Modding Tornado

[Clark78]

Hi Frankie!

Yes, finally! Thanks a lot for that! Having the new view possibilities and the full screen no-hud cockpit and full screen FLIR really improves the situational awareness in this sim. And being able to quickly switch between views with the coolie hat is really nice. This is important as it makes the low resolution not being such a big impact as before. Great work!

Cheers,
Lars

[Frankie]

I'll drink to that!!!
 

[Frankie]

I discovered a bug in
Mod#166. Air-to-air missile close proximity warning.



In Mod#166, I mistakenly commented off lines 4743, 4744 and 4749. This resulted in some mysterious and irritating random-sounding close proximity warning sound. The sound I later found out, was some drone's SkyFlash missile going off. So what I did was to UNcomment 4743, 4744 and 4749. So now the mysterious close proximity warning sound is gone. Also, enemy incoming Air-To-Air missile is working fine with this latest small improvement.

Attached below is the latest FLIGHT.EXE.

Until the next Tornado mod,
Frankie Kam

[Frankie]

173.  Automatic cinematic pan in Tracking View
Mod: In Tracking View (F1), hit the "I" key to pan around the Tornado

This lends a nice cinematic touch to the Tornado external view. Hit F1 first. Then toggle the panning on and off with the "I" key. You can also hit Z, X, Shift+Z and Shift+X to further shift the panning along.

[Frankie]

174.  Automatic cinematic pan in Drone View
Mod: In Drone View (F5), hit the "I" key to have an automatic view pan around the Tornado

I applied the code from the previous mod to the drones in Tornado. Optimised for split-screen view (F1, [ or ] keys) as well. Well, I got it to work. Now I can enjoy watching the Hind and Frogfoots go about their business of death with a cinematic like effect camera panning around the aircraft at a slow and relaxed rate. IMHO, it does make a difference to the visuals. One more mod closer to the the 200th mod target I've set myself. That would be nice to achieve.

This lends a nice cinematic touch to the Tornado drone external view. Hit F5 first. Then toggle the panning on and off with the "I" key. You can also hit 1, 0, Z, X, Shift+Z and Shift+X to further shift the panning along.

Cheers
Frankie Kam

[Frankie]

175.  Tweaked F1 Tracking, F3 Flyby and Destroyed views
Mod: Did three minor tweaks over the weekend

F1 Tracking - After an F1 key press, holding and pressing 1 or 0 raises or lowers the height of the camera. Nicer effect now.
F3 Flyby - hitting F3 no longer swivels the camera view around to bring the Tornado into view - Tornado immediately comes into view.

No more pre-swivelling. Immediate flyby view.

When the Tornado is destroyed, it will now slow down, then dive downwards and when hitting the ground, will come to an immediate stop (zero knots).

Latest Update 19/7/2020
FLIGHT.EXE now in two Tornado skin flavours - grey and green.
See attached FLIGHT.ZIP file.

[Frankie]

176. Modelling a Bundeswehr Luftwaffe grey livery design
Mod: A grey German Tornado

The Bundeswehr Luftwaffe Tornado skin that I had created in my last post was something that I simply wanted to improve on. For two reasons. Firstly, it was simply an ADV Tornado skin with a black nose cone. Secondly, the topside and underside were the same colour. I needed the topside colour to be a darker shade of gray.

Image by CaptainMeo from Pixabay.

Bundeswehr Luftwaffe grey livery

"Tornado GNY" (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) by Rob Schleiffert from Flickr.com

So I decided to spend a Sunday afternoon to colour the flat-shaded polygons of Digital Integration's 1993 Tornado in the colours of the Bundeswehr Luftwaffe's Tornados. Took me half a day of modifying the 27-years old hardcoded-code to get this right. I think I got the 3D effect just nice. I like the contrasting greys between the topside and underside colors.

As usual, I attach the latest FLIGHT.EXE executable file. The other three files (INC and ASM source files) are just for my future reference.

Enjoy.

Regards
Frankie Kam

P.S., here are a collection of interesting articles about Germany's Tornados.
https://www.defensenews.com/global/2018/04/13/germany-fears-steeper-tornado-costs-after-the-uk-ditches-its-planes/
https://www.airforce-technology.com/news/germany-opts-for-typhoons-and-super-hornets-to-replace-tornados/
https://www.airforce-technology.com/news/germany-f-35-tornado-jets/
https://dsm.forecastinternational.com/wordpress/2020/04/22/german-defense-minister-makes-tornado-replacement-plans-official/
https://www.fpri.org/article/2020/05/squaring-the-circle-the-replacement-of-the-german-luftwaffes-tornado/
https://www.stripes.com/news/germany-to-order-45-us-jets-to-replace-1970s-tornados-report-says-1.626691
https://today.rtl.lu/news/business-and-tech/a/1499724.html
https://www.flightglobal.com/fixed-wing/germany-outlines-tornado-succession-plan-with-eurofighter-and-super-hornet-buy/138049.article

[Asid]

 

[Frankie]

177. Modelling a Bundeswehr Luftwaffe grey livery design - Part II
Mod: A better grey German Tornado

This is Part II of the Luftwaffe skin mod

Mod#176 had a problem where the colours were not consistently laid out. Also when you zoomed in and out, the scaled image was deformed in terms of haphazard colouring and colour replacements. This has been solved with Mod#177.

