Neverending development diary

[Snake Man]

I really like the feel of Alpha Release Candidate 2, just played few missions in MP (well alone in the server, hehe so sad, snif) and it felt and looked great. What I'm trying to say is, that before I didn't feel comfortable with VTE, it felt like "plastic BIS re-texture", but now it starts to integrate into my spine, me likes

Today I completed the VTE_objects model optimization, now all the freaking 460+ objects have lowest resolution LOD below 100 points as well merged textures

VTE_air has now been also optimized to merged textures and all models below 100 points. The only last remaining bad guy is the VTE_chara where we have several soldier models with last LOD averaging to 150-180 point range... which ain't that bad as BIS soldiers seem the be the same.

Anyways, just wanted to let you all know.

[[KH]Pauld]

hi snake man,

just a quick update on our testing over the last few days

a few guys cameback with feedback regarding rc2 and all have said they have been getting around 50-60% drop of FPS on all islands, we couldnt understand why since the pre alpha version was fine with a steady 40+ of FPS,
they also noticed that a few things that were fine in the pre alpha version now seem to be broken...
I.e
if your commander of M48 and turn out it will CTD everytime, this was not an issue on pre alpha

we are in the process of writing a bug report for rc2 and will be submitted soon for you guys to take a look at,

we will keep pressing on with testing

best regards

[KH]Pauld

[Snake Man]

Yeah I'm getting confirmation to the FPS drop. I don't know for sure what causes it, I'm really scared that its the new 50m jungle blocks fix that somehow makes ArmA engine squelch (just a guess).

Dunno, if that's not it then I'm totally out of ideas what might cause it.

[banana]

Yesterday during a battle break


http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=k50mv7o.jpg


http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=k50m2snu.jpg

(With magazine and k50m)

[NeF]

that k50m looks nice, good job banana

[Snake Man]

I'm now back in editing. The first thing I did was to test and fix the K50M sub machine gun from Banana (thanks man), its now working properly.

Next and most important thing I do is to track down the cause for the huge FPS loss. Only theory I have is that it comes from the new vegetation 50m jungle blocks alignment to ground fix, the slopelandcontact value, perhaps it somehow tries constantly to align them to ground or something, I don't know.

I'm eager to get it fixed and get going with RC3 which absolutely should be final before the public alpha release.

[The-Architect]

Don't like the new forum style, it's hard to see where the new posts are. That's not important though. When we gonna get another dev diary update?

[Snake Man]

Few reports indicate the that hotfix for RC2 fixed the huge FPS loss, so that seems to be good. But I would really want to hear more feedback before proceeding. There is nothing else to update.

[bigstone]

Few reports indicate the that hotfix for RC2 fixed the huge FPS loss, so that seems to be good. But I would really want to hear more feedback before proceeding. There is nothing else to update.

What about ai not able to walk over the dikes in the rice paddies?

[Snake Man]

If you find a modeling solution for that, please let me know and I'll fix the ricepaddy models in no time.

[Snake Man]

In the eve of final alpha release, I got to do some damage textures for our aircrafts. Here is the list of latest fixes:

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- ah1g had no damage textures, fixed.
- ah1j had no damage textures, fixed.
- ach47a had no damage textures, fixed.
- ch47c had no damage textures, fixed.
- ch34 had no damage textures, fixed.
- ch34sog had no damage textures, fixed.
- ch47 doorgun rvmat missing, fixed.
- f105 LOD 3.0 had no pilot proxy, fixed.
- uh1dustoff had no damage textures, fixed.
- uh1gs had no damage textures, fixed.
- uh1guns had no damage textures, fixed.
- oh6rg had no damage textures, fixed.
- ch34 gives missing data\uh60pilot proxy error, fixed.

It really improves the gameplay when you see destroyed helo in the ugly damaged gray burnt out texture.

[Snake Man]

With the help of Killswitch, we have now the napalm scripts working as well as F4 Phantom engine exhaust smoke script running. VTE now requires Extended Eventhandlers v1.9 to work. Cluster bombs are also working, they are quite bad at the moment but technically they are now working.

