Conspicuous by Their Absence

The Air files for the Bv222 and the Bv238 have to stick with four engines, adjusting engine power to compensate allows them to fly adequately. They are big beasts to fly.
My projects come about mainly because there are simply no examples available of aircraft that deserve to be included. I also believe some come about because of what is available is no longer acceptable as a decent model (developments of earlier FS programmes). Finally some come about because of common structural pieces. By this I mean the Hyderabad and the Hinaidi are structuarly the same, the engines were different. This can mean that there are two, three or even four aircraft on the go at once. The trick is to do all of the common construction BEFORE the differences and not the other way round. I had a Fairey Battle on the go, amost finished before deciding that the turret training version would be a suitable candidate and then the pilot trainer and then the Bristol Hercules test bed. Some projects come about because of problems I have encountered with other aircraft that stalls the progress and the new project allows an easy solution in developing the correct way to go about solving the problem. Some solutions are so annoyingly obvious that I doubt my own reasoning.
 
To date, I have done very few "Evolutions" of aircraft to different versions. The La-5FN to La-7 doesn't really count because there is actually more different than there is the same. I would not have thought that to be the case when I started. Thw P-40C from P-40E was also one of those. The only things retained were the landing geear, wings and tail surfaces. The Thunderbolts and A6M5 to A6M2 were not all that bad. There is also a FW 190A conversion to FW 190D at some point. The Ki-61-I to Ki-61-II is not as easy as I thought. The P-40C to P-36 is proving to be near impossible without a whole new build. This evolution thing is also why I am looking over the Corsairs again. I want a F2G at some point as well as a F4U-4 and possibly a racing "Super Corsair".

One of the problems that I have had doing this is that the textures are laid out in a certain way and the new aircraft often has pieces that are slightly larger which means the textures need to be entirely re-arranged. This became an issue with the A6M5 to A6M2. This is why I am leaving more margins in the Macchi C205 than I otherwise would. Who knows? It may eventually become a C200 and that beast is a lot fatter. The C205 is actually running into some problems that weren't visible without texturing, so may get a more extensive SCASM treatment than I had originally planned for.

The projects you ar picking are a lot more complicated than mine. As for ones that have never been built, I do have a J2M Raiden, N1K2-Ja Shiden-KAI and a Me 309 in the plans.

BTW, Did you notice in the new stuff there is another identical Buchon to the one you uploaded earlier?

- Ivan.
 
For some reason the second Buchon is identical to the other one, I must have uploaded it twice....what a muppet!
The most complicated models I do are the multi engined biplanes, it is a real bitch getting the top wing, the interplane struts, the engines and mounting struts and the lower wing to display properly. I have on occasions split the struts and used glue to get them ok. The Blohms and the Shetland were quite straight forward although to get the engines right I have had to split them horizontally. The Singapore, mind you, is a dooozy. The rear fusalage, actually ends up with a slight concave, so has a missing panel when displayed. Something my Lincoln also has, which is a headache trying to sort out. I intend to rebuild the fusalage on those without any left and right duplications. I hope that will cure that particular fault.Nothings easy in this game...thats why we do it
 
Concave Stuff

Hello Womble55,

It IS possible to build a single component with concave parts and still not have bleeds. I showed that way back with a B-26 Maraude cowl that had no serious bleeds even with the air intakes on top. I actually do this in my P-40E. (The combination of Radiator intake and cowl areais slightly concave. (About like a fat figure 8) If you order the parts in the concavity to display first, the display of the other parts will eliminate the bleed.

I also am doing this with my A6M2 Zero, but haven't released that plane yet.

- Ivan.

P.S. Biplanes are a pain, aren't they?
 
I will definitely try the reassembly order option, its a pain when you get the shape right but there is a massive hole in the aircraft when you test fly it. I think the one on the Lincoln came about when I built the fusalage using component maker. This has a nasty habit of not keeping a true centre line, ie the top centre line does not follow the lower centre line. I adjusted one half of the fusalage, correcting this error, then duplicated the parts in reverse on the component assembly. As thousands of peoplehave said before...back to the drawing board.
 
Perhaps I didn't read your post properly. It IS possible to build mildly concave components without a bleed but if yours has disappearing polygons, then it might be far enough off that this polygon is facing the wrong side of the component's center. Rearranging the order won't fix that.

Post a screenshot.

- Ivan.
 
So in other words even though the polygon is on the left side of the fusalage it is being displayed as a right hand side polygon and therefore what I am actually viewing is the reverse of that polygon. I do believe that all of the parts making the fusalage will have to be rebuilt unless I can get away with just that one panel. Anyway my holiday in Looe, Cornwall is now at an end and back to civilisation I must go.
 
Hello Womble55,

As I understand it (and I may be wrong), a "Component" is created by displaying the polygons in the order they are listed in the component. The facing of each polygon is determined by its relationship to the "Center Point" of the Component. I believe the weighting for calculating the center point is based on calculating the offsets of each point and taking the mean.

The idea that I had was that if you have something that has a cross section that looks like Figure1, you can list the polygons in a certain order (Red and Green before all the others) and there will be no bleeds.

If you have a component looking like Figure2, The Red polygon will be facing the wrong direction because the direction of display is away from the center point (Blue).

