FSDreamTeam forum
General Category => Unofficial F/A-18 Acceleration Pack board => Topic started by: fael097 on January 19, 2011, 03:19:19 pm
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i don't know, many of you guys working on gauges and improvements, perhaps we could make our own plane.
i never made one of my own, because i have no idea about the scripting part, but i sure can make a nice 3d model for a jet
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Fael...
I would love to, but I barely have time now to help people out with the Sludge Hornet or help them get paints installed or other specific requests that Ive just not had time to do. Right now, Im sending this response from work.
Its tougher now than last year as I dont seem to have as much spare time on my hands. It seemed back then, I could work late nights, tweak and mod the Sludge to my hearts content. Now, Im lucky if I get in a night or two a week modding.
The idea seems great, if you take the lead, Ill follow the best I can... or if others will help, would love to be a part of this.
Later
Sludge
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What aircraft are you thinking on making? How detailed?
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Sludge: I know how's that, I also barely have time to work on my animation hornet (it's been a month last time I touched it), and i also sent that from work (finally at home now lol)
so I was thinking of that as some sort of freetime work, just to see how things go, if we can make anything good... no rush, no deadlines, and see what we learn from that
Subs: I wasn't thinking of any in specific, but now that you mentioned, Idk, maybe some easy one just to start, we'll make it as detailed as possible (or as far as our knowledge goes) but probably nothing too fancy.
an F-22 should be easy enough to model and animate, besides, used to be my favorite aircraft lol but just saying
Cheers folks
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Unfortunately I have not much on the 22 but an F-16 I do know a bit about thanks to Falcon. Just a suggestion an F-16 although it might take me a while to figure out how to use the SDK when it comes out. How detailed will it be?
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graphically speaking, should be as detailed as i can make it. i mean, as long as it doesnt kill the frame rate, so it should have a clean geometry, but i believe i can do something that looks nice, animates correctly, etc. but about flight dynamics, im not really sure, as i have no idea how to set this up.
maybe we can find someone who does, or in last case, use some sdk preset for it lol.
but creating an aircraft from scratch, and having feedback from users, im sure we can frequently improve it as needed.
i just didnt suggest the f-16 because aerosoft has a good looking one, but its actually a good choice. the f-22 might be a little easier to model, and just a little, as the f16 isnt that complex.
i'd just stay away from f18s (little tricky to model, as im making a highly detailed one, and another fsx one would be just pointless anyways) f14, or any carrier planes, at least for now. should keep it simple for a start, functions wise.
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You already have an F/A-18A made, why not translate it into FSX?
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Perhaps an F-35C would be useful? Dino Cattaneo is not likely to make that version from his F-35A version. He said this on his website. BTW he is updating his freeware Goshawk T-45C now.
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You already have an F/A-18A made, why not translate it into FSX?
heh, funny question... the quick answer: something you model for rendering an animation, Computer Graphics (cg) movie, or a detailed still shot is very different than something you'd use in a game, due to, making it simple, the number of polygons.
ROUGHLY speaking, and i just cant be precise on any of the informations im gonna say, a game airplane model might have around 10.000 to 100.000 polygons. my f-18 already have around 2.500.000 polygons, without meshsmooth. an average/good computer would handle it, without textures, shading effects, nothing, just the plane model, less than 30fps, inside the 3d application's viewport. if i apply 3 levels of meshsmooth into it (standard to rendering) well, you do the math, for each smooth level, every polygon gets divided in 4. if im not wrong, that would result 160 million polygons. no game, no matter the computer, could handle it. even without all the smoothing, just the 2 million polygons plus high res uncompressed textures, plus the game graphics shading effects, im sure it wouldnt get any faster than about half a frame per second.
this is all rough information, my plane is far from done, i dont have landing gears, wells detailing, cockpit, weapons, etc. the tiny details are yet to come, so im pretty sure the model can, and will pass 10 million polygons unsmoothed.
the long answer: even the way you model those two is different. for example, when modeling a game model, you'll make everything as you gonna see in action, while when you model for rendering, you have to make everything thinking of the way the smooth modifier will make it look. that means lots of extra subdivisions , even on flat surfaces, where you'd need only one polygon for a game obj.
thats the difference between them. (thats only the polycount difference) and thats why games graphics differ from cg movies. a game can render a complex scene in a fraction of second, well, at least 30 renders (frames) per second, while rendering a single frame of a whole scene from a movie can take hours, even days (probably if you were going to render a frame from Avatar on a home gaming computer, it would take a week, thats why they have render farms with hundreds of computers working together), but in that case, many other variables count, like raytracing, global illumination, anti aliasing (that goes way beyond games 2x 4x 8x AA) etc.
to sum it up, when you make something for a cg animation, you want to make it look as closer to reality as possible, (trust me, in some cases, you cant tell if its real or cg) while when making something for a game, you have to deal with limitations, and make it not kill your frame rate.
hope that im clear enough, and that i didnt miss the point, though its kinda hard, since this is a very abrangent subject, and also im about to fall asleep in this chair :P
ps.: check this pic http://www.lucbegin.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Luc_Begin_The_portrait-cgs2.jpg (http://www.lucbegin.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Luc_Begin_The_portrait-cgs2.jpg)
this is CG, thats the level or reality cg artists want to achieve, and thats what i want for my hornet lol
cheers mate
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Perhaps an F-35C would be useful? Dino Cattaneo is not likely to make that version from his F-35A version. He said this on his website. BTW he is updating his freeware Goshawk T-45C now.
edit.: ok, the C model doesnt hover, so skip the firs paragraph below :P i'd happily make the A version, if dino wasnt going to make it already.
