Rhet Posted May 15, 1999 Share Posted May 15, 1999 When a vehicle is knocked out does it still retain some semblence of it's original identity? For instance does a knocked out sherman look different from a knocked out stewart? On this same note will there be more than one wreck simulated for each type of vehicle. This is really not much more than gloss but it really is a nice detail. It just kind of gnaws at you when you see five smoldering shermans on the battlefield all with the same turret tilt, drooping gun and the same smoke plume coming from each one. On to more serious matters , on the CM overview page you show an unidentified American tank in a grey color scheme (this coupled with the blockish outline makes it resemble a Tiger Asuf E). Could you change this to be a more greenish color? I ask in that the early German AFV color schemes were greyish. It would aid to nationality recognition if diferent color schemes were used for each major nationality. Example: Americans - Light Green British - Tan Germans - Grey Russians - Brown (Future) Pre June 1940 French - Blue (Future) Again this would only be for unidentified vehicular units. The actual camoflage or color scheme would appear when the unit became identified. This is really easy for me to say (as I would not be coding it) but I think its worth an ask. ------------------ Rhet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted May 15, 1999 Share Posted May 15, 1999 Right now we only have one of two wrecks per vehicle. One busted, the other busted and burning. We really want to get more variety in there, but we have a couple of problems with this, the largest is time. There is no coding in there to break up models, so we either have to code up something or make different models. We already have too many models to make for the time remaining, so... we will try. We made the "mystery" vehciles gray because (at least with West Front) it clashes with all national vehicle colors. Other than that coloring is not relevant. Your vehicles are always visible, so there is no recognition problem. If you see some vehicle with a "?" on it there it is always an enemy. It would be easy to do different textures or models, but textures eat up VRAM (and we have precious little to play with!) and models... see above We are definately hitting the point in time where reality is rearing its ugly head. We have a lot of unfinished work left to do, so doing some of these things might cause us to miss our date. Nobody would be happy about that But the suggestions should still come in because if we feel that something really MUST be addressed we will do it delay or not. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhet Posted May 15, 1999 Author Share Posted May 15, 1999 Steve, I do not think that anyone on this board wants to delay the release date for frivilous reasons. We are flying a little blind on this side of the board in that we don't have a clear picture of the coding that remains to be done. As they say though, even a blind squirel occasionally finds a nut. We will continue to keep the suggestions comming. A quick thought, would it free up any memory and/or reduce the # of polygons if the burning wrecks burnt out after a few turns? The players would still get the initial burning effect for a few turns then, the vehicle could be replaced with a blackened or smoldering wreck with fewer polygons. The smoke could still be maintained for LOS & reality purposes. I would think that this could really help in situations where there are large numbers of vehicles used in the battle. ------------------ Rhet [This message has been edited by Rhet (edited 05-14-99).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted May 15, 1999 Share Posted May 15, 1999 The standard rule is that art is a VRAM hit, while shape is a Frame Rate hit. So what you suggest doesn't fix the basic problem. That is that we need to code something to make the models "torn appart" (for infinate wrecks) or we have to make *new* models that are already pre-blown up (one model per wreck). We are afraid that we won't have time for either. Would like to, so we it is still on our "list", but nothing certain. Also, you can't necessarily save VRAM by having some things go away over time. The VRAM hit happens one per texture, not per use. It costs us nothing in terms of VRAM to have many of the same thing on the screen at the same time. So if you have a burning tank that stops burning after x turns, but some other tank burns out in the mean time, you still have to keep that texture in VRAM. Geeze, it sorta sounds like I know what I am talking about Hehe! Steve [This message has been edited by Big Time Software (edited 05-14-99).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhet Posted May 15, 1999 Author Share Posted May 15, 1999 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Geeze, it sorta sounds like I know what I am talking about Hehe!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Yes it sure does! I can do some pretty cool stuff with Intergraph, Geopak and other engineering software packages but, if I could only code up a tank blowing up my life would be complete. I guess I will just have to live vicariously through you guys. ------------------ Rhet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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