• 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

  • Server side Maintenance is done. We still have an update to the forum software to run but that one will have to wait for a better time.

An old project brought up to date: Canso PBY-5 of SAGQ

@ftl818,
I answered in #276 and no "repainter" has denied. I don’t think he wants to distribute unfinished liveries that will have to be picked up very soon. the work it takes to update several files on the Internet is not very funny and if it needs to be done often it becomes daunting.

It's a freeware development which begin in 2013 so I know it's very long even if the MSFS version has been released in 2022. I am near to obtain the aircraft that I am very close to making the plane I wanted with all the functions and advances offered by MSFS, it just takes a little patience.

In less than a week, working on FSDeveloper with RonH (a developer who worked with Vitus and now Asobo on improving export plugins) I got a BlackCat that compiles under Blender 3.6 with the latest graphics advances. If the process I studied is carried out, I will be able to switch the other 5 models very quickly and therefore the addition of frost functions and dirt on the windshields can be added very quickly (using the materials I had developed for the Aeronca).
Then the cleaning on the names of textures and the cleanup of the final UVs should be done in the process by minimizing the modifications on the current paintkit, which will leave a minimum of work for Jankees and Ferondoe to finalize their liveries.

If everything goes well, everything should be available under the Christmas tree ... a little patience, please ;) .
 
Last edited:
Hello,

After many fruitless attempts (Blender 4.2, 4.5 and various plugins) and a lot of reading (https://devsupport.flightsimulator....te-to-2-3-2-gltf-blender-io-msfs-2020/16863/7), I came to this conclusion:
- aircraft that use a large number of specific animations can hardly switch from a Blender 2.83 to a Blender 4.x
- for the future, it is better to start with a more recent version like Blender 4.2
- it's better to aim only Blender 3.6.x

As RonH said in a post on the Official forum, it seems that the management of certain animations is very different in Blender 4.x and this creates many errors that must then be corrected : with my try using Blender 4.2 I no longer had any needles that were animated on the gauges !!!.:mad:
In my case, there are too many of them which would almost amount to redoing the plane ... what I don’t really want to do ;)

On the other hand, if I limit myselves to version 3.6, I was able to migrate the exterior without too much trouble, just an animation that mixed Euler keyframes and Quaternions (after removing the Euler keys, the compilation proceeded correctly).

By migrating to the 3.6, I can now use my materials for the windshield and for the formation of ice because they only apply to parts outside the plane.
Moreover MSFS seems to perfectly support 3D models compiled with various versions of Blender, this must be explained insofar as the export via Blender formats the gltf file (with more or less functions depending on the plugin version) and that the compilation by "fspackagetools brings everything back to level".
In these conditions, I will limit myself to just passing the outside since I managed to reach my goal without losing too much time.

The result of an exterior exported from Blender 3.6 and the official plugin 1.3.3, the interior has been exported with Blender 2.83.19 and the Vitus plugin 0.41.4 :

1763633450187.png

Ron is a very good developer, who also tries to explain the things he finds and does not hesitate to help when he can.
These modified plugins are a valuable help but to use only with caution knowing what one is doing (backups are always recommended BEFORE doing anything).

PS: The dirt on this screen isn't the final UVs ... it's just a try to see that I have to modify.
Moreover, I will try to apply them only on the windows facing the progress of the plane so those on the top or the sides of the cockpit will be spared as well as those on the back parts of the blisters which are protected from impacts by the bubble located in front of the blisters.
 
Last edited:
PS: The dirt on this screen isn't the final UVs ... it's just a try to see that I have to modify.
Click to expand...
There are users who want aircraft that have had scratches, finger marks on the windows and others who don’t want anything at all, not even windshield wipers.
There is a way in properly shocking the Uvs that these traces are just perceptible. On the other hand, it is also possible to provide two sets of textures so that the user can choose what he wants. As it is a freeware and in addition it will be provided with a Zip file, the user can choose and modify as he wants.
 
Last edited:
The peril of sim pilots! Their perception of reality is established by flight sims, vs the real world. Like the IL-2 Sturmovik pilots who thought planes weren't realistic if the plane you were flying wasn't constantly trying to kill you. :)

FWIW, in my F-15 flight, there were some tiny scratches in the plexiglass, but maybe 10% of what I see in MSFS fighter canopies. The scratch stuff in MSFS can be nuts... I was flying the Got Friends Wilga in FS2020 and the sunlight hit the left window and it was practically opaque -- just scratches and reflections. (Not a Got Friends issue as much as how the sim is designed.)

At any rate, "noticeable if you look closely but subtle" seems like the preferably happy medium. :)
 
For those who were scared by the "finger marks and the dirt" on the windshield, is so simple as a click on Stitch ...:
Ask Stitch to do it and in one micro second the work will be done, Bravo Stitch :engel016:
Click to expand...
The message displayed indicate the windshield in use. Solution found, tested and problem solved :cool:

1763753213389.png

Two windshield created, each one with a material different in the 3D model.
One Local variable initialized by a mouse click in the interior model and each windshield is displayed in the exterior model in function of this variable (0 or 1).
 
