GWX for SH4

[scrapser]

GWX 2.1 has been released and they mention they are "well under way" on a project for SH4. Is there any initial information on what they will be doing to SH4? It would be nice to know if there's specific items they intend to fix or adjust for accuracy.

It's clear to me the developers had a lot planned for SH4 that was cut short or canceled thanks to UBISoft. Is there any plans or ability to "finish" SH4 by the GWX team? This is sorely needed and I'm sure would be greatly appreciated by everyone.

[Jaeger]

yes, it would be nice to know what they are doing. so other modders know, what will be done or what they could do. for example, if they try to mod the atlantic theatre, they neednt invent all the boats, because some german modders from the AOTD group are still working on it. when the modding scene wants to get the best results, they have to work together and they have to change their products...

thats why the gwx team should give the community information about their work.

[ref]

Originally Posted by Jaeger

yes, it would be nice to know what they are doing. so other modders know, what will be done or what they could do. for example, if they try to mod the atlantic theatre, they neednt invent all the boats, because some german modders from the AOTD group are still working on it. when the modding scene wants to get the best results, they have to work together and they have to change their products...

thats why the gwx team should give the community information about their work.

We were still tying up loose ropes with GWX 2.1, now that we've finished it we can devote our full team to sh4, so far we've been interchanging ideas on what's worth to be ported and how to optimize the game performance, given the new features of sh4 we can reduce the size of the sea folder without reducing the actual number of ships in game, and a lot of other stuff, we also need to build some tools to ease the campaign transfer as the GWX one is huge and doing it entirelly by hand could take months.
Same with the units itself, just replacing all the old sh3 controllers with the new sh4 ones is an insane amount of work, so I'm writing a program to automate as much as possible.

As for the player subs we need to evaluate if the existing models have the level of quality we want for GWX (no offense intended), I haven't seen the most recent work of the AOTD group so I can't judge it right now.
For the moment I've a type 7C almost finished, (I wanted to see with my own eyes what level of detail was needed) so I decided to make player sub as they are the most complex objects in game.

This pics are just a WIP, as I haven't finished the textures, and the oclusion map needs some more work too










Ref

[Kpt. Lehmann]

God those are sexy pics.

Ref is being quite humble as well... That VIIC is NOT from SH3. It is a total reconstruction with a higher LOD made for GWX-SH4. Even in its current state of excellence, Ref still considers it a WIP.

Take a bow Ref.

Originally Posted by ref

As for the player subs we need to evaluate if the existing models have the level of quality we want for GWX (no offense intended), I haven't seen the most recent work of the AOTD group so I can't judge it right now.
For the moment I've a type 7C almost finished, (I wanted to see with my own eyes what level of detail was needed) so I decided to make player sub as they are the most complex objects in game.

This pics are just a WIP, as I haven't finished the textures, and the oclusion map needs some more work too










Ref

[Nisgeis]

Originally Posted by ref

<SNIP>
For the moment I've a type 7C almost finished, (I wanted to see with my own eyes what level of detail was needed) so I decided to make player sub as they are the most complex objects in game.

This pics are just a WIP, as I haven't finished the textures, and the oclusion map needs some more work too



Ref

Sorry to everyone for posting on topic, but that's a seriously nice looking model. Daft question - Do the lights light up for naigation?

[ref]

Originally Posted by Nisgeis

Sorry to everyone for posting on topic, but that's a seriously nice looking model. Daft question - Do the lights light up for naigation?

You almost make me ruin a keyboard with coffe with that
It's quite easy to light up the nav lights, but they only should be lit near port, I don't know if it's possible to make that so, I'll take a look at it.

Ref

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by ref

You almost make me ruin a keyboard with coffe with that
It's quite easy to light up the nav lights, but they only should be lit near port, I don't know if it's possible to make that so, I'll take a look at it.

Ref

That would actually be pretty darn cool to be able to have them on (and possibly to switch them off). I go out to my family's summer cottage alot in the summer, it's on an island in the middle of nowhere so it looks great when it's pitch black out on the lake and you see someone driving a boat with his lights on.

[melnibonian]

Originally Posted by ref

You almost make me ruin a keyboard with coffe with that
It's quite easy to light up the nav lights, but they only should be lit near port, I don't know if it's possible to make that so, I'll take a look at it.

Ref

In reality (if I remember correctly) German U-Boats were not using navigation lights during WWII even close to ports for fear of the Royal Navy destroyers and blockade ships. Nevertheless it would be cool to see the U-Boats lit like Christmas Trees near the ports

[scrapser]

Well, I guess one good question is are they planning on giving the U.S. boats and Pacific theater a refit or just work on adding German boats and the Atlantic theater to SH4 by expanding on the 1.5 add-on? I for one would like to see the Pacific theater fixed as much as possible.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by scrapser

Well, I guess one good question is are they planning on giving the U.S. boats and Pacific theater a refit or just work on adding German boats and the Atlantic theater to SH4 by expanding on the 1.5 add-on? I for one would like to see the Pacific theater fixed as much as possible.

Scrapser, what part of the PTO do you need fixed? Fleet boats? If so, is there something wrong with TMO or RFB and the other assorted mods that do not fix the PTO? Is your concern more with the uboat in the PTO?

[cavvie]

The GW team never ceases to amaze me. A salute to you and all the modders out there who make the SH series the best it can be!