Also good news on the long time problem of daisycutter damaging the MC130, now its fixed. The bomb is on the payload and when fired/dropped, it appears just below the plane, good enough compromise for me.

[Snake Man]

Time for another update.

I'm really in a need for some good script (SQF) writing guy who could tweak the cluster bomb script to be more believable and CPU friendly.

In the past few days I have been spent my time basically just editing VTE, from the morning I wake up until late night when I snooze off I'm spending my time with VTE.

I remember the time when in OFP VTE I suddenly reached the point when I felt really good about it, it wasn't just some piece of shit I put together, but it was something I really wanted to play as it was so cool. Well maybe we're not really there yet, but I start to get that good mood when browsing around the insane amount of stuff we have in the mod right now. When I go about in the terrains and various units and vehicles, there is not a error to be seen which is oh so enjoyable. Anyways.

Yesterday and today I have been trying to kill those bugs that have been reported from the pre alpha and the release candidate one and two, so far I've done good progress. Also I have fixed several "long time VTE bugs" that have practically set a bad mood for the whole mod. For example, now the OH6's have proper gunner proxys and gunner views, ie the gunners work as they should.

Its not been only fun and games, I just today discovered that the ACH-47A turrets are broken, AGAIN. I cant fucking believe this shit as I remember that those were already fixed... how come they get broken by themselves, I don't get it. Anyways as of writing this update tonight (well, early morning really), the guns a gogo is completely broken and tomorrow I'll continue editing it. The problem is that at "View - Gunner" the viewpoint is working but the gun is locked to 0 degrees (axis of the helo), but in "3rd person" which is the "View - Cargo" the gun works ok. The only gun that works perfectly is the Front Left, all others are broken, even the Aft gun (which earlier worked ok) is no inverted somehow. Sigh.

Oh dunno if I mentioned this, I added the aircombat terrain, 51km x 51km nice mountainous terrain with some vegeation sparsely placed around. When flying with fast jets in here, I get no framerate loss which is quite amazing. I might experimenting if real 51km NAM terrain could be created, I really doubt it but... you never know.

Speaking of terrains, it baffles me how VTE runs decently smooth with my old computer and using 5000m viewdistance, I guess all the neurotic fetish like optimizing of models/textures to gain performance really pays off after all huh

That's all I can think of now.

From the last reported changelog, here are the new changes:

