Zephyr Net

Whatever that means I have no idea...

LADIES! you can both have me relax lol (joking)

No need to start any small ruckas just yet as I need more posts about my textures first heh

Hey,

Cent is just jealous of whatever I seem to do or appreciate...

Personally I never understood it.....

Wrong again Cag. Put down the tissue implies such:

You are oogling over the skin and rightfully so it is sweet but don't get a hard-on and beat off to it.

_________________
"Smile, AMRAAMs love you!"
"May the PATRIOTS down the FROGS!"
1Lt. Centurian57_76/369th

For all your FA needs and Game Remod 6 visit

Yea I know you are even jealous of my ____!!

AHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!

Not really...I am quite happy with what I've got...no complaints.

_________________
"Smile, AMRAAMs love you!"
"May the PATRIOTS down the FROGS!"
1Lt. Centurian57_76/369th

For all your FA needs and Game Remod 6 visit

LOL!!!!!

*ahem*

Lets change the subject, shall we?

Yr 2022.

Were Jimbo's shapes ever made public? Are they in one of the available projects / libs?

No all his stuff was lost. I just have 1 set of skins that he based his work off of. He stole all those skins from another flight sim. I posted about that a few years ago...

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Hotshot
"FAF Shape Meister"
FAF/FA-2 Design team
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VNFAWING Forums
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FA Futures/FA-2 is Still Being Worked On and Will Be Released...

Here is the topic I posted about them...

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2190

_________________
Hotshot
"FAF Shape Meister"
FAF/FA-2 Design team
TSH Member/Developer
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VNFAWING Forums
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FA Futures/FA-2 is Still Being Worked On and Will Be Released...

When I received the emails about these last two replies it was great to see people remembering some of the old textures and this classic game. It's a shame a proper upgrade or new release never came out that recaptured the customization of this game, amount of aircraft, coop multiplayer experiences, and simple flight controls. When I saw usnraptor's post I thought I might have these old dusty files kicking around on an old external HDD but I believe I probably deleted them years ago.

I noticed a bit of history being spun by CAG Hotshot that was just false, so I thought I'd quickly address that. My textures were not taken from other games. My post in 2003 explains my process and how I use to simply use actual jet photos and then skew/modify them to fit on to the models from Fighter's Anthology. I remember this trick always worked better in greyscale as well, since the palette was so restricted. The canopy idea was more of an accident and experimental thing that came about when pre-painting areas to determine where each pixel mapped on to the plane in-game. This was always one of the biggest challenges as certain textures were distorted to fit shapes and you would have to carefully avoid areas that would cause the game to crash if you painted pixels on them. It was great to see a handful of the original game models had more shape which brought more realism to aircraft such as the F-14, F-18 and Eurofighter. Of course if the game had support for higher-resolution textures and models the potential of modding the game would have been great to see. I can remember being blown away by the graphics in games like Lock On that came out later but required "Super PCs" to run them. Now you need to spend $75 to fly one ultra realistic jet in DCS. I've observed some incredible work in that community, and I've enjoyed some of the visuals from Ace Combat and Project Wingman.

Maybe one day a Fighter's Anthology-esque game will come out that doesn't embrace the overly realistic simulation approach, or delayed controls found in Jane's USAF and DCS. I'd also hope for a modding community with a bit more open-source design like JK Peterson's website without creating walls to further limit interest and awareness to projects. If that day never comes I'll always reminisce about the hundreds of great hours on this game - it was great while it lasted. Thanks to everyone here who I flew with and to everyone who developed content to enhance this game.

<S>

Jimbo

Spun nothing. I found the site where these exact skins originated. Right down to each and every pixel. The real kicker though was when I found your F-14 there as well…

Modifying existing skins to work with FA is a smart move. Just give a nod to the original creator on the credits. Developers do it all the time. No need to reinvent the wheel, as it were,.. But being a Bonehead and claiming they are your own when they aren't, isn't cool ... Next time try to pick something from a site that isn't backed up in the wayback machine if you want to claim ownership of something that isn't yours...

