ViperOne: An hyper realistic F-16 combat flight simulator (alpha)

[Strife89]

PM sent. I'm eager to help in any way I can.

[mbennouf]

Thanks Strife89! I appreciate it very much. I will shortly formally ask for some beta testers (to add to my alpha testers) to help but I already put you on the beta list.

Thanks again.

Mo.

[mbennouf]

Hello guys,

Sooooooooooo sorry for the long delay! I was hoping to finish completely the app before asking for beta testers. I now find this strategy completely stupid on my part (it took me a while to figure that out. I guess I was afraid of your reaction toward a none finished game...)

Anyway, Here it is: I would like to solicit your help on finishing/improving the F-16 flight combat simulator known as "ViperOne"

If at all interested, please PM your email address and Hotsync ID and I will send you the game and a small in-progress "flight manual" I will send a copy to all here who already ask for it in the past. If I forgot you, please PM me.

IMPORTANT:

1- It will be good if you volunteer, to like this kind of simulator! This is not an easy game to try if not particular interested about (realistic) flight simulation.

2- Please, please backup your device before trying this (or any beta software for that matter) I Did not lose any data but of course anything can happen. Try at your own risk!

I will announce here when I have enough beta testers.

Thank you guys and I really apologize for the long delay.

Take care all.

Mo.

[ericquag]

Hi Mo,

Happy to see you again

As I can see, your nice ViperOne is almost ready!

I'm really sorry not to have sent you the part of code related to the runway (is it the right word for "piste d'atterrissage?, I don't remember...)

Well, you also asked me an ARM code for playing a background sound in loop. I've got it! as I use it in my new MemScale Halloween Edition game.

So, if you need it let me know, I'll send you all the source code (take care: it may slow down the frame rate if you intensively use bitmap tiling).

Have a nice day... with ViperOne

Take care,

Eric

[mbennouf]

Hello Eric,

So nice to hear from you. No problem. I have been very busy these last few months (day job) and was not able to make fast progress on ViperOne. Fortunately I am able to open it to beta and i am almost done with it. Version 1.0 release will not have a view of the runway (oui cela s'apelle la piste d'aterrissage!) Hopefully 2.0 will have it with your help I am also hoping to add a sky dom view (starfield )by simply taking a large bitmap of a starfield and then display only the part of it that is visible by the pilot (30x30 degrees i think) Do you think it will work since you are in my view the world best Palm OS ARM/graphic/sound expert!!

Yes, please when you get a chance drop me the sound effect code if you can. I will see if does not kill the CPU which is doing quite a bit of work already.

Thanks again about your kind word.

A bientot Eric,

Mo.

ps: Thank you so much for the rotation code. Without it Lunar Lander Simulator and now ViperOne will not have happened. THANK YOU!

[ericquag]

Hello Mo

I'm happy too!!

I am able to open it to beta and i am almost done with it. Version 1.0 release will not have a view of the runway (oui cela s'apelle la piste d'aterrissage!) Hopefully 2.0 will have it with your help

Good news! and really sorry for the runway, I'll make effort to provide you such a part of code , please Mo don't forget to send me a small project to let me get some tries with the ARM code, for now I really don't know the fps of your game at this development stage (and don't know if this is really important for you or for the gameplay).

I am also hoping to add a sky dom view (starfield )by simply taking a large bitmap of a starfield and then display only the part of it that is visible by the pilot (30x30 degrees i think) Do you think it will work since you are in my view the world best Palm OS ARM/graphic/sound expert!!

Well, if I understand you would like to render a part of a sky map according to a point of view?
Once again, severals way to perform such an effect.
This is doable, but it may depend on how much you want it to be realistic...

