• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
    • Questions about aircraft design can be posted in the Aircraft design forum
    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

FS2004 KMYL - McCall, Idaho

jtanabodee

Resource contributor
Messages
3,921
Country
thailand
OMG! Look at those detail of the car.
It is a thing of beauty. I really love that.

But please be careful with the fps. Since the car is so detail, it might hurt that if there are a lot of this car in the scene.
 
Messages
1,510
Country
unitedstates
Thank you very much for the compliments gentlemen. :)

I think I can reduce polycounts to an acceptable level with these models given today's computers and also that this is for FS9. They will drop to a much simpler LOD relatively close to the aircraft, as does everything else in the scenery so far. Also this is a fairly small airport, I'd be surprised if there were more than 25 vehicles parked on the premises at any given time in the real world.

One thing I'd like to have someone verify for me please. In the car tutorials I've been reading (which were written for 3DSMax), they show them going into editable poly > edge mode and cloning a particular edge by dragging while holding the shift key down, which creates another polygon sort of 'radiating' from the source polygon. I can't make this work in gmax, I can clone an entire poly in polygon mode with Shift+drag, but I get a dialog promting me to name the clone, and then I have to snap it to a vertex and drag the other vertices into position, attach, weld, repeat... It's a PITA. Is this edge cloning thing exclusive to 3DSMax, or am I just not holding my mouth right?

Thanks,
Jim
 

jtanabodee

Resource contributor
Messages
3,921
Country
thailand
I think you are right about small airport and polygons in detail things. they won't hurt so much especially in FS9.

I think that gmax cannot do edge cloning. Sometime I think working in 3dmax and the import to gmax then export by gamepack might be a good idea but never try that. Any suggestions are very welcome.
 

hcornea

Resource contributor
Messages
2,388
Country
australia
Wow Jim, that is turning into an epic scenery! (and pickup truck)

Is it a "hemi" ?
 

n4gix

Resource contributor
Messages
11,674
Country
unitedstates
One thing I'd like to have someone verify for me please. In the car tutorials I've been reading (which were written for 3DSMax), they show them going into editable poly > edge mode and cloning a particular edge by dragging while holding the shift key down, which creates another polygon sort of 'radiating' from the source polygon.

Jim, GMax edge cloning only works when the object is in e-mesh mode. You can easily switch back-and-forth from e-poly to e-mesh as needed while working.

In GMax e-mesh mode, select the edge, Shift-Move to create a new poly. You won't be prompted since it assumes you want it to remain part of the same object.

The GMax "Help" files are your best friend. For cloning vertices or faces, you will be asked whether you wish to Clone To Object or Clone To Element. If you don't want the clone to be a new Object, simply choose Element.:

Cloning Sub-Object Geometry
Using SHIFT-transform with a selection of vertices or faces displays the Clone Part Of Mesh dialog. This lets you determine whether you want to "Clone To Object" or "Clone To Element." Click the desired option, optionally giving the cloned object a new name, then click OK.

If you choose Clone To Object, the cloned copy becomes a plain mesh object, entirely separate from the original object. The new object is given the name in the field to the right of the Clone To Object radio button.

If you choose Clone To Element, the selection is cloned in its new position and remains part of the original object.

In the screenshot below, notice how I've created a double-sided "shelf" by Shift-Moving the selected edge. Converting back to E-Poly mode, I can then adjust the smoothing groups to eliminate the shading issues.

edgecloneemeshmode01.jpg
 
Last edited:
Messages
1,510
Country
unitedstates
Jim, edge cloning only works when the object is in e-mesh mode. You can easily switch back-and-forth from e-poly to e-mesh as needed while working.
Thanks for that Bill, I tried it and voilà, it worked! I didn't know you could switch back & forth between e-poly and e-mesh, I tried it once but it looked like all my faces got retriangulated, scared the crap out of me so I undid it. Now I see that after converting back to e-poly the mesh is apparently unscathed, my smoothing groups even survived. I guess it's a difference in tools and manipulation oppurtunities, rather than a change to the mesh itself?


The GMax "Help" files are your best friend
Not anymore, we broke up years ago, I caught them "helping" someone else. We're just acquaintances now. :D


Is it a "hemi" ?
Nope, that's a Dodge thing. I've got some good photos of the new Dodges too though, I hope to try that next :) .

Thanks everybody!

Jim
 

n4gix

Resource contributor
Messages
11,674
Country
unitedstates
Thanks for that Bill, I tried it and voilà, it worked! I didn't know you could switch back & forth between e-poly and e-mesh, I tried it once but it looked like all my faces got retriangulated, scared the crap out of me so I undid it. Now I see that after converting back to e-poly the mesh is apparently unscathed, my smoothing groups even survived. I guess it's a difference in tools and manipulation oppurtunities, rather than a change to the mesh itself?

Yep, that's the main reason for converting to/from the two modes. Some things simply cannot be done at all except in one mode or the other.

For example, in e-mesh mode you can "Flip Normals" at the sub-poly level, but in e-poly mode you can only "Flip Normals" at the sub-element level!

What's interesting is that in e-mesh mode, if you Shift-Move (clone) selected vertices, only vertices are cloned, no poly(s) are created at all.

