sixstrings5859
Charter Member
Amazing work. Excited to say the least ! Thank you for my favorite fighter !
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The Staff of SOH
P-47 Progress Thread
- Thread starter Frosty
- Start date
Pat Pattle
SOH-CM-2025
Wow Joost! That's impressive work indeed! Such dedication to a hobby is just brilliant! 
sixstrings5859
Charter Member
Just checking for a update. Loving the last preview model. Most excellent ! Super excited about this aircraft, as it is my all time favorite warbird ! Thanks Joost !
Frosty
SOH-CM-2025
Thanks for your interest, Scott!
What can I say? There's a lot that's being worked on:
What can I say? There's a lot that's being worked on:
- With the various subvariants being created I thought it was a good idea to try and see if I could reorganize the cockpit textures to reduce their numbers. If I could create textures containing only the 'common/general' parts and put the 'differences' on another set of textures, creating/repainting a subvariant should require less work and textures. This process isn't finished yet, but I am making reasonable progress.
- I textured the radio set from the previous teaser screenies. It is mostly done. A lot of detail is simulated with bump mapping which is fun to do (screenie included. I also added detail to the map data case with some bump mapping. Still not entirely sure what colour of 'Republic green' I will use, hence the differences in the cockpit).
- I spent a good deal of time adding some detail to the engine and sorting out the differences between the Hamilton Standard prop and the Curtiss Electric symmetrical one. It turned out that the CE prop also required a governor, a brush housing-thingy, cabling and controls that the HS prop doesn't need. It also affected some of the VC cockpit controls. See the gmax screenies below (not all CE controls added yet).
- In addition to the previous I also tried to find a way to simulate the volume of the turning propeller disc. There's this wonderful teaser vid of how props are done in DCS, which makes my mouth water: . (Of course these people are also excellent at making these videos: The weaving and bobbing really gives you the idea that the video was shot from another aircraft). I assume this technology isn't possible in CFS3 so I found something else on the web which I am exploring now. I must say that the effect from the side is pretty good but the way it is achieved, affects the front view also when zooming in. Not entirely sure about this.
- With the subvariants and their differences the templates for the external model also needed reviewing: In some areas the rivet patterns and access panels differed and I want to clean these up so that repainters can easily switch from one subvariant to another. I am also adding three different tire tread patterns and two hub styles to the template, with the required bump mapping.
- Last but not least: The cockpit canopy could be opened manually or electrically. The channel for the motor drive chain can be seen behind the pilot's armoured headrest. I have tried to model and animate this chain in various ways but haven't found a satisfying solution yet that doesn't require too much polys. The bracket on the arch that is attached to the chain also needed remodeling/retexturing for this.
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Pat Pattle
SOH-CM-2025
Absolutely stunning attention to detail Joost! 
sixstrings5859
Charter Member
Your attention to detail is amazing ! Reminds me of the Navy ! Speechless !
gecko
Charter Member
Looking good Joost! Which variants are you making?
Thinking about the propeller...
I've always thought the way DCS did it was a little overdone vs what the naked eye sees. But there is still the need to be able to transition from a nearly invisible disc when viewed straight on, to a clearly visible profile when viewed from the side. The basic CFS3 prop discs don't do it at all. What you've done looks great in profile, and I assume also from the front.
My one thought for improvement at the intermediate angles, and it may not produce the desired results, would be to feather out the alpha channel of the texture on the edges of the blade profile polys. It would probably require a fairly high resolution texture, and some experimentation for how many pixels deep the alpha gradient needs to be. But in theory this gets rid of the hard edges of the profile polys that are visible when the prop is seen at an angle. Since there are a lot of them radiating out from the hub, they don't have to be very opaque, since the alpha channels will stack up as the angle increases. So the trick would be to get them as transparent as possible while still being just opaque enough to produce the desired effect when seen from the side, taking into consideration the alpha feathering of the edges. I think this could possibly produce a smoother and more natural result.
The last thing to consider is animation (pending the desired real systems module implementation). Steve made the Spitfire's prop disk slightly coned on both the front and the back, and somehow animated it so that the thickness of the cone at the center could be varied, simulating the changes in blade pitch. AHK code was needed to then pull the necessary info from the actual pitch of the blades and use it to control the animation. I'm not sure, but possibly your blade profiles could rotate too, which would add a new dimension to it, which may look particularly good with specular reflections on the prop disk. Or it might spoil the effect completely; it's hard to say.
Thinking about the propeller...
I've always thought the way DCS did it was a little overdone vs what the naked eye sees. But there is still the need to be able to transition from a nearly invisible disc when viewed straight on, to a clearly visible profile when viewed from the side. The basic CFS3 prop discs don't do it at all. What you've done looks great in profile, and I assume also from the front.
My one thought for improvement at the intermediate angles, and it may not produce the desired results, would be to feather out the alpha channel of the texture on the edges of the blade profile polys. It would probably require a fairly high resolution texture, and some experimentation for how many pixels deep the alpha gradient needs to be. But in theory this gets rid of the hard edges of the profile polys that are visible when the prop is seen at an angle. Since there are a lot of them radiating out from the hub, they don't have to be very opaque, since the alpha channels will stack up as the angle increases. So the trick would be to get them as transparent as possible while still being just opaque enough to produce the desired effect when seen from the side, taking into consideration the alpha feathering of the edges. I think this could possibly produce a smoother and more natural result.