indeed, its an interesting aircraft, but if its the hovering one, then i'd rather not mess with it. ive flew many hovering planes, and i didnt have good experiences with any of them, even payware ones from known companies. and im just saying that based on what someone willing to make the flight model for us would actually be able to make. for me, i'd model any jet, but we should keep our feet on the ground.
otherwise, idk how a carrier jet, would differ from a simple one, but for me, a simple one is more reliable to start with, since we wouldnt have all the carrier operation variables, we could focus on the navigation/landing features, and perhaps develope something more decent than aircrafts with lots of eye candy.
thats just what im thinking right now :P idk, perhaps someone has a different point of view... let me know
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A T-2C Buckeye would be cool. I know I'm a carrier geek. :P
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_T-2_Buckeye
http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=329
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=1100&tid=1600&ct=1
(http://www.ejvk.com/Airshows/Pensacola_2005/Pensacola_026.jpg)
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RAZBAM make a Buckeye but I have never tried it. And don't know if it works in FSX (not indicated).
http://secure.simmarket.com/razbam-t-2c-buckeye.phtml
The F-35A has been made available by Dino Cattaneo as 'cheapware'. The F-35C has a larger wing folding wing, amongst many other differences. One reason why Dino has stated he is not really interested in making one.
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Perhaps an F-35C would be useful? Dino Cattaneo is not likely to make that version from his F-35A version. He said this on his website. BTW he is updating his freeware Goshawk T-45C now.
Can't model an F-35C as there is not enough information available on it.
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graphically speaking, should be as detailed as i can make it. i mean, as long as it doesnt kill the frame rate, so it should have a clean geometry, but i believe i can do something that looks nice, animates correctly, etc. but about flight dynamics, im not really sure, as i have no idea how to set this up.
maybe we can find someone who does, or in last case, use some sdk preset for it lol.
but creating an aircraft from scratch, and having feedback from users, im sure we can frequently improve it as needed.
i just didnt suggest the f-16 because aerosoft has a good looking one, but its actually a good choice. the f-22 might be a little easier to model, and just a little, as the f16 isnt that complex.
F-22 unlikely as all of the avionics are most likely secret F-16s manuals are available on the internet and sims like Open Falcon will show you that it is quite a complex aircraft. I don't know how complex aerosofts F-16 is though but I doubt it is as complex as the one in Open Falcon.
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SUBS17 said: "Can't model an F-35C as there is not enough information available on it."
What does that mean? What is required? How was an F-35A made by Dino Cattaneo?
Here is some info found special to the F-35C:
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1343953541946550800&postID=2918955286568965506
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You can't model a realisitc addon aircraft with figures such as around... or about... You have to have a realisitc FM and avionics other wise the hardcore simmers will laugh at you and it would be a waste of time. I however have a better idea.
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Interesting to know how Dino Cattaneo did it then? Why not offer to help him make an F-35C?
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Spaz...
Im guessing he did alot of the modeling (int/ext) work himself, the .air files, the VC, and he avionics. I know JR helped him with the HUD.
Later
Sludge
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Interesting to know how Dino Cattaneo did it then? Why not offer to help him make an F-35C?
Its one thing to make a 3d model its completely another to model an aircraft accurately, 99% of the stuff in F35 is secret so making an addon realistically for a combat aircraft for example how about a A4 how would you model an A4 with Kahu upgrade? It would require the flight manual, data for FM(actual tables), data on subsystems eg hydralics, electrical, fuel lines, radar etc. Then you also require the Tac manual for A/A and A/G weapons delivery for procedures and you have to model the Hotas buttons and switches. For the F35 it has DAS as well as datalinks, radar cross section also needs to be taken into account for MP and SP. Even the pilots helmet is important as it features JHCMs, Night vision, Helmet display and 7 channel speakers. So complexity can vary in FSX from the very basic such as an F35 that has basic controls and single button engine start to VRS Superhornet which features all the subsystems etc.
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SUBS17 then I guess you have not flown Dino's excellent F-35A. Trouble is the HUD AoA cannot encompass a carrier style approach (which is too high an airspeed due to the differences in airframe etc). I guess you did not read my information or understand it. Whatever. Anything is too difficult if you say so.
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Nope I won't bother because I believe in using actual data rather than guess work. BTW have you ever thought of doing an A4 addon for FSX at the VRS level? Because when the Tacpac SDK is available maybe you could put realistic weapons etc and maybe even do Faulklands style missions against ships. I'm still waiting patiently for Jet Thunder to be released as the A4s in that look awesome.
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Guesswork is good if realistic. Ultimately would you believe all FSX aircraft are based on guesswork and necessary compromises due to simulator restrictions. It is remarkable how many mil jet aircraft used to be the same in prior versions of MS Fsims. So much so that I gave up giving them a try - mostly they all flew like LearJets! ::) If anyone tried to model a Navy aircraft most often it was wrong in that the (A4) spoilers would act as inflight arrestor gear or there was no usable AoA Indexer etc.
However the FSX Hornet - modified - changed all that. Unless you yourself have flown a similar model Hornet; you will be guessing also about what is good/bad. For my reckoning though it is really good - especially in the FCLP/Carrier Landing config. The only thing that matters.
Yes I have seen that Thunderworks 'endless in develpment sim' about Falklands with A4s. Good luck to them. I have never flown a realistic A4 Sim model but the KAHU is getting close, especially the airframe model is excellent. However my vote goes to the SLUDGE & Goshawk for good times in FCLP/Carrier Landings. If I need to use a combat sim I'll buy one thank you. For shear fun "Pacific Fighters" was fun for max stoush 16 v 16 and prop carrier landings to boot. ;D