+bortdafarm 1 Posted December 30, 2006 i'm working on this...don't get too excited it's not going to win any awards for model building.. will take me a while to get the hang of all the various First Eagles neccesary animations breaking parts prop etc etc..anyhuw the basic airframe is there... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+bortdafarm 1 Posted December 30, 2006 of course...i see.... i do apologise.. i shall keep my skuzzy model files to myself :close_tema: Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Gr.Viper 131 Posted December 30, 2006 No way! Finish it! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+sinbad 27 Posted December 30, 2006 i'm working on this...don't get too excited it's not going to win any awards for model building.. will take me a while to get the hang of all the various First Eagles neccesary animations breaking parts prop etc etc..anyhuw the basic airframe is there... Oh yes. We need a suitable adversary for the FE-2s and DH-2. A very good start. I'm glad to see your computer is up and running. Regards. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+bortdafarm 1 Posted December 30, 2006 (edited) thanks Gr! no worries... for a minute there i was wondering if there was any demand for low poly new model files...you know the types the ones which just look ok for the job and run like heck FPS wise!!! i build for the game not the museum!!! (and for folks like myself who don't have all the latest PC gear) Cheers Sinbad... yup i reckon the registry went south taking the computer with it..(it wouldn't start up not even in safe more) so i just used the recovery disc to wipe the thing clean and get back to a fresh set up....i thought XP was supposed to be stable??? lol Edited December 30, 2006 by bortdafarm Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bandy 3 Posted December 30, 2006 ... for a minute there i was wondering if there was any demand for low poly new model files... Yes keep on going! I wouldn't judge a low response to your OP all that personally, remember it is a long weekend afterall (longer for us federal types in the DC area). Now, if I remember correctly, weren't you the one getting the 3dsMax CD in the mail, and then your 'puter died??? Maybe time for a new unit? Dual cores make 3D work blaze!!! Keep up the good work! Would love to see the UV map of it... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Gr.Viper 131 Posted December 30, 2006 A valuable artifact was discovered through forum-digging http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/CharlesEAW/sfpage.html At the bottom of the page reside SF Editing Notes... A hu-u-u-ge amount of info on FM edit and how the ini-files work. Engines, wings, control surfaces... everything that makes a model fly. You might also be extremely interested in Damage Modeling part which could be the key to fixing high mortality rate among pilots. At least I found how to make the game consider a wing blown off as non-lethal damage. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+bortdafarm 1 Posted December 30, 2006 (edited) Yes keep on going! I wouldn't judge a low response to your OP all that personally, remember it is a long weekend afterall (longer for us federal types in the DC area). Now, if I remember correctly, weren't you the one getting the 3dsMax CD in the mail, and then your 'puter died??? Maybe time for a new unit? Dual cores make 3D work blaze!!! Keep up the good work! Would love to see the UV map of it... yes as it turned out i got the trail version of 3dsMax 8 (with some extra material packs and the service packs) ...but i mentioned it to a neighbour and he had an old copy given to him from work....and with some bartering we managed to come to a deal....(one i could actually afford..it hadn't cost him anything originaly so alls fair as they say) so finally i have access to a licensed copy of 3ds max...hence the work....it's very much the same layour etc as G-max (which i allready got to grips with) so it's not too difficult to get some basic modelling done...strangly the computer died BEFORE i took the mailed version of max out of the jiffy bag it came in ..lol some trick that ...lol anyhuw had been wanting to clean up the computer for a while so this proved to be as good a time as any and a complete wipe and re-install of windows certainly sorts the wheat from the chaff program wise... he he!! the uv map is just a throw over job just to get some texture on the thing...all mapped to the same texture file at the moment...will be working on the texture later on... cheers Gr' have got the SF notes and am reading them...very handy stuff...tho it doesn't mention the elevator animation name tags...the rudder animates fine..the elevator seems to be more reluctant...any-one know the correct name tag for the elevator?? personaly i'm dreading the FM and damage editng part for it...i don't have a huge amount of patience for that sort of thing...so it'll get what it's given and it will rougly appropiate slap on some pilot and engine armour and off it will go...others can edit it to their hearts content if the fancy the job later one..