Good start

[Falcon500]

I believe i have a good start on my first aircraft, only been at this a day.




with anyluck it should look like a P-39

[Travis]

Looking good!  Rough, but good!

What kind of background images are you using?  Are they to scale?  Are you using any cross-sectionals?

[Falcon500]

I have this



and when making a fly-able version do i make componants and put them together or make the whole bird?

[Falcon500]

[glb]SMOOTH[/glb]

[Travis]

Ahh!  Looking better all the time.  

Are you using that 3-view as a visual guide, or have you made your own backdrops to stick in Gmax?  I do believe there is a tutorial by Katahu in the downloads section somewhere that will show you exactly how to edit a 3-view and position it to where you are able to use it very accurately to "trace" the aircraft.

When building a Gmax model, I tend to use several different scenes for each aircraft: one for each major section.  Wings, fuselage, cockpit, etc.  I then merge each section so that I end up with a complete aircraft.  I also section out the interior and exterior models, so that I do not get confused on which part goes with which model.  I keep them in seperate scenes as well.  I merge from the fuselage-wings-cockpit scenes into both the interior and exterior scenes, then do my major linking (connections to exterior and interior dummies) there.  Then I merge into one single "merge" file that has everything included in it.

Doing this prevents me from overwriting certain bits of the aircraft and being unable to figure out where they ended up at.  I am also able to prevent some unknown issue that occasionally pops up using Gmax.  It will occasionally give an error that  is unacountable and that no amount of tweaking will overcome.  At this point, the file I am working with is effectively useless.  So I have to trash it.  With multiple scenes, each containing a different part of the aircraft, I can move ahead with a certain part, confident in the fact that I will not lose that data when some other bit in the model goes topsy-turvy.

All the above says: make multiple backup scenes.  Save frequently, with different file names.

[Falcon500]

I followed the tute that came with it and have backgrounds...... but i still have no idea what im doing

[Travis]

I followed the tute that came with it and have backgrounds...... but i still have no idea what im doing

Fear not, Falcon.  It comes with time.

[Falcon500]

No, really I mean i dont have a clue what im doing, i just dont know???

[Katahu]

Uhh Locke. I think the tutorial I once made was intended to show people how to understand the X-Y-Z axis thingies in the air ed tool. That was made when my mind was still in its noobish state.

[Felix/FFDS]

That was made when my mind was still in its noobish state.

K - By now you should now better than to leave such a perfect opening for the combined warped sense of what passes as humour in this crowd....


But......  it's spring, you get a  pass today...  

[Falcon500]

Question! what would be a respectable amount of poly's for the fuselage section? I have around 230  i thought of boosting it to the 3000 to 5000 range

[Felix/FFDS]

DO NOT WORRY ABOUT POLYGON COUNT on your first model.  Concentrate on getting it right.

Although most FPS hits are due to large texture sizes/formats, don't try to add polygons "just because you can"   ...  You should have only those polygons necessary to fool the user's eyes to the shape.

230 polygons may be too few for an An-225, but as your model develops, it may be just right for yours.

It's easier to add details later than reduce the complexity...  :)

[Falcon500]

Yes sir  :-[


In other news: I have started work on the gently sloping canopy frames and windows  :-/ tis not the easiest

[Felix/FFDS]

Maybe I should explain a bit my "philosophy" in flightsim modelling.

Since I started at the very end of FS98 modelling, with Aircraft Factory 99 (AF99) there were specific part limitations to FS95/98, and the programs then reflected them.

I was influenced by the "don't model what you can texture" approach, and so have always started with the least amount of polygons that will give me the shape I'm looking for.  For example, on a large model, can you really tell the difference between a 64 sided fuselage and a 16-sided fuselage?  With smoothing and texturing, probably not.

On that 16 sided fuselage, if I need additional polygons to cut out doors, etc., I'll create/add them from the existing polygons so as not to screw up the existing form.   I will not hesitate to add complexity - where needed - but to have a straight cylinder with five sections in it, where you really only need one section, is overkill.

[Falcon500]

Progress is being made, and I have my hands around the fundamentals!  ;D






 
Do i need to "cut" the ailerons out of the wings and add them later, or is the wing one piece?