New screenshots of the typeVIIc sim

Leif... · Joined: 25 Dec 2001 Posts: 241 Location: Sweden

Got some new screenshots uploaded at
http://w1.510.telia.com/~u51008935/VIIC/The_VIIc_project.html
showing of the nightsky and some of the ships AI in action.

Comments are welcome.

Leif�

TLAM Strike · Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2004 5:49 pm Post subject:

Sweet. I love the idea that you can walk around the ship like in Virtual Sailor. Very Nice.

Drebbel · Posted: Wed Apr 07, 2004 5:09 am Post subject:

The stars look very nice and the shadows of the targets look great !

Are they all in the correct place so they could be used for navigation ?

Deamon · Joined: 30 Apr 2002 Posts: 2302 Location: Germany

This new pics looks very nice,especialy the AI collision stuff looks very interesting,how does it work ?

And where do you take the Sky textures ?

Deamon

Leif... · Joined: 25 Dec 2001 Posts: 241 Location: Sweden

>Are they all in the correct place so they could be used for navigation ?

Sort of, if one locate the North Star and measures the angle to the horizon you will get the correct latitude. Getting the longitude though is a bit more complex and to be honest I don�t really know how to do that, yet. Then again I haven�t implemented any tools to measure the angle with so currently you can�t really use them for navigation.

Leif...

Leif... · Joined: 25 Dec 2001 Posts: 241 Location: Sweden

>This new pics looks very nice,especialy the AI collision stuff
>looks very interesting,how does it work ?

Each ship projects where it will be at a certain time in the future if the ship where to continue with the same speed and course. Then these future positions are checked for a collision. If two ships find that they will collide the situation is evaluated further, is it a head on collision, do I hit from the side, will I hit in front or rear, is the ship coming from my starboard side, am I free to turn left or right, is the other ship disabled and so on. Then according to certain rules one or both ships insert an evasive manoeuvre waypoint and thus avoids the collision. The time they look into the future continually scans from 30 seconds up to 90 seconds.

>And where do you take the Sky textures ?

They are not textures as that would require en enormously large texture or the stars would be blurred. They are plotted as different sized points or sprites depending on their relative magnitude and the position of the sun. (There are several free star catalogues on the net, I�m using the Hipparcos catalog).
The glow from the Milky Way though is a low-resolution handmade texture from a starmap I found on the net. This glow fades in depending on how low the sun is under the horizon, thus you will not see it unless the time of the year and your latitude makes the night dark enough.

Leif�

Seeadler · Joined: 14 Mar 2001 Posts: 1992 Location: Germany

Include a sextant like the old DOS game Pirates, so that we can navigate with these sky objects Very Happy

skriblz · Joined: 10 Jan 2002 Posts: 286 Location: Philadelphia, PA

Love the stars.. and the sunset pic. Mountains look awesome in that.

Sea Demon · Joined: 28 Mar 2004 Posts: 970 Location: USA

All I can say is.....................................WOW. Nice screenshots.

sonar732 · Joined: 03 Jul 2003 Posts: 1358

Leif,

Awesome pictures! Granted...the grey arms on the men are quite funny.

Heibges · Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2004 12:15 am Post subject:

Totally excellent!!!! It will be interesting to see who's project turns out better: yours or Ubi Romania's.

How large are the convoys so far?

Leif... · Joined: 25 Dec 2001 Posts: 241 Location: Sweden

Thanks folks, I�m targeting the largest convoy size possible by the system to be 200 ships. Thus it will be possible to simulate the historically largest convoy run during WWII, which I believe where something like 160 ships.

The largest I�ve tried so far though is 100 ships. But since I don�t have any kind of level of detail (LOD) scheme yet every ship where rendered in full detail and thus the frame rate fell through the floor. This will not be a problem when LOD is implemented though.

Leif�

Heibges · Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2004 11:22 pm Post subject:

i'm sure you would hear no complaints if you had convoys of 50 ships. this would be spectacular to behold.

turnerg · Joined: 18 Jan 2004 Posts: 1088 Location: Dallas, Texas

I clicked the index button and checked out the bismarck picture. you said the bismarck was a lightwave model?
Question
is the bismarck your model, or available for dl? if so, Ive got LW 7.5 and could convert it to 3ds or max so canarb could make it usable for sh2/dc.

If its purchased and copyrighted, then oh well. But otherwise, send me a pm if the model is usable.

Leif... · Joined: 25 Dec 2001 Posts: 241 Location: Sweden

Well I made the Bismarck model some years ago. The problem is that the actual model is stored on a HD that I don�t use anymore, for some reason I have a bunch of HD�s that no longer fit in my computer :/ And I�m currently not that keen on messing with the system. Anyway I made the model with the intention of creating photorealistic pictures so the polygon count is way WAY over what can be handled in real-time environment. Sorry.

Leif...