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- added view geometry for t55.
- added view geometry for pt76.
- added view geometry for m551.
- Grenadelauncher underslung on the rifles can fire semi automatic, "fixed".
- pbr driver was sitting too low, fixed.
- pbr right barrel is not firing, fixed.
- lssc get out puts guys under the boat, fixed.
- lssc gunner sights on are not ligned up, fixed.
- lssc gunner sights on are very ugly, fixed.
- added view geometry for s56_mg.
- added fire and view geometry for mig19.
- added view geometry for mig17_grey.
- added view geometry for mig17_camo.
- added fire and view geometry for f5_grey.
- added fire and view geometry for f5_camo.
- added fire and view geometry for f4_tan_ag.
- added fire and view geometry for f4_tan_aa.
- added fire and view geometry for f4_grey_ag.
- added fire and view geometry for f4_grey_aa.
- added fire and view geometry for f105.
- added view geometry for ch53_mg.
- added view geometry for ch53.
- added view geometry for ch34_sog.
- added view geometry for ch34.
- added view geometry for birddog.
- added fire and view geometry for b52.
- added fire and view geometry for a6_napalm.
- added fire and view geometry for a6_bomb.
- added fire and view geometry for a1h.
- mig17 jungle sights are not ligned up, fixed.
- mig17 jungle landing gear or flaps do not function, fixed.
- mig17 jungle pilot proxy too high, parts of the body are poking out, fixed.
- mig17 nvaf landing gear or flaps do not function, fixed.
- mig17 nvaf pilot proxy too high, parts of the body are poking out, fixed.
- b52 has too close external camera view, fixed.
- play as gunner on oh6 right/left gunner, no gunner in seat, fixed.
- oh6 when playing as gunner the view is obscured, fixed.
- a6 didn't have working gunner, fixed.
- vte_canopy1 caused framerate loss (on polei kleng), tweaked it a bit.
- no civilians / villagers in the mission editor groups, fixed.
- civilians have white-man faces, fixed.
- trailpaddy model tweaks, unused LOD removed, geometry fix etc.
- added HUD for f4e phantoms.
- uh1 ara gunship pilot sight didn't animate properly, fixed.
- uh1c gunship pilot sight didn't animate properly, fixed.
- uh1c gunship get in memory point tweaks.
- uh1 ara get in memory point tweaks.
- uh1 ara gunner proxy did not work, fixed.
- more development for vte 25km demo / prototype terrain.
- added (extra) single tree terrain versions for rij, qbs, mdsz and iiictza.
- uh1d/h get in memory point tweaks.
- uh1d/h flight model tweaks.
- s56 cockpit glass was not see through, fixed (sorta, it looks bad now).
- tweaked s56 flight model.
- a1h the window is not see through, fixed.
- a1h the prop looks terrible when engine is running, fixed.
- bren2 was missing a recoil, fixed.
- sa7 missile launcher was incomplete, fixed.
- added ch-53e super stallion model from Scorpio.
- added ch-53e minigun armed version.
- 61 western camo faces added.
- 2 new asian face added.
- f4 phantom exhaust smoke added.
- napalm were not working, fixed.
- cluster bombs were not working, fixed.
- daisycutter can be dropped now without damaging mc130.
- a1h skyraider pilot proxy was wrong, fixed.
- sa2 fansong had no damage textures, fixed.
- sa2 launcher had no damage textures, fixed.
- zu23 had no damage textures, fixed.
- t55 had no damage textures, fixed.
- pt76 had no damage textures, fixed.
- m551 had no damage textures, fixed.
- f105, finished damage textures.
- mig19 farmer, model was "jagged", fixed.
- f5_grey, finished damage textures.
- f5_camo, finished damage textures.
- f4_tan_ag, finished damage textures.
- f4_tan_aa, finished damage textures.
- f4_grey_ag, finished damage textures.
- f4_grey_aa, finished damage textures.
- birddog finished damage textures.
- mig19 finished damage textures.
- mig17 jungle had no damage textures, fixed.
- mig17 nvaf finished damage textures.
- b52, finished damage textures.
- ac130 had no damage textures, fixed.
- mc130 had no damage textures, fixed.
- a4 mk82, finished damage textures.
- a4, finished damage textures.
- a6 mk82, finished damage textures.
- a6 mk74, finished damage textures.
- a1h cas had no damage textures, fixed.
- a1h sar had no damage textures, fixed.
- a1h sea had no damage textures, fixed.
- oh6a_unarmed had no damage textures, fixed.
- oh6arg had no damage textures, fixed.

[T_Rex]

I'm really in a need for some good script (SQF) writing guy who could tweak the cluster bomb script to be more believable and CPU friendly.

Do you want to post/email/pm what you have now? No promises about how good it might be, but I've been doing alot of stuff with random placement of stuff. Not sure if that's what the problem is, but I can take a look.

[Snake Man]

Continue the cluster bomb script discussion here, thanks.

Right now I fixed the ACH-47A gunships turrets, when the damage textures were added, I put the damageHide selection into the weapon turrets and this of course broke them completely. Now they work again, as before. However there is still problem with the Back Left and Back Right turrets, you can shoot them normally in the 3rd person view, but gunner (V) view is locked to 0 degrees towards the nose of the aircraft, I've tried to fix it half way this day and I'm getting nowhere, I better move on to other bugs where I can make some progress. Even if released as is, its still horrible killing machine even though the two turrets aren't working perfectly.

If someone could re-texture the ACH-47A it would be great. Please read this post about re-texturing ACH-47A gunship. Thank you.

