homepage Forums Read Only Forums Read Only Forums Jet Thunder (Read Only) Update 03 - 08 - 2011

Sorry all for the lack of updates, but in the tradition of being honest to the community, here's in attachment a screenshot of the Harrier GR3 in-game.
It has some adjusts to do like the MDC on top of canopy plexiglass, and personally I think the weathering in wings texture is quite overdone compared to fuselage. The external fuel tank is looking too bland and the red color in the red marks and the RAF roundel is looking way too saturated. But all those are minor adjusts which will be done easily as a matter of content polishing until release.

There are more pressing issues to do on queue like: we're busy doing the RWR and the map display in Harrier's cockpit, it's going well, although it's a very programming-oriented task.

Also, we are not quite happy with the wingtip contrails (they're square-looking and segmented), and there is nothing that artists can do, it's pure programming task as well. They must be improved. Anyway, last week I recorded a lot of raw footage in-game of Jet Thunder, which goes in a DVD that Aerosoft distributes every year with the releases, it featured the in-game Harrier GR3 model and looked pretty good.

Argentinean fans, not to worry, the Pucará will look as good, if not better, than the Harrier, and the cockpit is being remodeled and painted by the ace Aerosoft Artist Stefan Hoffmann. It is the last bit of content to close the data package for first release, and it will be amazing.

Summing up, in the honest way to tell things to the forum followers, things that we are not satisfied with:
- ground physics: not just the behavior, but the lack of actual feedback (spinning wheels, shocks absorvers, etc - extensive programming task here, completely unrelated to animations done in 3DS Max like done for FSX planes)
- particles, effects and contrails: still unnappealing compared to other sims mentioned here, also completely depending on programming input
- A.I. aircraft doing unexpected and undesired things, like raising landing gear on carrier's deck when receiving authorization to take off.
- there is no FM Trim function yet
- view system also received a fair share of criticism from closed testers

Things we're happy with:
- game looks pretty good and runs very well specially when looking at the very low system specs (textures are 2048x2048, airplane models such as the Harrier GR3 below are 50k polygons, but the game runs at a solid 60 fps in my medium spec PC at 2.66GHz, 4GB RAM and GeForce 9600 512MB, it's prolly running at much more than that but is subject to LCD monitor refresh rate
- flight model feels good and is challenging enough, although our pilot advisor Sean said the roll needs tweaking
- lots and lots of simulation features (RWR identifying radar bands/frequencies, infantry people marching and firing at each other with Howitzer artillery covering them etc etc)
- lots and lots of content assets already delivered and in-game (mostly already shown here in preview forums)

Also, unlike most other game projects in the game industry, which are always under the risk of having the "plug pulled out of the wall", as Mathijs already stated that it's sort of a labor of love, so don't worry, there is not too much of a 'plug' to pull here. We just can't afford the project to "lose momentum", again in Mathijs words, so here I am partially addressing this concern.

Thanks for the update. Take your time. Would hate to see the game released (overly) buggy.

Can't wait for this and to get my HOTAS on that Harrier. Can we not even pre-order yet?

I'm excited to see them taking their time. Rather get a proper sim, than another COD.

Delicious looking cockpit. Dante, for a fellow polygon wrangler like myself, you think you could enlighten me as to tri count and number and size of texture maps?

Dante,

If I may ask, what is the object count? We've found object count to be a much bigger overhead than pure poly counts. It looks beautiful btw.

Cheers