First Eagles, Knights of the Air Over Flanders Fields: Phase 2

[Smokey]

There are 3 WW1 flight sims coming out:

KNIGHTS OF THE SKY

It seems that this sim now uses its own engine rather than the Il2 engine

FIRST EAGLES

This uses an updated version of the Strike Fighters engine

In this sim the guns can jam...

RussoUK2002

The guns jam with constant firing\overheating...you can un-jam them with a key press,you hear them click and also you can reload them too..
From SimHQ Forums: WW 1 Sim - Lord Flasheart's Flying Aces!

OVER FLANDERS FIELDS: PHASE 2

This is a conversion of CFS3

 

[Nonskimmer]

Knights of the Air looks great graphically, that's for sure! The other ones ain't too bad either.

 

[Gnomey]

Yeah, are they all for Il-2? Wait this the Il-2 section so I assume so, will try them out when they are avaliable.

 

[timshatz]

When do they come out?

 

[Smokey]

I've updated my original post with more screenies and details

Knights of the Sky seems to use its own engine, release date as yet unrevealed

First Eagles uses a modified version of the Strike Fighters engine, and is out now

Over Flanders Fields Phase 2 is a conversion of the CF3 engine, release date was going to be Christmas, there may be a short delay

 

[timshatz]

Thanks for the info Smokey. Looks good

 

[Polovski]

Just to let you know Over Flanders Fields is already out, Phase1 came out in
Dec 2005

Phase 2 should be out soon.

Pics from coming Phase2

 

[Milos Sijacki]

First Eagles is an arcade style game not a sim??

 

[Milos Sijacki]

I just got my copy of the First Eagles today and, frankly, I'm disappointed. The entire game looks very unfinished, especially the flight model. This is my opinion.
Thumbs down. Sorry guys

 

[Chief]

That's how Red Baron 2 came out. Big dissapointment at first. Then Sierra came out with Red Baron 3D, which is basically an explansion pack which can also function an actual game.

It may seem unfinished now, but wait for some patches to come out. It just sounds like these guys'll just have to copy Sierra.

 

[Milos Sijacki]

I just downloaded first patch for it and we will see if it is any better. They say it fixes various glitches with the game.

 

[Milos Sijacki]

I can say that the game runs lot better after I added the patch but it still needs some work. So far pretty good.

 

[rabu]

Over Flanders Fields Phase II will be released very soon and is awesome.. Please don't confuse this with CFS3. OFF uses only the best elements of the CFS3 game engine in order to create super detailed scenery, objects, planes, flight model, etc. OFF uses a completely separate, custom data base and control engine in order to provide a full dynamic campaign with moving fronts, weather, etc., and all historically accurate. I'm an early developer of RedBaron terrain and other addons, but I have never seen a sim like this that has so much immersion value.. you feel like you are right there.
Here's a shot of my skin for the ace Maurice Boyau of Esc 77:

 

[bomber]

Rabu, out of curiosity what are the texture size specs for OFF ?

 

[Polovski]

I can field that one, 2048x2048 texture size currently. But you can have other textures assigned too so no real limit. We do a swap out of skins so you can see different Aces etc, so that skins is one 2048x2048 but you can have non changing areas mapped to different textures if you like. My DVII model has I think 7-8MB of textures assigned (around 2x 2048x2048 1x 1024x1024 and few others).

 

[Chief]

Does anyone know if you can paint your planes in any of the games listed?

 

[rabu]

Sorry, just got here.. what Pol said above.

On the Nieuport 17, as an example, we have the upper wing Lewis amo canaster, guages, and other parts on a separate, larger texture sheet, while the main plane parts are on the 2048x2048 sheet.

To see this full plane skin detail in OFF you need to set the config file slider to highest setting of 5 and set another, texture setting to 0 to allow the full texture in game. Sorry, I'm not at home so can't give exact instructions, but I believe the Phase II already has the settings correct for you.

BTW, Pol did a great job on a redo of the N17 3d model.. it was an early model and had quite a few distortions which he was able to fix, I had to red do all my skins for the fixes, but well worth it as you will see in Phase II. He was also able to add an animated, fold down wind screen, an animated pull down wing Lewis MG (sorry, you can't fire upwards though), and a rear view mirror that has animated reflections (reflections not real, but they sure add to the ambience).

I'm on a trip and not able to even see Phase II, will be several weeks before I'm home again, drats!

PS to last post: In OFF you can paint any of the planes and put them in the main aircraft folder, replaceing the existing ones, but there is no "Paint Program" built in like RedBaron used to have. Even RedBaron's want't much use though, except for manageing skins. Phase II of OFF now incorporates a Quick Flight pull down menu in game so that one can choose a skin to fly with if it's in the game.... very nice feature.

All the best,

 

[bomber]

So a single 2048x2048... but it's not prohibited to have parts that are reused on other planes, such as guns and ammo canisters detailed on their own separate texture...

This begs another question.. does the single 2048x2048 cover the internals or are they on a separate set of textures.

These are the sort of questions that could be asked on a separate 3d modelers forum, but we don't have one of those.

Regards

Simon

 

[rabu]

No problem.. it's sort of a mixed bag, since many of us are working on this. There are now four of us doing most of the skins while others concentrate mostly on the models, etc. but that crosses over. I hope to get into more of the model end of things myself this next year for our planned addons.
There are only a few details that are shared over several aircraft and that was done after mutual agreement among us, such as the amo canaster you pointed out, guages, and few other things. The pit textures are on seperate sheets and again, some are shared, some not. I did all the Noop plane textures as well as a new, common base texture for most of the Camel textures. I ended up taking a common pit texture, used for several planes, and customizing it with my own new textures just for the Noops, so that one is on a separate sheet now.
If you want to get into making your own skins we ask that you develope your own textures and not use our custom ones or any parts of them though.
Thanks,

 

[bomber]

Hi Rabu,

There's no worries of me using your textures as this was just a general discussion on texture sizes in OFF so as to compare it to other WWI sims that people volunteer develope for....

Personaly I don't do WWI favouring WWII and the heavy bombers..

Regards

Simon