Today is December 22nd and the final VTE ArmA release development is not even near of the status I hoped it would be for Christmas release.
It was my goal to get VTE released for Christmas and definitely during 2009, but honestly looking at the current build and my TODO list... I'd say we cant even make it for 2009 any longer. So...
There is not going to be VTE release for Christmas.
Sorry that the final release development has gotten out of hand like this.
This of course means that the final release will be super cool as there is just so many things that has been added, tweaked or fixed. If we only can tweak it to release condition...
Current status
Right now the satellite texture / mask setup is in. It uses super low resolution 1024 x 1024 satellite image. The texture is made out of something like 512 x 512 resolution source which results to oat-meal quality in-game. The mask is made directly out of the original OFP VTE v0.4 WRP files, which is dead accurate to every cell. So all the OFP texture types are transferred accurately to the new satellite mask.
Because we changed to satellite image method, now all the bridges, harbor/piers and those swamp houses (and any other bridge related "high" object) are floating in the air. This is low number of objects on the big picture, but still there is many bridges in our terrains which cause real problems as they float in the air. This needs manual fixing in visitor 3 and of course I'll leave it to the last thing to edit as every time I update the PEW file, the bridges get broken again.
50m jungle block objects which caused the "floating" trees/grass has now been split up to individual objects. This is still WIP because the current converter software of mine only places the objects into 0 degree heading, it look very repeating in-game. Its a small fix for the code, I just need to figure out best way to do it. However this is the current build as of today. BTW I cant use Roller for this because it took 108 minutes to save the 7 Mountains example WRP and my windows swapped itself to death.
Also the single object jungle creation is need of a balanced object counts, right now in my tests I've ran into too sparsely placed vegetation or such thick vegetation that it causes FPS loss on 5km viewdistance. This is very very important to get into the smooth FPS stage again.
Mines are still broken, I haven't got around to fix them yet. Vigilante is helping me to get some good scripting solution for the mines and I've provided him with new mine models. Very nice to get quality cooperation like this.
Artillery is fixed to the extend that they can be used more or less, however I hope nobody has any illusion of "working artillery" as the guns are just dumb guns... they don't act like artillery at all. OFP had CoC UA which was real artillery and ArmA 2 has artillery module which is real artillery... however ArmA doesn't have anything like this. Yes we have bunch of guns, but unless you make your own arty scripts, they don't work as artillery.
Shadows are not yet done. This is going to be another large task to complete as we have so many models. Also I've never done real shadows except few test, I'm bit scared that it might not be so automated task, what I understand there is one LOD with max of 1000 points and another with the lowest point count as possible. So dunno how those models can be easily made up being it in modo or o2.
All the specular maps are fixed for objects that required it. It means no more shining wooden huts etc. This gives really nice overall visual improvement for the whole mod.
New CH-53 helicopter model is in.
Finally we got the fucking CH-46 helicopter to VTE!
OV-1 Mohawk was added.
OV-10 Bronco was added.
Lot of work has done for aircraft's overall, LODs fixed, rvmats and what not.
All sounds and firing modes were reverted to ArmA defaults because of anzacsas steve craziness. I'll try to bring back the pre-steve sounds back in of which I can be sure are not his precious work.
Huey door guns were replaced with the infantry M60 model, now it looks real nice and high quality.
Added very nice SA-2 launcher and Fansong radar vehicle from LoBo mod.
Added CZM itim_tuko's M35 trucks including the "Mafia" 3x .50 cal gun-truck.
Uh.. OK I'm now starting to list individual items, need to keep the eye on the big picture.
TODO
Well obviously to create the high resolution satellite textures. This will take some time to edit in photoshop, I'll try to optimize the method as much as possible but it still might be lot of clone brush work on each of the terrain types for all those 25 terrains.
Fix the 50m jungle block split projects 0 degree rotations. Should be easy fix for my cmd line tool.
Balance the vegetation thickness or rather remove the FPS loss on certain spots. Needs testing, on ground and on air with 5km viewdistance.
Fix mines, with Vigilantes help this should be doable.
Add remaining artillery pieces. Need to do some low poly modeling and with Banana's help, I think we'll get them done.
Make shadow volumes.
Uh so much to do...
Testing
As the situation has gotten so out of control with the new stuff, it would require great deal of testing to make sure all works ok. So far I have not asked for testers and I have decided against public testing on Christmas time.
Testing means the deep in-depth actual use of VTE. When I start VTE now, there is no errors, no CTD's or your usual crap you get from addons made hastily. So it would require lot of playing in actual mission conditions to catch all the bugs that have come up with the new stuff.
I guess here is a call for testers now, so if anyone is interested please let me know.
Conclusion
No Christmas VTE release. Sorry.
Most likely no 2009 VTE release. Very sorry.
We need time to finish up all the loose ends on the current developing and also anyone interested of testing should let me know so we can get some testing going.