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Please see the most recent updates in the "Where did the .com name go?" thread. Posts number 16 and 17.
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Special Server Maintenance
Just when you think you have everything running some what better...
You get a message from the Hosting company. Short story they need to move us to a new server. I have been working with them to plan a good date for all concerned. Here is what we have come up with as a schedule.
- November 4th 17:00 -5UTC shut off the forums and start backup proceedures. During this time there will be no access to the forums or the Resource Section.
- November 5th Continue with Backups and download same until complete.
- November 6th 7:00 turn over server to hosting company to move system to new server
- November 7th - 8th restore backups and upgrade forum software.
If all goes well we should be back online on November 8th.
To keep you updated we will post updates on AVSIM forums.
Thank you for your support.
Conspicuous by Their Absence
- Thread starter Ivan
- Start date
hubbabubba
Charter Member
-Wikipedia
I can't fancy how fresh cast bronze would help "blending with the environment". I also can't believe that RAF/MAP inspectors at Curtiss would have tolerated such departure from TLS. But since it appears that you have made your mind, I only have to wish you and your family a
Very Happy New Year!
No Dice
Charter Member
Thanks No Dice.
I think it looks fairly good, but what I noticed when flying last night just past Midnight is that some of the inboard ribs in the Port Aileron disappeared during the texturing and re-texturing. I had to go back and redo those.
In getting out of the aeroplane (with partially retracted Flaps) after landing, I noticed a rather severe bleed of the Flap in board section through the Wing Fillet. This is bad. It might need a serious rework.....
Attached is a screenshot of someone else's idea of a AVG camouflage scheme.
Here is a little bit of additional information:
The AVG was made up of three squadrons
1st - Adam & Eve (The FIRST Pursuit, Get it? ;-)
2nd - Panda Bears
3rd - Hell's Angels
I have been looking over the kills attributed to the squadrons. The total number of kills that the Chinese government accepted and paid for was 296. The actual number of Air to Air kills described in combat reports is more like 225 to 230. Of those kills, from what I can tell from the squadron assignments of the pilots we have the following (with scores of about 4 pilots not counted because I do not know their affiliation):
1st Squadron - 100 kills
2nd Squadron - 50 kills
3rd Squadron - 70 kills
My numbers may be a bit off, but probably not enough to change the standings to any great extent.
I believe my plane will be wearing the colours of the 1st Pursuit Squadron. (Sorry, No Dice.....)
- Ivan.
I think it looks fairly good, but what I noticed when flying last night just past Midnight is that some of the inboard ribs in the Port Aileron disappeared during the texturing and re-texturing. I had to go back and redo those.
In getting out of the aeroplane (with partially retracted Flaps) after landing, I noticed a rather severe bleed of the Flap in board section through the Wing Fillet. This is bad. It might need a serious rework.....
Attached is a screenshot of someone else's idea of a AVG camouflage scheme.
Here is a little bit of additional information:
The AVG was made up of three squadrons
1st - Adam & Eve (The FIRST Pursuit, Get it? ;-)
2nd - Panda Bears
3rd - Hell's Angels
I have been looking over the kills attributed to the squadrons. The total number of kills that the Chinese government accepted and paid for was 296. The actual number of Air to Air kills described in combat reports is more like 225 to 230. Of those kills, from what I can tell from the squadron assignments of the pilots we have the following (with scores of about 4 pilots not counted because I do not know their affiliation):
1st Squadron - 100 kills
2nd Squadron - 50 kills
3rd Squadron - 70 kills
My numbers may be a bit off, but probably not enough to change the standings to any great extent.
I believe my plane will be wearing the colours of the 1st Pursuit Squadron. (Sorry, No Dice.....)
- Ivan.
No Dice
Charter Member
I really like those skins best of all.
I think it is time for me to break down and purchase a new monitor, I have 2 computers hooked up to this old 17" AVG and have to change the settings everytime between CFS1, CFS2 and FS9.
None-the-less ....Looks great to me.
Happy new year my Freind
Dave :salute:
I think it is time for me to break down and purchase a new monitor, I have 2 computers hooked up to this old 17" AVG and have to change the settings everytime between CFS1, CFS2 and FS9.
None-the-less ....Looks great to me.
Happy new year my Freind
Dave :salute:
Perhaps I also need to get a new monitor. Up until about 6 months ago, I was using a pretty good Sony 17 inch SVGA. The power switch doesn't seem to work any more but I believe it is just the switch rather than anything serious. I swapped in a Dell (Nokia) 17 inch which is visibly much worse. I have a better Nokia 17 inch (also Dell) on a rarely used game machine which I will probably swap when I can move the clutter off my development computer. Hope the kids don't mind, but since they don't use that computer much, they can hardly complain.
I have a 15 inch SVGA on a faster development computer but don't feel much like transfering a bunch of files to make it my primary. It also burns up a LOT more power than my current development machine. 1.33 GHz Athlon Thunderbird versus 233 MHz Pentium MMX. The game machine (and test machine for installations) is a 866 MHz Pentium III. The other test machine (for multiplayer tests) is a AMD K-6 500 MHz.
