F-4B/C FSX

Post by **Alexis** » 31 Dec 2012, 01:23

Until A2A come up with their D/E/F series, I'll get started (and hopefully finish before them) the B and C models.
-Standard FSX animations will be implemented, along with a few custom ones (flaps, slats, gear, canopies, hook, launch bar, refuelling probe e.t.c.)
-Carrier capable
-Functional 3D virtual cockpits for pilot and RIO (that is 10000% sure)
-Don't expect any functional RADAR scopes and weapons. I will provide a version with CaptainSim's weapon functionality, though.

Possible features:
-Customisable loadout
-Jettison-capable stuff (looking into it)
-Whatever else comes to mind

Vacancies:
-Flight model maker -if no custom FM is made, I'll alias it to the Virtavia or IRIS "E" model Phantoms.
-Texturer (liveries needed)
-2nd modeller (to save time)

Coming after the A330 VC model is completed.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/21574664/F-4B_Render_03.jpg[/img]

I'll consider seriously the "paper aircraft" livery, it looks very nice.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/21574664/F-4B_Render_02.jpg[/img]

Post by **GaryG** » 31 Dec 2012, 09:48

Good start Alex, keep it up man

Post by **Daniel_csr** » 31 Dec 2012, 18:40

Oh Yeah!

Airbus Fan · Post by **Airbus Fan** » 31 Dec 2012, 21:38

Good work!

Post by **Alexis** » 01 Jan 2013, 02:45

Worked a bit on the forward side, fixing the shapes, carving the canopies and making the air intake flaps.

Post by **TheRedBaron** » 01 Jan 2013, 17:54

Oooh...that is nice! Just curious, have you made any other non-PA aircraft?

Post by **Alexis** » 01 Jan 2013, 20:12

Nope. Only a 717 which was not released, but was a nice experiment to learn a few tricks in FS9.
Generally, I absolutely hate modeling aircraft exteriors.

Post by **TheRedBaron** » 01 Jan 2013, 20:24

Alexis wrote:Nope. Only a 717 which was not released, but was a nice experiment to learn a few tricks in FS9.
Generally, I absolutely hate modeling aircraft exteriors.

Ahhh...

Why do you hate modeling exteriors?

ReneM. · Post by **ReneM.** » 01 Jan 2013, 22:28

Looks very good so far, Alexis.
Sorry about off-topic but are you only make the A330 VC or the A340 too?

Anyway, I look forward to see your jet

Post by **Alexis** » 01 Jan 2013, 23:46

Yep, I'm only making the cockpit.

Back on track, the intake flaps have taken me all day to make, and I'm not yet sure they're right. The tail area is a pain in the tail too. Hopefully by this weekend I'll have the rough fuselage ready to start adding details.

Post by **Alexis** » 02 Jan 2013, 23:28

A first version of the top bleed air vents on the intake. I may have to remodel that part...

Post by **TheRedBaron** » 02 Jan 2013, 23:51

The level of detail on that is stunning! How many hours did that take lol?

Post by **Alexis** » 03 Jan 2013, 00:06

2,5 hours for this grill. I might remake it though.

Post by **Alexis** » 05 Jan 2013, 16:54

Remodeled the grills, did some tweaking and exported to FS over Virtavia's Phantom.
There are artifacts, but generally it was a trouble free export. There are things I don't like though, the canopy is about as blocky as the default F/A-18's one. Will fix that later in developement.
Point out anything that looks out of line.

Post by **GaryG** » 05 Jan 2013, 18:13

Alexis wrote: Point out anything that looks out of line.

No wings
No Rudder
No elevators
Hovering without any logical form of power

Kidding man, nice job

Post by **Alexis** » 05 Jan 2013, 18:16

GaryG wrote: No wings
No Rudder
No elevators
Hovering without any logical form of power

How could I not notice?

I guess I'll quit making aircraft and start making magic carpets.

Post by **esg** » 05 Jan 2013, 19:35

I've always wanted to fly on a carpet.

Post by **TheRedBaron** » 05 Jan 2013, 21:18

Alexis wrote:I guess I'll quit making aircraft and start making magic carpets.

Will the genie be included?

Post by **Alexis** » 06 Jan 2013, 02:01

I'll try to add Barbara Eden...

Post by **Alexis** » 06 Jan 2013, 18:04

Granting Gary's unreasonable wish:

Before carving gear wells and control surfaces, I'll make the rest of the vents/grills under the aircraft to break it in two models, one for the F-4B, one for the RF-4B.

Post by **GaryG** » 06 Jan 2013, 21:04

Lol....you work very fast man !

