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Thorp Update 3/27

N2056

N2056

Charter Member
I am very close to calling my rudder pedals done. I still need to put in a few nuts & bolts, but the main parts are in & animated. Got the brake lines in this week, and I put in a trim panel to clean up the area behind the instrument panel. I'm looking at putting my pilot back in and getting him animated. I might actually be running out of stuff to do on this thing! :typing:

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Hey Robert,


Nice looking pedals man. People cant see your handy work from that angle. Show them the gromets and connectors and braided lines...


On running out of things to do.. How about the XL model so Felix can fly it. And how about the fuzzy dice, actuated by gravity and a empty coke can on the floor that rolls back and fourth per aircraft roll, so that Jim Goldman will feel at home.

:d



Bill
 
Do you think you could reduce the opacity of the glass so it is clearer? Real planes don't have that sort of colored glass in front of the gauges.

EDIT: Are there actually gauges in the VC in your shot? It's hard to tell by that screenshot. If they are just placeholders you can ignore my question :)
 
I'll look at that. I have not decided yet what if anything I will do for the gauge glass in terms of reflection. When viewed head on the glass does not look like it does in that pic...
 
Depending on how well I get the pilot animations to work I may rig it so that you can toggle the guy in the vc. I am at a point where I must weigh time required to do things like that against what I plan to charge for the final product. Understand that I want this to be high quality at a great price, but after 10 years of playing with it at some point I have to draw a line. I will try it, but if I feel it looks bad it won't make it to 'prime time'.
 
Robert, I think the gauges look proper. All gauges have reflections. If they are clean, they are semi-transparent mirrors. That is how glass acts.

Remember, you are the artist.. That Thorp is your painting.



Bill
 
Lionheart said:
Robert, I think the gauges look proper. All gauges have reflections. If they are clean, they are semi-transparent mirrors. That is how glass acts.

Remember, you are the artist.. That Thorp is your painting.
Click to expand...

I've seen tens of thousands of planes in my life. None of them had gauges that look like that.
 
I'm not about to lose blood pressure over this. The plane is not done, I have yet to determine how the final gauge glass will look, and I have sat behind the real panel for many hours. Frankly the current gauge glass is not even close to looking like I want it to, but this is the sort of thing I am looking at when I am working on a plane that I am targeting to sell for $20 instead of $30. When viewed from the "normal" eyepoint that glare is not present.

I do appreciate the input. Like I said...it's not done yet. The gauge housings are 3d, so the glass is not portrayed in the traditional way. I plan to try creating a reflection texture based on a pic of the finished interior. Stay tuned for further details :)
 
Kiwikat said:
I've seen tens of thousands of planes in my life. None of them had gauges that look like that.
Click to expand...

WHOA!! You've seen the gauges of tens of thousands of aircraft?

:Banane40::bananalama::Banane08::Banane47::Banane27::Banane57::Banane09::icon32:
 
There are a lot of tricks and traps when doing pilot animations in FSX, especially if visibility is involved. When I was doing the air crew for the Texan I had two figures and three visibility states to wrestle with. Using bones gives some pretty impressive results but have some nasty habits as well.

The sdk isn't much help as it uses the DC-3 as an example and it's pilot figures don't use the bone system.

If you like I can send you a sample of my gmax models and some notes that I took along the way.

One tip I can pass along here. Have two sets of movement of the controls in the cockpit. One for the external model and one for the VC. Say your control wheel rotates 30 degrees left and right and goes forward and back 20 degrees. In the external model cut those amounts in half. The less your pilot arms have to move from the neutral position, the easier it is to keep them co-ordinated.
People will still see the movement, but they don't have to see the full extreme.
 
Thoe6969 said:
Thats a lot of planes to see for a kid.Why is it kids allways know more than adults?
Click to expand...

Please now, don't start this age thing again. I left SOH over a dispute about that last time. I've been to EAA Airventure for the last 15 years. I've seen pretty much every plane worth seeing at many angles, including the cockpit.
:focus:

I'm sure Robert will be able to figure out something that looks good. We have a huge shortage of small aircraft like this for FSX. It will be neat when it is finished.:applause:
 
N2056 said:
I do appreciate the input. Like I said...it's not done yet. The gauge housings are 3d, so the glass is not portrayed in the traditional way. I plan to try creating a reflection texture based on a pic of the finished interior. Stay tuned for further details :)
Click to expand...

Robert, if I may offer a suggestion... "Link the glass" to a control node so that user's may hide/unhide them. This will make both "camps" happy... :ernae:
 
I have no doubt that the glass looks different from head on. It's not that bad anyway, and he said this was not a finalized version.
 
Hi Robert:

Boy it is looking great. I have to agree with Bill, link the gauge glass to a node and allow user option to see it or not.

Keep up the great work my friend.


Best

Jim
 
So while playing around with the whole gauge glass thing I decided to take a look at some of my many pics of the real plane. I now remember what drove me to that material...Note that some gauges seem clear, while others have the slightly cloudy look of the ones in my original pics which has to do with the reflection. I tried to do a reflection on mine, but FSX does not like to render reflections on a true flat surface properly. I had decided to go with what I had trying to find a happy medium :d

I have been experimenting with a toned down opacity. Another factor is the shade of black used in the background texture of each gauge. Note the fuel level gauge...

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