Hope that makes sense.
- Ivan.
 
I'm sure the Lincoln is, as you say, all to do with the order in the component. My building the fusalage as mirror images of each part hasn't helped at all, in fact it has totally compounded the problem. I'm afraid that I have to go to each part, make the mirror image as a new part and ensure that it is placed in the component as per the original component when I had made it with component maker. If that solves the problem then hopefully with the simple colour scheme that the Lincolns carried in service there shall be another release. I shall also relook at the tail section on my Singapore, it seems as though only meticulous control of the assembly process will sort out some of my annoying projects and let them see fruition.
 
Hello Womble55,

Most aeroplane pieces are pretty close to symmetrical. I once made an effort to have both left and right side parts to the point where I thought it reasonable to have a program called "Mirror" that would reflect a part through the centerline to create a new part. It still has its uses but much less than I would have figured.

These days, I find it much easier to "Add Left-Right Pair" in AF99. My single parts are on the left side. Also when there is an adjustment, you know that the other side was also adjusted automatically.

The Avro Lincoln sounds like a pretty strange project to select. Did you know there is a free AFX file for the Lincoln at FreeFlight Design?

Post a screenshot, it is hard to visualise the issue without one.
- Ivan.
 
Please please please put a link to the afx file for the Lincoln. I've had a quick look and I can't find it The main reason for doing the Lincoln was the same as doing the Manchester, everybody has a Lancaster. Nice plane though it is, the other two warrant inclusion by virtue of being the 'before and after' of the Lancaster.
 
Funny you should say that, my Stirling is about 15% done and my Halifax B2 Special is about 70% done. I cant get the nose and the undercarriage right on the Halifax and the longer I leave it the more I think that other areas need rebuilding. As you are a wizard with complicated undercarriage retraction(the twist and swing back of the Corsair and P40 are complicated in my eyes), I shall seek your advice on the unique undercart for the Stirling.
 
:icon_lol:
Hi Womble55,

I fooled you too!

The actual gear retraction sequence on the Corsair and P-40 is a rotate on two axes, but that isn't REALLY what I did. The sequence I actually did was a single axis of rotation for each aircraft. If it wasn't that obvious in the simulator, then I did a pretty fair job!

The F4F Wildcat sequence is much more complicated but can be sort of simulated with different things rotating each on its own axis but nothing rotates 90 degrees.

I'll go look at what the Stirling does and see if I find anything simple. I actually have a fairly good idea for the F8F Bearcat also which is why I will eventually build the aircraft.

- Ivan.
 
No need to do it yet, completion is a long way off. It would be much easier if it was possible to put sub-folders into say (as I list them) right or left UC. So while the main folder for the U/C rotates about one axis the sub-folder contents can be made to rotate around another. Anyone out there with the nesessary knowhow?
 
Hello Womble55,

If you are complaining about Aircraft Animator, there are many more things wrong with that application. Try animating deployed flaps. It doesn't remember the settings and you need to re-animate them every time. If your model starts with retracted flaps and your animation deploys them, it works fine. If your model starts with deployed flaps and your animation retracts them, it does not work.

The idea of using shorter arcs than 90 degrees with landing gear doesn't work.

The kind of thing you are trying to do properly belongs in SCASM. I have done some adjustments in SCASM, but prefer to work visually which is why I do most of the tasks in AF99 or Aircraft Animator.

- Ivan.
 
Ivan is probably right, Womble.

But since I'm not there yet, I will abstain giving advices that may well be wrong. After a couple of :banghead: followed by their usual :isadizzy:, I may come back on that subject.

BTW Womble; are-you sentimentally attached to your "55" or is it simply because Womble was already taken? I normally never put in limine numbers because it's usually a case of "this name is already taken, instead we propose..." kind of thing. Your choice.
 
Hi Hubbs, should have done your arithmatic homework when at school because 1955 was a very good year for me. I haven't been on my PC for more than a week (this is my wife's netbook I'm on at the moment), awful and really is unacceptable practise. The reasons.....well a short break in Cornwall (22yr anniversary), a gearbox failure in my car with the main dealer near us quoting £3000 to replace it and preparation of a small part of my garden to accept a new greenhouse. On the bright side, I am on late shift next week so will be able to get in a couple of hours solid work before I go in. First on the agenda is to rebuild the nose section of my Lincoln, if it displays properly then, hopefully, there will be an upload next week sometime.
 
Hello Folks,

The issue with Aircraft Animator is that it basically works along ONE axis for animation. With a little creative selection, the one axis isn't that much of a handicap, but sometimes it is. The Nose gear on a Me 309 does a two axis rotation as does the Hurricane. On the Hurricane, you can approximate it with a single axis, but this is hard to do on the 309. The two axis stuff properly belongs in SCASM, but even then you may have a difficult time because the viewing planes don't change even with the transforms to animate objects.

Regarding the Stirling, I finally looked for some pictures. I had no idea how really huge this aeroplane was. I found some pretty good photographs of the main gear but haven't figure out how it all folds away. I will keep looking. This is interesting.

- Ivan 1G FP.

P.S. Screenshots from my paint booth. That pattern on the spinner looks pretty good when animated. Scale for Fuselage and Stabilisers is 256 pixels == 10.24 feet.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top