-
There seems to be an uptick in Political comments in recent months. Those of us who are long time members of the site know that Political and Religious content has been banned for years. Nothing has changed. Please leave all political and religious comments out of the forums.
If you recently joined the forums you were not presented with this restriction in the terms of service. This was due to a conversion error when we went from vBulletin to Xenforo. We have updated our terms of service to reflect these corrections.
Please note any post refering to a politician will be considered political even if it is intended to be humor. Our experience is these topics have a way of dividing the forums and causing deep resentment among members. It is a poison to the community. We appreciate compliance with the rules.
The Staff of SOH
Abrams P-1 Explorer WIP
- Thread starter gman5250
- Start date
gman5250
Charter Member
Gman just a question, Is the Tigercat VC taking a backseat to this project? No worries if it is because I cant imagine how great itll be with the techniques youre learning on this one
You hit the nail right on the head. I'm using this project as a training exercise, then moving to other projects. The instrumentation is fairly basic, so building the VC instrumentation will school me for the more complex airplanes.
The F7F is top of the list, as well as the Brewster Buffalo I'm working on concurrent with the P-1. Just to keep it in context though, the planes are lower priority to the scenery projects that are the focus of 90% of my work. It's a must to release the scenery to provide an income stream.
The planes are R&R when I cant bear to look at SDK autogen any longer. lol
Very nice work, Gordon.
I also bought Quixel when it was on sale some time ago. I feel I have never spend so little money on an application of such a huge usefulness.
I use it mainly for creating scenery objects. Took a while to get used to it (still ongoing, of course). Gone are the days of sloppy texturing or UV mapping.
I like the way it teaches you to use bump mapping as a powerful means of adding detail and realism to a texture map, without adding to the vertex count. That was one of the most important lessons I learned so far by using it.
Cheers,
Mark
I also bought Quixel when it was on sale some time ago. I feel I have never spend so little money on an application of such a huge usefulness.
I use it mainly for creating scenery objects. Took a while to get used to it (still ongoing, of course). Gone are the days of sloppy texturing or UV mapping.
I like the way it teaches you to use bump mapping as a powerful means of adding detail and realism to a texture map, without adding to the vertex count. That was one of the most important lessons I learned so far by using it.
Cheers,
Mark
gman5250
Charter Member
Thanks Mark. Man, it's a game changer for sure...and more than excellent value for the money. The P-1 cockpit cage has a go-zillion rivets that hold in the plexi...both internal and external that need to be lined up and correctly space (and counted). Rivet counters dream.
I'm doing the cage in Quixel where I can hand place each rivet and make corrections on the fly. Trying to locate all of the various frame faces in the 3DS Max UVW and Photoshop was excruciating. In QX it's an entirely different experience. I'll even be able to paint in welds in all of the appropriate joints. Nice!
Last edited:
Gordon, did you try to burn AO maps into the textures yet (I haven't gone that far)? I'm not sure if burning is supported at all in DDO.
Cheers,
Mark
Cheers,
Mark
gman5250
Charter Member
I'm still novice in the Qx curve Mark, but at this point I'm burning the textures in QX and importing the raw PS files into my master texture folders. I put those files in layers, then layer in my own bits like the markings on the throttle. Figuring out this workflow is going to take some seat time, but as I move along I'm sure I'll continually improve on setups.
These caps show the QX art installed and active in the sim. One note, QX spec is a bit strong for P3D, so that has to be hand tweaked as well as bump alpha and other layers. The interior model is still way too clean, but I'll be adding age once I get the basic work laid out.
Last edited:
Gordon,
looking great, but please allow me to ask a question and also excuse my ignorance.
Is your model created in Max/Gmax/blender/etc and then textured from within Photoshop via quixel? What modelling programs can be used and which versions of Photoshop are compatible? I did look at it and didn't find any answers to these questions. How is the mapping done, completely from quixel or do you define areas prior, etc?
Sorry to be a pest, and hoping this works with FSDS and CS2 for FS9, lol. When I looked last night it was on offer and the price seems to good to be true for such a powerful tool.
kind regards,
Jamie
looking great, but please allow me to ask a question and also excuse my ignorance.
Is your model created in Max/Gmax/blender/etc and then textured from within Photoshop via quixel? What modelling programs can be used and which versions of Photoshop are compatible? I did look at it and didn't find any answers to these questions. How is the mapping done, completely from quixel or do you define areas prior, etc?
