MikeyPI

*crosses the line because I can=) The river he cried has made me have to get out the bridge laying vehicle, first time I can honestly say I've needed it=) In all seriousness why comment on someone who's just being their normal charming self, thre is an explicit reason why this mod is taking much longer than the others. It is more or less an adaptation of the game not just a simple setof new models and some new scripts still playing on the core system. These guys are trying to basically adapt freeplay to be a whole mission-type experince with one difference, it doesnt really end. To get something like that done, and working properly requires a great deal of time, because just as I learned when I tried things, worked for me, worked for others, did NOT work for everyone, so extensive testing of everything is required along the way... Add in these guys are trying to do a comprehensive mod all-in-one, instead of releasing it segment by segment, so show some patience and let them work in peace.

Ehh not quite, The comp made it to SP1 I know for sure, SP2 I can't say with any degree of accuracy if I dumped it by the time that came along, but I believe it made it to SP2 as well, it just had the crappy intel graphics along with other components that were just flat out junk, as opposed to this one that has much better components making for a much better experience, especially with games. 64 Bit is the only tail biter on some apps since they simply won't install under it.

Plenty of users still have XP and play this game absolutely fine, I see low ram and I see a bad videoard as his culprits. As with any OS, it's easy to blame them for the faults, my old notebook had Vista and it barely did anything right, this one has better hardware, same OS (only 64 bit instead now). You could TRY to get a different video card, this game isnt the latest, greatest thing out there but it is rather demanding, I'd also suggest some more ram if you can do it.

You do NOT have to merge all objects together to export them in zmod2, I generally use the multiple export tool to dump all the objects at once rather than one at a time, which requires you to name the object and the v3o the same thing, the multiple export does this for you automatically. There should be a small arrow pointing down next to the export button, when you click that in the list of options you will see multiple export. Check all the objects you wish to export, assuming they are not supposed to be united, such as door and wheels etc. Pick the location to export to, and the type of filter you wish to use (IE v3o), press export and bam you're done... All the parts will be exported properly and are ready to go.

It's your standard legal canned BS that all corporations put out there to protect their end. So long as you do NOT release say the Editor to the game, the Exe to the game, things like that you're fine, what it's intent is to prevent piracy or things like that, otherwise you're ok, As long as your end result is a Modification FOR the full version of the core game it's perfectly fine.

It's not the modelling program bud;) it's the modeling techniques=) to each their own in mod programs, they all use their own renderers, some are crappier than others I'll grant, but a properly designed model even in the crappiest of apps can manage to look pretty, especially with the High-res textures nnico favors... tbh I'm contemplating revamping all mine to use larger ones just to increase resolution as this game compresses them. DDS takes the hit the worst but even other formats do as well. (my appologies to QRA for going offtopic).

My only suggestion Nnico would be to confine your door count, I started out doing the same you currently do (more GTA style) but sadly a feature they dumped from EM4 that WAS indeed present in EM3 is the ability to *pick* the door of entry, so having more than 1 Personnel door, 1 Equiptment door, 1 Special door sadly, is not really required... Unless of course in the end you find you waste less polys just opening the thing from left to right. My Tahoe/burbs are like that, and they look pretty enough but it's sad to waste the effort if you know what I mean... Instead what I try to do is to do door A fer cops and what not, Door B for equiptment, and Door C for special-purposes. I do like your Excursion though she's very pretty=)

My best suggestion is to start with mission-based stuff bud, missions are 100% scripted so they give you much much more room to maneuver, Freeplay is a tougher nut to crack;)