When I am on the Internet like now, I am using a 15-something inch display on a 3 year old 2 GHz AMD Turion laptop. Newest machine in the house is my daughter's laptop (3 months). I SHOULD just buy a larger monitor for one of the development machines.....
- Ivan.
I have a 15 inch SVGA on a faster development computer but don't feel much like transfering a bunch of files to make it my primary. It also burns up a LOT more power than my current development machine. 1.33 GHz Athlon Thunderbird versus 233 MHz Pentium MMX. The game machine (and test machine for installations) is a 866 MHz Pentium III. The other test machine (for multiplayer tests) is a AMD K-6 500 MHz.
When I am on the Internet like now, I am using a 15-something inch display on a 3 year old 2 GHz AMD Turion laptop. Newest machine in the house is my daughter's laptop (3 months). I SHOULD just buy a larger monitor for one of the development machines.....
- Ivan.
Hi Smilo, No Dice,
That FW 190A was released years ago. The improvements haven't been released yet though. The hangup is in the AIR file. I am unable thus far to make one that both handles like it should AND is flyable by AI.
The improvements since the original release are the following:
1. There is now a pilot
2. There is an animated engine cooling fan
3. The antenna attachment point on the fin / rudder has been corrected
4. The tip of the fin has a minor contour change
5. The cowl opening is reduced in size
6. Animated spinner
7. Bulges added on the lower cowl
The animated spinner only works in multiplayer and user aircraft. I think it looks pretty cool. It disappears when flown by AI, but there is still a spinner that is there. That is why I spent so much time with the Macchi 205 to add a duplicated spinner. Otherwise it would be missing its nose when flown by AI.
- Ivan.
That FW 190A was released years ago. The improvements haven't been released yet though. The hangup is in the AIR file. I am unable thus far to make one that both handles like it should AND is flyable by AI.
The improvements since the original release are the following:
1. There is now a pilot
2. There is an animated engine cooling fan
3. The antenna attachment point on the fin / rudder has been corrected
4. The tip of the fin has a minor contour change
5. The cowl opening is reduced in size
6. Animated spinner
7. Bulges added on the lower cowl
The animated spinner only works in multiplayer and user aircraft. I think it looks pretty cool. It disappears when flown by AI, but there is still a spinner that is there. That is why I spent so much time with the Macchi 205 to add a duplicated spinner. Otherwise it would be missing its nose when flown by AI.
- Ivan.
AVG Colours
Here is a video of one of the remaining P-40 Tomahawks painted up in "AVG Colours".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzoR-NArifU
I believe mine is pretty close in the attached screenshot. Also visible in this screenshot is a bleed of the inboard section of the Starboard Flap. Looks like a trip back into AF99 is needed for this beast.
Another thing that I found in doing the texturing is that the White stripe on the Aft Fuselage needs to have some contrast with the colours on the underside. The Underside is too light which means yet a bunch more edits.
- Ivan.
Here is a video of one of the remaining P-40 Tomahawks painted up in "AVG Colours".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzoR-NArifU
I believe mine is pretty close in the attached screenshot. Also visible in this screenshot is a bleed of the inboard section of the Starboard Flap. Looks like a trip back into AF99 is needed for this beast.
Another thing that I found in doing the texturing is that the White stripe on the Aft Fuselage needs to have some contrast with the colours on the underside. The Underside is too light which means yet a bunch more edits.
- Ivan.
Repainted the underside of the aeroplane and put the squadron's white band and a tactical number on it. Next comes the wormy apple, and after that comes the panel lines.
Pure white doesn't look right and the underside has to be darker still so that the contrast with the band can be seen.
- Ivan.
Pure white doesn't look right and the underside has to be darker still so that the contrast with the band can be seen.
- Ivan.
The First Pursuit
The Hawk 81 had a visit to the paint shop this morning.
I found a picture of Number 94 flown by Tom Haywood which showed a different shape to the "4" digit so my 45 was changed accordingly. The First Pursuit emblem was also hand drawn this morning. I know it is oversized but that is the only way I can get the detail I want into the design. The emblem is also attached and it is very coarse though I still like the effect as it sits on the aeroplane.
- Ivan.
The Hawk 81 had a visit to the paint shop this morning.
I found a picture of Number 94 flown by Tom Haywood which showed a different shape to the "4" digit so my 45 was changed accordingly. The First Pursuit emblem was also hand drawn this morning. I know it is oversized but that is the only way I can get the detail I want into the design. The emblem is also attached and it is very coarse though I still like the effect as it sits on the aeroplane.
- Ivan.
Compromises
I found out a curious thing when poking around with the Hawk81 / P-40C. I compared it to the earlier Hawk87 / P-40E which has the same Wing and a very similar Fillet. THAT aeroplane doesn't have the same bleed. I did notice though that the plane has a bunch of weirdness in the Flap versus Fillet and Cowl Fairing area.