[scrapser]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

Scrapser, what part of the PTO do you need fixed? Fleet boats? If so, is there something wrong with TMO or RFB and the other assorted mods that do not fix the PTO? Is your concern more with the uboat in the PTO?

Sorry to be misunderstood. I'm not discounting what has already been done with TMO or RFB. Maybe I'm mis-informed but I thought a GWX mod would take everything that's been done so far, consolidate it, and add any additional modifications for realism where possible. Isn't that what was done with SH3?

Didn't GWX fix a lot of bugs in SH3 that were left behind in the stock release (like the radar on the snorkel always being damaged)? I thought something similar could be done with issues in SH4, too.

I've always thought of GWX as being a super-supermod.

[ref]

Originally Posted by scrapser

Maybe I'm mis-informed but I thought a GWX mod would take everything that's been done so far, consolidate it, and add any additional modifications for realism where possible. Isn't that what was done with SH3?

Didn't GWX fix a lot of bugs in SH3 that were left behind in the stock release (like the radar on the snorkel always being damaged)? I thought something similar could be done with issues in SH4, too.

I've always thought of GWX as being a super-supermod.

It started that way, no need to reinvent the wheel, but since v 2.0 most of the changes where made by the team, even the external mods where revised or adapted by a member of a team, to point an example we corrected the entire sea and submarine folder for reflection problems, another one was Sergbutos outstanding solution that forces the planes to make multiple attack runs, I used his idea and adapted to all the airplanes suited to that rol, as you see even if we use other people work/ideas there's still the need to integrate with the rest of the mod.
As for the second part if we encounter a problem that is shared by both theaters and found the solution of course we'll fix it and share it.

Ref

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by scrapser

Sorry to be misunderstood. I'm not discounting what has already been done with TMO or RFB. Maybe I'm mis-informed but I thought a GWX mod would take everything that's been done so far, consolidate it, and add any additional modifications for realism where possible. Isn't that what was done with SH3?

Didn't GWX fix a lot of bugs in SH3 that were left behind in the stock release (like the radar on the snorkel always being damaged)? I thought something similar could be done with issues in SH4, too.

I've always thought of GWX as being a super-supermod.

GWX is a super mod and did correct issues plus a whole crap load of other things. You will find that SH3 started just like SH4, bit mods here and there. Then these mods melded into a large mod package. GWX took off and created/polished a awesome mod for SH3. SH4 is following the same path but a bit different because SH4 is a PTO game with a uboat add on which opens the door to mod the ATO within SH4. Please look through the other mods on the SH4 forum, there are more than a handful of people who have been modding SH4 for over a year and it does not deal with the ATO at all. So, yes, you are a bit misinformed that GWX will take everything already done with SH4 and roll it up in a nice packaged. GWX has all the material they need from 2.5 years of working over SH3. I suspect that this knowledge will be rolled into SH4 for the ATO, but, will take some time as there are some differences between the two games and how they operate. I hope there is one thing that GWX can over come and it was no fault of their own. When GWX opened the Indian Ocean in SH3 they could not add map grids and renown was non-existent (from what I remember) it is like the Indian Ocean did not exist in SH3...in SH4 UBM, the map grid is there for the Indian Ocean but no grid in the Atlantic. I hope SH4 will recognize grids in the Atlantic. I play Operation Monsun and notice the map only has grids in the PTO/Indian Ocean area. Hopefully, Ref can confirm that the map grid issue in the Atlantic is a non-issue.


Read what Ref has to say about GWX and what they are looking to accomplish.

[swdw]

Originally Posted by scrapser

Didn't GWX fix a lot of bugs in SH3 that were left behind in the stock release (like the radar on the snorkel always being damaged)? I thought something similar could be done with issues in SH4, too.

The reason AVG posted what he did, is this shows a complete lack of understanding of the scope of TMO and RFB. They don't just add new features, they fix a list of bugs and issues so long, I'm not going to list them all here.

Besides their own innovations/changes/fixes, they also combine a HUGE number of mini mods which have been tweaked into one cohesive mod that allows everything to work together seamlessly.

You'd get a more informative responses if you actually listed bugs you knew about that you're wanting to know if they've been fixed. Not meaning to be "persnickity", but GWX isn't the only group capable of fixing bugs. In fact, there are a number of fixes and enhancements being done to the U-boats in RFB.

To get an idea of what I'm talking about, try reading through all of the changes, fixes, and mods listed in this thread that have been implemented in various parts of RFB. And keep in mind this post is the "Reader's Digest condensed version". These are only the changes through the 1.4 version. 1.5 changes will be listed with the 1.5 release.
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=125529

The list for TMO is actually longer because of the scope of the mod.

If lurker posted a write up of things he's fixed through his campaign mods, it'd be PAGES.


Maybe if GWX fans didn't make posts that show:
1. They assume no one else is capable of fixing anything but GWX,
2. They haven't even bothered to actually look into the major SH4 mods to see what's been done (see #1)
3. Little to no respect for all the hard work already done by SH4 modders (see #1)

they wouldn't cause a thread to erupt like this one did.

And BTW for those not modding. Although ref's posts seem to show an "open arms" approach, GWX has not approached any major SH4 modder about cooperation. In contrast, the AOTD guys have been very forthcoming and helpful since their announcement. They even posted an old fix that had been misplaced for everyone outside of AOTD to use . Makes you wonder . . . :hmm: