It's been a busy few weeks for me!

[CENTER][U][B]Texturing & Skinning[/B][/U][/CENTER]

[URL="https://www.realitymod.com/forum/members/12600.html"][R-Con]Tupla_s[/URL] modelled a really good Honda CB 500 motorbike for the Insurgents. It comes in at a tiny 2.8K tri's which is quite an impressive feat. The texture sheet is also fairly small at 1024x1024 (vehicles such as the landy are double that size, and some other vehicles can have two or three texture maps).

The texture i gave it therefore was fairly modest, as if i was going to go into extensive details, it would come out blurry and much of the details I would like to put in would be lost.

[CENTER][IMG]http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/2523/render5c.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/26/render7.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/3162/render6.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/7416/render8.jpg[/IMG][/CENTER]

The last image was a joke for the devs :P. It may not go in, but was a bit of a laugh none the less. I'm waiting to see what other colors (if any) the devs want from this, add some more dirt to some of the shinier spots, get the whole thing checked over, and then it's ready to go! (v 0.9 or later). Again, props go to Tupla's modelling and Uv'ing skill for the bike!

The next project for me now will be the mortar skins. I had done these previously, although I had to format my PC due to it exploding. I'm very excited to do this as:

A) I would love to see deployable mortars in 0.9
B) The current work on them by the dev team looks very promising and should be a fantastic asset to have for BSS
C) Skinning a tube is as easy as Skinning a cardboard box. there are more difficult projects out there.

That being said though, I did find it a challenge trying to make the mortar look interesting and used. I'm hoping now I can learn from my past experiences and get this out and looking good in a few weeks.

[CENTER][U][B]Community Events[/B][/U][/CENTER]

I'm actually really really lucky to have a great team behind me on this one.

The R-Coms have been working hard as always on a number of projects.

The Training Team have kicked off with a very successful Basic Infantry course thats been running for the past few weeks. Cyberzomby, Sadist Cain and Doombringer plus other R-Coms and community members have been helping some of the newer folk get accustomed to how things run in PR (we were all there once).

Other training events are now in the works, including Advanced Transport Helicopter, Advanced Infantry training and more. With the PR Official Training, you know it's going to be of a high quality, and allow you to maybe learn a couple of secrets which will give you the edge over your foes.

One of the other items being worked on is a reference manual for the weaponry in PR. There are some slight differences between weapon damages, hits to kill, settle time, ROF etc etc. By producing this manual, the training team are hoping to allow you guys to become better accustomed to the differences between each army, and alter your gameplay accordingly. Must say, huge thanks to [R-Con]Nedlands1 and [R-dev]Jaymz on this one. nedlands even gave me a trig maths lesson to help me figure out ranges and deviation spacing! (Ignore the bugs in there, such as the Rounds per Second, they have been fixed! this is just a Proof of Concept kinda thing.)

[CENTER][IMG]http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/7265/m4trainingaid.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/4360/l85a2trainingaid.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/4100/g3a3trainingaid.jpg[/IMG][/CENTER]

We will also be looking at creating something similar for vehicles, with a visual representation of armour points and which materials are affected by which projectiles etc etc. With these training aids under your belt, you will become an expert in no time! We are trying to target beginners and hardened players alike, and will hopefully show you the weak spots of certain vehicles, where to aim to take down a helicopter etc etc. Stay tuned for more info!

It hasn't been all smooth sailing however, we had to postpone the Golden Squad Event, and i couldn't get this weeks BSS mod night up and running as the Operation PeaceKeeper website was down, so i couldn't get the download link up in time to host it for today, and so it's on for next week. It's a new release, and I would highly recommend it for you guys to play. [URL="https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f376-pr-event-news/65818-bss-mod-nights-operation-peacekeeper-2-a.html#post1116933"]Link here[/URL]

To make up for this however, the R-Coms will be hosting another Mumble Scenario event in the next couple of weeks. So if you have any suggestions for scenarios, could you please post them up [URL="https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f292-suggestions"]in this forum[/URL] so we can start planning which scenarios to use where.

After the Retro Map pack we are working on hopefully another map pack. We came across some issues with a night map pack, however, we should be able to get something out for you guys at some stage, although i cannot put a date on it yet. One thing that is exciting me are the community maps. Rudd-Medicman has been working very hard on a Barracuda audit he has passed on, and also has a very impressive night Tad Sae map in the works. Onil, another community member has also been working on some Battleracer style maps for PR, which i am hoping to host an event around at some point in the future and help release out to you guys when he thinks it is up to scratch.

Finally, I just want to encourage you, the community, to FORCE your server admins to host an event. If you feel your server isn't getting the population, then you need to do something about it! The players are not going to come to you, you have to get them going your way! Host a mumble night, host a skirmish night, heck, host a Pilot rescue night! The more people see your server name mentioned on the forums, or players in the mumble channel/server list, the more your reputation as a community will increase. As always, if you need any assistance from the R-COM team just drop a pm and we will sort something out for you.

Alright guys, that's what I'm currently working on, and thanks for reading!

Cheers,

Matrox.