FYI even back then trying to covert a 24 bit color photo to a 256 color bitmap for FA caused huge detail losses. You would have never been successful at that. Even today it cant be done very successfully, especially considering FA has so few grays in its 256 bitmap palette…

_________________
Hotshot
"FAF Shape Meister"
FAF/FA-2 Design team
TSH Member/Developer
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VNFAWING Forums
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FA Futures/FA-2 is Still Being Worked On and Will Be Released...

Jimbo,

Instead of reminiscing about the good old days, why not come back? We've done a lot in the past 20 years. Sure it's not young and pretty anymore, but the magic is still there. Like you said, no one has created a true replacement.

Check out some of the changes made:
http://myplace.frontier.com/~usnraptor

Thanks Raptor. I wasn't able to find an installation guide to download or play Fighter's Anthology on Windows 10 on your site, and I don't even have a CD-Drive to run my old discs. Do you think my 3080 can handle this game? I did stumble upon an ISO file on Splinter00S' Youtube channel, which might be the only way I can get it to run. Unfortunately I'm too much of a graphics geek to regularly play this game again. I still joke with friends that this was the greatest game I ever played, but it is hard to imagine playing the same game. To give this game more of a pulse online, the new content and graphics that have been developed should be publicly showcased. It'd be great to see a montage on Youtube highlighting improvements and new graphics.

I had to browse through some of my old posts on here to honestly recall moments I forgot all about. This included the MiG-21 skin I created, and the Alpha Jet skin for Centurian I made. I'm guessing Cent's old skin repository may have been lost too? I also forgot all about registering with the VNFA forum and seemingly being banished from it. It's probably a bit too late, but I never understood the desire to keep so much secrecy over developments for this game especially after so many years have past.

As for skins, I can see posts on here of me referencing the exact F-18 photos I used, which was a real trip. I also spotted the 2003 post where I suggested to use a collection of F-18 skins I found. So based on that it entirely possible I used them for reference on my own. Keep in mind - this was almost 20 years ago. To claim the skins were stolen pixel for pixel is a bit of a stretch though, and anyone who has worked on skins in this game knows it isn't that simple. I wish it was as easy as dropping in a 3D model or skin from another game. For certain I can remember investing far more hours than I'd like to admit into a handful of skins in this game. My goal was to ultimately have fun making better looking skins and share them for others to use. I never aspired to make any profit off this game or the skins I made. I'm thankful this game gave me an outlet to develop my design skills that would later evolve into the career I have today.

Hopefully one day there is a new game engine or flight game that users in this community can pour their passion and attention to detail into. At this point it looks like that may be the only hope to capture what loved about FA in a modern looking game.

I can only imagine how many more hours the rest of you have put into this game.

Jimbo

Jimbo,

If you are really interested in getting back into FA, then we can help you make that happen. With the exception of myself, everyone else is using Windows 10; fairly easy with many success stories.

You can get the ISO from Archive.org. If not there, then somewhere on my Google drive is a copy.

Centurian and I are here often as well as on the Fighters Anthology Discord (link on my website). We are there more often than what is healthy, I'm sure. Lots of others go there looking for help getting back into the game too. Heck, even Cent was gone for like a decade or so. Now he's back full force.

As far as his Skins Shapes Repository, not only does it still exist, but the 2.0 version has preview pics, as well as my pics_sh.zip.
You'll find both by going to my website, click on usnraptor FA Google Drive, then click the Aircraft folder. The preview pics are inside the zip files.

As for the graphics, just try it out a bit. Maybe you'll like the nostalgia of it. You're 20 years older now. Your points of view and interest likely have changed.

Maybe you'll like the challenge of working on the old stuff. We've got plenty of projects if finding ideas is an issue. If you're any good with shapes, and enjoy doing those, this hobby will last a lifetime then.

We're having a bit of a resurgence here. As stated, no flight sim matches FA's unique qualities. That's why people are coming back. That, and no $80 fee for any little add-on.

Lastly, keep in mind that you can have more than one copy of FA on your computer at the same time. This way, you can load Centurian's libs to one and my Libs (or individual files if need be) in the other. Then you can easily check out both libs.

If you need help getting back in the game, then just let us know. If you're not interested, then thanks for stopping by and feel free to come back and visit.