Ty for applaudng my optimism, in this subject there is indeed some, from the tractor incident she actually behaved pretty good on collisions, the only exception was people, but other static objects such as trees and guard rails interfered with the way the tractor proceeded on it's tumble, when it hit the guard rail it rolled OVER it, it didnt just pass through it or hop over it on the stationary axis she was sliding on prior to striking it. Animations simply put just are massively complex, the more you wish it to do, the larger the file can become. For example the Helicopters aimation set adds massively to the size of the models. The LAPD Helo herself: 39KB, the Rotor Assembly: 1.5MB give or take.... Do that with enough objects and you'll see very quickly they become pretty heavy, the way animations have to be done because well, we lack the software they had the luxury of to create said animations, kinda limits our options. Our animations more or less dupe ev moving vert/polygon for each frame as she proceeds, it adds rapidly to the load on a cpu. A relatively simple horiz drop alone wouldnt hurt too much, but bear in mind that ev "building" or whatever you have present that has these even while the anim isnt active she's still got the same weight on the CPU regardless to if the anim is goin or not. As a working theory I'd say it would be worth the effort to try both on a relatively simple "drop" construction, like a mission-based construction site collapse, see what the anim does vs the standard physics... In freeplay depending on how many structures were present the anims would overload the CPU more likely than not. Remember that I am not a game programmer but I do alotta these types of goodies for this particular game, so I know the system well for doing things such as animations, and she's not the most efficient process around unfortunately, especially if you get into really complex requests in the animation string.

It isnt really too "genius" level stuff to do scripting, no more than speaking another language is... Subsequently why Ive failed so wonderously as a scripter, I can create the theoretical concepts but actually writing the lines of code surpasses my abililties (syntax errors eat me alive). A script is actually very simple in what she does until you start getting into the dynamic processes (IE it has to try to place it's self real-time, then you're going to have to do some tough mathematics work to make that work *see LA Mod Fed sniper* But when it comes to normal scripts, you have he Conditions (if X is present and has object Y assigned) Then the Functions you wish her to do (empty car and connect the hoses or whatever), then at the end you tell it to either keep running if it's a constant event, or let it die if it's a one-timer.. Scripting is just very tedius and requires a sharp eye for details one little ; ] { } / missing from the thing and it simply won't work. Otherwise it tends to be fairly straightforward for the most part, the tedius aspect is why most people can't/won't script. I can mod em, I can read em... but god help me in trying to write one=) If only the lovely designers of this game had put in a "scripting utility" that could assemble the code properly for you, but few games have ever included such a toy, "Starcraft" (yes an older game) has the best example of such a tool that is VERY user-friendly.

Sadly, this is the nature and I believe intention of the game at it's core, it's a point and clicky clicky RTS, in some instances it's far oversimplifed in what one must do to complete the tasks, while in other cases it's downright annoying how much effort it takes to properly addess the incident.... Such is just the way they coded certain features to work in the core game.

Actually bud, EM4 has pretty good *drop* phyasics behind it already, you don't even have to animate a falling object unless you demand a specific ending position for the object in question, while tampering with a few models I inadvertently made the game drop them in the editor and tbh it was actually quite pretty how they fell.. Assuing of course you're not concerned with daminging said object as it is. Hoppah made me test his crane extensively for him and my fav hobby was tractor tossing, there was a specific location with a tractor that no matter how you tried to set it down it alwasys "dropped" it and she'd fall like a structure would, very haphazardly. In the end I agree most of what he desires in this aspect of the concept would work easier in a mission-based scenario.. In freeplay some of it is just too complicated to ask to be repeatedly calculated real-time. I would suggest taking the "concepts" you've come up with and scaling them back, do one thing at a time and see how far you can go with it, I've came up with some concepts that work, some that failed miserably, it all depends on what your tolerances are for imperfections because as Kook said, the game's engine does have her limits, and they'll only be pushed so far before they start to become unstable or flat out fail. On an added note IF they do come out with this new EM high hopes they fixed the friggin mem bleed issue, because EM4's bleed is largely the reason why alotta things flunk the testing phase. As she stands now it tends to work okey with a "timed" event via script, too many "Constant" checking scripts in freeplay, or worse constantly loaded scripts in freeplay and she crashes from the bleed. Some people will notice this when they play Multiplayer, play long enough it'll get buggy and enevitably hit an unrecoverable boo boo.

abu ghraib?

