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Going to try a 'real' aircraft model

View attachment 55455

A foot lower, it'd merely be a navel aircraft. Just hoping I don't make a complete teat of meself :mixed-smiley-010:...Everything is is in groups so I can point and click the bits apart, export the moving bits one at a time through MCX to FSDS objects, pop in to FSDS for animating, back out to MCX and merge. Sounds cumbersome, but nothing changes spatial position, small bits compile instantly, so it's pretty bang-bang, no fussing with FSDS lists and baukiness, just set the axis and away to the races. If you keep the zero point origin of the model, its really fast and easy to go from SKUP-MCX-FSDS, or back and forth until things work properly, or to fix the fumduckers. I also keep the moving bits on separate texture names, though the same textures, so MCX can separate those from the rest of the model to allow back and forthing to fix mistakes with out starting from scratch. Eventually, I'll have a model of the fixed airframe stuff, and another of the animated stuff, all in their positions with respect to one another, When its all happy, the last step is to merge the two, rename the textures so I'll have one or two texture sheets-control the draw calls, and set the model axis from the assembly point to the flight axis.
 
Hi Laz,

cracking work as always. I get your approach....but it does have its drawbacks mainly on the time consuming sketchup, to MCX to the 3D studio package with all the capabilities and out again. Sketchup is great for creating the actual model itself but when it comes to texturing and animating that's when you hit a brick wall. Have you considered Blender as an option? Polygon smoothing and UVWrapping are just some of the benefits. You can even still develop the basic framework in sketchup and import the DAE direct into blender then modify, smooth, UVUnwrap, animate and export as an MDL. I've used that approach for some of my mdls as I slowly move into blender full time (getting used to the blender modelling tools and creating the object is still a big chore for me as well as seams and creating the UVMap).

your approach is still sounds and if it ain't broke don't fix it....just thought I'd give you a pointer as a fellow 'sketchup'er' who's been a recent convert to other packages

Looking forward to taking her for a test flight!

:encouragement:

Best
Gaz
 
I tried to wrap my melon around blender-hated it, another lousy, counter-intuitive U.I. designed by people that should limit themselves to hacking social-disease media crappola for zuckerburg. I absolutely love the simplicity of SKUP, it's just traditional drawing and model-making, little different from scratch building from a set of plans.
It's got full poly-smoothing built in, and a nice capability to apply variable smoothing on individual poly's, or even a single line. Texture mapping is a breeze in SKUP, I've found it much more intuitive than UV mapping- the model is built right on the texture map. The trick is the maps are on a cube that projects the texture from what ever orientation the cube is offered up to the model, most of the mapping happens as part of the drawing process, and in 3D with basic graphic editing via paint. The only down side is no animation capability, but, as noted, I can endrun that with MCX-FSDS. It seems clunky, but I have to say, for this old fossil, it's simpler than the alternatives. It's certainly accessible, given the cost of some of the 'professional' 3D systems. Can't argue with the price tag- free, excepting FSDS, which is cheap. MCX is really the key, though. Be totally boned but for MCX.
 
I hear you on the blender UI! And as for your projection mapping process in SKUP I'm intrigued....I need to pick your brains more!

Gaz
 
I'm picking at a SKUP texture tutorial while in the interstices of rage and despair engendered by too much FSDS:banghead: This is a good explanation, probably clearer than my mumbling...

https://youtu.be/XRQLS8P7xsY?t=8

View attachment 55645View attachment 55646

In the mean time... doors and hatches animated and in. The bomb doors were particularly beastly, getting the axis in the right place...then do it mirrored! It's been good for the learning curve, which still looks like El Capitan as you'r plummeting to your death from the Nose...Flight controls going through FSDS now. Perhaps by the time I'm older, grayer and senile I'll have an alpha version. Then the VC. I'm probing the ear/brain interface with a very sharp pencil, eyeing the lump mallet again...
 
lazarus said:
...while in the interstices of rage and despair engendered by too much FSDS:banghead:...

...the learning curve, which still looks like El Capitan as you're plummeting to your death from the Nose...

