AR196 Project in AD2K

Hello Smilo,

I thought you already had the book? I don't have that exact book, but I do have something similar. Also, you can just measure photographs which works almost as well.

I found "The Measure of Man" at the University of Maryland Bookstore. This was back when I had only one child, and much more free time. I didn't buy the book. I just looked it over because the useful parts aren't all that long.

Some of the shapes and dimensions on the head are very much artistic license. You are modelling a male head wearing a flight helmet and earphones. I did a minimal earphones on my pilot.

- Ivan.
 
nope, i got most dimensions from pages
of the book i found online.
spent hours searching.
most pages were unreadable,
but i found a few that were usable.

i guess i need to post a shot
of the ad2k "head" sub assembly.
the headphones are not modeled.
they are just the outer polygons of the cranium sphere.
the helmet, beard, headphones, etc are simply polygons
that have been individually colored by the program.
there is an option to color them,
or texture them. i went the easy route.
 
Why Worry about a Pilot Figure ?

No bleeds, Nice panel and animations. Pilots work great on external views on a one seater, but does anyone want to look back and see "Smilo" as a Gunner ? We all think not.

From What I have seen thus far, Smilo may have created the finest ( although untextured ) plane in CFS1 history.

Albiet, yet to see the final product.


Power to you my friend.

Dave
 
ah jeez, Dave. don't get carried away.
my head is already big enough.

as for pilot, as i see it,
folks like to take a look around in spot/chase view.
when she's sittin' with the engine off,
there's no need for a pilot (or crew).
BUT, when the engine's runnin',
there should be a pilot visible.
the trick is going to be
building acceptable figures.

now, about smilo as the gunner.
what the heck are you talkin' about?
no freakin' way i'm goin' back there.
it's too breezy and way too dangerous.

i guess there is another option;
a version without pilot/gunner and later,
a with pilot/gunner version.

should we take a poll?
opinions welcome, please
 
put the three jaw assemblies together;

View attachment 71038

and finally, add them to the cranium;
View attachment 71039

the coloring is just a matter of assigning basic colors
to the individual polygons within each sub assembly
via the ad2k MDL Code Editor.
if you would like,
i could post a shot of one of those pages.
just give me the word.

btw, assigning textures is, basically,
the same procedure, but, more involved.

---edit---
i forgot to mention,
polygons in the lower part of the cranium sphere
that are overlapped by the jaw parts
were assigned "hidden" to avoid visual conflict.
 
You really do lovely things in AD2000; this head of yours reminds me of C3PO. With a bit of texturing, and a nose I hope, it will make an honest pilot's head.

But I wonder; since you made rudder pedals, I assume that you will put feet on them? And between the head and the feet should come a few body parts? This should inflate polygon's count to astronomical proportion!

You know my stand on the subject. I played with matchbox cars for years, and none of them had a driver. I was driving!

But this is your pet and you can do whatever you want with it. I see that, right now; you're having a ball! There's as much fun in the making as there is in the flying...:icon_lol:
 
here it is 02:00, my work day get up time.
but wait! its' saturday, my day off.
i should be sleeping in...but no,
i've been laying there, awake,
thinking about a few upper jaw polygons
that aren't connecting to the cranium properly.

is this fun? hmmm?
i guess if one could call obsession fun,
then, yes, i'm having fun.
actually, figuring out how
to make a sphere was rewarding (fun).
i do enjoy solving the problem(s)
and seeing the finished product.
although, at times, it does get tedious.
for now, the finished product
will be a decent human head,
then, neck and shoulders.
then....

hubba, your assumption is correct.
a full figure is in the works.
i'm not sure about the polygon count.
i still haven't found where to get that number,
so i keep pushing the envelope.
it's all a grand experiment.

gotta go make some jaw connection corrections.

oh yes! and many thanks for the compliments.
 
Hello Smilo,

A few pieces of advice:

1. Keep the polygon count low. You CAN make a fairly decent shape without a huge number of polygons. I believe my entire pilot (Head and Shoulders) only has 50-55 polygons.