[Snake Man]

Quick update, more later.

I needed to show few new skinny VC model experimenting screenshots, so here they are. These models are just experimenting, don't read more to it.







As I said more later.

[Snake Man]

Okay so its update time.

I had serious issue with VTE up until few days back, I was editing it like crazy changing and improving million things and all of the sudden it started to crash without any sort of RPT or binarize errors which could shed some light on the matter.

I was quite depressed at this point, how would I even imagine fixing the problem as I have no clue what of the million things I edited is causing it?

My miracle I got some motivation and after a days hard work I found the problem.

Map Class Grid.

I was reliefed beyond this world would be an understatement at that point. It felt really like I was resurrected from dead.

So editing continued. This is the latest changelog:

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--- fixes: final alpha
- added nva rto soldier (no packback).
- added nva mg soldier (no packback, no gear).
- vc rifleman at, tilted rice hat back.
- vc rifleman rto, tilted rice hat front.
- vc rifleman tl, tilted rice hat back.
- seal team group config was bugged, fixed.
- uh1 dustoff get into the backseat you end up on top of the helo, fixed.
- changed modern m4gl image to car15gl image (still needs improvement though).
- added jeep and jeep machine gun.
- ch34 needs door gun, added.
- M60 door gun displayname was just "automatic", fixed.
- changed proxy muzzle flash to vte_m48
- changed proxy muzzle flash to vte_uh1guns.
- changed proxy muzzle flash to vte_a4r.
- changed proxy muzzle flash to vte_a4.
- added proper big compass config.
- added tow missile model + textures.
- a1h view-pilot right wing has aileron broken, fixed.
- a1h the speed brakes commands are the wrong way around, fixed.
- removed protected units from mission editor groups config.
- checked, fixed and added wound textures for all soldier models.
- vte_vc_rifleman_tl missing several rvmats, fixed.
- vte_vc_rifleman_rto missing several rvmats, fixed.
- created normal / specular maps for vte_vc_rileman_mg webbings_co.paa texture.
- vte_vc_rifleman_mg missing several rvmats, fixed.
- vte_vc_rifleman_at missing several rvmats, fixed.
- vte_vc_rifleman missing several rvmats, fixed.
- some fix for vte_usmfr_mg.
- vte_usmc was missing one rvmat, fixed.
- removed 2 sections from vte_usmc.
- vte_usmc2 was missing one rvmat, fixed.
- removed 2 sections from vte_usmc2.
- vte_usmc3 was missing one rvmat, fixed.
- removed 2 sections from vte_usmc3.
- created normal / specular maps for vte_sog_rfl.
- removed 2 sections from vte_seal_tl.
- vte_nva_rfl has missing face rvmat, fixed.
- removed 2 sections from vte_mike_rfl.
- vte_lrrpe_rto has missing face rvmat, fixed.
- vte_lrrpe_rfl has missing face rvmat, fixed.
- created rvmat for erdl_body textures.
- removed 3 sections from vte_ausas_tl.
- removed 2 sections from vte_aus_rfl.
- added 6-digit military grid for maps. still under work though.
- added map location names for ia drang.
- ch34_sog missing cargo get in dir point, fixed.
- ch34_sog missing driver get in dir point, fixed.
- ch34 missing cargo get in dir point, fixed.
- ch34 missing driver get in dir point, fixed.
- A1H The aircraft stalls in any kind of climb, fixed?
- ach47a pilot view machinegun fires above cockpit, fixed.
- uh1 ara needs more zoom for gunner optics, fixed.
- removed unused/dupe vte_artairacav.paa nose art.
- uh1 ara gunship noseart dont work, fixed.
- removed one section from uh1guns model with noseart fix.
- removed one section from uh1gs model with noseart fix.
- removed one section from oh6arg model with noseart fix.
- removed one section from oh6_unarmed model with noseart fix.
- removed one section from oh6a model with noseart fix.
- removed one section from ah1j model with noseart fix.
- removed one section from ah1g model with noseart fix.
- removed one section from uh1 model with noseart fix.
- ah1g and ah1j gunner optic need a little more zoom, fixed.

