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my DC-8 Project
- Thread starter Mr.FaosFX
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Well, best of luck with Grouping/Ungrouping, and I sincerely hope you don't wind up with the dread OBED Scaling Matrix Error!
The new gear looks very nice!
OBED scaling matrix error? bah thats old news to me, lol. When parts are resized with the uniform scale tool and ungrouped, it creates a rounding error but application of the mirror modifier "re-does" the mathematics behind the vertices.
But you probably already know this...I just exported fine with no errors :-]
The gears looked fine but animation confirmed that I need to modify the setup a little bit until it works right.
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Update!
LOL @ at the POLL 50/50 again! This is going to be a tough decision when the time comes!
Still hard at work with the landing gears and the new linkage system. Still have not animated this system, working out some issues before I get into that but I have added some more detail and even started texturing the tires! :-]
I didn't expect the landing gear development to be taking this long but I don't want to rush into it, so I'm taking it nice and slow as I am not only working out issues with the landing gears...I'm also working some out with the wing and wingroot making adjustments to accomodate the main landing gears, all very tedious but the end result is well worth the time and effort put into it.
Anyway, I was wondering ... do DC8 tires sport brand name likes Michellin, Douglas, etc ... I was wondering if these company logos where on the tires so that I could paint some on the tires and make them look more spicy :-] I would also like to paint on some random stuff like tire markings that you usually see on some aircraft tires ... I dont want to over do it, just want it to look nice.
LOL @ at the POLL 50/50 again! This is going to be a tough decision when the time comes!
Still hard at work with the landing gears and the new linkage system. Still have not animated this system, working out some issues before I get into that but I have added some more detail and even started texturing the tires! :-]
I didn't expect the landing gear development to be taking this long but I don't want to rush into it, so I'm taking it nice and slow as I am not only working out issues with the landing gears...I'm also working some out with the wing and wingroot making adjustments to accomodate the main landing gears, all very tedious but the end result is well worth the time and effort put into it.
Anyway, I was wondering ... do DC8 tires sport brand name likes Michellin, Douglas, etc ... I was wondering if these company logos where on the tires so that I could paint some on the tires and make them look more spicy :-] I would also like to paint on some random stuff like tire markings that you usually see on some aircraft tires ... I dont want to over do it, just want it to look nice.
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Heretic
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Use a fictive company. Or write something funny on them for bonus points.
That is a great idea, there is still time for that!
I just got done texturing the tires, still some space left on the texture map for the tires, so I can place other nifty things in there to use up all that empty space, I forgot how fun painting was ... really had fun painting the sexy tires! :-]
My very own hand painted textures for the tires, took about 2 hours I think. I should proceed addding more detail to the gears now, later.
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Update!
Almost done with the modeling work of the main landing gear assembly. Just need to add 3 more components and some simple wiring, nothing too crazy, just for looks!
I am calling it quits for now, small parts modeling is a pain in the arse.
Off to bed now, night folks.
Almost done with the modeling work of the main landing gear assembly. Just need to add 3 more components and some simple wiring, nothing too crazy, just for looks!
I am calling it quits for now, small parts modeling is a pain in the arse.
Off to bed now, night folks.
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Update!
Modeling of the main landing gear system is now complete, just a couple of refinements needed but it looks good to me.
I only left 4 hydraulic lines as you can see. I had previously added a lot more than this but they yielded a really high polygon count. I reduced the side polygon count for the lines to just 3 and that made them look like crap, then I tried 4, still they looked like crap and even with 5 sides they looked like crap, 6 sides made it better but these things are so small I ditched the idea of the complex string of hydraulic lines I had running up the main gear shaft and just stuck with the four bottom ones...it looked really nice but I just didn't like the polygon count that came with it ... the entire hydraulic line of systems I had modeled in resulted in that system producing 2,226 polygons ... when the gear would have gotten cloned for the other side that number would have doubled for a total of 4,456 ... I dind't like that idea.
I am going to concentrate now on linking parts and animating this...as promised when I have it all working, I will post an animation of the gear retraction on my youtube channel once I create another fresh export.
Later guys.
Modeling of the main landing gear system is now complete, just a couple of refinements needed but it looks good to me.
I only left 4 hydraulic lines as you can see. I had previously added a lot more than this but they yielded a really high polygon count. I reduced the side polygon count for the lines to just 3 and that made them look like crap, then I tried 4, still they looked like crap and even with 5 sides they looked like crap, 6 sides made it better but these things are so small I ditched the idea of the complex string of hydraulic lines I had running up the main gear shaft and just stuck with the four bottom ones...it looked really nice but I just didn't like the polygon count that came with it ... the entire hydraulic line of systems I had modeled in resulted in that system producing 2,226 polygons ... when the gear would have gotten cloned for the other side that number would have doubled for a total of 4,456 ... I dind't like that idea.
I am going to concentrate now on linking parts and animating this...as promised when I have it all working, I will post an animation of the gear retraction on my youtube channel once I create another fresh export.
Later guys.
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Update!
I have finished implementing the animation for the retraction and linkage system. I also implemented the gear compression animation. Finally, I had to modify some contact points within the current aircraft.cfg to set static compression and maximum compression the results were good.
Now I will begin texturing work of the main landing gear and once I am done, mirror the assembly to the other side and patch up the animations, then as promised, a video on my youtube channel of this great work. :-]
After I am done with the main landing gears, I will be moving up to the nose gear. Development of the nose gear should be smooth as I have plenty of photographs and diagrams for it, the main landing gears however, were difficult, as I lacked ata, pictures and I had to guess and redo things until it looked okey.
Sorry, no pics for this update.
I have finished implementing the animation for the retraction and linkage system. I also implemented the gear compression animation. Finally, I had to modify some contact points within the current aircraft.cfg to set static compression and maximum compression the results were good.
Now I will begin texturing work of the main landing gear and once I am done, mirror the assembly to the other side and patch up the animations, then as promised, a video on my youtube channel of this great work. :-]
After I am done with the main landing gears, I will be moving up to the nose gear. Development of the nose gear should be smooth as I have plenty of photographs and diagrams for it, the main landing gears however, were difficult, as I lacked ata, pictures and I had to guess and redo things until it looked okey.
Sorry, no pics for this update.
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Great Mr FaosFx, It's grat see how you improve that bird, very inspiring, when you say the wheel are handpainted what do you mean, you use something like paint, sorry for the silly question, waiting to see more updates 
when you say the wheel are handpainted what do you mean, you use something like paint, sorry for the silly question, waiting to see more updates
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Great Mr FaosFx, It's grat see how you improve that bird, very inspiring,
No, lol ... just means I didn't use any photo-realistic textures ... I did everything by just simply painting on my own.
Just a small pic at the texture I created for the tires ... when I say hand painted, it means everything on there was all done 'manually' the circles, shadowing, effects, etc. I didn't use any photographs.
This is the only texture peek I am posting, note that this texture map may change with time ... WARNING: Do not use with out permission ;-]
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understood, it's not easy either, I guessed something so,I guess the material applied is important too, the result it's not bad.
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I am still texture mapping away, this is really tedious when the parts are so small, not to mention that their textures aren't a big of a deal but if you don't texture them, they just don't look right in the sim, specially during situations where 'these parts' receive no lighting.
Here is a picture of what my gmax looks right now...
Pretty crazy and nifty but I've been having fun all day with this stuff!
I'm almost done, just got a couple of more parts to go. I still have to paint the parts, I use GIMP for that and then finally mirror the entire assembly to the other side and make sure the animations works and hopefully in a couple of hours, the first video of this DC8 on my channel thundering down the runway with apparently on its main gears only, and impossible scenario in real life, lol!
I will take off, gears will retract, I'll look at it from a few angles and then deploy them and retract them again and that will basically be it for that little preview. Hopefully people from youtube will see this and it will serve as an adversiting campaign for this bird.
Here is a shot after I finished placing of that part highlited in red, this time in LithUnwrap which is what I use to group the texture maps together for the different objects and export them as a texture map I can use in gmax. Works really well, I don't think I would be able to map efficiently if it where not for this program!
Later folks, taking a break.
Here is a picture of what my gmax looks right now...
Pretty crazy and nifty but I've been having fun all day with this stuff!
I'm almost done, just got a couple of more parts to go. I still have to paint the parts, I use GIMP for that and then finally mirror the entire assembly to the other side and make sure the animations works and hopefully in a couple of hours, the first video of this DC8 on my channel thundering down the runway with apparently on its main gears only, and impossible scenario in real life, lol!
I will take off, gears will retract, I'll look at it from a few angles and then deploy them and retract them again and that will basically be it for that little preview. Hopefully people from youtube will see this and it will serve as an adversiting campaign for this bird.
Here is a shot after I finished placing of that part highlited in red, this time in LithUnwrap which is what I use to group the texture maps together for the different objects and export them as a texture map I can use in gmax. Works really well, I don't think I would be able to map efficiently if it where not for this program!
