I get it delivered, it says,
In this issues download section, we introduce a group of developers who have been working together since 2006, creating high quality, Military AI (Artificial Intelligence) models, flight plans and airport scenery covering many airforces from around the world. Like many other talented enthusiasts, they've done all this without charging a penny, giving their time and energies to the flight sim communities freely, under the Military AI Works (MAIW) banner. They opperate independently, from all around the world, coordinating their projects via email and the message forums on their website at
www.militaryworks.com (edit - they misprinted the web address)
This is a very proffesional, multi-threaded site that includes a map of their current coverage and links to the actual products. They've even got some FSDS (Flight Simulator Design Studio) video tutorials for budding designers.
The aircraft models and scenery are produced using either GMAX or Flight Simulator Design Studio by Abacus.The AI models are designed to be as low a drain on your computer resources as possible, and as such the aircraft 'polygon-count' is vitally important. Most user-flyable aircraft can feature around 50,000 polygons, (three sided shapes that make up every 3D component you can actually see in the simulator); whereas MAIW aim to make models that have around 4,000 polygons. This way you can have 100 plus aircraft appearing on the ground, and they will not turn your computers display into a slideshow.
Another policy employed is to use just a single texture file for each aircrafts paint scheme, rather than the 30 or 40 that can make up a normal user model. This is another performance-saver feature adopted in the creation of their airport add-on scenery. All these products are constructed with multiple animations and special features. For example, animated pilots, canopies, flight control surfaces, landing gear, airbrakes etc. are now common place; some even feature ground support equipment and tabs and flags that appear when the aircraft is not in use.
The group has released more than 150 packages and is now working on new developments that make AI aircraft more realistic. So they might carry out mock-attacks on waypoints, or perhaps you will see an AI formation fly-past.
Although the current range of products is designed to run on FS2004, they are starting to expand across to FSX (EDIT-you're not gonna abandon FS9 are you?). In fact, one of the contributors on their support forums has recently created an easy-to-follow guide that will help you convert their current packages to FSX.
(EDIT-the correct web address is at the bottom of the article)