Keep it up

Airbus Fan · Post by **Airbus Fan** » 07 Jan 2013, 15:43

O_O Nice Alexis!

Post by **Alexis** » 07 Jan 2013, 22:35

Started work on the outer nozzles, just for the fun of it.

Post by **Alexis** » 08 Jan 2013, 18:58

And those outer nozzles don't intend to animate properly... Unlike the inner ones.

Post by **Derek Mayer** » 09 Jan 2013, 02:06

Really nice work, great detail!

Airbus Fan · Post by **Airbus Fan** » 09 Jan 2013, 20:00

Derek Mayer wrote:Really nice work, great detail!

Post by **Alexis** » 14 Jan 2013, 22:12

After spending the past four days trying to figure out why animations don't work, I decided to keep modeling and remodel anything that doesn't work. Luckily, the fuselage hasn't given me problems yet, so I'll remake the wings and engines for sure (didn't like them anyway).
Started detailing the bottom side of the Phantom, but can't find many reference shots of the B model.

Post by **TheRedBaron** » 14 Jan 2013, 22:50

So...much...awesomeness...erghk! HOW DO YOU DO THIS SO WELL?!

Airbus Fan · Post by **Airbus Fan** » 15 Jan 2013, 13:24

Nice.

Post by **Alexis** » 17 Jan 2013, 17:29

Animations do work on some aircraft, but I guess until I get my own aircraft.cfg and .air file, I won't be able to know if everything is OK.

Post by **Alexis** » 17 Jan 2013, 23:57

Started spicing it up! Will work on the tail section and some other inaccuracies this week.

I just saw that hole in the rear sparrow "nest". The front sparrow hardpoints will be lengthened as well.

Post by **Alexis** » 22 Jan 2013, 14:47

Alexis wrote:After spending the past four days trying to figure out why animations don't work, I decided to keep modeling and remodel anything that doesn't work. Luckily, the fuselage hasn't given me problems yet, so I'll remake the wings and engines for sure (didn't like them anyway).

Good news on that front: animations work as they should, wings remade and engines corrected.
I'll do an animation test soon.

Post by **Alexis** » 22 Jan 2013, 19:05

Here's the outer nozzle. Will work on the inner ones too, as soon as I UV map them.

Post by **Alexis** » 22 Jan 2013, 19:17

And here's a new type of lift system, where you fold and unfold the wings rapidly to generate some extra lift.

Post by **GaryG** » 22 Jan 2013, 19:50

The speed at which you work amazes me

congrats, keep it up

Post by **Alexis** » 23 Jan 2013, 16:51

IN NEED OF:
-FDE
-Aircraft.cfg
-Textures
EXTERIOR TASKS

Code: Select all

[b][u]---TO DO---[/u][/b]
-Finish wing tip model
-Remodel collar (shape and cap)
-Mirror wingtips (inverted polys) - DONE
-Carve flaps (LE & TE) - TE DONE
[b]-Test[/b]
-Model and animate refuelling probe
-Test in 3dsmax
[b]-Test ingame[/b]
-Detail front gear bay
-Model and detail wing gear bays
[b]-Test[/b]
-Unwrap bays, flaps
-Model and unwrap tail fins
-Animate: Rudder, Stabilators, flaps
[b]-Test[/b]
-Model: RAT & housing
-Check UVs
-Model main gear
-Unwrap
-Animate
[b]-Test[/b]
-Model nose gear
-Unwrap
[b]-Test[/b]
-Model cockpit interior
-Unwrap
-Model & Unwrap pilots :( 
-Animate cockpit
[b]-Test[/b]
-Model and animate drogue chute
-Model & animate tailhook
-Add attachpoints
[b]-Test (arrested landing)[/b]
-Add launch bar attachpoint and pivot
-Model extension of nose gear when on cat
[b]-Test[/b]
-Add lights, smoke, afterburner (bones)
[b]-Test[/b]
[b][u]Exterior model completion[/u][/b]

VC MODEL TASKS

Code: Select all

GENERAL SHAPING
-Improve on exterior canopy/glass shape
-Create interior frame
-Link to node and animate vibration of cockpit
[b]-Test[/b]
[b]MAIN PANEL[/b]
-Model main panel & map
-Model instrumentation and map
-Animate instrumentation
[b]-Test[/b]
-Model & Unwrap Ejection seat
-Animate overhead handles on vibrations and G-Forces
[b]-Test[/b]
-Model & animate pedestal and stick
[b]-Test[/b]
-Model side panels for pilot
-UVW map and animate elements
[b]-Test[/b]
-Model and UVW map bells and whistles (screws, cables, boxes, checklists)
[b]-TEST FRONT COCKPIT[/b]
-INSTALL GAUGES
[b]-TEST gauge function[/b]
[b][u]REAR COCKPIT[/u][/b]
-Same as above
[b][u]BOTH COCKPITS[/u][/b]
-Give a try at rain effects