Later folks, taking a break.
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Update!
Well I am done texturing the landing gears, have not painted anything actually, just textured, progress was slow as I had to deal with other things.
The stretching on the tire surface does not matter as only lines run through it, you guys saw the previous textures.
Now I have to work out some slight issues with pivot placement on the freshly mirrored part of the gear, once I have it working properly I can move on to the next step.
Other things I did this morning, I completely disabled desktop composition for my Windows 7 installation, I found it was causing problems with gmax and some other games were even turning it off, not to mention FSX does as well. What is the use of having an interface that looks 'elegant' when it isn't even compatible with other applications? I dumped it and went to the windows classic look and now, gmax viewports don't go crazy and I get better performance on some games.
I'll be working out the issues on the right side of the landing gear system now and then hopefully, paint the texture map and film that animation for you guys, then work on the nose gear should begin by tonight if all goes well.
Off to eat at my mother's restaurant now. :-]
Just to point out, the polls will close December 24th and a decision will be made by that time, keep the votes coming but it appears that its going to be 50/50 some want a new DC8 others vow for the VC, all is coming in due time.
Well I am done texturing the landing gears, have not painted anything actually, just textured, progress was slow as I had to deal with other things.
The stretching on the tire surface does not matter as only lines run through it, you guys saw the previous textures.
Now I have to work out some slight issues with pivot placement on the freshly mirrored part of the gear, once I have it working properly I can move on to the next step.
Other things I did this morning, I completely disabled desktop composition for my Windows 7 installation, I found it was causing problems with gmax and some other games were even turning it off, not to mention FSX does as well. What is the use of having an interface that looks 'elegant' when it isn't even compatible with other applications? I dumped it and went to the windows classic look and now, gmax viewports don't go crazy and I get better performance on some games.
I'll be working out the issues on the right side of the landing gear system now and then hopefully, paint the texture map and film that animation for you guys, then work on the nose gear should begin by tonight if all goes well.
Off to eat at my mother's restaurant now. :-]
Just to point out, the polls will close December 24th and a decision will be made by that time, keep the votes coming but it appears that its going to be 50/50 some want a new DC8 others vow for the VC, all is coming in due time.
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Thanks unfortunately, all my work was just low a few minutes ago, lol! On the right landing gear that is. After an attempt at exporting, I started getting export failures, so I started using a technique I learned from lionheart a long time ago here ... I enabled bounding boxes and surely enough, there is one object with 1 vertex that almost ran into infinity!! I have no idea how that even happened, the part was so messed that when I attempted to mirror it, I would get out of memory errors in gmax, I rebuilt the part and re-textured it and re-link and re-animated it ... pain in the arsee!! but good that I did an export test otherwise I would have had a heart attack, the project is really getting complex now, currently on the edge of 20,000 polygons however, no frame rate issues noted in FS, I don't think 20,000 polys is much altho I'm adding all this detail when the exterior model is fully completed, I may have to optimize/remodel certain parts to lower polys for best results where required. This is why I am happy to be with HJG, I'm not working on a dead line because if I was, I would be overwhelmed right now and would probably ditch the project but I take my sweet time and it will get done, when it will get done!
According to this thread, I started the project on 9/1/2011 and today it is 10/20/2011 thats almost 2 months of work not much so I shouldn't go all crazy. This thread gets so many views each day, where are all these people coming from? I am honored that everyone is so interested in this project, its what motivates me to keep working hard. :-] I'm at this day and night, I come from work half asleep, I do a little work on the DC8, I wake up, I get right on it with gmax and start working on the DC8, even at work i'm distracted thinking about what I'm going to add next to the DC8 anxious for the day to be over so I an go home and work on the DC8 ... lol I didn't think I would be so in love with this project that I would think of it every moment!
n4gix that is an awesome tire shot
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RE-Edited this post because the information provided was irrelevant to what was asked...
It has 39,450 polygons as an Editable Mesh but as an Edit Mesh, each face represents a polygon which means more vertices to render.
I tried to export the whole thing as editable mesh ... guess what happened? I got an export failure, lol since I had nearly 39 thousand polys, remember that each face has 3 vertices 39 thousand x 3 = 117,000 vertices oops I probably went over the limit what ever it is, I hear its 65,000 or 75,000 i'm not sure. Its really dumb that they have put in a limit, that makes no sense, if people want to create models with 500,000 vertices by all means let them.
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