I'm a freelance photographer, running my own photography firm. Might just be the best job in the world:ernae:. If I sleep in, no one's complaining LOL
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The Staff of SOH
I want to start modelling......
- Thread starter Cag40Navy
- Start date
I'm a freelance photographer, running my own photography firm. Might just be the best job in the world:ernae:. If I sleep in, no one's complaining LOL
N2056
Charter Member
Okay...my Yoda bit went well 
Seriously, what everyone has told you is gold. Save yourself a lot of headache later by doing the tutorials in order first! (Trust the words of the non tutorial taker
). When you feel ready to try a plane pick one that you can actually do. I always advise finding a basic single engine fixed gear design that you like as a start. Keeping it simple initially makes the process easier, and increases the odds of success.
I look forward to watching your progress! :ernae:
Seriously, what everyone has told you is gold. Save yourself a lot of headache later by doing the tutorials in order first! (Trust the words of the non tutorial taker
). When you feel ready to try a plane pick one that you can actually do. I always advise finding a basic single engine fixed gear design that you like as a start. Keeping it simple initially makes the process easier, and increases the odds of success.I look forward to watching your progress! :ernae:
Obviously, you're the makeup artist - the one who makes the models look their best!
On a serious note .... "joining the dark side" is used by True Luddites to refer to those misguided souls that have delved into gmax/Max and other such modelling programs, instead of seeking the Masochistic Nirvana of the One True Flightsim Modelling Program - FSDS.
Ultimately, as has been proven many times over, it's the artist that creates the awesome models, irrespective of the programs used - gmax/Max/FSDS/Blender ....
You have been given very good advise on how to approach gmax. DO the gmax tutorials, and play with it as you go. Those tutorials only get you to using the program.
Getting the model into FS is another little challenge .....
Solve the mysterry of the blue-checkered box!
N2056
Charter Member
Oh man...that was
A) Needlessly cryptic
B) A great poke at someone here!
To the OP...be forewarned that when you grace FFDS with your presence you will be subject to this sort of thing! :d
Ok.... The evil, dark, hidious, angry blue and white checkered box almost got me.
For 7 long days, full time, long long days starting from 8 to late in the evening, I was trying to get my textures to show up on my model. I had done everything I could to make them show up. I was asking questions at forums, re-reading all tutorials, etc..
Near the end of the week, I started throwing things, hit the wall once, smashed some ellegant models from earlier years. I almost through the monitor out the window. How could all that effort and all that learning be held up? What was wrong now? A graphics card? Was I being singled out by the actual program? Was it thinking things like "This guy is NOT going to learn this program EVER!!!!"
I think it was Friday, when in the afternoon, I think 2-ish, I thought, well... 'Its time to throw in the towel. I am not going to keep this up anymore. I can keep using FSDS. I'll have to live without Boolean's... '
I happen to go into FFDS (www.FreeFlightDesignStudio.com) and told the world I was quitting Gmax (again, I think the 4th time in 2 years), and Fr. Bill Leaming says; "Did you remember to click on that little 'blue and white checked square (button)' on your Material Editor?"
UREKA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was back in business... Horrible, evil, grueling test of faith and endurance and hope.... But I made it. Thanks to Bill Leaming, I am now making models in Gmax faster then I could have done in FSDS. (Gmax has more tools, but FSDS is terribly easy to work in).
So, when the chips are down, put out your calls for help and be patient. Hide your models so you dont destroy them. Keep calm. Take your meds to keep blood pressure down. And keep physically active. Dont let your body get out of shape like I did...
Bill
For 7 long days, full time, long long days starting from 8 to late in the evening, I was trying to get my textures to show up on my model. I had done everything I could to make them show up. I was asking questions at forums, re-reading all tutorials, etc..
Near the end of the week, I started throwing things, hit the wall once, smashed some ellegant models from earlier years. I almost through the monitor out the window. How could all that effort and all that learning be held up? What was wrong now? A graphics card? Was I being singled out by the actual program? Was it thinking things like "This guy is NOT going to learn this program EVER!!!!"
I think it was Friday, when in the afternoon, I think 2-ish, I thought, well... 'Its time to throw in the towel. I am not going to keep this up anymore. I can keep using FSDS. I'll have to live without Boolean's... '
I happen to go into FFDS (www.FreeFlightDesignStudio.com) and told the world I was quitting Gmax (again, I think the 4th time in 2 years), and Fr. Bill Leaming says; "Did you remember to click on that little 'blue and white checked square (button)' on your Material Editor?"