As you can see there is bunch of stuff fixed again. Also there is few items I forgot to write into the changelog in the heat of the editing

Also you can see from Cluster bomb script topic that we are making major advancements on the cluster bombs (big thanks to T Rex and Vigilante for helping me out), they already work so nice that now A1 skyraider and other planes carrying them are deadly threat to OPFOR.

The above textureless rice hat VC screenshots are from my skinny model experimenting, as you can see the arms and legs look quite bad, these are not planned to be on the next release unless I can fix the shape of the limbs. It would be really nice feature to have as VC or NVA definitely were skinny and small soldiers compared to western counterparts, we should clearly see that ingame to make believable representation of them.

Oh I'm also modeling CH46E in Modo, but hehe it don't really make any progress as I'm just absolutely so newbie for making models, even with making boxes and moving vertices around I cant seem to get anything done. It would be a mere placeholder, but seems like I can't even get that done hehe. Oh god why don't we have a modeler... then again, why don't I have ferrari, why I dont have million euros... yeah ok, I'll shut up now

Dunno what else to say... the class grid CTD was major drawback for a while for me both editing wise and mentally, but all is good now, we're back on track and doing progress like crazy.

[GrunT]

"C:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA\arma.exe" -mod=@vte;@DBE1;@CoC;@Racs -maxmem=512 -world=empty -nosplash

Above is my comm line, im getting 40+ fps on my server...damn i was playing painted black by foxhound and fps was 120+ no shit @ my home page i got screens of fps top right corner by ati tray tool.

GrunT

hi snake man,

just a quick update on our testing over the last few days

a few guys cameback with feedback regarding rc2 and all have said they have been getting around 50-60% drop of FPS on all islands, we couldnt understand why since the pre alpha version was fine with a steady 40+ of FPS,
they also noticed that a few things that were fine in the pre alpha version now seem to be broken...
I.e
if your commander of M48 and turn out it will CTD everytime, this was not an issue on pre alpha

we are in the process of writing a bug report for rc2 and will be submitted soon for you guys to take a look at,

we will keep pressing on with testing

best regards

[KH]Pauld

[Snake Man]

First never ending dev diary update for the final ArmA release developing. Whoa.

Started to edit couple of days ago, doing steady progress so far. Here is the changelog as of today:

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- M3A1 GreaseGun inventory pic only shows a silhouet of the gun, fixed.
- M113 ACAV add "some" zoom for machine guns, fixed.
- Helos / planes cant be damaged by crashing very easily, hopefully fixed.
- Generalize all the VTE_RAIDER<INSERT NAME HERE> weapons. done.
- bullet proof bush http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/5675/bulletproof.jpg, fixed.
- usmc soldier boots have transparent spots, fixed.
- aircav pilot has brown (desert) boots, fixed.
- ppsh41 has 71rnd magazines, but they only take 1 gear slot, fixed.
- M39hp hushpuppy has inventory picture border background, fixed.
- Birddog missing icon / picture image, added.
- c130 pilot seat cant see out of aircraft (center floor of cockpit), fixed.
- b52 pilot seat in center of cockpit, moved to right side.
- added three more vietnam era music tracks from ccr.
- added vte_markerround, rifle grenade smoke shell thingy.
- handguns have tracers, fixed.
- suppressed weapons have tracers, fixed.
- sub machine guns have tracers, fixed.

Better part of today I spend fixing the weapon, magazine and gear images, that task is still underway which I'll continue tomorrow. Some of the images look superb, some of them low res crap, but at least now we have individual images for all the stuff, no more those orange magazine images for all magazines etc.

So far I've just getting warmed up, the most difficult and precise work so far was been perhaps the aircav soldier "back pants" bug, which I fixed half way through but in testing there still was at least one model which has some LOD's the selections broken. Will continue fixing that tomorrow too. I'm sort of holding back from the real hardcore stuff like for example fixing the mine/artillery system, adding satellite textures and replacing Huey doorguns with the high res model our infantry uses.

