Kitty Hawk Class Aircraft Carriers

[sketchy]

Here's another shot to confirm your screenshot..

The BL deck code denotes HMS Blake
ATB
DaveB

Nice shot Dave, is this one of your personal ones that survived your Ex?

 

[DaveB]

Nice shot Dave, is this one of your personal ones that survived your Ex?

Hiya Fraser
Yes mate.. and the only reason it survived is because it's one of a handful I sent home to my mom and dad This one might be more to your liking..

Sorry for dragging this a bit OT but the Seaking was taken at the same time!!
ATB
DaveB

 

[Essex]

I'm still hoping for A Hermes of some variation

There is quite a nice Hermes available at the sketchup warehouse (with the same issues). Good luck.

 

[navy81]

Ohhhh.. I'm likin' that Deke!!

Got a soft spot for Connie.. we met up with her group in the Indian Ocean.. '74 or '75.. can't quite remember now. She put on a fabulous air display for us including a live firing..

Don't laugh.. camera's were not like they are now. This old lady only had a 50mm lens and you can see that can't you!!
ATB
DaveB

Dave - Nice!
Love the "wall of water". While the Phantom was great to watch, the A-6 was fantastic at showing how many fish you can kill in one pass (with 24 Mk 82's)..

Getting more work done on Wombraider's "fleet". Working on FID (Forrestal) now - will post a screenie in a few minutes. More tweaking to do on the Be-devilers of VF-74. Have VA-85 (A-6) and VA-83 (A-7) in pretty good shape. AFter that, then on to Sara (VF-31, VA-75, VA-37).

 

[DaveB]

That works for me mate

I can't remember the exact aircraft now but whatever it was.. it flew in the direction you see the Phantom flying in and dropped flares.. a whole string of the darned things.. then cleared off sharpish. Before we knew what was happening.. the Phantom appeared and opened fire on them!! Most impressive was the Vigilante. We were still in the same station to Connie (off her stbd quarter) and were told to look aft. It came in low, between the 2 ships, and was gone. God knows how fast it was going but it literally passed us and was a fair distance off before we heard it. Couldn't say if it went supersonic but it was damn fast.. damn loud too. Still gives me goosebumps thinking about it

ATB
DaveB

 

[navy81]

CAG-17 aboard Forrestal - works in progress.

VA-85 A-6E
VF-74 F-4J
VA-83 A-7E

Need to adjust some of the markings on the Phantom.

What are the chances of getting static aircraft sets (like Wombraider has provided) using 2 different mix sets?:
F-14
F-18
S-3
and
F-4
A-4
F-8

I know Guy Diotte has several Static AI models available on simviation. Anyhow, all of these will be made available once i am satisfied with all of them, and if anyone has a desire to create additional static sets (crowded, launch, recovery) for Forrestal class, Kitty Hawk class, and possibly Oriskany (minus the F-4's) - that would be something!
Deke

 

[WombRaider78]

The empty Kitty model is nearly 20 MB in filesize with about 270k triangles and 580k texture vertices, producing 25 drawcalls. The static aircraft add another 360k triangles, 573k texture vertices and 16 drawcalls.
The Clemenceau model all in all has 190k triangles, 230k texture vertices and 251 drawcalls at 8.5 MB filesize.

The sheer amount of texture vertices is probably choking FSX.


- Edit:
Tried a vertex weld operation in MCX on one of the Kitty models. The program crashed when it reached its allocated memory limit. Great, eh?

While I do agree that Sketchup is a pretty bad program to make large detailed objects, there has got to be something causing this FPS drop. The whole carrier is not in view when the FPS drop happens, just the bow. I get a solid 30 FPS with almost maxed out settings on approach and every time the carrier is in full view. I am thinking maybe it is the blast shields. That would require a bit of editing, but it will also kill the blast shield.

 

[DaveB]

I wondered if the blast shield was causing it. TBH.. I don't think the models would suffer if it was left down mate

ATB
DaveB

 

[expat]

Let me just take a moment to express my gratitude to you for such fine work on the Kitty Hawk and Forrestal class carriers - really has helped fill the long standing gap between Nimitz and WWII boats. These are great freeware additions.

Re the FPS, my experience is very similar in that I don't notice much or any drop in frames on approach or when the boat is in full view and notice the drop very much around the blast shields.

 

[sketchy]

Hiya Fraser
Yes mate.. and the only reason it survived is because it's one of a handful I sent home to my mom and dad This one might be more to your liking..

Sorry for dragging this a bit OT but the Seaking was taken at the same time!!
ATB
DaveB

You know me too well Dave! That was 826 yes?

 

[DaveB]

You know me too well Dave! That was 826 yes?

I know we had 820 mate. Can't recall if they were a permanent fixture though?

EDIT: This link kinda confirms it was 820 mate.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/820_Naval_Air_Squadron
ATB
DaveB

 

[navy81]

Still painting and bringing Air Wing's to life for WombRaider 78's fleet of Supercarriers.
Completed Connie, Forrestal, and Saratoga air wings. Now to Ranger and Indy, with Kitty Hawk rounding out the group.

Here are a few of the Saratoga Air Wing (1975 time frame):

Deke

 

[Blood_Hawk23]

Still painting and bringing Air Wing's to life for WombRaider 78's fleet of Supercarriers.Completed Connie, Forrestal, and Saratoga air wings. Now to Ranger and Indy, with Kitty Hawk rounding out the group.Here are a few of the Saratoga Air Wing (1975 time frame):

Deke

Any chance of the America?

 

[Blood_Hawk23]

Sketchup will model both sides of the poly. So for every 2 polys you actually will have 4. I noticed this when I used a few models I made and imported them into GMax. To see what I'm talking about just make a simple box in sku. Add the material to it. then import it into GMax. You will see the material inside the box as well as outside. Maybe I did something wrong when I made the models. Either way I started to learn GMax after I saw that.

 

[navy81]

Ranger Air Wing (CAG-2) 1974 time frame.
VF-21 F-4J
VA-145 A-6A
VA-113 A-7E

 

[DaveB]

Thick and fast.. just how we like em

ATB
DaveB

 

[WombRaider78]

I found a Weld tool for Sketchup. I ran it on both carriers. It took a long while, but it did finish. I will be exporting the models and bringing them up to speed for FSX soon. Any other tips to something I can do to make them even more frame friendly?

Navy81 made a request for more statics. I need help finding/painting some static models! I would like an A-4, F-8, Tracer, Vigilante, and a suitable 60s era plane tender. Any help acquiring/painting these would be appreciated.

 

[DaveB]

Hello Mate

Can't help with the static models I'm afraid but as a suggestion for the ship itself.. I still think it looks a little odd with the blast shield up all the time so I'd be happy to see that down. Not sure what the others might think though.
ATB
DaveB

 

[TARPSBird]

I agree with DaveB about the raised blast deflector.

 

[Blood_Hawk23]

I found a Weld tool for Sketchup. I ran it on both carriers. It took a long while, but it did finish. I will be exporting the models and bringing them up to speed for FSX soon. Any other tips to something I can do to make them even more frame friendly?

Navy81 made a request for more statics. I need help finding/painting some static models! I would like an A-4, F-8, Tracer, Vigilante, and a suitable 60s era plane tender. Any help acquiring/painting these would be appreciated.

Take a look here...

http://www.freeflightdesign.org/military.html

Might be some models you can use as static. There are 2 A-4s, F-4s, A-6s, C-2a. Some are GMax and some are FSDS. All can be converted into any format you want. They may be lower quality then FSX but you did say you want them as static models.

If you look here...

http://www.virtavia.com/Freeware/index.php

you might find others.