UREKA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was back in business... Horrible, evil, grueling test of faith and endurance and hope.... But I made it. Thanks to Bill Leaming, I am now making models in Gmax faster then I could have done in FSDS. (Gmax has more tools, but FSDS is terribly easy to work in).
So, when the chips are down, put out your calls for help and be patient. Hide your models so you dont destroy them. Keep calm. Take your meds to keep blood pressure down. And keep physically active. Dont let your body get out of shape like I did...
Bill
Patience, a Padawan must have, patience... Only then will airplane be created.
Do realize all this will take time and practice to begin to show results. Search your feelings, you know this to be true.
Some of us got where we are because we've been doing it for years, 8-10 years in my case.
May the G-Force 8600 be with you:ernae:
Do realize all this will take time and practice to begin to show results. Search your feelings, you know this to be true.
Some of us got where we are because we've been doing it for years, 8-10 years in my case.
May the G-Force 8600 be with you:ernae:
-Ask tons of questions... you are in the right place for it here.
- Sometimes it is going to seem impossible. Take a break.
A lot of good people... some not working on it anymore ....helped me.
We can help you too if you will make the effort.
- Sometimes it is going to seem impossible. Take a break.
A lot of good people... some not working on it anymore ....helped me.
We can help you too if you will make the effort.
Since ive been alive and the F-16 has come out, there is one varient that ive been going head-over-heals for, and that is the F-16XL! so, when i get to the point to where i know WHAT THE F@%# im doing, im going to do it! but for now..... im going to do something simple!
PS, can i put GMAX projects from comp to another?
Still, thanks for ALL the info, the little gems you have all givin me will help me become a "NOT-SO-soon-to-be" dev.
PS, can i put GMAX projects from comp to another?
Still, thanks for ALL the info, the little gems you have all givin me will help me become a "NOT-SO-soon-to-be" dev.
Brett_Henderson
Charter Member
Felix is correct, in that it's the artist who creates the model. FSDS or Gmax are just tools. Either is capable of producing great work.
HOWever.. Gmax is much more flexible and utile. It's a little tougher to learn, but once learned, it makes complex modeling easier and more intuitive. The majority of the work is done between your ears (and in your sleep, and while driving, eating, watching TV..lol).. Gmax has more conduits for getting it from there, into the model.
On top of all that.. FSX materials and texturing are a case-study unto themselves.. The SDK (and most of the help online), are based on Gmax.
When you're beating your head against the wall; trying to get shiny glass without black chrome.. and a specteral "gloss".. most (if not all) of your potential references will be Gmax-based.
Do you mean, getting three-views (top/side/front profiles) into the viewports.. ?
That's one of the first things covered in the tutorials. The best method is to make 'planes' and then map the profiles onto them. Resist the urge to just place the three-views into the viewport background.
HOWever.. Gmax is much more flexible and utile. It's a little tougher to learn, but once learned, it makes complex modeling easier and more intuitive. The majority of the work is done between your ears (and in your sleep, and while driving, eating, watching TV..lol).. Gmax has more conduits for getting it from there, into the model.
On top of all that.. FSX materials and texturing are a case-study unto themselves.. The SDK (and most of the help online), are based on Gmax.
When you're beating your head against the wall; trying to get shiny glass without black chrome.. and a specteral "gloss".. most (if not all) of your potential references will be Gmax-based.
Do you mean, getting three-views (top/side/front profiles) into the viewports.. ?
That's one of the first things covered in the tutorials. The best method is to make 'planes' and then map the profiles onto them. Resist the urge to just place the three-views into the viewport background.
michael davies
Charter Member 2012
If your importing it as a scale back ground to work against ?, then the easiest way is to make an object and paste the picture on it, its a little more complex than that but heres a simple way.
Make a box, say 10mx10mx10m, in vertex mode simple remove all the vertices's from one end so your left with a flat sheet, next you apply a material to that sheet and that material has your picture as its texture, ergo your picture is now pasted onto the flat poly, you can now use the vertices in each corner to scale the sheet to match the correct plane dimensions.
However there are some steps you need to do before even doing any tutorials, you need to make sure your 'scene' thats the whole environment your working in, see Gmax and Max call work areas scenes, when you save a model it saves the scene, not just the model but the back grounds, scales or anything else you have added in.
Before starting a project it is important that your scene is correctly scaled and orientated, you may well end up with your model facing back wards or upside down when exporting or wrongly scaled.
A scene must be in metric, you can work in imperial but you'll need to rescale on export, its easier to work in metric to begin with, your scene must have the aircraft nose pointing to the left when you view it from the left side, from the top the nose point to the top of the screen, these are fundamentals rarely mentioned.