GAUGES

Code: Select all

-Make gunsight template [b][COMPLETED][/b]
-Connect to 3D dial
-Collimate gunsight
-Make RADAR base [b][IN PROGRESS][/b]
-Make AOA gauge and apply to VC
-Make glass frost gauge and map to VC

Post by **Alexis** » 27 Jan 2013, 01:21

-Corrected some stuff on the wingtip
-Cut control surfaces
-Detailing them

Post by **Alexis** » 27 Jan 2013, 21:09

It's nice when animations work.
There are some smoothing and shadow volume issues though.
Gear well -details pending:

Trailing edge control surfaces:

Canopies open, flaps fully down and wings folded. Detailed the wingfold area. Flap shape needs some morecurving (missed in 100% of the plastic models and AFAIK all FS ones). Will need to finish wingtip shapes, add LE flaps and add the wingfold mechanism:

Xpand · Post by **Xpand** » 28 Jan 2013, 18:43

Wow....
All these little holes, you make those with boolean cuts right? Doesn't that make a mess on the mesh? I kinda started avoiding booleans since my early days in gmax... I probably have a severe case of OCD in what comes to 3D meshes... Of course that meant texturing details instead of modeling them...

Post by **Alexis** » 28 Jan 2013, 21:32

Xpand wrote:Wow....
All these little holes, you make those with boolean cuts right? Doesn't that make a mess on the mesh? I kinda started avoiding booleans since my early days in gmax... I probably have a severe case of OCD in what comes to 3D meshes... Of course that meant texturing details instead of modeling them...

ProBoolean has far fewer problems than Boolean.
Also, using editable polies instead of editable meshes allows you to remove vertices at will, without messing up your geometry or UVW maps at all.
I just carve the hole, "scale" the segments and then bridge them to get my details.

Post by **Alexis** » 30 Jan 2013, 02:02

Messing around with materials, to see the results in FSX. Will post some ingame screens tomorrow. Large images follow.

Post by **TheRedBaron** » 30 Jan 2013, 03:47

You need to work slower. You are making me feel bad about myself

Post by **Alexis** » 31 Jan 2013, 01:02

Did some texturing tests and created a normal map.
Also corrected the nozzle collar, the shape of the nozzles, their mapping and animation range. Now they fully close, unlike before. Also the collar moves 7,5cm (3in) out when nozzles are fully opened.
Problems encountered:
-Normal maps are inverted (instead of up are going down)
-The bottom nozzle petal intermediate plate needs some adjustment as it protrudes out of the petals
-The spoilers need better alignment with the wing when deployed.
-I have to figure out the exact flap shape. I just can't get it right.
Anyways, here's the nozzle with normal maps (inverse) and corrected animation.

Airbus Fan · Post by **Airbus Fan** » 31 Jan 2013, 18:37

Nice!

Post by **Alexis** » 31 Jan 2013, 20:32

Smoking up the completed engines:

I am also redoing the entire normal map to give it a more "wavy" and fatigued look.

Post by **TheRedBaron** » 01 Feb 2013, 02:57

Nice! Out of curiosity, do you texture each nozzle plate separately to get a varied smoky effect, or is it just some illusion?

Post by **Alexis** » 01 Feb 2013, 08:25

I've mapped the right half nozzles of each engine separately to get some variation, and the mapping is repeated for the left half.
The two sides look identical, but it is saved from the fact that the tail is hiding the inner side of the engine. Thus, it kind of looks unique.

Post by **Alexis** » 01 Feb 2013, 18:53

Bad news: the interior nozzles corrupted my model and no animations worked at all.
Good news: I fixed them and got them in FS for testing. It is smooth as silk:

I also experimented with FSX material properties.
I got a "funky" red-orange-purple-blue specular to appear where the rusty and burned areas are (red arrows). The rest is the classic silvery specular (white arrow).
I've also added a fresnel ramp so that the specular is more intense when the polygon is facing the camera and fading when off-axis.
The normal maps work, but are still inverted (things that should be protruding are indenting e.t.c.) and their mapping is a matter of... discussion.

Airbus Fan · Post by **Airbus Fan** » 02 Feb 2013, 06:56

Nice. You are working very fast.

Post by **Alexis** » 03 Feb 2013, 00:04

And the "butt" of the engine is more or less finished. Time to move to the front.
The textures are just placeholders and look like crap, so they won't be released like this.