Quote:
Originally Posted by JtD
How many of the planes listed/shown have complete LOD models and not just the first one? Which match the polycount and texture size limits as set by 1C? Which ones do not violate some copyright law? Which authors want to have their creation in an official patch in the first place? And what's not subject to the NG issue?
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Good questions. Assuming that you weren't asking them as rhetorical questions, here are my answers.
Proper modeling: I had assumed that full LoD, damage and shadow models were required for any plane to be imported into the game. Obviously I was wrong.
Is there an easy way to figure this out without having to hack into the game?
Polygon and texture count: For fighters and other small single-engined aircraft, it's very hard to exceed the polygon count. Poly count could be a problem for the P.37 and P.23/P.42. Texture size might be a problem for any of them.
Is there an easy way to figure this out without having to hack into the game?
Copyright: Again, good question, but AFAIK, the mods I mentioned are original models or are reworkings of models which have been released into the public domain. There might be a few planes on the list which have been adapted from other games, though, so that could be problematic.
Northrop-Grumman: None of the planes on my list are made by NG or any other company it's bought up over the years (Ryan). And, most of the U.S. planes I mentioned are just variants of planes that are already flyable in the game. Everything else was made by companies that went out of business, were nationalized, or which were on the losing side (so copyrights and whatnot were taken by the victors as "spoils of war").
Why haven't modders contacted TD?: Language barriers? Ignorance? Dislike of TD and its policies? (The last one is stupid in my opinion. There's too damned much politics in the IL2 modding world.)
I do know that modders have big active web sites, which have extensive resources to help people create content for the game. That means that talented newcomers tend to gravitate towards mod sites.
Meanwhile, TD barely makes its email address known and the closest thing there is to an "official" guide to making content for the game is the "IL2 Bible" which hasn't been updated in 8 years.
As for good mods which should be in the game, look at Checkyersix's command and control mod, Certificate's AI mod and Frog's formation mod.