Welcome to Fighter Squadron W.W.I! A new art has been born -
an art that combines form, function, physics and style to create
some of the most beautiful machines created by man, flying machines!
Climbing on the invisible air... graceful sails tamed by rugged
rigging, the tall ships of the sky! And inside, the cockpit yields
control of this wondrous vehicle to its master, the ace. In there
it looks like a renaissance scientist’s lab, tubes with pressurized
gases maintain the engine’s life support system while gauges trimmed
with brass measure airspeed, pressure, and magnetic heading. Also
in the ace’s control is the trigger, regulating the distribution
of the most precious payload on board, bullets, each one having
an enemy aircraft on its mind. Fokkers, Spads, Albatros, Neiuports...
each machine with its own strengths and weaknesses, each with
a spirit given to it by its creator, the aircraft designer.
And as each pilot struggles against the enemy trying
to gain the upper hand, so struggles the aircraft designer against
his enemies: weight, drag, frailty. And as each pilot develops
his own style, so each plane comes to form - shape, line and color
back up performance, strength and stealth. The ace flies his machine,
but the machine’s creator flies with them; the pilot revels in
the challenge of flying, but the creator revels in the challenge
of flight. Who wants to create? Who wants to breathe life into
these works of art?
OpenPlane is a combat aviation simulator engine with
an open architecture owned by Inertia Games. Published by Activision,
"Fighter Squadron: The Screamin’ Demon’s over Europe" (SDOE)
is Inertia’s first OpenPlane based simulator. SDOE was released about
a year ago along with the OpenPlane demo and OpenPlane documentation.
There are two facets to OpenPlane, the game engine and
the open architecture standard. As its name implies, OpenPlane
was built to be an engine that supports updates and add-ons. Furthermore,
Inertia seems dedicated to creating more OpenPlane based simulators
such as the R/C simulator they are currently working on. These
simulators are called "OpenPlane Ready" simulators. The OpenPlane
engine implements the behavior of OpenPlane objects such as missions,
squadrons, terrain, vehicles, ground targets, and aircraft. All
of the physics modeling is done by the engine based on the properties
of the objects. The engine also generates the final graphics you
see on the screen. The OpenPlane objects that the engine implements
are stored in a special documented open file format that is described
in the OpenPlane documentation. This allows for most every object
of an OpenPlane based simulator to be customized!
It is important to note that OpenPlane is a standard,
not an editing environment. Allowing users to directly create
objects is not the usual purpose of a file standard, rather it
is to enable tool designers to develop applications that will
let users create and edit the objects. Over the year since SDOE
was released this is exactly what has happened. Right now there
are great tools such as OpenPlane Studio that help to manage the
process of creating and editing OpenPlane objects. The 3d modeling
can be done in a commercial 3d editor of your choice, but right
now the OpenPlane tools support 3Dsmax and AC3D. These two 3D
editors are supported by plug-ins though, so anyone can build
plug-ins for the 3D editor of their choice!
The OpenPlane objects themselves hold the properties
that will determine their flight model and damage model. The flight
model includes weights for each piece of the aircraft, aerodynamic
properties, detailed airfoil data, engine performance data, and
control surface properties. Each part of the aircraft has its
own properties and will have its own physics modeling should it
break off. A plane can be made of any number of parts. The damage
model consists of part tolerance to damage, what happens at various
levels of damage, how strongly parts are connected together, etc.
Smoke trails can be attached, fires can erupt, and the textures
can be changed to show bullet holes and even more serious damage
like broken spars and exposed ribs! The "spring" modeling in OpenPlane
is especially cool, any aircraft part can be connected to its
parent by a "spring." The spring can bend and rebound, bend to
far and deform, or bend even further and break! This allows wings
to deform or fail under load, and landing gears to break off on
hard landings.
What does OpenPlane have to offer to Fighter Squadron W.W.I?
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How about historical terrain with real 3D trenches and barbed wire?
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Intimate low altitude terrain details like small hills, riverbeds, and
raised roads/railroad tracks. Fly through puffy white clouds,
you can almost feel the mist on your face!
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Full 3d virtual cockpits with working gauges and moving control
sticks, you can even see them from outside of the plane!
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Aircraft rigging using alpha textures that result in a smooth
anti-aliased look.
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Stunning 3d engine models, with a rotary engine that rotates!
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Glass windscreens with reflections that shatter when hit!
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Multi-crewed aircraft: finally take control of that rear gunner to
take out the bad guys!
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Squadron based on-line flying.
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Subtle realistic flight models, not predictable table driven models.
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High detailed damage models, shoot holes in wings, take out radiators,
or aim for the pilot!
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Cool crashes, watch your wheels break off and roll around, spinning
like a quarter until they drop.
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Pilots that look about, curse on command, and drop bombs over the side
of the cockpit.
These planes just feel alive! They have weight, even taxiing
can be great fun! Take off and landing is always a thrill.