"near death" is so subjective, if you went by the reported incidents in this particular state, even a TC or a Flesh wound results in a Medivac for all LEOS, IMO you do not belong in shock trauma if you can manage to be released the very same evening... But it's how they do things around these parts. Very Very ungodly rarely does a LEO actually get injured in ssuch a manner as to warrent the Medivac and shock trauma visits... As for the shooting deal, I guarentee you far more civies are shot per year than LEOs are, sadly there is a sort of smeh attitude with all the injured/wounded out there for lack of "newsworthy" status, a normal schmuck esp a low level gang member or something will be lucky to get a 30 second spot on the news unless he's fatally shot. As for the incident in question I'm sure it'll come out later he was flat broke (As most elderly are) and reached the end of his sanity as a result of the prospect of losing the only "connection" to a meaningful life he currently has, that being his home. At his age the psychology comes down to "what can I do? I lose my home I don't have the time or ability to "start over" subsequently, dperession sets in and then unfortunately the system kinda treats people like exactly what they are to gov. Nothing more than a Case number to be addressed, not a person, which just exaserbates the person's feelings of alienation, resulting in this type of break. The police officers were but collateral damage as they interdicted in his lunacy, in his eyes he probrably was "defending" his own end, true or not it is irrelevent but it's most likely his mentality. Hopefully the officers will recover and move on with their lives in a recovered state. Remember there are two sides to every incident and unless one cares to understand both, and be properly educated on both, you're destined to fall upon the same types of incidents over and over again. "Those who fail to learn from history are destined to repeat it"

And I thought I was friggin pessimstic, some of his ideas can theoretically be added to the game it's self in the core. Would they probrably be a massive overbuden and make it glitchy? Absolutely, if it didnt totally CTD, but ya know things are "impossible" only as long as nobody knows how to do em=)Some of it would work in theory though.

Gentlemen, I know it gets repetitive answering repeated questions over and over again, but it does indeed take the same effort to speak of what you've read previously as it does to tell someone to try to find the answer in 84 pages. If you happen to know the answer to what someone asks, do try to show some common courtesy and just tell them what it is they asked about or even better if you *know* where the answer was, direct them to that page. You'd be outta you're flippin mind you think I'd read 84 pages of mostly nothing for tiney pieces of useful info here and there, not everyone "follows" all the topics, myself included=) Unfortunately it's rough for the mod team to try to keep the first pages updated with all the info, but they try their best to do so, in the end if you guys could give them a helping hand if you happen to know what someone asks about. Thnx=)

Ye Pirates Be warned already about going offtopic then tryng to mask it by going back on topic, hence Lord of the Banhammer strikes and tempbans ye fer 24 hrs Enjoy. Let this be a learning experience to all others who want to be clever, especially with a member who's already been BANNED to begin with. Not to mention the fact that your comment was incindiary at best.. Nice work buddy.

Next offtopic comment regardless to on-topic mixed into it gets this: Don't care what the warning level is, special circs call for special actions=)

Bingo=) Time served in creating models in sketch THEN trying to convert them properly, in the end you can do the same quality work in less time VIA z1 or z2, same basic program on both counts, I find UV to be easier in Z1 however. The time you'll take learning Zmod is time well spent given there are not many apps that can easilly be converted to Zmod without taking some damages. But I digress and leave it to the original topic.

Sktch models play fine in em3/4 it's zmod they disagree with... unless you enjoy merging polys and redoing UV maps via zmod, it's a royal pain in the tailpipe. sktch tends to have a policy of skrew the poly count, make it however is possible (usually far more than is required, while emergency you're rewarded for skimping wherever possible. Sktch links everything, which is why it's poly count goes thru the roof, IE a pillar in a building will be attatched 100% to the floor instead of floating above it, which is more efficient for emergency.

3 Things... 1). ya'll make me have to do moderation, I hate moderating... Bad boo boo. 2). This topic needed not be posted in the first place, you have a topic regarding said modification... RECRUIT THERE; not in new topics.... This topic was un-necessary, subsequently do not post it again. 3).RESPECT ONE ANOTHER... Unlike everyone else I don't do warning.. I skip to the banhammer for effectiveness rather than play... Don't test it. Oh yeah, Closing the topic.

