Super Sabre WIP

[Fr. Bill]

I didn't take offense to your post (ok maybe just a lil bit).. I probably overreacted, it's just that unwrapping the mesh is the most dreaded point in the process for me. Thats actually what burned me out on BF2 modeling.. Unwrapping countless poorly done models with thousands of broken vertices. It seemed like I was spending more time fixing the model then I was unwrapping them.

Well, that's fair enough. After all, you don't know me and I just "showed up one day..."

[Katahu]

There is an actual topic posted over at the M6 Forums [Orbiter Sim Forums] where a very skilled modeler used a trick in 3Ds Max that used the rendered state of the model's surface as the base texture. This is better explained by reading his thread over at the M6 Forums. Unfortunately, the screenshots posted on that thread [which gave a clear process on how it's done] have been removed for some reason. I'm gonna ask him if he can put together a quick tutorial of some sorts.

[Dornep]

There is an actual topic posted over at the M6 Forums Orbiter Sim Forums where a very skilled modeler used a trick in 3Ds Max that used the rendered state of the model's surface as the base texture.

Thats kind of how I did it when I first started unwrapping.. I would take screen shots of the the part I was unwrapping in the viewport in wireframe mode. I would do this for the wings, fuselage, tail, etc, and arrange them all on a 1024 texture usually.

Now I use the textporter plugin. I unwrap the part/parts and then tell textporter what size texture I would like to use, and then it exports a bmp the size of my choice.  This is kind of thrown together, but this is the result textporter gives.

[Stubbedtoe18]

Man that does look good

[Dornep]

It's good to see that I'm not the only one still interested.  ;)

I've been working on the landing gear and animations over the weekend, and I didn't have to work today thanks to the veterans...God bless em. So I spent just about all day working on the F100, I didn't accomplish very much. Mostly touch ups, corrections, and some what knot stuff that needed to be added.

Still a lot of work to be done, but here it is coming in at a whopping 9204 faces.

[Stubbedtoe18]

Man that looks friggen' amazing!  You should do a high-poly like that and a low-poly model as well so we can fly it with some FPS.  Wow, did you see there was gonna be a VC as well?  Think of the screenshots we can make with a plane that looks that smooth!

[Dornep]

Yes there will be a VC, that's my next major hurdle. I would like to make the VC as realistic as possible with all the knobs, switches, and 3d gauges I can fit in it. The modeling of the VC should be no problem because I have some really nice pics of the F100F and D variants. Getting the 3d gauges working properly is were I'm going to need LOTS of help since I have never completed a VC.

[Tweek]

Looking lovely, just how a model should be! Detailed, yet low poly. Good job.

[Layne.]

WOW! You have really out done your self ay! It looks very detailed and i can't wait to fly it! Will ti be FS9 or FSX or both???

I beleive lots of people ar einterested but not posting :-/ Keep on working on it mate! Don't give up

[swordfish1227]

Holy C***!! That is amazing for so few polys! Can't wait to fly this one

[Dornep]

Well I've hit a brick wall with makemdl... I've exported the model once a week or so ago and after removing the scale animation from the animated parts it worked like a charm.

However now, nothing will get rid of the dreaded "ERROR: Scaling null has a translation, ignoring it". I've tried resetting scale/transform, detaching the entire part, and a few other things. I'm almost ready to upload it to the adopt a design page and chalk it up as a lesson learned and start over... I'm getting antsy to start either an Su-22 or F-105 anyway.

If I do decide to start something new would anyone like to try their hand at getting it to export? I'm using 3dsmax with the Pandasoft .X file exporter so that may be a problem. If I can get it to export I will upload some pics of the interior, or at least what I have of it so far.

[Dornep]

Ok I've figured out the problem with the export process.

I'm not sure if it's the model itself or the Panda exporter, but the model will not export with keyframed animations. If I turn off animations in the Panda exporter everything flows right through makemdl without a hitch. However if I turn them on, it seems to think that every single part in the mesh has a scale animation.

I'm not sure if it's because I animated the model, and then scaled it down to the correct size or what... But it seems that I'm going to have to export to gmax in 3ds format and then animate the model.

It looks kind of funky in FS9, because I mirrored several objects instead of using the mirror modifier. Also some smoothing issues but I will get them sorted out soon.

[pete]

Looking great! Fantastic progress.

This is one of my favourite mil jet classics & one I often thought about modelling. Great to see it being done so well.

Keep going through the fences .... it's what get's you there!

Look forward to more!

[Dornep]

Thanks for the encouragement, it's helped me through many problems.

I believe I can see a light at the end of the tunnel now.... I'm still not sure that it isn't a freight train coming to chew me up into little pieces, but it is a light..

I've finally found a solution (I think) to my exporting problems with Panda and MakeMDL. I read on another forum that the version of Panda I was using has a bug which has something to do with animations. I downloaded an earlier version of the Panda .X exporter and my model sailed right through MakeMDL but with a few errors. I also checked the model in FS9 but the landing gear doesn't appear to be animated or it's not in the mesh.

This is what I got in MakeMDL if anyone can make anything of it. The text in red is what I'm worried about.

Running model

Start! (C:\3dsmax7\meshes\F-100D-SuperSabre.X)
Loading X C:\3dsmax7\meshes\F-100D-SuperSabre.X...
Processing...
ERROR: Scaling null has a translation, ignoring it
(Part ) Found colinear vertices within triangle
   ( 0.008697, 0.000387,-0.000080)
   (-0.008683, 0.000387,-0.000080)
   ( 0.000000, 0.000387,-0.000080).
(Part ) Found colocated vertices within triangle
   ( 0.000560, 0.227834,-1.245811)
   ( 0.000560, 0.227834,-1.245811)
   ( 0.044283, 0.227833,-0.564335).
(Part ) Found colinear vertices within triangle
   ( 0.000560, 0.227834,-1.245811)
   ( 0.000560, 0.227834,-1.245811)
   ( 0.044283, 0.227833,-0.564335).
(Part ) Found colocated vertices within triangle
   (-0.000506, 2.026031,-2.208277)
   ( 0.000478, 2.026030,-2.208277)
   (-0.024362, 2.026030,-1.757382).
(Part ) Found colocated vertices within triangle
   (-0.000506, 2.026031,-2.208277)
   (-0.000606, 2.825726,-2.540973)
   ( 0.000478, 2.026030,-2.208277).
Model units are 1024.00 units/meter
Sorting by Material...
Optimize Parts...
Welding...
Generate BGL...
Assertion failed: file .\xfileprocess.cpp, line 1432 (!m_cScale || m_cScale==2)
Done!
Generate crash tree 1 (1256 bytes)
Assembling: C:\3dsmax7\meshes\F-100D-SuperSabre.azm
Done!

EDIT*******************************************************
I exported only the nose gear and it shows up in FS9 only there is no animation. Stock animations still work but no key framed animation... I read on Netwings that a guy had a similar problem as me, he said he turned on debug mode in MakeMDL which gave him animations in FS9....? Any clue as to how to go about doing that?

[Dr.bob7]

she shur is perdy,


great design looks really nice is ot gonna be for FSx or FS2004?