• Flat mapping + rotation, fast but good for far far stars.
• Sphere mapping, may take cpu time for large rendering surface (take a look at my memscale game, I use sphere mapping for the small pumpkin in the "about" box, about 8 fps but could be increased a little bit)
• Polygon texture mapping,... very slow if not hardly improved (my current 3D rendering engine is really to slow but not optimized for fast rendering, I've writtent it for realistic rendering, I could work on the other direction).
• small bitmaps of stars tiled at runtime according to a predefined lookup table (their positions), very fast and good rendering.
• no bitmap, starts directely rendered by the ARM code at runtime according to a predefined lookup table (their positions), very very fast, rendering is depending on you want the stars to be realistic.

Yes, please when you get a chance drop me the sound effect code if you can. I will see if does not kill the CPU which is doing quite a bit of work already.

Ok Mo, I send you a sample project this week. Sure it will decrease the fps, I had same problem with memscale...
I use a modified version of the great ARM code from Olivier Gillet (HE is the real expert on ARM code!). To have better fps, it is possible to set the volume with predefined values equals to 2^n, therefore it is possible to fastly compute samples at run time (instead of using multiplications).

Once again, it would help me if you could tell me how your project is structured.

Take care, see you later.

Eric

[mbennouf]

Hello Eric,

Very sorry for the long delay! I like your suggestions about the sky map (especially the last 2) I think it will add more realism to the game. I think the stars do not need to be realistically place in the sky but I will need enough to make it realistic...

I am going try to send you a minimal app code to try some 3D code. I cannot promise it will happen very very soon since I am going in vacation next week for 2 weeks. But I will make one since it will be easier for you to try some stuff.

Again THANK YOU FOR KIND WORDS AND HELP!

Take care Eric et a bientot.

Mo.


ps: By the way, did I send you a copy of ViperOne 1.0 beta? If not let me know.

[mbennouf]

Hello guys,

Here some quick update of ViperOne. Version 1.1b has now a promotion module that works. Basically it allows the player to get promoted as the game goes on. Promotion points depends on the results of your bombing missions, game level (easy, normal or hard) and of course game options like "enable winds" or "enable failures". Once you reach a certain level of promotions points, you get promoted to the next rank. There are 10 ranks that span from 2 Lt to 4 stars General.

To help you judge how far you are from a promotion the game now has a "promotion gauge" that graphically (bar graph) show how close you are from getting a well deserve promotion. Your missions scores are taken to account but not all scores are created equal in ViperOne. For instance training missions are values much less (scored less) than actual combat missions in term of much promotion points you get after a mission. Of course if you get shutdown by a SAM missile (or simply crash on own) the score is zero and no promotion points are allocated.

I am working with some beta testers at this moment. The game is hard to fully test because there are some many variables like sub-system failures, winds, randomly placed targets and surface to air missile defenses that it is hard for us to test the game fully. For that reason I would like to ask any of you who like those of games (realistic flight combat simulator) to join us in this beta testing period. I have a couple spots available and I will be gratefully if you could help me out on this. After all this time, I am eager to release the game to the general public but I won't until I am convince that the game is relatively stable and do not have a major issues. In short: The game works!

If you any of you are interested please PM me your email address and your device type and I will send you the game and the user guide. For my current beta testers (you know who you are): THANK YOU!


Thank you all for your patience.

Mo,

[mbennouf]

Hello guys,

A quick note for people who already have the game (alpha or beta testers) and who may find landing really hard (it is hard to land an F-16 or any plane for that matter!) Please find above a screen shot of what you should see on final when you almost ready to land. I know the user guide describe the landing but sometimes a good picture is much better than a 1000 words (or in my case 10000000 words the way I tend to describes things )

I should be able to send out version 1.2b very soon.

Hang in there!

Mo.

ps: The above image assumes you are landing with very few amount of fuel (as when returning from a bombing strike) AND no bombs. If you returning from a strike mission and still have some bombs left (maybe you run out of fuel or had a sub-system failures that forces you to go back to base) then the speed here shown (about 160 Knots) will need to be higher to reach the same settings.

[fullmetal2]

where i can download this game .?