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F4U-1 Corsair "Birdcage" released by Allen!

Allen

Allen

Styles Editor/Admin
Staff member
347414413459682463.jpg

A new entry has been added to Add-Ons Library, category CFS 2 Aircraft - American

Description: This rebuild of the stock F4U-1A converts it back to the early "birdcage" canopy F4U-1. Come with most of the bells and whistles like animated parts and breaking parts. Model is Multi LOD use damage texture logics as well.

Comes with 2 textures (Early Bi-Color of the VMF-124 piloted by Lt.Howard James Finn. Guadalcanal, February 1943, and edit of the stock Tri-Color) Skin templates are included in the textue folders for your painting pleasure. You will need a program that can read .PSD to use them.

To check it out, rate it or add comments, visit F4U-1 Corsair "Birdcage".zip
The comments you make there will appear in the posts below.
 
Reply...

Allen,

You did a very nice job on these. Great work, and thank you! :applause:
 
Very nice job Allen. I have always wanted a birdcage F4U based off the MS model. Took her for a test flight just now, flew great. Will work great with some forthcoming Solomons missions I plane to release. I especially appreciate the early and later skins you included. Great job.
 
Roxane-21 PMed me and pointed out some how I messed up on the cockpit wind screen. I edited the cockpit wind screen but must have had a brain fart half way through it and never got it right. I edited the upload with a new model that fixes this for the main exterior LOD and interior/VC.

View attachment 28471

Rami

Thanks!

Dasuto247

The skin template should be able to let just about any painter make any F4U-1 that you can think of using the Bi-Color template. I will also work just fine with the Stock/OH F4U-1A as I didn't change the texture mapping for my model.
 
Allen said:
Roxane-21 PMed me and pointed out some how I messed up on the cockpit wind screen. I edited the cockpit wind screen but must have had a brain fart half way through it and never got it right. I edited the upload with a new model that fixes this for the main exterior LOD and interior/VC.

View attachment 28471

Rami

Thanks!

Dasuto247

The skin template should be able to let just about any painter make any F4U-1 that you can think of using the Bi-Color template. I will also work just fine with the Stock/OH F4U-1A as I didn't change the texture mapping for my model.
Click to expand...


No problem. You've done some great work with your planes. With this and the FM2 ,PBY.
 
dasuto247 said:
No problem. You've done some great work with your planes. With this and the FM2 ,PBY.
Click to expand...

It seem like I have done a ton of reworks of the stock aircrafts. A6M2 became A6M2 Model 22 and a Model 32. A6M5 became a A6M5C and A6M8. B-24D to a B-24J and a PB4Y-1. F4F-4 became a F4F-3 WildCatFish and a FM-2. F4U-1A to a F4U-1. G4M2 back to a G4M1. P-38F to a later P-38J. P-39D to P-39D-1 and P-39Q. Lastly the TBF became a British TBF Mk.II.

All that is left to mess with is the B5N2, B-25D, C-47, D3A1, F6F3, Ki43, N1K2, TBD-1 and SBD-2
 
Allen,

Wonderful job! I love the attention to detail you paid to the canopy! What programs do you use to do the work?
 
Model is taken from CFS2 by use of Model Converter X to make it a .3ds that can be loaded into gMax and edited (this has to be done a few times thanks to needing LODs from the model). Once all of the editing has been done I export it as a FS2004 model and use MDLC.exe and it windows interface mk_MDLC.exe to convert it back to CFS2.

All of the things I use to convert (Model Converter X) and edit/export the model (gMax and the FS2004 Software Development Kit) are free. Mk_MDLC.exe is fround here as a download and includes MDLC.exe.

Most of this can be done on any Windows OS but MDLC.exe only works on 32 bit OS like Win XP and Vista. I don't know if any one has had luck with geting MDLC.exe to work using things like DOS Box or VirtualBox that can emulate a 16 bit setup so you can run MDLC.exe by old school DOS command line.

Seeing that you have more post in the FSX fourm I'm going to guess that is what you have and if yes you should be able to get the gMax FSX SDK and build aircraft just fine as you don't need mk_MDLC.exe and/or MDLC.exe to make aircraft of FS2004 or FSX as there software development kits for gMax work just fine on 64bit OS.
 
Hi Allen,

Very nice work on the BC Corsair. :encouragement:

I've been meaning to ask you this for a while and before I start let me say my experience in gmax is nil to nothing.
I'm curious why a gmax file cannot be compiled directly to a CFS2 format using Makemdl, MDLCommander, and MiddleMan.