The last thing to consider is animation (pending the desired real systems module implementation). Steve made the Spitfire's prop disk slightly coned on both the front and the back, and somehow animated it so that the thickness of the cone at the center could be varied, simulating the changes in blade pitch. AHK code was needed to then pull the necessary info from the actual pitch of the blades and use it to control the animation. I'm not sure, but possibly your blade profiles could rotate too, which would add a new dimension to it, which may look particularly good with specular reflections on the prop disk. Or it might spoil the effect completely; it's hard to say.
Frosty
SOH-CM-2025
I am aiming for the D-25, -26,-27, -28, -30 and -40, both with or without the (retrofitted) fin fillet. The D-25 to -28 differences were relatively minor but the changes to the D-30/-40 were more significant.
Re: the prop; It sounds exactly what I did but maybe I need to feather the texture more. The individual blade profiles can be seen at an angle and when viewed closeby. They are attached to the "prop_blurred" node so they do rotate, depending on what the CFS3 prop animation is capable of.
As they were also annoyingly visible from within the VC, I created a second "prop_blurred" node (with the 'multi-blades' attached to that) and made it a child of the external cockpit. Now it is visible from the outside, but not from the inside...
The transparency maximum seems to be 4% . Anything less will not show in CFS3, or so it appears. I'd rather have it slightly more transparant but then it becomes completely invisible.
Re: the prop; It sounds exactly what I did but maybe I need to feather the texture more. The individual blade profiles can be seen at an angle and when viewed closeby. They are attached to the "prop_blurred" node so they do rotate, depending on what the CFS3 prop animation is capable of.
As they were also annoyingly visible from within the VC, I created a second "prop_blurred" node (with the 'multi-blades' attached to that) and made it a child of the external cockpit. Now it is visible from the outside, but not from the inside...
The transparency maximum seems to be 4% . Anything less will not show in CFS3, or so it appears. I'd rather have it slightly more transparant but then it becomes completely invisible.
gecko
Charter Member
Sounds like a whole bubbletop D series! Cool! How different is the M from a modeling perspective?
Are you controlling alpha in the prop model by making the material transparent? You might have finer control if the material was fully opaque, and all transparency for the prop was handled in the texture's alpha channel.
Yeah, I assumed the blade profiles rotated with the disc. I was referring to an RSM controlled animation that also adjusted their blade angle. Part of that of course depends on my getting a lot of things done to make future RSM modules more viable, but I thought I'd mention what the possibilities are at least.
Are you controlling alpha in the prop model by making the material transparent? You might have finer control if the material was fully opaque, and all transparency for the prop was handled in the texture's alpha channel.
Yeah, I assumed the blade profiles rotated with the disc. I was referring to an RSM controlled animation that also adjusted their blade angle. Part of that of course depends on my getting a lot of things done to make future RSM modules more viable, but I thought I'd mention what the possibilities are at least.
greycap.raf
Charter Member
You can probably play with the combination of the prop texture transparency in the model, and the texture itself. The transparency value isn't uniform between models which leads to the same default texture looking different on different aircraft.
Frosty
SOH-CM-2025
I haven't spent any time researching the -M, as there were relatively few built. AFAIK, the main difference was the engine (which probably resulted in some cockpit differences).
Yup, that's what I did: I reduced the transparency in the texture as much as I could and then was also able to make the prop blade model itself another 10% less opaque before it would become completely invisible. I'll see if blurring the texture some more will give a more gradual result in game.
gecko
Charter Member
If the blades are already so transparent that blurring the edges doesn't work, I wonder if making them slightly more opaque to the point that blurring does work would produce a smoother overall result.
Are there any other thinking outside the box ideas for shapes that could be modelled into the disc to create volume? Concentric rings? Something more abstract? Just think out loud about ways to layer transparent polys but without creating hard edges.
Are there any other thinking outside the box ideas for shapes that could be modelled into the disc to create volume? Concentric rings? Something more abstract? Just think out loud about ways to layer transparent polys but without creating hard edges.
Airspeed
Members +
Frosty
SOH-CM-2025
Tried that: I think that because any transparency lower than 4% isn't displayed, the effect doesn't become any smoother. But I'll keep on experimenting.
Like this:
The chain track is in red, the canopy track is in blue (there's sort of a hump as the rollers follow the canopy rails which aren't straight). The chain itself is a double chain. I've modeled some chain links and sprockets. I was hoping to clone the rest. The drive motor is installed below the rear deck with the chain disappearing and reappearing through a hole or slot. This opening can be simulated on the texture but I am also hoping that the top part of the chain will obscure what's happening below.
I've experimented and used diferent approaches, assuming that what works for CFS3 tank track animations should also work for a chain like this:
- a 'resetting' animation which gives the impression of a continuous motion (doesn't look that well because of slight distance/scale errors in the track length vs. the individual link length),
- animating the path of every individual link along the entire track (very labour intensive),
- having a link follow a path (couldn't find a way to match the length of the link's path to the length of the canopy travel: the link travelled the entire red path in 100 keyframes instead of just the length of the blue path. I also couldn't find a way to make the other links follow the first one along the path).
gecko
Charter Member
Oh! Interesting idea: I was thinking about how in Cliffs of Dover, it looks like different models of the blurred prop are displayed when seen from different angles. Theoretically this could be done in CFS3 with RSM scripting. Memory pointers would need to be found to give the script viewing angle input, which would then trigger an animation that hides and/or adds parts to the blurred prop model as appropriate. As I'm still an ocean and a continent away from my PC for a while, I can't work on it soon, but it seems like it could work.
Frosty
SOH-CM-2025
Oh, but most of this is already in the preview model (except for the chain and the sprockets): anyone with Track IR (or similar) and who regularly looks behind the head rest to check his six rest can verify that it is
.I see what you mean at but at the same time the thought of how to implement this is abracadabra
to me 