Anyways, cant think of anything else right now, been long editing day... more tomorrow

[shaunman]

Sounds good would be great to get those traps and ap mines to work and rifle grenades for m14.the traps from unsung seem to work
stand alone with VTE so maybe you can talk to those guys. One thing thats a bit sad is some of the elephant grass or light brush seems to stop a tank and apc Dont know if thats fixable.

[Snake Man]

I was just today skimming through the AK47 and M14 rifle grenade issue, but it still remains.

Mines are high on my TODO list, I definitely want to get them working (same as artillery).

The 50m jungle blocks and tank stopping grasses will be fixed for sure, no question about it.

Anyways today was a good editing day again, got few nasty bugs fixed. Also I went through all the weapons in preparations for shadow LODs to be built, hopefully I get to do them. Also added the village/city and military base name "labeling" into all of our terrains, now its easier to distinguish a village and city/base.

[shaunman]

Thats good news.I dont know if you are working on a M110 or some artillery pieces but a guy from RACS project has one or 2
US older artillery pieces maybe you can use them just ask him.Would be nice if TonyRanger from FFN mod can add new ones to FFN would be nice to be able to call in 155mm or 203mm shells in VTE.

I think there was a M113 in Nam that had a recoiless gun on it along with a few M60s or it had a Turret not sure.recoiless gun jeep was available for OFP at some point few years back.

Anyway good luck with VTE and Im sure youde like to get some temples or nam city models think unsung has a few that you could
maybe use.

[Snake Man]

Some good developments since last update, yesterday was one of those weird days when you plan NOT to edit and then you end up editing until you fall asleep in front of the computer

Fixed the nasty bug of huey instrument panel / dashboards being transparent, now they are painted army green and in fact the texturing is properly done, it should not even be low res as usual (not that there is much details but still).

Removed some unused materials from civilian models as well as VC models. One VC model had alpha channels in _CO texture (underside of the rice hat had transparent spots) so that was fixed.

Few NVA models had extra texture in last resolution LOD, removed that. Also one of these models had bad last LOD and it got fixed.

Also I did more work but I'll reveal that bit later.

All in all pretty good progress, I'm very happy. I have no doubt in my mind that the next (and last) ArmA VTE release will be the best we have seen so far.

[Uglyboy]

Truly good news Keep up

[Snake Man]

Today was a good day of editing. Spend most of the time going through the VTE_objects in preparations for shadow volumes, so I added LODNoShadow = 1 to all of the resolution LODs and otherwise checked that the LODs are okay. Good call because I found two models that had identical LODs and few other issues too.

Banana was busy, he got that EX-41 China Lake pump action grenade launcher finished and we added it in-game. Very nice work man.

Also tweaked some L1A1 broken shadow volume and removed the last remnants of anzacsas steve work.

We researched some artillery stuff too, I'm sort of hoping that we could model at least placeholder models for the final release, its not so nice to have BIS M119 and D30 for all of our arty guns now.

Finally... Mikero has done good work on upgrading his tools, so now we have ConvertWRP and PEW file creator tools available which allow me to easily convert the existing terrains into Visitor 3 PEW files. I already tested the tools and all VTE terrains convert just fine, it was amazing to see quick glimpses of them in buldozer, very cool stuff. Thanks goes to Mikero for hard work on C++ coding.

[Uglyboy]

Good stuff i saw somewhere some Viet and Aus SMG are those from banana too?

[banana]

Which SMG's you mean exactly?

[Uglyboy]

there were a F1 SMG and a vietnamese SMG which i don't remember the name

[banana]

Yes, I made them.

Things I made for VTE (included in RC2)

K50M
MPL
90 mm Launcher
__

RC 3
:

M56 Melara Cannon
EX-41 Launcher
M55 Artillery
F1 SMG

So you were right about those

[Uglyboy]

Good stuff keep us updated

EDIT: oh K50M that was the Viet one name

[Snake Man]

Today I started to work on the two major milestones on the final release development. These are the removal/tweak of reflections (SMDI texture) and creation of satellite texture / mask for terrains.