2. Texture your pilot NOW. You may find shape changes necessary to properly apply textures unless you want to do your texturing inside SCASM. The problem is that you may find that although the shape is "Perfect", it doesn't allow textures to work properly. If you look at my pilot, you will notice that the cheeks have a flesh tone going back very little from the face. This was intentional and took some messing around with the shape to adjust how the texture sat.

3. Keep the polygon count low BECAUSE if you don't, you may screw up your textures. (Kind of a combination of the first two comments, but not really.) The way textures are laid out is by locating the polygon vertices on a pixel. If your polygons are too small, the vertices may not line up well with the pixels.

Try this exercise:
Take a piece of Graph Paper. This is your texture file. Draw a Big Triangle on it. Note that even though it is unlikely that your vertices line up perfectly with a square, to stretch the graph paper so it lines up doesn't distort much. If you draw a SMALL Triangle on the same grid, it won't necessarily misalign any more, but the distortion is over fewer pixels and the effect is more visible.

Texture files for CFS are only 256 pixels wide, so each pixel is very large in dimensions. That limits what you can get away with for small polygons unless you set a ridiculous scale or use a LOT of texture files.

- Ivan.
 
good advice, thanks. :salute:

at this point, i'm still playing with oversize,
so it will be a while before i can test.

i haven't even opened the ad2k head assembly today.
got other stuff going on.

i'm thinking, one of these days,
i should go back and copy
some of these posts.
there's some good stuff
that i'd hate to loose.
 
I hadn't commented on it before, but I think you will have a similar kind of issue at the fuselage under the rear of your canopy. Looked overly busy for polygons.

BTW, Texturing will still work for oversized models. The scale is just different. An example of this is how a 75 foot wing or a 12 inch wide head each use one full texture file.

- Ivan.
 
it's been a while

...so i thought i would torture you
with a couple screen shots.

there's still work to be done,
but she seems to be coming along nicely.
still have the textures for the tailgun,
canopies, antenna and interior to do,
not to mention, the float struts.
plus, there are several minor visual model
details to work out.
then, maybe a figure...maybe.

many thanks to No Dice
for his excellent paint work.
it's saved me a ton of time.
and to top it off,
it looks pretty nice, too,
don't you think?

oh yeah, for the time being,
i've moved the head
and such to the back burner.
 
i really couldn't say.
Dave has done 99% of it.

now, the mapping, i've done most of that.
the tedious part is going back and forth
into the sim to check on progress.
for some reason, i have to restart the sim
every time i save a change to a bitmap.
fortunately, it doesn't take long
for the sim to load.
i'm running it bare bones.
but jeez, isn't there a better way? :sheep:
 
Smilo,
Rather than starting the sim over, simply make your changes and save the bitmap, leave the plane on your screen. reload plane, if it does not work the first time reload again. Seems to work for me. ???

I Luv your Plane

Dave :salute:
 
Sorry Dude, Thaught I sent you that. I think it has something to do with that mailer demon problem ?

Dave :sheep:
 
not to worry.
i've had plenty to do.

so, do you see that marquee above
about the Member Map?
at the end it says,
click on the 'Member Map' button above to proceed.......
i must be going blind or turning stupid.
probably both.
i'll be damned if i can see any 'Member Map' button.
so i won't be proceeding.
 
I bet you are using something faster than a Pentium 233MMX. That is MY development computer.

- Ivan.
 
Ivan, 800Mg Compaq windows XP and a 455 mgh Compaq windows 98 tied together with a clicker (whatever they are called)
I do the scenery under windows 98 and everything else on the XP...hope that helps

Smilo, when you go to the map, look up in the tool bar, click and go...takes 3 seconds, not sure what purpose it serves but none the less.

Ivan, I have been watching your latest which is looking great, any idea what made that malfunction with that flash ? Odd to say the least.
Please share the fix.

Ya'll Stay Safe

Dave :salute:
 
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