If you were to create a single square planar object in e-poly mode, you would "see" four vertices and a single-sided polygon. If you convert that to e-mesh mode, you would then "see" four vertices, but two triangular polygons.

Reconverting back to e-poly mode would simply remove the diagonal edge and restore your original four vertices and single polygon.
 
Messages
1,510
Country
unitedstates
Hey look at this, about 15 minutes with the new trick and my half-assed pickup is now a 7/8-assed pickup! :D

(Don't look at the cab, that's the last remaining V1.0 mesh, I haven't got that far yet)

kmyl_34.jpg


Jim

(BTW, I saw you hold down your ALT key and try to rotate the screenshot with your mouse :) )
 

n4gix

Resource contributor
Messages
11,674
Country
unitedstates
(BTW, I saw you hold down your ALT key and try to rotate the screenshot with your mouse :) )

Modeling is so much easier and faster once you got some of the most essential tasks & tools memorized... :D

I've lost count of the number of times I've done just that...

...trying to rotate a screenshot that is! :rotfl:
 
Messages
1,510
Country
unitedstates
Here is v2 of the Silverado HD fully textured (finally), 2906 triangles, 1 drawcall. By way of comparison, the "Aviator" SUV in the default FS9 Vehicles.bgl has 2480 triangles. I can clean this up a little by simplifying the wheel wells which were extrusions of the body and therefore have many more faces than they need. There's a few other things too. I remade the wheels to a higher level of detail and got rid of almost 1000 triangles. The old wheels had "meshsmooth", these don't. I think they look better too, because the meshsmooth kinda screwed with the texturing.

This is not what I envisioned when I said to myself "I need some vehicles for my scenery", but it was sort of an exercise in learning how to build "non-square" things in gmax, so for this particular model I went way overboard. Had a lot of fun doing it as well :) .


kmyl_38.jpg


kmyl_36.jpg


kmyl_37.jpg


kmyl_39.jpg




Some words of wisdom from what I've learned so far:
(not that you asked, but it took a month to figure these things out, and knowing this would have made life a lot easier :) )
  • removed




Thanks for looking!

Jim
 
Last edited:

hcornea

Resource contributor
Messages
2,388
Country
australia
Jim ... that is a truly awesome model. I'm feeling inspired now.

With regard to the 3D truss .. my favourite is a Box, with the normals flipped.
 

n4gix

Resource contributor
Messages
11,674
Country
unitedstates
One word: STUNNING!

BTW, in your abundant free time, create an interior model, animate it, and make it drivable! :duck:

If you have blueprints, make them a "negative image," then map them onto your polygons, but use the Opacity slot instead of the Diffuse Color slot!

This way, only the "lines" will be visible, and the background totally transparent!

First, the 3 view images are converted to "negatives..."

transparent3view02fr6.jpg


transparent3view03cr8.jpg


Then they are applied to correctly scaled polygons in Max/GMax, and the images are added to the Opacity slot. Color of the "lines" is adjusted by Blinn Diffuse Color:

transparent3view01smallmi9.jpg
 
Last edited:
Messages
1,510
Country
unitedstates
Really appreciate the compliments guys, it means a lot coming from the likes of you two :) . Thanks also for the ideas on blueprints, the inside-out box sounds wonderful; Bill I'm gonna have to take a few minutes and play with this opacity thing, not yet fully grasping the concept.

I'm going to post one more shot and then I'll stop until I have something really good (like progress) to show you. The thing is, one of the few perks of living in Idaho is that we've got cool license plates... ...and I forgot the friggin' license plates!

kmyl_40.jpg


Thanks again,
Jim
 

hcornea

Resource contributor
Messages
2,388
Country
australia
I've grasped Bills Opacity thing ... and (as usual) it is stunningly clever.
 
Messages
1,510
Country
unitedstates
If you have blueprints, make them a "negative image," then map them onto your polygons, but use the Opacity slot instead of the Diffuse Color slot!

This way, only the "lines" will be visible, and the background totally transparent!

I can't seem to get this to work Bill, not seeing any lines at all and when I adjust the diffuse color it just colors the entire truss. Do I need to paste my negative image onto the alpha channel too or something? Help, what am I doing wrong?

Jim

EDIT: Nevermind, I forgot to click "Show map in Viewport", have it working now. Thanks for a great idea!
 
Last edited:

n4gix

Resource contributor
Messages
11,674
Country
unitedstates
EDIT: Nevermind, I forgot to click "Show map in Viewport", have it working now. Thanks for a great idea!

Cool beans!

As a matter of taste, I do prefer this technique to create a "wire-frame view," but realize that there are occasions when the "inside-out box" may offer some advantages as well.

In that case, there's absolutely no reason why one can't have both, and simply select which "set" to display as needed... :idea:

The most difficult part of the wire-frame technique lies in cleaning up the background such that it's pure black.
 
Last edited:
Messages
209
Country
southafrica
damn, my pc's already spluttering, looking at that... amazing work however... truly inspiring
 
Messages
1,510
Country
unitedstates
Thanks guys, yeah I think I may release it as "KMYL - Drawcall, Idaho" if I ever get that far :D .

Jim
 
Top