(as with any aircraft i guess) Edited December 30, 2006 by bortdafarm Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest capun Posted December 30, 2006 cheers Gr' have got the SF notes and am reading them...very handy stuff...tho it doesn't mention the elevator animation name tags...the rudder animates fine..the elevator seems to be more reluctant...any-one know the correct name tag for the elevator?? personaly i'm dreading the FM and damage editng part for it...i don't have a huge amount of patience for that sort of thing...so it'll get what it's given and it will rougly appropiate slap on some pilot and engine armour and off it will go...others can edit it to their hearts content if the fancy the job later one..(as with any aircraft i guess) It is a little different than MS flight sims. For simple control surface movement you do not need to animate them. The game has built-in animation for position changes along one axis, for example the rudders don't need special animation, you just declare the axis of movement, the max/min angle and the mesh name. You do have to have that mesh pivot point correctly set and all the Motion Controllers need to be set to TCB, Look at some of the SFP1 models for examples. Now for most WWI planes you probably need to animate the wire rigging so in this case you need to set an AnimationID for them. You get 10 animation ID's in the game, 10 frames each. Frame 0 is a clean flying condition, no animation frame. AnimationID=1 goes from frame 1 to 10. Let's say you set the rudder animation at AnimationID=3 (frame 21 to 30). Frame 21 is where the rudder is at the leftmost rudder (-angle) travel, frame 30 the rudder is at the rightmost (+angle) travel. To be exact, frame 25.5 is where the rudder is neutral but I set the neutral position at frame 25 and 26.. Aileron up has a -angle, aileron down has a +angle save for elevators. Hope it helps Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+bortdafarm 1 Posted December 30, 2006 It is a little different than MS flight sims. For simple control surface movement you do not need to animate them. The game has built-in animation for position changes along one axis, for example the rudders don't need special animation, you just declare the axis of movement, the max/min angle and the mesh name. You do have to have that mesh pivot point correctly set and all the Motion Controllers need to be set to TCB, Look at some of the SFP1 models for examples. Now for most WWI planes you probably need to animate the wire rigging so in this case you need to set an AnimationID for them. You get 10 animation ID's in the game, 10 frames each. Frame 0 is a clean flying condition, no animation frame. AnimationID=1 goes from frame 1 to 10. Let's say you set the rudder animation at AnimationID=3 (frame 21 to 30). Frame 21 is where the rudder is at the leftmost rudder (-angle) travel, frame 30 the rudder is at the rightmost (+angle) travel. To be exact, frame 25.5 is where the rudder is neutral but I set the neutral position at frame 25 and 26.. Aileron up has a -angle, aileron down has a +angle save for elevators. Hope it helps many thanks Capun ..i will investigate further...so it ties to the data.ini entrys for the model file in that the name used for the part needs to match the name used in the data.ini... it will be summat simple as with the rudder all i did was name it "rudder" and adjust the pivot..... but with the elevator i named them LeftElevator and RightElevator as it is in the data.ini and it didn't co-operate...he he i grouped the cowling and cheek fairings and front upper decking into a group called NOSE and was intrigued to find that it appeared moved as a group back towards the tail..so i ungrouped it aand it appeared where i modelled it back at the nose ... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+bortdafarm 1 Posted December 31, 2006 quickly done undercarraige and mocked up texture job runs the same FPS with three on screen as it does with one... duno why the rudder is red...will solve that one later..probably summat to do with the decal settings.. anyhuw you can see the basics of it ...will be nicer with rigging wires the engine prop mg and markings and other details on it of course... