Video Tribute: Milton Shupe and Team Douglas A-20 Havoc

[gman5250]

A special thank you to Milton Shupe and his hard working team for this magnificent freeware beta release.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_6X7IZXPEA

[warchild]

what did you use to record that with GMan??

[gman5250]

what did you use to record that with GMan??

I've settled on NVIDIA Shadowplay for the capture, but it does require a card that can manage 60 frames solid.
The cameras are ChasePlane, augmented with TrackIR head tracker.

[warchild]

I've settled on NVIDIA Shadowplay for the capture, but it does require a card that can manage 60 frames solid.
The cameras are ChasePlane, augmented with TrackIR head tracker.
Awesome.. Thanks GMan ..

[Milton Shupe]

On behalf of the team, thank you Gordon. Very nicely done. :applause:

[lazarus]

It's really excellent. Runs like melted butter on my low-end box. Fantastic job! Mr. Shupe and the team have been unbelievably prolific of late. When do you guys sleep?
I am also reminded, I wanted guns when the Native Beech Grizzly came out. If you don't have the whole tac-pack thing... works from saved flight, effects in cfg file, lots of fun down in the weeds.
75mm for the Beech, 20mm-.50 cal-ish slugs with tracer, center line only...which also suits the A-20. Hold down shift D for full auto, so far as I know, it only works in fsx. Don't have a clue how to sic up a gun effect on the aircraft, that limitation aside, the lead gets down range to the recipient. Goes in sim objects/ misc
54395

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[simtech]

Gman, an outstanding tribute to a superlative product. Many heartfelt thanks to you for recognizing Mr. Shupe and team for an awesome airplane. I enjoyed your video immensely. Terry

[nigel richards]

A Special thankyou for making this awesome video, Gordon. :-)

Your sim looks beautifully tweaked, I'm amazed at the superb glass rendering.

[gman5250]

A Special thankyou for making this awesome video, Gordon. :-)

Your sim looks beautifully tweaked, I'm amazed at the superb glass rendering.

Thank you sir.

The glass definitely has a very unique appearance. I did tweak the glass alphas and spinprop textures tiny bit for use in V4, but beyond that the other textures are un-touched. I believe the unique glass Fresnel is behind that glow. The developers could add some light on that subject, but I find the effect very pleasing.

The sound set is extremely good as well. :very_drunk:

[Anthin]

What a great video.That glass is incredible.
I have never seen such realistic glass.

Thank you for showing us.

Anthin.

[roger-wilco-66]

Brilliant video!

Are the light effects FSX or P3d dynamic?

Cheers,
Mark

[Milton Shupe]

Thank you sir.

The glass definitely has a very unique appearance. I did tweak the glass alphas and spinprop textures tiny bit for use in V4, but beyond that the other textures are un-touched. I believe the unique glass Fresnel is behind that glow. The developers could add some light on that subject, but I find the effect very pleasing.

The sound set is extremely good as well. :very_drunk:


The glass textures, and materials settings, were shared with me by Tako_Kichi for the Marauder project, my first FSX native works.
Only minor tweaks were done for this aircraft.
Larry used these same textures on his Avion project, and the Avion variants about to be released.

The Fresnel Ramp controls "falloff" of all lighting effects as polys faces go from facing you to curved away from you. This works for all surfaces, not just glass.

The other important element is the envmap used. As you know, this can be very simple or tuned to the environment most suitable for your flying area. Obviously they vary by sim, but can also vary by texture.

The FSX/P3D materials and management of them is the key to visuals like this.

Thanks to Larry Green, "Tako_Kichi", for sharing his knowledge and tools for these projects.

[Milton Shupe]

Brilliant video!

Are the light effects FSX or P3d dynamic?

Cheers,
Mark

The project used default FSX effects for the modeled lights (as I always do), so this video must use P3D or other effects for lights.

[gman5250]

For this video I enabled Dynamic Lighting, and disabled Dynamic Reflections in Prepar3D.

The reflected image in the glass is the GlobalEnv_AC_Chrome by Bob Rivera. I task my sim to run that texture as default.

The live lighting that is illuminating the ground is determined by the effects controlled in the aircraft.cfg. The landing light is a combination of the original, attached to the model and Shockwave landing lights for the signature "foggy" halo. The nav and formation lights are the originals.

The airplane translated to P3D Dynamic Lighting seamlessly. It's one of the ancillary benefits of the model, and an example of how a well modeled airplane will translate to V4 quite nicely. :encouragement:

IMO:
It is a shame that YouTube compression algorithms flatten the night rendering down so badly. The actual sim, and the un-compressed video are absolutely beautiful at night.

