C-17A Globemaster III

i went to the Air-Show the other day (WHOO! AIRSHOW! ) and saw many of the planes to be included in the mod (except for the f-35, i'm not saying it wasnt there at all, it's just that the one there was a fake i totally picked out at least 7 reasons it was bogus!)

but one thing that caught my eye was the C-17. now, im not gonna go ahead and sound like a total idiot saying it's big when everyone already knows that. but i gotta tell ya, no matter how big you think it is, if you haven't seen it in real life, let me lay it down for you...
IT'S PHENOMINALY BIG!!! it's absolutely gargantuous!

this poses a potential problem for the mod as you guys said you intend to make everything to scale. now, i'm totally for that (unlike ZH's big planes were as big as 3 tanks which were as big as 3 people! making them as big as about 9 people ) , but, this thing is definatley going to pose a major problem. you will either have to make infantry about 3 pixels tall, or when reinforcements are called in it'll have to save the map, load a new map called C-17, bring in the C-17 and let it unload, and take off again, then reload the original map with the new units added!

i know, that you all know, it's massive. but it really is more than you think!

best of luck fitting this behemoth into the game
-pyro

i'm sorry to say, but the C-17 model isn't looking as great as the other plane models

but ... it's still a quite good model

Well, It's A Matter Of Taste, I Find It Awesome, For A Low Poly Model

James100 wrote:Well, It's A Matter Of Taste, I Find It Awesome, For A Low Poly Model

what is low poly?

Poly Is The Polycount On A 3D Model Or In Other Words Number Of Polygons, Depending On Engines, Low Poly Increases Speed While High Poly (Like The CWC Models) Could Really Lag Up The Game And Not Work For Some Users

That's Why TAoW Will Have All It's Models Low Poly (Except A Few) To Really Speed Up The Game

BTW Logically Low Poly = Less Wow Models
High Poly = WOW Models

Pyrospastiac wrote:this poses a potential problem for the mod as you guys said you intend to make everything to scale. now, i'm totally for that (unlike ZH's big planes were as big as 3 tanks which were as big as 3 people! making them as big as about 9 people ) , but, this thing is definatley going to pose a major problem. you will either have to make infantry about 3 pixels tall, or when reinforcements are called in it'll have to save the map, load a new map called C-17, bring in the C-17 and let it unload, and take off again, then reload the original map with the new units added!

i know, that you all know, it's massive. but it really is more than you think!

best of luck fitting this behemoth into the game
-pyro

That's damn right, that sure is a BIG BIRD , fortunately the current model was correctly scaled, it's quite a sight in game to watch one of these behemoths flying to drop a tank. The main problem with such large models is to keep their detail and look while keeping an acceptable poly count, fortunately it was balanced on the polygon level

F-16FightingFalcon wrote:i'm sorry to say, but the C-17 model isn't looking as great as the other plane models

but ... it's still a quite good model

The model is not looking so sharp as the other models because of it's extremely large size (as Pyrospastiac said, this plane is colossal and we will scale units accordingly for TAOW).

F-16FightingFalcon wrote:

James100 wrote:Well, It's A Matter Of Taste, I Find It Awesome, For A Low Poly Model

what is low poly?

Poly is an abbreviation of "polygon".

Models are built by using polygons which are basically "linked" together in order to form a certain object/model:


The more polygons a model haves, the better the chances it will be looking better and detailed, however a high/large polygon count haves a strong side effect for use in games: the more polygons that are used, the larger the chance that more lag will slow down the game (since more pc processing power is required to get the game to work correctly, that's an important reason that modern games are so demanding and require high powered computers).

Zero Hour haves a certain tolerance level, if we use very detailed 3D models the game will lag exponentially (so we have to balance models to a certain level, usually 1000 polygons to keep things running as smoothly as possible).

I agree that this model is pretty good for one its size.
Now I can wait to see this Behemoth in action.

Pyrospastiac wrote:but one thing that caught my eye was the C-17. now, im not gonna go ahead and sound like a total idiot saying it's big when everyone already knows that. but i gotta tell ya, no matter how big you think it is, if you haven't seen it in real life, let me lay it down for you...
IT'S PHENOMINALY BIG!!! it's absolutely gargantuous!