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+TexMurphy 0 Posted December 31, 2006 (edited) FE-2´s there are FE-2´s out????? and ohh.. bortdafarm.. keep up the good work and no one gets hurt... Edited December 31, 2006 by TexMurphy Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest capun Posted December 31, 2006 many thanks Capun ..i will investigate further...so it ties to the data.ini entrys for the model file in that the name used for the part needs to match the name used in the data.ini...it will be summat simple as with the rudder all i did was name it "rudder" and adjust the pivot..... but with the elevator i named them LeftElevator and RightElevator as it is in the data.ini and it didn't co-operate...he he i grouped the cowling and cheek fairings and front upper decking into a group called NOSE and was intrigued to find that it appeared moved as a group back towards the tail..so i ungrouped it aand it appeared where i modelled it back at the nose ... I'll bet you that they are not set with the TCB motion controllers or they have a typo on the mesh name. If they move in the wrong axis, then either your pivot is not done properly or you have declared the wrong axis Yes, a lot of the mesh names and animations tie back to the data in. Also some measurements (tire radius), tail skid point of contact, etc. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+bortdafarm 1 Posted December 31, 2006 must be something like that capun... i'll have to leave it and carry on on the assumption that the answer will present itself at some point.....i'll try the prop and see if that responds....can't imagine why the rudder would work but not the elevator....unless there's something finicky i've missed....i had a hell of a job at first adjusting the pivot point on the rudder....everytime i rotated it to the correct position ...even tho i had move pivot only selected ....the entire rudder moved with the pivot and distorted and stretched out of shape....very annoying....untill i rembered an old glitch that affected G-Max and rest the scale and then it allowed me to move the pivot seperately as it should be...there are allways little finnicky things to discover with these processes...they can drive you mad if you don't know the way round them...so fingers crossed (what are TCB motion controllers by the way???) there are no stabs or vertical stabilisers on the eindecker ....do you suppose that might be an issue? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+bortdafarm 1 Posted December 31, 2006 (edited) or they have a typo on the mesh name you were absolutely right and i don't mind admitting it! i added a hypon between elevator and R (g-max habit) well things are beginning to make a little more sense now...following your advice and studying the data files etc getting a feeling for what is going on....even got a rudimentary damage system working ..not far off a working prototype i'm trying to get the scale right...compared to the other aircraft it's still a tiny bit to large.. so i'll keep tweaking the overall scaling untill it fits in well with the other aircraft..the temptation is allways to make em just a tadge oversize..(i have a habit of doing this..) but with this sim everything looks so well that i want it to fit in correctly so am taking more time over that side of it... Edited December 31, 2006 by bortdafarm Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest capun Posted December 31, 2006 (edited) must be something like that capun... i'll have to leave it and carry on on the assumption that the answer will present itself at some point.....i'll try the prop and see if that responds....can't imagine why the rudder would work but not the elevator....unless there's something finicky i've missed....i had a hell of a job at first adjusting the pivot point on the rudder....everytime i rotated it to the correct position ...even tho i had move pivot only selected ....the entire rudder moved with the pivot and distorted and stretched out of shape....very annoying....untill i rembered an old glitch that affected G-Max and rest the scale and then it allowed me to move the pivot seperately as it should be...there are allways little finnicky things to discover with these processes...they can drive you mad if you don't know the way round them...so fingers crossed (what are TCB motion controllers by the way???)there are no stabs or vertical stabilisers on the eindecker ....do you suppose that might be an issue? Basically all of the ThirdWire games only support linear position and rotation (no scale is exported) and only TCB motion controllers. TCB were the default in Max 4.2, after that the defaults are different. For example I think in Max8 they use Euler, Bezier and XYZ. If you look at the Max destop, at the top right there is a bunch of utilities, the "wheel" icon (Motion) is where you set the type of controllers. Select a mesh you want to animated, click on the Motion tool, click on the Assing Controller. Right there set all (Position, Scale, Rotation) to TCB All meshes animated and all its children meshes should be set to TCB, we had in the past some screwy behaviour with meshes not animated that were not set to TCB that were causing the problem, so I set all meshes to TCB as a precaution. Also, if you any transformation to a mesh (clone, mirror, scale, etc), your pivots get changed. As a rule I first unlink the parts (critical), then do a RESET XFORM to all the meshes then convert