I've read about these and have the files but do not understand the route you're taking to arrive at a CFS2.mdl.
In the MDLCommander it states, -cf = Generate CFS2 aircraft

I'd appreciate your thoughts and experience on this subject. Just trying to learn something to advance myself a bit.

Thanks, Dave
 
I don't use MDLCommander and/or Middleman. I have them both but I find it best to just use stock FS2004 SDK as I do a lot of spot checks using Model Converter X and MDLCommander and/or Middleman and its need of drop and drag to make a model just takes too long to do a quick check.
 
Allen said:
Roxane-21 PMed me and pointed out some how I messed up on the cockpit wind screen. I edited the cockpit wind screen but must have had a brain fart half way through it and never got it right. I edited the upload with a new model that fixes this for the main exterior LOD and interior/VC.

attachment.php
Click to expand...

Good job, thank you very much ! :applause:

This is a sweet addition. That's great to have all these aircraft with every CFS2 features like breaking parts and damage textures, as well as multi-LOD models to allow good frame rates during huge air battles. All WW2 Corsair variants are now available from the same basic model, which is even greater. Thanks again Allen !
 
Allen, not sure if it was a one time bug but never had it happen with other planes. While on a mission I noticed the top side port wing decal and panel went black, just blank and colored black, as did starboard underside wing panel.Did not affect controls of anything.Possibly related to damage texture as I had a zero firing at me, I dove into a cloud and noticed it after recovering.
 
Looked at the model and texture and the decal is working right for all LODs. It also can't be related to damege texture as port top side decal and starboard underside decal can't change at the same time (unless I messed up with the part naming but model coding is fine). They aren't attached to each other so the only way that the port and starboard decals can change is if the wing tips for both wings are shot off.

Did you change textures? gMax can't use the stock decal_insignia_t0.bmp and decal_insignia_d0.bmp as if I do try to use them the MakeMDL dosn't use damage texture logic as it is only programed to use *NAME*_t.bmp and *NAME*_d.bmp.

If you don't have the decal_insignia_t.bmp and decal_insignia_d.bmp I included for both textures the game will change the decal surface to material color and that is gray.
 
Allen said:
Looked at the model and texture and the decal is working right for all LODs. It also can't be related to damege texture as port top side decal and starboard underside decal can't change at the same time (unless I messed up with the part naming but model coding is fine). They aren't attached to each other so the only way that the port and starboard decals can change is if the wing tips for both wings are shot off.

Did you change textures? gMax can't use the stock decal_insignia_t0.bmp and decal_insignia_d0.bmp as if I do try to use them the MakeMDL dosn't use damage texture logic as it is only programed to use *NAME*_t.bmp and *NAME*_d.bmp.

If you don't have the decal_insignia_t.bmp and decal_insignia_d.bmp I included for both textures the game will change the decal surface to material color and that is gray.
Click to expand...

Well I did replace decal_insignia_t0 and d0.bmp (stock stars and bars) with the blue star roundel(same name) in the main texture folder for CFS 2(but using the texture included, the early one with blue star roundels), so OH B-24(running a different skin for new guinea using the roundels) Are you saying this is the likely cause?
 
If your change the decals you need to use decal_insignia_t.bmp for normal texture and decal_insignia_d.bmp for damaged texture.
 
Dasuto,

You don't always have to change the decal textures in the main texture folder. CFS2 will look in the aircraft texture folder FIRST, & use the decal textures that are in that file. It will ONLY use the decal textures from the main Texture folder if it doesn't find any decals in the aircraft texture folder (& the aircraft uses them = stockers).

Attached is a zip with invisible decals, they may be useful to you.
 
My aircraft can't use the stock decal_insignia_t0.bmp and decal_insignia_d0.bmp as MakeMDL dosen't know to use damage texute logic with decal_insignia_t0.bmp. MakeMDL knows to use damage texture logic with textures that end with "_T" only.

Invisible decals are included with the Bi-Color texture and the stock Tri-Color texture has the normal decals.
 
Allen said:
I don't use MDLCommander and/or Middleman. I have them both but I find it best to just use stock FS2004 SDK as I do a lot of spot checks using Model Converter X and MDLCommander and/or Middleman and its need of drop and drag to make a model just takes too long to do a quick check.
Click to expand...

So it's a matter off having less hoops to jump through. I understand now.
Thanks Allen.
 
MDLCommander and/or Middleman may be the only way to make CFS2 aircraft with Win7+ as I think it can run on them.
 
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