Sorry to be a pest, and hoping this works with FSDS and CS2 for FS9, lol. When I looked last night it was on offer and the price seems to good to be true for such a powerful tool.
kind regards,
Jamie
gman5250
Charter Member
No worries Jamie,
My basic workflow goes like this.
This model is 3DS Max 2015/P3D 3.5.5 SDK, but would be the same procedure for GMAX. I don't know Blender so I can't be much help there.
3DS Max:
I have a working model with animations and a copy built for QX that I send to a different working folder. That working copy is sacred, so be sure not to merge the QX model into your working copy. Been there done that...ouch.
The QX model needs to be grouped into very economical mesh groups that correspond to material type i.e. fuselage cage, seats or cockpit components. I arrange those into a hand edited UVW arrangement and group all of the parts into a very logical array, keeping lines as straight as possible.
Quixel offers a plug in for 3DS that will assign colors to various parts of the UVW, which can then be interpreted in the Photoshop/Quixel display to choose materials by color. Once the model parts are color coded, the UVW color map is rendered and will be your color guide once in Photoshop/Qx. There is also a layers option in QX to choose from mesh groups that are grouped according to material.
The actual mesh is exported as a FBX or OBJ to the QX folder containing UVW maps. The working folder should have all of the necessary bits in the same folder to eliminate any conflicts.
Photoshop opens with a QX shortcut or standard Photoshop Icon. The QX addon runs from it's own small menu inside Photoshop. The mesh is loaded into the QX pop up, the UVW materials map is loaded and the 3D model is created via the QX menu. The bitmaps can be edited as standard texture sheets, or via the 3D interface. Once the 3D engine is launched a virtual model opens in it's own display window. There are a gozillion parameters that can be applied to suit your visual preferences. I light the model as it will appear in the sim with bloom and bumps fully active.
The 3D model can be rotated in X,Y,Z by dragging the mouse, and lighting can be manipulated the same. Light source and azimuth are completely controllable so the work can be viewed, with bumps active at different light conditions.
The QX plug in lets you select your various parts by hierarchy or by color and applies the various textures and mask layers.
Example: The Seat
The seat is a single mesh group with four different color layers applied. I select a layer by color and add fabric, wood, plastic or metal to the areas I have color coded. It goes really fast. The entire seat can be done in a minute or two. Once the texture is applied I can brush in details with a paint tool that will follow the 3D model, so if I want wear to follow two or more faces of the mesh, but brush will automatically do the work.
The whole process requires that you strategize ahead of time like in a chess game, but it's pretty logical and not to hard to get accustomed to.
QX has a large library of tutorial videos, but be advised that the edits are extremely fast. The workflow edits are obviously much faster than one would work in real time, and the voice overs cover a lot of ground in a hurry. The tutorials are very good but need to be watched a few times.
All in all...this is good money invested, some of the best I've spent in a long time.
Hope that helps. Bump me back here if you have other questions.
Last edited:
TuFun
Charter Member
I believe you 'll need CS6 64 bit for it to work. This question was posted and listed as CS3 as a mistake since it's only 32 bit.
http://polycount.com/discussion/172090/answered-confused-with-minimum-requirement
Dutcheeseblend
Blenderer
Gordon,
Stop posting these WIP images. Makes me feel obsolete...
...
No, just joking, keep going this fantastic work!
Stop posting these WIP images. Makes me feel obsolete...
...
No, just joking, keep going this fantastic work!
greenie
SOH-CM-2022
I am waiting for this scenery release .
You have mentioned a vegetation package your getting together. There has recently been a release of a tree package . Would that be your work ? If so, I'll go and get it .
gman5250
Charter Member
The scenery is coming together quietly behind the scenes. The vegetation library is pretty much complete and waiting to release with the other scenery packages.
The tree package that you refer to wasn't mine, but it's good to see some variety being offered. I wasn't really too impressed with the Speed Trees that P3D released, but I'll have something to offer in that area.
I've got the P-1 to a stage where I'm ready to shoot a video. The vid will show the airplane, my scenery and vegetation/autogen packages in a real time environment. It will give those interested a chance to look at the full environment I'm trying to create.
Navy Chief
Senior Member
Gman, I went back through the various posts, but must have missed mention of any scenery? Is it a custom scenery for a airport for this aircraft? NC
greenie
SOH-CM-2022
Thank you , looking forward to the vid.