Reflections/shinyness ruined the look of many models, like wooden buildings/huts that were shiny and reflecting light, it was bad. Now all that will be fixed and wood stays matte and for example tin roof reflects light etc.

The satellite textures / mask for terrains of course totally changes the appearance and functionality of the terrains. They have proper ground textures then and the ground clutter will be associated with the proper locations. No more green texture and grass on fire bases and so on.

[Snake Man]

The _SMDI shiny fix is done, all VTE_objects have been gone through and the shiny reflection stuff removed from models where it wasn't needed, or tweaked in models which had mixed surfaces types, like mentioned tin roof and matte wood etc.

Then I started the satellite texture / mask project. Got the terrains in-game in satellite format, just a placeholder texture now though except Ia Drang where I did the work already on VTE ArmA 2 preview.

I did the initial testing run on the 6400 x 6400 resolution satellite, got about half of the terrains done and pbo size grew to 1.2gb. Hoho

Now I've gotten all the terrains done in 4 split pbo's using placeholder 1024 x 1024 satellite so I can fiddle with it quickly back and forth testing all sorts of stuff.

There is problem though, for some reason, some terrains give CTD (out of memory) because of some objects, I haven't tracked down yet which ones cause it, that's tomorrows agenda.

But its good now that the initial backbone work is done, now comes the fine tuning and making the actual texture graphics then, which of course takes lot of time.

On a side note, I guess the DevHeaven VTE project page didn't take off as there has been really no bug reports.

[Uglyboy]

Errr been busy and lazy did some testing today and will accurately report tomorrow some little bugs about ammo boxed and weapons missing their ammo, oh and a missing texture. If you can get rid of those annoying CTD with some maps please release somekind of a hotfix, sometime i forgot that, i open a random island and pretty annoying stuff

[Snake Man]

Today I tweaked the C130 model to remove one unnecessary texture from main res LODs and to create brand new LODs. Then I went and reorganized config quite a bit because it was bit messy, now looking much better.

Then there was the huge problem of out of memory CTD terrains. It was really weird and I had to use all my experience to track down this bug. It came down to being objects config caused, I don't get how the config causes the game to crash as binarize or in-game RPT gives no errors. If I commented out the objects config, it works well but then no mission editor objects and RPT gets missing class errors. Anyways main thing is that satellite terrains work now and we can proceed on the development.

I did also some Roller work for the configs, fiddled around with them a bit but it is just so slow and sluggish that its better to just code my own C++ util than to use Roller, its so painful. Right now my util does quite good job, but especially the forest replacement feature is lacking the config and variables for random placement. Hopefully I would get that done before we need the finalized object list for the terrains.

Right now I'm thinking how much did the OFP island -> ArmA terrain conversion evolve the WRP's... at least I added the runway objects on few terrains, but thats not such big deal to redo. It was my plan that once the satellite project commences it would be good idea to convert the terrains from the original OFP sources once again. If I recall correctly, the first conversion was bit hasty and I cut some corners like if no suitable object replacement was found, I just used anything really or plain and simply deleted the object. So if the conversion would now be made from the OFP originals with the latest knowledge, I'm sure it would be with much better result.

Anyways.

Now the next few days I would assume goes with editing the satellite textures and masks. I'm not sure if I just make them low res for now as making one with "great" detail takes long time... and we have twenty five (25) terrains total. I still have one automated WRP to BMP util in mind which would read the WRP and output BMP image of the OFP texturing, putting specific RGB colors there so it could be used as mask straight up. Making the satellite texture itself would be more or less manual work in photoshop. But we are good now as long as the clutter config can be tweaked to decent level, I think that gives the most game play value for the satellites right now... as most of the times the ground textures are covered with clutter anyway.

I feel that the ground breaking work is behind now and its more or less fine tuning to get it all "fit together" before final release.