Dude I Went On A C-17 And I Know How Big It Is, Trust Me A Human Is Microscopic To It,

Just a small note:

If a vehicle which was previously rendered and publicly released/revealed does not meet our high in game expectations (in game things are different since the rendering software is a separate platform than Zero Hour), we will simply upgrade the model.

For example:
Our definitive (current) M1A2 Abrams had about 4 or 5 previous versions before it was considered to be 100% complete, specially since our M1A2 had to pass intensive in game tests (in terms of look, realism and model accuracy), this process will happen which any model which does not achive our high quality standards in game (the C-17 which was previously shown differs from the actual C-17 in game because of software differences).

Snake wrote:Just a small note:

If a vehicle which was previously rendered and publicly released/revealed does not meet our high in game expectations (in game things are different since the rendering software is a separate platform than Zero Hour), we will simply upgrade the model.

For example:
Our definitive (current) M1A2 Abrams had about 4 or 5 previous versions before it was considered to be 100% complete, specially since our M1A2 had to pass intensive in game tests (in terms of look, realism and model accuracy), this process will happen which any model which does not achive our high quality standards in game (the C-17 which was previously shown differs from the actual C-17 in game because of software differences).

oh i see
but...it still looks many better then ZH units

Most of the current planes will have future versions to come, such versions will be updated with new things such as new emblems (which will be randomized from a good selection), and armament.

Since there will be various variants per aircraft (Class Logic), some will carry different armament sets and even different Insignias among a certain class.

Each vehicle page will be updated with new pics as they're ready

Putting embelems on planes would be a great idea to kind of keep track of how close a plane might be to veterency making it easier to rank up one unit while leaving another idle.

i think i may agree on f-16 that the C-17 doesnt look as prime as the other models, but i deffinatley disagree on blaming it on the polycount. the polys are both appropriate for game performance but high enough for detail. i believe the problem is with the skin, it looks like it was accidentally made at a far too low resolution and had to be stretched over the model, giving it a low-res, streched, blured, jagged look .
i think you should post an image of the C-17 naked with only the model but no skin applied, and my money says it'll look just fine.
as for the skin, i'm sure you'll later improve it. i still remember seeing the earlier stryker skins! did someone say pixelated!?
even the lowest poly models can be made to look good with high-res, high quality skins, take for example the ZH comanche, it had one of the lowest polycounts EVER SEEN! (something like 60?) and it still looked great from its superb skin. meaning you could spam a massive army and still keep gameplay running smooth. (luckily, TAOW is better than unit spamming )

hope to see either an upgraded C-17 skin or a naked C-17 model soon,
-pyro

Pyrospastiac wrote:i think i may agree on f-16 that the C-17 doesnt look as prime as the other models, but i deffinatley disagree on blaming it on the polycount. the polys are both appropriate for game performance but high enough for detail. i believe the problem is with the skin, it looks like it was accidentally made at a far too low resolution and had to be stretched over the model, giving it a low-res, streched, blured, jagged look .
i think you should post an image of the C-17 naked with only the model but no skin applied, and my money says it'll look just fine.
as for the skin, i'm sure you'll later improve it. i still remember seeing the earlier stryker skins! did someone say pixelated!?
even the lowest poly models can be made to look good with high-res, high quality skins, take for example the ZH comanche, it had one of the lowest polycounts EVER SEEN! (something like 60?) and it still looked great from its superb skin. meaning you could spam a massive army and still keep gameplay running smooth. (luckily, TAOW is better than unit spamming )

hope to see either an upgraded C-17 skin or a naked C-17 model soon,
-pyro

i don't know a lot about skinning etc. so i don't have an opinion about what the reason is...
but... Your explanation as wel as Snakes... are quite believable, so i hope that maybe we can discuss this with a experienced skinner or so....

but ty for the support pyro
and your right about the Stryker models and commanche in ZH and so

grtz

Jarhead wrote:Putting embelems on planes would be a great idea to kind of keep track of how close a plane might be to veterency making it easier to rank up one unit while leaving another idle.

Emblems and insignias will be actually based on real life aircraft and their respective Wings / Units (I'm not sure how many different "models" [with different insignias] there'll be, but at least there'll be a handful of'em).

All current aircraft are still to receive future enhancements.