them back to Editable Mesh (or Poly). That resets all the meshes to their proper scale and pivots. I think you have my e-mail, I can take a quick look at your Max file and your package to see if I can spot some problems Edited December 31, 2006 by capun Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+bortdafarm 1 Posted December 31, 2006 (edited) simultaneous post sorry capun..it was the dang typo thing .. the pivots are pretty key to this game....especailly when linking or grouping objects your bang on..will be paying attention as you say many thanks! Edited December 31, 2006 by bortdafarm Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Flamer50 3 Posted December 31, 2006 (edited) Bort' Nice looking "Eindecker", I like "low res" models, they look fine and don't kill your "frame rates", keep at it. FE's??... there's FE's out there somewhere?.. Where??? Edited December 31, 2006 by Bwf Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+bortdafarm 1 Posted December 31, 2006 Bort' Nice looking "Eindecker", I like "low res" models, they look fine and don't kill your "frame rates", keep at it. FE's??... there's FE's out there somewhere?.. Where??? Cheers if i can get into a system and there are no unforseen complications (that'll be the day...3D modelling --- no unforeseen complications---lol) then i can get a bit of a production line going... if i hit seriuos problems then everything will become pretty labourious... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+bortdafarm 1 Posted December 31, 2006 some rigging and passable decal placement job...looking more the part Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
wingstrut 0 Posted January 1, 2007 some rigging and passable decal placement job...looking more the part They must be that flight of towed gliders from Kampfeinsitzer-Schule in Mannheim.......... (very nice ) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+bortdafarm 1 Posted January 1, 2007 They must be that flight of towed gliders from Kampfeinsitzer-Schule in Mannheim.......... (very nice ) Cheers...struggling to find the correct tag for the prop animation...as soon as i do i will add the engine,,,,i hope that i can work out all the niggly details in this model so i don't have to go through the trauma with any other i might knock out...on the one hand it's quite a good straight forward system for FE on the other it requires you to be pretty organised about it...which is one thing i tend not to be...lol Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest capun Posted January 1, 2007 Cheers...struggling to find the correct tag for the prop animation...as soon as i do i will add the engine,,,,i hope that i can work out all the niggly details in this model so i don't have to go through the trauma with any other i might knock out...on the one hand it's quite a good straight forward system for FE on the other it requires you to be pretty organised about it...which is one thing i tend not to be...lol Check here [Engine] SystemType=PROP_ENGINE InputName=THROTTLE_CONTROL . . . SpinnerNodeName=Spinner ; Could be the spinner or the engine for rotary engines. StaticPropNodeName=Prop ; Usually the Prop mesh SlowPropNodeName=SlowProp01 ; Normally a circle or a plane painted with a blur texture FastPropNodeName=FastProp01 ; same here DamagedPropNodeName= ; if you have one SlowPropRPM=400 FastPropRPM=800 MaxPropRPM=1400 IdlePropRPM=500 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+bortdafarm 1 Posted January 1, 2007 many thanks Capun ... i did get some-where i used the Prop Axle tag used as the prop hub,,, then i attached two prop type discs called Prop Slow Hub Prop Fast Hub with the stock fas slow textures on them... then i linked the two discs to the Prop Axle worked great.... except..... the rudder and elevators rotated with the props....it was at this point i gave up for the night.... i slapped one disc on called Prop Axle just to have some rotation on the prop disc and left it..will try again later ...need sleep... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+bortdafarm 1 Posted January 1, 2007 ok i got round the issue by instead of linking the fast prop and slow prop discs to the prop axle...i just grouped them all as prop axle..floated the pivot point to the centre of gravity (which is a handy way of coping with grouped sections... i like it now i understand it a bit better) and i have a use-able (if a little unimpressive!) prop animation... i'm hoping that the grouping method will be a way of handling the damage effects.. grouping the appropiate elements into the named groups the game expects for damage breaking parts etc..dunno if it will work...am i right in supposing that the bullet holes display on the D model file??? or will they display on the normal ones allso? i guess i need the D model files in there as when the fuselage gets damaged it just vanishs completely .. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