...I'm probing the ear/brain interface with a very sharp pencil, eyeing the lump mallet again...
Click to expand...

LOL, these are typical of learning any 3D modelling prog! Welcome to our world, please leave your sanity at the door. :mixed-smiley-027: And keep going! :applause:
 
If you're really using Sketchup and FSDS, my hat's off to you. Both of these are on the bottom on my list of favored modeling tools for their awkward UIs and non-FSX exporting tools.
 
Keep your hat on, send lawyers, guns, money, liquor or hallucinatory alkaloids:biggrin-new:
But, thanks. It's not been that bad.
So far, for an FSX animation compatible 3D prog, I think they all suck ass very badly, indeed. Sketchup, for the modeling end of it is brilliant. I've come to a sort of accommodation with FSDS on some things...well, I've gone a whole three hours with out throwing a monitor off the quarter deck, anyway.
I'm a bit further along the curve, learned a lot.
Number one. Don't worry about axis orientation with respect to the model. rotate the bits normal and perpendicular to axis, position after export with MCX!
Number two. Good enough is as good as perfect, at this stage of the game.
Number three. No fire arms near the modeling studio.
Number four. Only shoot the monitor after you take it out on the quarter deck.
Number five. Liquor and hallucinatory alkaloids help, a lot.

But seriously... for a basically freeware and cheap set up, it works quite well. I'm reasonably happy with the results. My bench mark was fairly modest. I figured if it looks at least as good as Frank Elton's old Seamaster, it's a win. Assembled and animated, just to add some aircrew figures, beaching gear, and hack some kind of payloads together- RAT-52 rocket torpedo's! Then the Be-10M MALLOW-B missile armed variant.
It's in for paint, the FDE is basically set up. Sketchup helps there, you can just go over the model with the virtual tape measure, provided the scale, angles and dangles are within ten nautical of the airstrip...I might even get to fly it shortly. VC is going to be one of the MiG-25's, probably the Alpha-converted that a while back. It's period, roughly; soviet, the windscreen and canopy are close enough for government work, twin engines...though the ASI is over-achieving.
View attachment 55748View attachment 55749View attachment 55750
 
Penzoil3 said:
Da tovarich! Stolichnaya! Spasebo!
LOL
Sue
Click to expand...
Get out my trusty Hungarian to Russian phrase book...ah!

Moye sudno na vozdushnoy podushke polno ugrey! YA ne budu pokupat' etu zapis', ona potsarapana. Ty khochesh' vernut'sya na moye mesto, bodryy-bodryy?:biggrin-new:

While I'm here, are the aircraft geometry measurements taken from the C of G?...or: Poka ya zdes', izmereniya geometrii samoleta vzyaty iz Tsentra tyazhesti?

Moi soski vzryvayutsya s vostorgom! Bros' svoi trusiki seru Uil'yamu, ya ne mogu dozhdat'sya obeda! Pozhaluysta, laskay moyu zadnitsu.

Dunno, man. Every time I use this phrase book, I get in a fight...I think it's broken.

Ahem...beaching gear and aircrew in. just measuring things, dusting off the algebra to figure trapezoids and rhombus areas, going after contact points. Stay tuned. May have an alpha test ready shortly
View attachment 55760
 
Svyatoy trakh! Eto letayet!

Went better than I probably deserve. Fly's quite nicely, though 'lighter' than a large, heavy machine with armstrong steering might. I see one small texture goof, easy fix, the float points need some adjusting, the glass needs some twiddling of material, and I messed up the doors entry's in the cfg- all rectifiable. Beaching gear points are good, and it looks like it's supposed too. No show stoppers for a first flight. 4.97 mb, 47 drawcalls, 34,775 triangles, 39689 texture vertices with the beaching gear and 3 piglet aircrew in, nice, smooth runner. Close to an initial issue, then. :untroubled: yebat' svoyu mat'! I'm pretty happy.
View attachment 55766View attachment 55767View attachment 55768View attachment 55769
 
Looks good! Kudos!


P.S: With Blender (freeware), you'll only want to shoot your PC because of one single modeling tool instead of three tools. The long term payoff is well worth the time invested in learning it.
 
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