Pyrospastiac wrote:i think i may agree on f-16 that the C-17 doesnt look as prime as the other models, but i deffinatley disagree on blaming it on the polycount. the polys are both appropriate for game performance but high enough for detail. i believe the problem is with the skin, it looks like it was accidentally made at a far too low resolution and had to be stretched over the model, giving it a low-res, streched, blured, jagged look .
i think you should post an image of the C-17 naked with only the model but no skin applied, and my money says it'll look just fine.
as for the skin, i'm sure you'll later improve it. i still remember seeing the earlier stryker skins! did someone say pixelated!?
even the lowest poly models can be made to look good with high-res, high quality skins, take for example the ZH comanche, it had one of the lowest polycounts EVER SEEN! (something like 60?) and it still looked great from its superb skin. meaning you could spam a massive army and still keep gameplay running smooth. (luckily, TAOW is better than unit spamming )

hope to see either an upgraded C-17 skin or a naked C-17 model soon,
-pyro

Precisely , as a matter of fact, work is currently being conducted on the F-16C (an "upgrade program").

Every aircraft is still considered to be "incomplete" at this point, all models are still to receive various insignias and alternative paint jobs depending on the plane (all of which are based on real life units/aircraft, some planes already have some insignias but they'll have more than one variant), and as we add new emblems, the skin / texture and even the 3D model will be upgraded (to better accommodate the changes).

In the C-17 case it was definitely the model resizing (the model was initially much smaller than the current giant variant) and as the bird was made bigger, the model skin resolution was exponentially reduced (making it kinda "blurry").

This new C-17 updated variant had extra improvements specially on the model level (over the older version which was much more "faceted" [the new C-17 is much "smoother" and "elegant" comparing to the previous version]).

In the next improvement phase (extra emblems, etc.), the skin will be modified accordingly (in fact, to make the bird even more realistic we'll base the skin directly off high resolution photos ).

Just like you mentioned with the Stryker example, every model is always growing as time passes, in fact, even between updates a certain model can have even more than one or two versions before the definitive one for public release, we will inevitably change every model as time passes (new, updated versions).

Snake wrote: ... we will inevitably change every model as time passes (new, updated versions).

I think that last little bit needs to be stressed a bit more. Don't expect every model that you see during the initial rollout of the public version, or even in versions thereafter, to be the final model lookwise. This is liable to be a bit of a long and drawn out process that may continue over several versions of the mod. (if I'm reading my tea leaves right. )

Exactly.
There is still much to be done even with the current models (extra versions for the class system, model changes so the vehicles can be better randomized, various skins, etc.), and that will be always included from update to update

Jarhead wrote:Putting embelems on planes would be a great idea to kind of keep track of how close a plane might be to veterency making it easier to rank up one unit while leaving another idle.

Especially Spooky, they have a pretty cool emblem/patch.
And I agree, aircraft are so close to your POV that their detail will be most highly noticeable. helicopters and planes really need the best resolution due to their proximity to you, the general.

Yup, one thing's for certain, players will certainly closely inspect such aircraft from a close range with the 3D camera (so the details such as insignias will be a nice touch ).

Does anyone know what the difference is between the C-17 Globemaster III
and the C-5 Galaxy?
i cant tell the difference

Pyro, Look Closely Between The Two, And You'll See The Visual Difference

It Has More Swept Wings, Larger Cargo, So If You Want the C-5 Is Like The Younger Brother Or Underdog

Payload is one difference. Here's the specs between the two:

C-5 -
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/c-5-specs.htm

C-17 -
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/c-17-specs.htm

I was on a C-5 at an air show back in 1990s. It was a huge mofo. They had the nose up, the rear cargo doors down, and it was pointed in just the right direction where the cargo area became like a wind tunnel. On that hot sunny summer day, I didn't want to exit that aircraft for no one.

The C-5 is like a flying warehouse, I think it would be interesting if we somehow could include the C-5 as a randomized transport aircraft along the C-17 (comrade Nemesis gave us an excellent, near-complete low poly C-5 to help with such a task in case we need it).

Snake wrote:The C-5 is like a flying warehouse, I think it would be interesting if we somehow could include the C-5 as a randomized transport aircraft along the C-17 (comrade Nemesis gave us an excellent, near-complete low poly C-5 to help with such a task in case we need it).

It would be kinda nice if it's codeable, if the C-130 could bring in small to medium sized items, the C-17 could bring in medium to large sized items, and the C-5 could bring in multiple large sized items. You know something like that.

Snake wrote: