• There seems to be an uptick in Political comments in recent months. Those of us who are long time members of the site know that Political and Religious content has been banned for years. Nothing has changed. Please leave all political and religious comments out of the forums.

    If you recently joined the forums you were not presented with this restriction in the terms of service. This was due to a conversion error when we went from vBulletin to Xenforo. We have updated our terms of service to reflect these corrections.

    Please note any post refering to a politician will be considered political even if it is intended to be humor. Our experience is these topics have a way of dividing the forums and causing deep resentment among members. It is a poison to the community. We appreciate compliance with the rules.

    The Staff of SOH

  • Server side Maintenance is done. We still have an update to the forum software to run but that one will have to wait for a better time.

SOH Team Project - Grumman Tracker, Trader, Tracer

Daube said:
Milton, the windows look really good now, just like the pilots !
One remark though: perhaps you should try to make the inside of the cockpit (in the external model, that is) much darker. When I look at real pictures of the tracker on Google, most of the times the inside of the plane is barely visible, it's really dark compared to the external. In your screenshots however, the inside of the cockpit is almost as clear as the external part. What do you think ?
Click to expand...

The interior really hasn't been textured yet. I do agree, very subtle, and that's how I prefer most of the interior textures.

Great suggestion. Thanks
 
Trying to use in FSX, what texture file gets called when it starts to rain that is causing the windows to go solid blue?

Dave
 
As I recall Flight1 had a texture fix for that rain effect making the windows opaque. It's a genuine FSX issue not the particular aircraft.

Looking great team. I may have to go down to Hemet this Saturday to get some flight training scheduled ;)

Cheers
Stefan
 
Thank You, in all the time I have been flying FSX I have never encountered this before. I looks like MS forgot to put alphas in the VCRain*.bmps. I had dl,ed updated files long ago but because I never saw the problem so never replaced the MS original files. Since I fly in the liquid sunshine state, FL, you can imagine my surprise when the wind screen went blank while flying :)

Milton, In the comment above you say you have not textured the VC yet. Is that why the Glass in the VC is transarent but from the outside I can see the effects of the alpha channel darkening?

Dave
 
Sieggie said:
Thank You, in all the time I have been flying FSX I have never encountered this before. I looks like MS forgot to put alphas in the VCRain*.bmps. I had dl,ed updated files long ago but because I never saw the problem so never replaced the MS original files. Since I fly in the liquid sunshine state, FL, you can imagine my surprise when the wind screen went blank while flying :)

Milton, In the comment above you say you have not textured the VC yet. Is that why the Glass in the VC is transarent but from the outside I can see the effects of the alpha channel darkening?

Dave
Click to expand...

Dave, I seldom put glass on the inside of the cockpit unless it is an open cockpit type like the A26B or F7F-1. To me, the glass is a distraction, and moving reflections are terrible.

Using "VC Rain", glass inside (facing inward) is actually a requirement but with an opacity of zero.

For you real pilots, it is a fact of life but for us virtual pilots, only the outside glass smashes bugs, the inner surface is not required.

However, since I never fly even my own aircraft after the project, if you all want interior VC glass, I will put it in there. :) Just tell me whether or not you want reflections turned on, and how darkly you want it tinted.
 
I was not asking for glass, just trying to understand what I was seeing. I am still absorbing a lot of things about creating the textures and understanding how the alpha channel works. When you run out of other major things then look to the minor things :)

Thanks for the quick response.

Dave
 
I will vote for no interior glass and definitely no on glass reflections for the inside out view....I passionately hate them. Almost as much as yokes that can't be removed but block half the panel in the VC.

Now if you can make the interior glass texture editable so that those who want the silly reflections can have them and those who don't can get rid of them that would of course be splendid.

Cheers
Stefan
 
Those interior relections wouldn't be so bad if they didn't swirl around so much.

In some planes they are overpowering enough to make me dizzy. I really can't see how some developers can look at them and not see a problem.

That said, when they are subtle enough I kind of like them.
 
pfflyers said:
Those interior relections wouldn't be so bad if they didn't swirl around so much.

In some planes they are overpowering enough to make me dizzy. I really can't see how some developers can look at them and not see a problem.

That said, when they are subtle enough I kind of like them.
Click to expand...

You can build a nice subtle static reflection of the interior into the alpha channel. It's really just part of the texture, not a reflection at all.
 
I'm confused...

Milton Shupe said:
... since I never fly even my own aircraft after the project, if you all want interior VC glass, I will put it in there. :) Just tell me whether or not you want reflections turned on, and how darkly you want it tinted.
Click to expand...

Sir, do I understand correctly; that after the 'party' you wont be flying this masterpiece?
Or am I generally misinterpreting again (as usual)?
Or both?

Or neither?

:sleep:
 
nigel richards said:
Sir, do I understand correctly; that after the 'party' you wont be flying this masterpiece?
Or am I generally mixed up again?
Or both?

Or neither?

:sleep:
Click to expand...




edit: What would it take to tempt you back into the cockpit of that magnificant Tigercat Sir?

How many thousand wild horses shall I muster and lasooe?
 
Milton Shupe said:
You can build a nice subtle static reflection of the interior into the alpha channel. It's really just part of the texture, not a reflection at all.
Click to expand...
I find it distracting when you switch from 2D to VC, and suddenly it feels like you are underwater in a sewage treatment works...
Subtle - very subtle, so you just notice it's there - is very nice to have, though.

Great window frames, BTW
 
nigel richards said:
Sir, do I understand correctly; that after the 'party' you wont be flying this masterpiece?
Or am I generally misinterpreting again (as usual)?
Or both?

Or neither?

:sleep:
Click to expand...

Lol, I know exactly what he means. I dabble in scenery, and after spending hundreds of hours getting it "just right", I can't stand the sight of it any more, and rarely fly there. At least my flying club likes having new stuff, so I know someone is flying there, lol.
 
nigel richards said:
Sir, do I understand correctly; that after the 'party' you wont be flying this masterpiece?
Or am I generally misinterpreting again (as usual)?
Or both?

Or neither?

:sleep:
Click to expand...

Yes ... :)

Astoroth has it correct. When you live, eat, and breathe it every day for 10-14 hours for months, going over every single poly and detail many times, chasing pictures for reference, rectifying differences in 3-views and pictures, wrestling with all the many aspects of all the files, their size, attributes, location, making it all come together but keeping things separate, ... yeah ... you get burned out on the aircraft and don't want to even see it again for quite a while. It's just the nature of the work for me. I used to love flying with friends online in MP; did for 2 years almost every night navigating the world, flying and loving IMC, rugged country, the mountain ranges of the world. Development work ruined my interest in only flying, Being creative is much more challenging and enjoyable once you've "mastered" the virtual flight.

Sad, but true ... cheers.
 
Astoroth said:
Lol, I know exactly what he means. I dabble in scenery, and after spending hundreds of hours getting it "just right", I can't stand the sight of it any more, and rarely fly there. At least my flying club likes having new stuff, so I know someone is flying there, lol.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I know; the 'getting there' bit is all the fun for me too. Once finished, we're mentally building ourselves up for the next project, with the hope that we have somehow filled another gap in the system.

On the finished work, we know every little nook and cranny... been there 1,001 times.

No. I have a serious reason for Milton jumping back into the Tigercat. There's one heck of an issue with the siezed up port engine.
The starboard one has developed serious vibration problems too.

But enough of this for now, I'm getting seriously OT and OS. Just thought I'd mention the problem.

I didn't say a dickie bird.
 
Sunny9850 said:
I will vote for no interior glass and definitely no on glass reflections for the inside out view....I passionately hate them. Almost as much as yokes that can't be removed but block half the panel in the VC.

Now if you can make the interior glass texture editable so that those who want the silly reflections can have them and those who don't can get rid of them that would of course be splendid.

Cheers
Stefan
Click to expand...

I will not add interior reflections. If warranted or requested, I will yet another layer of glass inside (non-reflective) that would allow painters to as a static type reflection.

Note that there are two sets of glass on the interior already, one for rain, one for no rain. That's just how the VC Rain works. Adding another capability would require a 3rd set of windows. :)

pfflyers said:
Those interior relections wouldn't be so bad if they didn't swirl around so much.

In some planes they are overpowering enough to make me dizzy. I really can't see how some developers can look at them and not see a problem.

That said, when they are subtle enough I kind of like them.
Click to expand...

LOL I have seen that too ... no thanks!

Sieggie said:
I was not asking for glass, just trying to understand what I was seeing. I am still absorbing a lot of things about creating the textures and understanding how the alpha channel works. When you run out of other major things then look to the minor things :)

Thanks for the quick response.

Dave
Click to expand...

No problem Dave. I appreciate your interest.

Wing_Z said:
I find it distracting when you switch from 2D to VC, and suddenly it feels like you are underwater in a sewage treatment works...
Subtle - very subtle, so you just notice it's there - is very nice to have, though.

Great window frames, BTW
Click to expand...

Points taken guys. Thanks :)
 
nigel richards said:
Sir, do I understand correctly; that after the 'party' you wont be flying this masterpiece?
Or am I generally misinterpreting again (as usual)?
Or both?

Or neither?

:sleep:
Click to expand...

I am beginning to understand Milton saying he will likely never fly it after it's finished. I'm helping with a project right now, an aircraft about which I am passionate. But, after countless reviews of the models, photographs, technical drawings and manuals, I'm starting to look at it as a job and once finished, I might not ever look at it again. Hopefully not, but after a while it does become mundane.

As to the progress of this project, once again the SOH team is putting together something that equals or exceeds payware quality. Bravo! :applause::applause::applause::applause::applause:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top