Took another try at this (Aircraft cinematic demo)

[Destructavator]

Some of you may remember when I attempted to render clouds in a sky for cut-scenes with aircraft, and how it didn't work too great...

While taking a short break from the soldier models, I've found a lot more free graphics tools out there that have been developed further, and I've also figured out more features in the latest version of Blender, including how to create and render a heightmap and texture it for terrain, and put in a skybox with clouds that follows the camera for moving terrain and such.

These are two quick-and-dirty AVIs that I think came out better than the old attempts, although in the second video clip the camera didn't quite rotate around the aircraft in the way I wanted it to, but I still think it's an improvement and good enough for a quick demo.

I've also played around with the particle system a bit, for explosions, smoke trails, etc.

[Destructavator]

...And the second clip.

[Mattn]

nice - now add skyscrapers, ufos and an airfight

[Bartleby]

hey. cool. i like those videos. intro/airplanes in action/airplane-introduction/story-videos. there cant be enough videos =).
i also liked ure intro-try (with the new soldier model shooting). puts much atmosphere to the game.

only the new graphical user interface is missing now to make this game not just good, also good looking. styling is very important =). the gui is the thing i miss most.

u do a great job (ok.. the coders do also a great job *g*, but here in the artwork section u can "see" huge differences ^^).

[Destructavator]

Well, I've found that most of the existing aircraft and missle/weapon models import OK, I'm working on building a template file for Blender with everything already imported.  Once it's done, building animations from it should be quick and easy.

The terrain is on one layer (with the water removable), and all the aircraft and their weapons and such are on the second scene layer.

At some point I'd like to add other terrain types to additional layers in the file, hopefully one with city skyscrapers included.

The one terrain type I have so far is also loop-able, the edges wrap OK if the terrain is duplicated (if needed).

[Destructavator]

Well, how about that - learn something new every day...

Blender has a nice special mode for rendering wireframes as shown, which I think would be good for a computer display on a screen inside an aircraft cockpit, perhaps for radar or something.

[vedrit]

It would be really interesting if you could color the wire-fram, for like altitude indications.

[Destructavator]

Actually I turned off the shadowing and texture of the wireframe for that screen shot, but they can easily be put back in - The only thing is I'm not sure exactly what you mean, I've never been in a real aircraft cockpit before and looked at real indicators.  Do you have or can you give me a link with an example of exactly what you're talking about?  Do you mean some type of gradient with the high peaks a different color compared to the lower ground parts?

[Destructavator]

I've put all the aircraft into the template, except the UFO supply ship which would not import properly.

Did I get the scale right on the aircraft, with size relative to each other OK?

[vedrit]

Do you mean some type of gradient with the high peaks a different color compared to the lower ground parts?

exactly

[Mattn]

the carrier should have the size of half the moon if i remember correctly. So doing an animation with it only makes sense from the space. not from the earth. also the terrain.. can you try to import some skyscrapers and stuff like that? animations in between mountains isn't really that interesting

maybe some items from http://opengameart.org/browse/3d/category/49 could help you to put details into scenes.

[Kildor]

offtopic, mattn, can we use in game models was made not for our game but with GPL license? Like this?

[Destructavator]

the carrier should have the size of half the moon if i remember correctly. So doing an animation with it only makes sense from the space. not from the earth. also the terrain.. can you try to import some skyscrapers and stuff like that? animations in between mountains isn't really that interesting

maybe some items from http://opengameart.org/browse/3d/category/49 could help you to put details into scenes.

OK, I'll take the carrier out of the template.

I checked out the link - There isn't too much there on the website, at least that I could find, that I think would fit in very well in the terrain, although we already have shaders and textures for buildings and such that it shouldn't be too difficult for myself or another modeler to build some skyscrapers and other modern man-made structures.

I think the reason collections of free models don't include too many modern buildings is because they are a bit boring to model, not as interesting as a medieval castle or objects or characters.

[Mattn]

offtopic, mattn, can we use in game models was made not for our game but with GPL license? Like this?

of course.

[Mattn]

even a modern building is not only a rectangle block of six sides + texture