The underside is much worse on the P-40E which is what I was trying to fix on the P-40C. Turns out the fix broke some other stuff. Looks like some shapes are going to change a bit. The big question is which looks worse: the bleed or the change in shape?
Another side effect is that my SCASMing is changing the colours a bit though it isn't visible on a textured part.
Looks like I need to review this area again....
- Ivan.
I found out a curious thing when poking around with the Hawk81 / P-40C. I compared it to the earlier Hawk87 / P-40E which has the same Wing and a very similar Fillet. THAT aeroplane doesn't have the same bleed. I did notice though that the plane has a bunch of weirdness in the Flap versus Fillet and Cowl Fairing area.
The underside is much worse on the P-40E which is what I was trying to fix on the P-40C. Turns out the fix broke some other stuff. Looks like some shapes are going to change a bit. The big question is which looks worse: the bleed or the change in shape?
Another side effect is that my SCASMing is changing the colours a bit though it isn't visible on a textured part.
Looks like I need to review this area again....
- Ivan.
Little By Little
Last night and this morning, I put some panel lines onto the AVG 1st Pursuit paint scheme.
Steps are the following:
The BMP image is expanded out to 24bits per pixel
Panel Lines BMP (Change everything but the Panel Lines to pure White. Lines are pure Black) is overlayed
Overlay is changed so that white is transparent
The Non Transparent part is changed to about 25% Opaque.
Save as BMP
Use a utility to change it back to FS Palette.
Convert to PCX using MS Photo Editor.
....and the last part whichI haven't done yet is to change the panel lines over the major paint colours to be consistent across the files using AF5Paint.
The end result should look pretty close to this screenshot.
- Ivan.
Last night and this morning, I put some panel lines onto the AVG 1st Pursuit paint scheme.
Steps are the following:
The BMP image is expanded out to 24bits per pixel
Panel Lines BMP (Change everything but the Panel Lines to pure White. Lines are pure Black) is overlayed
Overlay is changed so that white is transparent
The Non Transparent part is changed to about 25% Opaque.
Save as BMP
Use a utility to change it back to FS Palette.
Convert to PCX using MS Photo Editor.
....and the last part whichI haven't done yet is to change the panel lines over the major paint colours to be consistent across the files using AF5Paint.
The end result should look pretty close to this screenshot.
- Ivan.
Remaining Bleeds
After a whole mess of rebuilds and experiments, it appears that the original assembly sequence along with some slighty reshaped parts is the "best" solution. The other ideas I tried all ended up causing even more problems elsewhere. Project also needed 4 extra Polygons to get here.
In the last screenshot, the Cowl Guns and Fairings can be seen from under the Nose. This issue also will remain in the final version. The nose section here has a LOT of stuff coming together, and without additional Components to use, I can't see how it can be resolved within AF99. Perhaps I will attempt a fix with SCASM.
- Ivan.
After a whole mess of rebuilds and experiments, it appears that the original assembly sequence along with some slighty reshaped parts is the "best" solution. The other ideas I tried all ended up causing even more problems elsewhere. Project also needed 4 extra Polygons to get here.
In the last screenshot, the Cowl Guns and Fairings can be seen from under the Nose. This issue also will remain in the final version. The nose section here has a LOT of stuff coming together, and without additional Components to use, I can't see how it can be resolved within AF99. Perhaps I will attempt a fix with SCASM.
- Ivan.
BMP versus R8 Paint
So far, I have been doing most of my texturing in AF5Paint and converting the resulting PCX file into a BMP file. Because I was also doing a rebuild within AF99, I also used the same PCX files there. After rebuilding with AF99,
I found that the Panel Lines in the Green areas were NOT VISIBLE AT ALL!
Just for grins and to confirm that I was not imagining things, I renamed the Left Wing BMP texture to the equivalent R8. The screenshot below shows the differences between the two formats..... Note how the Panel Lines are not visible in the Green sections anywhere but on the Left Wing.....
Interesting.....
- Ivan.
So far, I have been doing most of my texturing in AF5Paint and converting the resulting PCX file into a BMP file. Because I was also doing a rebuild within AF99, I also used the same PCX files there. After rebuilding with AF99,
I found that the Panel Lines in the Green areas were NOT VISIBLE AT ALL!
Just for grins and to confirm that I was not imagining things, I renamed the Left Wing BMP texture to the equivalent R8. The screenshot below shows the differences between the two formats..... Note how the Panel Lines are not visible in the Green sections anywhere but on the Left Wing.....
Interesting.....
- Ivan.
must be frustrating.
just a thought...
how does it look if you zoom out click or two?
i'll bet it's hardly noticeable.
i understand the challenge to make it perfect,
but, you can pick it to death
and it still won't be there.
as far as i can see,
she's coming along very nicely. :salute:
i'm also seeing lines in the green sections
on the right aileron and elevator.
now, why would it do just that?
very interesting...