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US Army presents "Mast Bumping"

Flexman

Entry posted by Flexman ·

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I know it's a little late for Valentines Day. Excessive flapping, bumping and separation is discussed in this priceless US Army video from 1980. If only they had "RotorCam ™". The Apache has a fixed rotor, mast bumping isn't an issue but it's all part of helicopter theory.

 

 

 

I've been forced to continue hunting for other employment to deal with a mounting debt crisis. As a result work was put on hold the past two weeks (hence the lack of updates). I apologise for letting my post slide, the project really is taking a toll. I've been ordered to get back to Combat-Helo ASAP (taxes and all that business stuff needed to be done too), I'll be updating as well as I can. There's an engine update to finish rolling into the project (I started on that earlier in the week, this fixes a problem with terrain and I hope the EntityUserData and hierarchy problem).

 

A Twitter follower suggested I post some Gun Cam footage, I had a look at that and found vegetation range/LOD issues in the MTADS camera need dynamic adjusting (not sure what the most efficient method will be yet).

 

I'll just round this entry off by stating that raising funds in the UK for technical entertainment projects is very difficult if not near impossible. Bank staff/accountants take one look at video of Apache cockpits and give you funny looks like you're some kind of gun nut (that actually happened).

 

In the meantime, enjoy the technical detail of the above video.

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macklebee

very interesting flexman...

I was reminded of your blog post when I saw in the news today an example of ground resonance...

 

 

are you planning on incorporating destruction aspects of the helicopter into combat helo as well?

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Flexman

Not in this case Mac. There's enough going on in the flight-model. Mast separation and structural damage is difficult to achieve, indeed visual representation of damage modelling was quite difficult, we have some 4 stage GREAT textures showing progressive damage but decals are not viable for this. Helicopter mesh detail requires non-instanced meshes and I WISH that I had built the helicopter not as a complete vehicle but as an assembly of common parts that could be instanced however LOD issues would have caused problems with that. Especially as some parts need animation (skinning).

 

So that whole subject was a bag of worms that only with the recent Leadwerks 2.5 update would have been possible but too late to do anything about. So a feature best left for "the future".

 

The damaged skin textures (covered in small bullet holes and scratches) do need to be used somehow and I'm hoping I can add those in later with some shader to blend them onto the aircraft. It needs to be progressive, that is, the greater the damage, the more of the damage texture has to show.

 

Does that make any sense at all?

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Guest Red Ocktober

Guest Red Ocktober

Posted

In the UK crowdfunding is not legal. Use of such funding sources carries a risk of prosecution.

 

wow... that's a shame...

 

--Mike

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