Take the time to set up or learn some of the short cut keys, by far the most I use are left, right, top and bottom views.
I also think its very important to learn the export routine very early on, I mean very early on, theres nothing more frustrating that trying to export your model and get no where, most people fail here and give up, the biggest boost to any model is seeing it in the sim so learn the export tools early, I'd suggest a simple plank model thats exported into the sim, if its scaled right and facing the right way then your in business.
I always had a blank scene that was scaled and orientated correctly and would import that before starting any project, that way you know its going to scale and face the right way before you begin.
Try and enjoy yourself, it is supposed to be fun, but be prepared for a lot of pain, late nights and angry moments.
Best
Michael
Make a box, say 10mx10mx10m, in vertex mode simple remove all the vertices's from one end so your left with a flat sheet, next you apply a material to that sheet and that material has your picture as its texture, ergo your picture is now pasted onto the flat poly, you can now use the vertices in each corner to scale the sheet to match the correct plane dimensions.
However there are some steps you need to do before even doing any tutorials, you need to make sure your 'scene' thats the whole environment your working in, see Gmax and Max call work areas scenes, when you save a model it saves the scene, not just the model but the back grounds, scales or anything else you have added in.
Before starting a project it is important that your scene is correctly scaled and orientated, you may well end up with your model facing back wards or upside down when exporting or wrongly scaled.
A scene must be in metric, you can work in imperial but you'll need to rescale on export, its easier to work in metric to begin with, your scene must have the aircraft nose pointing to the left when you view it from the left side, from the top the nose point to the top of the screen, these are fundamentals rarely mentioned.
Take the time to set up or learn some of the short cut keys, by far the most I use are left, right, top and bottom views.
I also think its very important to learn the export routine very early on, I mean very early on, theres nothing more frustrating that trying to export your model and get no where, most people fail here and give up, the biggest boost to any model is seeing it in the sim so learn the export tools early, I'd suggest a simple plank model thats exported into the sim, if its scaled right and facing the right way then your in business.
I always had a blank scene that was scaled and orientated correctly and would import that before starting any project, that way you know its going to scale and face the right way before you begin.
Try and enjoy yourself, it is supposed to be fun, but be prepared for a lot of pain, late nights and angry moments.
Best
Michael
Bjoern
worst developer ever
Heck, I must be picking the wrong buildings
LoL!
Well, it always depends on how much detail you want to add. You, Jim are usually doing over the top in that regard. And I guess that we love you for it. :d
Empeck: Has that "29" in your age field turned into a "30" lately?
If yes, a belated "happy birthday" from me! :ernae:
There are TWO configuration settings in Max/GMax that are very frequently misunderstood:
System unit scale: must be 1 unit = 1 meter - always!
Preferences (Modeling unit scale): can be any system you are comfortable with, meters, decimal feet, inches, fractional feet, etc.
During modeling, you can switch your Preferences (the Modeling unit scale) as often as you like. Some of your source materials might be using meters for example, while other data may be in feet/inches. This setting allows you to use whichever system is most convenient for YOU...
...the System unit scale will automatically ensure that the proper conversion is done to all measurements to make them uniform and consistent!
My unsolicited advice is that everyone flush that bloody P-38 tutorial in the bitbucket, since it's a naff exercise anyway. If you follow the instructions, you'll end up with a model that's backwards in the sim anyway!
This is one of those covered in the Gmax tutorials on the basic first tools.
First, primary, main tools are Move (four arrows icon), Scale (shrinking/expanding, has 3 selections for scale, singular, macro (all) and unidirectional, which I havent figured out yet), and Rotate.
When you scale, move, or rotate something, you must;
A. Select the part
B. Select the mode (Polygons, Vertices, etc)
C. Select the tool, (Move, Rotate, Scale).
Then, hold the mouse over the Gizmo arrow of direction preferred and mouse/drag the tool/parts.... So to rotate a parts ring of Vertices, you click on Rotate tool, click on the part, go to Vertice mode, select the Vertices to rotate, then hold the mouse over the arrow (axis) of its Gizma (3 colored, 3 arrowheaded icon thing), and drag the tool and watch the Vertices rotate.
NOTE: You can rotate an entire part, just do not go into its sub-modes, such as Polygon.
NOTE 2: If you hold down your left mouse button on the Scale tool icon on top toolbar, a flyout of its 3 versions appears. Select the one you want/need. Figure on using the top two the most; Macro and Singular. Singular is for one single Axis of the Gizmo direction on an object.
:d