Last edited by a moderator:
@ferondoe, Very good work especially for the yellow ribbon just before the rudder, it’s a rather difficult area to paint because the UVs were not simple to do and don’t exactly match on the wireframe so it requires a lot of patience to succeed in doing it correctly.
I think that you have use PBR Painter :cool:
The rivets on the floats are really successful. I think that the "layer rivets" can be used via NormalMap Generator to create the NRM files needed for the wings and fuselages. The one I am currently using is not of great quality ... Perhaps, it will be interesting to upgrade the NRM files to 8K for the best quality !

On my side, by taking the UVs from all the transparent parts: windshield, glass, blisters, etc. (this will not impact the repaints), I had another idea so that these surfaces can both show rain correctly but also the formation of ice.
For the blisters to be able to open, the trigger must be in the internal model or, if the mobile part and the glass are also in the internal model I could not use the settings of Blender 3.6 (as explained on a post before).

So I decided to create almost perfect UVs (to be reused on Liners and Standard models ...) and then migrate these mobile parts as well as the windows that are attached to these elements in the external model (the one compiled by Blender 3.6).
But the triggers for it to be clickable with the mouse must be in the internal model, so I will unblock the mouse area of the moving part (as it was currently) at the red label at the bottom of each blister, a label that remains in the internal model (you follow my reasoning ;) )

So a click on these labels will switch a local variable that will be transmitted to the external model, which itself will use it to authorize the movement of the blisters.
If it works correctly, I could also apply it to the window above the pilots and to both side windows (there it will be a bit more complicated to solve but it should be done).

These manipulations are not very difficult but require a lot of attention to not forget anything because an error could cost me one or two more days of work.
If it goes well, I could make a full BlackCat and forward it to Jankees and Ferondoe so they can see if it suits them. I am very lucky that they like this plane because it allows me a lot of possibilities knowing that after me, the liveries can be available and of quality.
 
Some news from the Canso ...

After having found how one could mix two development environments or rather two versions of Blender to take advantage of the possibilities offered by the various plugins, I stayed 4 days on a thorny problem that really made me doubt what I wanted to undertake.

My first attempts using 3 layers of polygons for all that is exterior glass were very conclusive, as a reminder:
- a dirty outer layer (fingers and dirt)
- a clean layer for those who never fly without cleaning the windows
- an inner layer to be able to have the formation of frost and fog

Mr Stitch on the VC is there to display one of the first 2 layers defined above, the third layer must be constantly displayed.
On trial, Mr Stitch is doing his job perfectly and a takeoff on CYMX, Sunday morning (-4°C) allowed me to notice that the frost was indeed present on all the cockpit windows.

Unfortunately, 2 animations that I find very important no longer worked: the 2 red control levers (for the two sliding doors above the pilots) were constantly lowered and the blisters were interlocked but would not open or close anymore.
I lost 4 days searching in every corner, rereading the SDKs and readmes of the plugins without finding any solution. This morning, I was resigned to ask for help on FSDeveloper or to go back in time regarding my plans and while opening the PC, I remembered that on each animation, the range of keyframes between 0-10 or 0-20 were inoperative. so I had the idea to create an additional key at 1 for each animation ... and on the first test, everything came back in order.
In fact, the old plugins accepted keyframe ranges between 0-100 or 0-200 as on FS9 and FSX but since the latest versions, it seems that the first necessary and authorized key must be at 1.

Best of all, I finally managed to figure out how to remove the animation keys and the animation assigned to an object without having to delete the object and the animation. In fact, you need to select the animation and then click on the Push Down button to bring the animation into the NLA track. Then, in NLA mode, select the animation and scroll down the Edit - Delete Track menu... it’s been 2 years since I loaded the thing.

For Jankees and Ferondoe, I indeed corrected some exterior polygons that had moved but overall the exterior textures and the mapping that concerns them have not evolved much. It might not be the same with the interior of PBYs. some textures names have changed: "ailes.png" to "wings_albd.png" for example, etc ...

I now need to create the objects that will receive the texture 'ice' on the wings, the rudder and the rear stabilizer plane to complete all this work. As soon as this is finished, I will have a complete BlackCat and ... it will be necessary to pass all this work on to the 5 other models ... Ooouuuuufff!
 
Last edited:
Yeah, I was always told that I was stubborn as a donkey :banghead: but sometimes it’s a quality :encouragement:
The result of this last days: in bad weather conditions ice can appear in the cockpit. You can see the difference looking throw the pilot window.

The ice on the wings and the fuselage is modelized but I have yet some XML code to add (I will take it from the Aeronca as the materials)

1764094531403.png

1764095012512.png

It must also be taken into account that when weather conditions allow the formation of ice on the wings of an aircraft, the weight of the aircraft increases and the aircraft maneuvers less easily.
So in this addon, in 2022 I wrote a javascript module that allowed filling and emptying the tanks of the 2 water-bombers (4164 liters of water). This script can be easily duplicated to manage the weight excess due to the formation of the ice ... which will increase the realism of the aircraft.
 
Last edited:
To answer to Jankees about the panel lines too large, it's not exact.
In fact, the rivets & lines layer was already in the albedo texture and I forget to remove it as I move theses details on the normal texture so they have been drawn 2 time in the picture (Screenshot #9016) and as the albedo is slightly deformed on the front it gave this effect.
Today I will attemp to drawn a normal texture in 8K to see if the details will be better.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top