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[WxTech]

In looking at photos of those palm plantations, the trunk spacing looks to be at least not too different from my array's row separation of 8m.

The way the model is built, in order to keep the poly count to the absolute minimum, requires dead straight rows of regular spacing. I can offset the blocks somewhat as they are put down end to end, but the straightness aspect is not going to be masked, really. The facing of a row of single palms is only a slight distraction from this aspect.

We have to suffer the game engine limitations if we aim to suggest the overall aspect at least as strongly as the smaller details. It really is a balancing act. After my first laying down of the 6x6 arrays only, filling I with single palm trees, the minimum frame rate git down to 20 fps. After using the 3x3 arrays, and hence fewer single trees, the minimum frame rate rose to 32 fps (on my not exactly world-beating machine, an i5-9600K boosted to 4.8 GHz with an RTX 2060.)

My comments in my last post regarding object color and tone as compared to the general forest was not really considering the palm plantations. My concern was revolving the use of the now older 40m block object, whose texture is built around the 'wilder' jungle look, in cases of natural mixed-tree forest.

As is the case at Barakoma. Our map treatments to now have dealt with this case by laying down a splattering of many palm tree objects, mostly the groups of several. Which fails to do justice to the actual density of the growth, which moreover is not palms.

[WxTech]

For all the palm block type objects I've decided to make the collision box fairly small, at the height of the trunks, and in the middle of the block. For a couple of reasons.

1) Most importantly, I feel that one must be able to strafe through these things. Palms in particular present a minimal projected surface area, and so the blocking fraction against projectiles is much nearer to zero than it is to unity. Even pretty dense woods allow some fraction of projectiles to travel a distance before interception. It's better than the default condition where a large, essentially same-size collision box of some 'toughness' renders bullets as utterly ineffective, with the object first having to be destroyed. (The same condition is not uncommon for things like open sheds having no sides at all; the collision box extends down to the ground, and so those enticing fuel barrels you can see under the roof are completely protected by a seeming force field.)

2) I feel it's unnecessary to impose upon the player the danger of exploding upon accidentally touching a tree while taxying. But the collision box being up at the tops of the trunks makes it hazardous to swoop too low while flying.


2)

[Flying H]

It amazes me how you all can figure out how to expand the scope of this old simulator! It really keeps the interest up and also seems to attract new participants to the hobby! Thak you all for your ongoing effort to refine this sim!

[stanislao]

   Returning to the problem of naval wakes, it is true that it is enough to put more points of close turn but there remains a problem, the bow of the ships does not follow the angle of turn, for about ten seconds, the ship goes sideways with respect to the new direction and the wake comes out perpendicular to the hull with an unpleasant and unnatural effect ...
I have indicated the direction in which the ship is proceeding, completely sideways ..

[genXgamer]

I'm glad you brought this up stanislao because I was unable to get the desired wake I was after.
My wakes looked exactly like yours.

I will chase down WxTech's original post to try and look for any clues or information.

Screenshot from original post which sparked a lot of interest.

[WxTech]

I've done very little with setting up ships in missions to have them maneuvering about, and so there's more for me to learn here. My fiddling with the wake and sidewave effects have given me some insight, but the business of ship turning is an area in which I have much to uncover.

As a flight combat sim, we can surmise that ships were something of an afterthought in the early days, with no sophistication afforded to the matter of their maneuvering. To keep the main wake from emanating from a point nearer to amidship than the stern as the tub rotates quickly about its center, the point of emission for the wake should be located rather near to the prop hook, not too far forward of it.

It would be worthwhile to experiment with combos of ship speed and the sharpness of turn set via the waypoints. And I wouldn't be surprised that otherwise similar situations for different ships could have different results.

If a ship does the sideways drifting thing, where the nose is turning more briskly than the ship changes its direction of movement, this would suggest a tighter turn needs to be set up via the waypoints. The waypoints, as far as I understand, are rigidly followed, as though the ship were on a rail. If the ship's rotation about its center is linearly correlated to speed, then a fixed radius of curvature on the waypoints would work at all speeds. But if the rotation is at a constant angular rate irrespective of speed. Then it's necessary to adjust the wayoints based on speed; the faster it moves the more gradual the turn on the track.

[WxTech]

Here's my NGNB textures thread, updated Aug 26:

https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php?topic=68737.0