*sighs can we please not do the conspiracy theory routine, i'm sure the governments of our respective nations have better things to do than to investigate us all.. The sad fact for all non-pilot people out there are the heavies actually flight more consistient than the "sporty" aircraft, as long as you keep it on a steady course it will follow it, the smaller more agile "sports" aircraft such as the acrobatic ones are more prone to doing things you don't intend than the larger aircraft are if you're a novice pilot with an unsteady hand. The tolerances on the controls of a larger aircraft are slower to respond so it actually makes it easier to fly one of them around than a more agile aircraft like the acrobatic planes.. It's a very distinctive difference between an appropriate landing where you are basically doing a controlled fall out of the sky on a "glide path" and using an aircraft as a cruise missile. At speed you still have appropriate control over all surfaces without the risk of stalling, so the thing will pretty much fly as you tell it to. My best guess is they came in on a low approach because they were worried about overshooting their intended impact point and flying into the ground BEYOND the pentagon... might not seem an easy task but at 500+mph I could understand it. Onto topic: The NYPD/NYFD and all other government first responders have addressed the situation as they should, thankfully the device involved was apparently pretty poorly designed so it never got a chance to really cause too much disruption. The could've would've should'ves are not my concern, hopefully there won't be a next time for such an incident but we all know in reality there probrably will be.=(

With all due respect there are a few things I would like to point out. Humans are in fact animals, it is in our nature to run from things we either can't cope with or are unable to comprehend at the time, it's a survival instinct that we were granted specifically to keep us alive. One population over the other has nothing in reality to do with their "skittishness" over an incident, there is a psychological term called "mob mentality". This term does not just apply to acts of violence but also response to primal sensations that while perhaps society would like you to believe are negated by the modernized world, they still live ever present in your senses... It's why people have natural fears of certain things like drowning, burning to death, and what have you. So in my eyes saying the Dutch are somehow more prone to fear is a totally irresponsible comment to make, especially considering all that these people did was follow their natural instincts. Next note: Practically every nation out there gives their ruling parties armored tanks that look somewhat like a normal car, this is done for the explicit reason of keeping them alive just in case the worst should come to pass, in some nations the "motorcade" includes actual litteral gunships (helicopters for people who are unfamiliar with the term), along with armed support vehicles on the ground. Be grateful the Netherlands is safe enough that you don't have that issue to the severity of necessitating that level of security. Next note: The purpose of surveilance gear is simply put to give the illusion that you're somehow more secure, in reality in most instances there are not enough monitors to actually watch the feeds, in some places not even enough servers to actually physically record the data streams... But none the less it makes people think twice about criminal acts knowing they might be on camera, as opposed to the off chance a police officer might be present. Cameras are rarely used for first response purposes, most often they are used to investigate crimes. It is simply more cost effective to blanket an area with 400 cameras than 200 Officers that you have to pay per hour along with any other benefits that might apply. Next note: Politics=Propaganda, no matter your views be it the far right, the left, or the center, it does not matter either way you're getting someone else's "spin" on the way something occured in order to push thier agenda... Such is life in all nations, the Dutch are not unique in this, if you want the facts on a story the depressing fact is you have to be there, not just watch the news or Youtube to learn about it... In either event you're getting a piece of the story and only the piece they want to tell. Final note: Sadly, you are mistaken when it comes to people in nations more "prone" to terrorism handling the situation better, when an incident occurs they panic just like everyone else does, the scene is just as much chaos as it would be if it happened in America or in Europe. The first responders are more accustomed to handling the incidents yes, but the average civilian that was unfortunate enough to be there for the incident does not respond in any spectacular way. There is a definitive difference between a "warzone" mentality civilians must adapt to and the seemingly "random" events that fall under the classification of terrorism, hence why these acts are so effective at provoking the fear we all carry inside. I'm done with this topic now but I had to speak my peace on it, these are my views expressedly only.

Very easilly the most commonly spoken languages tend to be latin based, Italian, French Spanish, English... German should be done, Russian ehh perhaps, maybe Japanese as well, but for the most part most of the world has at least a remedial understanding of english, very few places do not teach english in school anymore... Perhaps they are not as well rounded as we'd like their understanding to be but none the less they have a decent understanding of it. And for the most part if you know how to write into a translator you can get pretty close to the intended message with a few words here and there that are going to be lost in translation when it comes to the non-dominant languages... I'm sorry to the parts of the world that are not overly common but in all honesty how many people can understand Urdu?