[Seahawk72s]

.......
The live lighting that is illuminating the ground is determined by the effects controlled in the aircraft.cfg.

Not sure what you mean exactly....
I have the Shockwave Lights already, something else special..?

[gman5250]

Not sure what you mean exactly....
I have the Shockwave Lights already, something else special..?

The Prepar3Dv4 Dynamic Lighting will illuminate any objects in the path of an effect that is designated "light". Nav lights, landing lights etc.
Any model, including this one, will create projected light in V4 if they are coded to use light effects.

The additional "beam" on the airplane I filmed is the Shockwave landing light. Mr. Shupe's model has a landing light coded into the actual model. I added the Shockwave light to the aircraft. cfg file. There is one tiny anomaly, being the Shockwave light comes on facing directly forward, while the landing light coded into the model actually rotates as the light extends.

I would assume that a model, coded for a Shockwave light in the animated retracting light would eliminate the glitch. I'll try that on one of my models.

Hope that's not clear as mud. lol

[Seahawk72s]

The Prepar3Dv4 Dynamic Lighting will illuminate any objects in the path of an effect that is designated "light". Nav lights, landing lights etc.
Any model, including this one, will create projected light in V4 if they are coded to use light effects.

Thanks, got it..

[lazarus]

Still has an effect file, yes? Rename a shockwave to the name of the coded light effect file, replace. (?)

[gman5250]

Still has an effect file, yes? Rename a shockwave to the name of the coded light effect file, replace. (?)

Same effect file...affirmative.
Replace coded light with Shockwave light...affirmative.

The rest takes care of itself. :encouragement:

[rohan]

... I did tweak the glass alphas and spinprop textures tiny bit for use in V4, but beyond that the other textures are un-touched...
Gordon,
I wonder if you would be kind enough to share the changed files. And perhaps also a tutorial for those changes - that way, some of us can take Milton's original files, apply your changes according to the tutorial, and compare our results with the files that you changed. Then perhaps we will have learned how to make similar changes to, for example, the B-26 or the A-1 or any other plane in our hangers, when such changes would enhance our previous downloads.

Just a thought,
regs,
Ro

[gman5250]

Gordon,
I wonder if you would be kind enough to share the changed files. And perhaps also a tutorial for those changes - that way, some of us can take Milton's original files, apply your changes according to the tutorial, and compare our results with the files that you changed. Then perhaps we will have learned how to make similar changes to, for example, the B-26 or the A-1 or any other plane in our hangers, when such changes would enhance our previous downloads.

Just a thought,
regs,
Ro

The modifications deal primarily with slight differences in how P3Dv4 renders certain material/alpha combinations. I would be happy to put a basic "how to" tutorial together. I'll do that and post up on this site.

The specifics of my changes are as follows:

Glass alphas were darkened to make the glass slightly more transparent for V4.
Propspin textures and alphas were rotationally blurred and the alphas darkened for more transparency.


Note:
The model was not designed for Prepar3Dv4. My modifications were a result of my own testing, but are not approved by Mr. Shupe or the team.

Due to the variables from system to system, I doubt that a package containing the modified files would be universally stable.

I will, of course, be happy to share my files upon request by PM.

[manfredc3]

A great video of another excellent Airplane rendition by Mr Shupe and his team. :applause:

[wellis]

Wonderful video Gordon. Thank you so much for putting it out there. Downloaded and saved for posterity. :encouragement:

[Seahawk72s]

Same effect file...affirmative.
Replace coded light with Shockwave light...affirmative.

The rest takes care of itself. :encouragement:

So I assumed that "fx_landing.fx" as the effect we are talking about...?
When I renamed the file in the "effects" folder it had no impact, the aircraft still had its original light effect.
Am I missing something..?

[gman5250]

So I assumed that "fx_landing.fx" as the effect we are talking about...?
When I renamed the file in the "effects" folder it had no impact, the aircraft still had its original light effect.
Am I missing something..?


A2A hasn't updated Shockwave for V4, but I have no issues with it. Once it is installed in, the code in the video airplane is:

light.xx = 6, -1.5, -13.7, 0.7, Fx_shockwave_landing_light,
light.xx = 5, -1.5, 13.7, 0.7, Fx_shockwave_landing_light,


Note that Milton has coded the taxi and landing lights to separate switches. The syntax needs to be maintained for those switches to function separately. Code 6 for taxi, code 5 for landing.

Note that the taxi light, port wing, does not throw live light like the landing light in the starboard wing. That would require an existing, or custom built effect to be attached to the animated retractable on the port side.