Kitty Hawk Class Aircraft Carriers

WombRaider78 said:
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?
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How does SketchUp manage materials and mappings?

Normally, you go for as little materials on a model as possible by cramming as many parts on a single texture sheet as you can. If there's a plugin for SKU that improves material management, give it a try.

The vertex welding was a good start and might just help enough with framerates.
 
From what I could see, lots of elements of the carrier models are simply models with colors assigned instead of textures (e.g. runway markings and island numbers). Those would have to be texture mapped and added to the main texture sheet. This is very work intensive and also depends on whaether SKU can do this or not.

Did the vertex welding help in terms of performance?
 
Bjoern said:
From what I could see, lots of elements of the carrier models are simply models with colors assigned instead of textures (e.g. runway markings and island numbers). Those would have to be texture mapped and added to the main texture sheet. This is very work intensive and also depends on whaether SKU can do this or not.
Click to expand...

Sketchup is pretty limited in its texturing capabilities. It doesn't have the ability to create a UVWMap nor perform texture unwrapping. Womb raider has hit the same issues I found for some of my early sketchup ships (such as oriskany and invincible) that due to sketchups limitations I would end up with over 95 materials which were applied individually to each part/component of the ship and had serious impacts on frame rates.

The trick I've found (and am testing out for my Ark Royal V model) is to manually create a texture sheet in Photoshop and then use sketchups capabilities to stretch a texture over the component to perform a crude texture map to a surface. It requires lots of trial and error though and isn't ideal.

Long term I've started experimenting with Blender as if I'm serious about producing models with animations it's the only way to go. (GMAX/Blender/3DS Max)

cheers
Gary
 
While Sketchup can create some nice looking models, allow me to show you one of the biggest problems.

I took a SKU model of a F-4 Phantom II. Exported it as a .dae. then with modelconverterx, exported it as a .3ds model. From there I imported it into GMax.

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Just the engine nozels alone have over 5000 polys.

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The whole model is over 64000 polys. You can imagine the number of verts.

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Here is the material list. Note that none of them have textures mapped. This is common with all Sketchup models. Not to mention the double polys as I stated earlier.

It is a shame that it works in this manor because it is so easy to use. It realy does make excellent looking models. The time it would take me to do those nozels like that in GMax would be ten fold the time it takes in sketchup.

Just thought I'd pass it along.
 

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Just welding the model did the trick. I also cleaned up a lot of lines in the raw file. The framerate issue is gone! I get a solid locked 30FPS. Even with the fleet and the crowded deck. I also painted the anchors to the hull color.

Here is a pic that I just snapped after re-launch...

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Well done mate and thanks for looking into the problem. Can't wait to get the new model and Deke's squadron repaints:encouragement:

ATB
DaveB:)
 
WombRaider78 said:
Just welding the model did the trick. I also cleaned up a lot of lines in the raw file. The framerate issue is gone! I get a solid locked 30FPS. Even with the fleet and the crowded deck. I also painted the anchors to the hull color.

Here is a pic that I just snapped after re-launch...

attachment.php
Click to expand...

Awesome!! :applause:
 
What I really want to do is make a single texture for the decks. But for now, here is what I have so far...

http://www.filedropper.com/kittyhawkclassv150
** click the "Download this file" box and a captcha will pop up. The other Download clicks are frauds.

If someone would like my source files, so they can polish/mod this project better than I can, let me know. I will post the source files.
 
From Gary's and BloodHawk's inputs, it looks like the most sensible thing is to convert SKU objects for some thorough reworking in Blender. Welding vertices, proper texture mapping and animations.
This, of course, increases the workload by quite a bit.



WombRaider78 said:
Just welding the model did the trick. I also cleaned up a lot of lines in the raw file. The framerate issue is gone! I get a solid locked 30FPS. Even with the fleet and the crowded deck. I also painted the anchors to the hull color.
Click to expand...

Well done!



WombRaider78 said:
What I really want to do is make a single texture for the decks. But for now, here is what I have so far...

http://www.filedropper.com/kittyhawkclassv150
** click the "Download this file" box and a captcha will pop up. The other Download clicks are frauds.

If someone would like my source files, so they can polish/mod this project better than I can, let me know. I will post the source files.
Click to expand...

You can upload the source files at FSDeveloper, if you want. Or get in touch with the guys at fs-shipyards for hosting.
 
Oh, delete the VEH_CV63 & VEH_CV64 folders before you install. Don't know if these new files will be corrupted with the old. So delete the folders, there will be no problems.
 
Is there any way to "Clean up" the polys on your Forrestal class carriers? They have the same frame rate issues.
 
I would recommend leaving them up on at least one to see if it makes an impact then see what happens. Just a thought

Hooky
 
Trial and error/success makes sense. Really appreciate these refinements to these fine carriers.
 
I will send the updated texture files (mat00 - A6, mat7 - F4, and mat18 - A7) to Warren (WombRaider78) to incorporate into his next release. Have to get Indy done to do so, but will endeavor to have that complete today.

Good stuff going on here by all.:applause:
 
Warren (WR78)..

I've tried the new model mate and it's still giving a massive frame hit.. on deck as I approach the fwd end. Just seen 9fps while in the default Cessna with no other ship in view. Flying around it appears ok but otherwise.. the FR issue remains I'm afraid. The previous models were deleted prior to adding the new ones.:(

ATB
DaveB:)
 
DaveB said:
Warren (WR78)..

I've tried the new model mate and it's still giving a massive frame hit.. on deck as I approach the fwd end. Just seen 9fps while in the default Cessna with no other ship in view. Flying around it appears ok but otherwise.. the FR issue remains I'm afraid. The previous models were deleted prior to adding the new ones.:(

ATB
DaveB:)
Click to expand...

If the decks are down, it is definitely the new update. What are your PC specs??
 
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