsdl.org

The current stable release is DirectDraw based for 2D, but it might be interesting to see if they've automagically tweaked out the ATI problem somehow. Given the widespread usage of SDL (Neverwinter Nights is perhaps the most famous commercial product), I can't imagine they'd let something like that slide.

The next major release, v.1.3, is going to incorporate dx8-specific advances.

You might also be interested in:

CrystalSpace http://crystal.sourceforge.net
Jet3D http://www.jet3d.com

--- Kevin