[Uglyboy]

Good to know that you figured out those CTDs, hopefully the config is better now

[Snake Man]

The satellite work has been on hold a bit, I did basic ground clutter config work and added "seabed" texture and config also, so now pretty much all the terrain types are in. The very low res satellite textures are done but its not much of use as all masks are still empty (whole map classes as grass), making the mask by hand is out of the question for 25 terrains so right now I'm looking at my Qt programming dir for making util to read the original OFP WRP and then outputting a BMP image with associated RGB values for the specific textures. I think that util would work wonders in that job and it would be the last push for making the satellites to be decent for the last release.

I also did some preparation work in Modo for splitting up the 50m jungle blocks, which looks like its going to be one damn tough task as its very difficult to differentiate from 50m block if all the objects in it are the same or do they have differences. Okay sure you could say that if you cant tell a difference easily by looking at it, whats the big deal then just use one model and perhaps make subtle changes to it to create few variations... well true, but its such important and ground breaking task that when I do it, I want to do it right the first time. The impact will be massive and will last years to the future so I need to get it done as good as possible.

Also I did LOD work for the A1 Skyraider as it has so ugly last LOD that you could not recognize what it was.

Remember that you can see all the latest developments in VTE issues / tickets page in DevHeaven.

The whole mod starts to really build up into the final release now.

[Snake Man]

I was skeptic about getting anything done for the C++ util to read WRP terrain and create BMP image out of the OFP texturing... but I did it

Right now its crude, but works, so I have just created 1:1 masks for all the terrains according to the VTE OFP texturing. Now I'm very happy of the status of the satellite project.

It remains to be seen how nice that output will be on the final large 6400 x 6400 satellite mask, but at least its quicker and better what I could do by hand. So we are all set now.

Of course the satellite texture is another matter, I'm thinking that could be done with tool also, to have seed image for the graphics and then tool would read mask bmp and paint from the seed images the correct terrain types... but again, I'm skeptic of my skills if I could code such thing quickly

Next thing to do is to see what is indeed the easiest and quickest way to get the satellite textures done, they are now done with the super low resolution, I think its like 512x512 or something, way way too low res for anything. But maybe with photoshop magic wand tool I could create the terrain types easily. The problem is two folded; first you need to get the job done easily... then you need to repeat it TWENTY FOUR TIMES, haha its sick.

But hey, day by day we are getting closer to the release. We are doing good progress, I'm happy and confident that we soon reach the release point and it will be the greatest release in history of Vietnam modding.

[Uglyboy]

I'm curious to see the progress on the terrain in game good work SM

[Snake Man]

Hmm couple of days without updates, sorry. Actually yesterday I think it was I was posting an update when I had 1 second power failure resulting a reboot and lost about page worth of diary... needless to say I wasn't going to re-type it again

I have updated the focus artillery & mortars topic with latest developments, glad to scratch out two items from the list at one time. So check that out for those details.

As for terrains, I have now workflow how to get the 50m jungle blocks changed instantly to single object jungle chunks and already did testing on 7 Mountains and 25km Demo terrain. There might be some problems with some of the terrains as I believe Australian AO at least results with the forest replace tools default settings a 4 million (yes, million) object count. I have not tested if this would work but even if it did, I think its bit overkill

I also tweaked the new split 50m block objects and now they more or less are in "playable" condition, but still lack fire/view geometrys which I need to add.

On more general note I need to mention that the current development while its great... its sort of snowballed way way out of the scope what I had in mind for the final release. Hell it was "final alpha" where I mentioned we want to have all units/vehicles/weapons in, but now as you can see we have added a gun and several vehicles. So... well what can I say, in a sick way I feel bad and happy/proud at the same time. Go figure

Only thing that I'm worried right now is that the current build is so extensively changed that it would honestly need weeks worth of testing to make sure its solid... that is a problem because my plan was to edit, test, release & forget. I seriously don't want to go back fixing bugs on the "final release" once its out. So dunno, maybe week or two public beta testing perhaps... we'll see what feels right when the build is in release condition.

[Snake Man]

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.