Ordnance Storage

This is the most actual modeling I've done in a while. Usually it's small simple things here and there but these took a little while, especially the unwrapping for the Phoenix's dolley, jeez! So last night and today I've modeled out the interior of the storage room below decks, added some props like an intercom, doors, chair/table, whiteboard... most of those I had already used in the ship and am just re-placing them here as well. These Mk82 ammo carts and the Phonix dolley are new. Myke was generous enough to allow me to use his ordnance models as a base to work these containers off of, though I did all but redo the Phoenix as it had way more polys than required. So this'll all be part of the "Maintenance Upgrade" to the Nimitz at the end of the month. I'll probably eventually also make some more weapon containers and release them separately for people in the community to use as they will.

Note this screengrab is from Max, not the game :)

Mk82 racks and Phoenix in dolley in storage room

Weapons Room for the Nimitz

Most of this idle-blog time has been spent on scripting for ArmA 2, unfortunately, instead of modeling. Most of that scripting involved developing the targeting system (acquiring aircraft targets, filtering out friendly units, and prioritizing hostiles based on range & threat imminence) for the Sea Sparrow. Another community member has been very helpful and is getting the missile guidance done, which would probably have taken me a little longer than forever. Other than that, lots of bug fixes/improvements.

Hopefully I'll get that done and out by the end of the month, along with the newest sub-project for the Nimitz: an aircraft munitions storage room to be used in conjunction with rearming services to aircraft aboard the carrier. Along with this feature to resupply planes, I'll be scripting in areas for aircraft to be refueled and repaired. Others have done this with scripts but hopefully having to transport ordnance in this fashion will add a little more interactivity to it.

 

Currently:
- Elevator & Shaft are done (need very minor tuning on textures)
- Storage room is modeled, no detailing or prop-work has been done yet.
- Any type of scripting has yet to be done, but that's the easy part.
- Plane is to just use the stock towing tractor, possibly later model/incorporate a weapons dolley

Sea Sparrow & Normal Mapping

After a tutorial and hassling to figure a few things out on my own, I finally got baking normal maps in 3ds Max under wraps. At least, as well as I need to for now. Added well over 100,000 polys just for the rivets all along the launcher tubes for the Mk29, baked into a normal map, and now in the game. Figuring out .rvmats and how to properly get the normal map into the game without making it look crazy took a few tries also.

Now I just need to make a actual texture/diffuse map for it. Definitely not taking the time to get the config and everything worked out so it can be used in the game yet though, gotta start on my dropship! It'll just have to be eye candy for a while.

Elevator Controls for Nimitz

Something that was asked for by no small amount of people when I first released the Nimitz for the ArmA II community, I finally got around to making panels that will allow access to raise/lower the elevators when you aren't on them (calling elevators to your level or sending it to another level). Simple models just to house the in-game actions, no real reference so just my own thing.

I reeeaaaally need to get started on that dropship I want to make... or work on that artillery piece some more...

Mk 29 Sea Sparrow Launcher

Today I got the urge to finally start modeling the defensive turrets for my Nimitz carrier, starting with the Sea Sparrow missiles and their launcher. Most of the modeling is done, a lot of the finer details (bolts/rivets and such) will just be put on with normal maps probably since it's for a game.

I'll probably get around to modeling the RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile and launching system next.

Outdoor Slow-Down, Back to Work

Well, spent 12 nights with my little bro doing everything from my high school's 100th birthday weekend-long celebration, then a week out camping in Zion National Park, Utah... and then of course 4th of July celebrations. Time to get crackin' on modeling and stuff again.

No pictures to report, just been working on my ArmA II carrier's today, very little in the way of modeling, mostly config file editing, finally getting a few long-standing issues fixed. Next post will probably be some shots of new models, either the start of a custom dropship I want to make or some defensive turrets for the carrier - Sea Sparrows and the like.