This livery is now Mod#177 and it shows absolutely no anomalies when zoomed in or out. This is because I did a proper search and replace of colours. So the colours of Mod#177 are more organised, systematic and better laid out, compared to Mod#176 which was more a piecemeal kind of colour replacement.

I guess I got more skillful in the art of colouring Digital Integration's Tonka.

Topside colours are darker compared to the underside colours.

The colours harmonise better with the surroundings, compared to the darker Tonka of my previous post (Mod#176).

The belly colours are lighter compared to the topside colours.

As usual I attach the latest FLIGHT.EXE file.


Cheers
Frankie Kam

[Frankie]

TRACKING VIEW (F1) SPLIT-SCREEN MODE - VARIOUS IMPORTANT BUG FIXES

Various important bug fixes:

• When in split-screen mode with Map view in bottom-half of screen, hitting 6 key no longer crashes the game
• When Tracking view is in split-screen mode, and the user is in the Pilot's View, hitting M key (for Map view) no longer messes up the screen
• When Tracking view is in split-screen mode, and the user is in the Navigator's View, hitting M key (for Map view) no longer messes up the screen
• When Tracking view is in split-screen mode, if the Map view is activated, the map is centered nicely in the middle of the bottom-half of the screen
• Added "TORNADO (2020)" on the "Activate by hitting 9-key" secondary status bar. To take up the empty space on and for the fun of it.

As usual, I have attached the latest FLIGHT.EXE which makes this modded simulator more bug-free.

Cheers
Frankie Kam

[Frankie]

178. More 'realistic bomb' effects,

Mod: Nicer bomb blast effects.

Bomb blasts and explosions in Tornado are disappointing. Missing are rapidly expanding sprites of bomb blasts like what Jane's Fighter Anthology sported. This omission is due to memory limitations. So previously when a bomb reached the ground target, the gamer would be greeted by an explosion sound effect and an immediate crater visual. All very underwhelming.

Now I have added more pyrotechnic visual effects so that a bomb explosion in Tornado looks sightly more "realistic". It all still happens in a split second. Unless you pause the screen at the right moment (Key p), ...like so(!)...

Triple screen. To see this triple-split-screen, hit F1, then "[" 3 times, and release your bomb toward the target.

....you will only see the effects for slightly more than a split second. Still the bomb blast is visually more active than the default (since 1993) sterile sound and crater effect.   Personally I like the visual effect of the flames arching upwards. Never mind that the effect lasts all of 1 second, this is in my humble opinion, better than the stock game's explosion effect.

Hope you like this effect.

Cheers
Frankie Kam

Update Sunday 9th August 2020. The original Mod#178 hung the game after a while. I have solved the bug and I have RE-uploaded FLIGHT.EXE. Enjoy.

[Asid]

Nice work Frankie 

[Frankie]

179. Late Master Arm Switch in external view

Mod: Added the Late Master Arm switch to the Tracking View.

In Tornado, to check if if the Late Master Arm switch is primed, I have to switch to the cockpit view. See below.

With me making many mods that deal with th external view, I thought it would be nice to show the Master Arm switch outside of the cockpit.

Update: I removed the explosion effect since Mod#178 hangs the game after long play. So FLIGHT.EXE reuploaded minus Mod#178.
What I have done with this latest addition to my famly of Tornado mods, is to show the Master arm switch in the external Tracking view. Like so:

Hit F1 for Tracking View, followed by "[" key once. Before hitting the Enter

After hitting Enter

After hitting "/" key to show the Store Management Display.
The selected ordnance GPB1000x4 MAN is blinking.

What's the whole point of this you may ask? For me, it means I can concentrate more on the external view visuals and instrumentation without having to jump back into the Pilot's View (Home). It's nice to know for certain that the Late Master Arm switch has been toggled on - especially when I am fully focused on the bomb run and there are seconds left before the release of ordnance.

Note: The Late Master Arm will only show in the external tracking view either the TV TAB or MFD is visible (toggle them on/off with Alt+T and Alt+M) at the upper left corner of the screen.

Regards
Frankie Kam

Update: FLIGHT.EXE reuploaded on Sunday 9th August 2020. Solved the Mod#178 bug.

[Frankie]

Standard Olive Green Tornado version - FLIGHT.EXE as of Mod#179.

This is the gamer's default Tornado skin. Enjoy.

Update: Download the Zip file and rename either GREEN.EXE or GREY.EXE to FLIGHT.EXE for the latest executable.

[Frankie]

Ping.

All quiet on the Eastern Front.