Sopwith Triplane - WIP

[+Stephen1918 1,474]

I've started working on the Sopwith Triplane. I still have a lot of work to do on the skins; I also need to make a cockpit, make the LODs, work on the FM, and do a lot of tweaking. It will be a while before it's finished.

 

[+whiteknight06604 934]

thank you. it looks great so far. 

[+VonS 1,424]

Very excited to see the Tripehound being developed Stephen - I look forward to it. I will eventually re-work the tweaked FMs I have, for the A-Team Tripehounds (early and late Tripe variants), to fit this one as well (possibly for a ver. 10.0 of the FM update pack). One of the many great things about your models and Ojcar's FMs is that they are so much easier/more logical to work with, for tweaking of FMs, than some of the A-Team models that I have re-tweaked in the past. Glad to see there's lots of life/development left in FE2 (and SF2).

Happy flying all,

Von S

[Northern7 1]

nice! 

[+Coupi 4,387]

Great project ! 

[Wilches 1,171]

Back to stay!!! Marvelous work as ever! There were two basic types of Sop Tripes. The early one with Sop Pup larger tailplane and the later one with a smaller (the one you did). Some other mods were made on armament by adding another gun, but it seams to be very rare. Would be nice to have both early and late types. Cheers!!!

[+quack74 329]

That's one I've been waiting for for a long time. Thank you Stephen1918. I havnt been around that much in the last couple of years but do check in every now and then. Real world and family life has eaten all my time. But it is nice to see things still being made for FE. I'm thinking a nice Bloody April campaign should be in the works for this Sopwith

Edited November 14, 2020 by quack74

[+quack74 329]

Stephen1918 have you ever thought of creating animated parts such as wheel suspension, like on the stock aircraft?  How about damaged modeling using TGA overlay like on the DH2's and others. What's a little more work right?

[+GKABS 8,736]

It looks great.

[+Stephen1918 1,474]

8 hours ago, quack74 said:

Stephen1918 have you ever thought of creating animated parts such as wheel suspension, like on the stock aircraft?  How about damaged modeling using TGA overlay like on the DH2's and others. What's a little more work right?

Hi Quack, I know you've been wanting a Sopwith Triplane for years. Sorry it took so long for me to get to it. I hope you'll find the time to download it and fly it when it's finished - and maybe make some skins? 

I've been playing around with animation for the shocks when the plane lands, but I still don't have it running smooth enough yet.

Over the years I've figured out how to make more efficient models, so I've been able to add detail to the planes without sacrificing frame rate. For the last two years (at least) I've been able to include damage nodes in my planes. TGAs are something I should try out.

 

[Crawford 570]

Hallo, Stephen1918, I am overjoyed to see you healthy and active again. I periodically visit the main page here to check out new downloads and new topics. But here for a very long time nothing new happened that would concern FE.
Your Sopwith Triplane still looks great. I remember that Geeser also worked on this airplane and even showed us some advertising pictures, but we will hardly see the release.

Have you thought about including a working fuel pump in the cockpit interior (following the example of the stock Camels)?

Edited November 16, 2020 by Crawford

[JulioJunqueira 466]

Stephen, it looks great! 

[+Stephen1918 1,474]

11 hours ago, Crawford said:

...

Have you thought about including a working fuel pump in the cockpit interior (following the example of the stock Camels)?

I'm trying to bring the file size of the LOD down enough to include the air pump. The pump itself, the mounting bracket, the spinning prop, and the static prop all have to look good from the cockpit view so it adds a lot of K to the file. It looks like not all planes had a pump on the strut, so I won't feel too bad if I can't include it.

 

Edited November 16, 2020 by Stephen1918

[+VonS 1,424]

Great info. gents' - always enjoy reading these threads. If I remember correctly from my readings, some examples of later batches of the Tripehound moved the fuel pump prop. from the cabane strut to one of the gear struts, right or left wheel strut, can't remember the details now.

This was done to place that small prop. further away from the pilot's face, but may have also been done to improve efficiency of the pump - with the small prop. (if I'm not mistaken) facing forward once the pump was moved to one of the gear struts - giving it more of a direct "blast" from the main prop. that way. Such setups are more typical on variants of the Camel.

Here's some more info. on the Rotherham pump, as relevant to Tripes. Apparently, the 130hp Clerget-powered Tripes switched over to a mechanical fuel pump, from the wind-driven, earlier type (thus the absence of the prop.-pump on some models possibly):

http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/showthread.php?t=12934

Von S

Edited November 16, 2020 by VonS
Added info.

[+Stephen1918 1,474]

I have finished building the Sopwith Triplane. The parts are all unwrapped, the templates are made, and I've started painting the skins. There will be a British and a French skin.

I was able to remove some detail from the engine and machine gun so I could add the air pump on the strut. I figured out how to get the FM to make the prop start and stop with the engine. The file size is bigger than I would like, but still acceptable.

The cockpit is built, but I still have a lot of work to do on the skins.

 

[Crawford 570]

On 20.11.2020 at 10:21 PM, Stephen1918 said:

I have finished building the Sopwith Triplane.

Congratulations on your new job, which is well on its way to completion. This is great news for me and everyone who is waiting for your Triplane. The cockpit already looks excellent ))

On 20.11.2020 at 10:21 PM, Stephen1918 said:

I was able to remove some detail from the engine and machine gun so I could add the air pump on the strut. ... The file size is bigger than I would like, but still acceptable.

Why reduce detail? IMHO, the more details the better. Modern PCs can handle large files easily.
Here, in the downloads section, there are very "heavy" models, the LODs of which weigh about 5 MB, 10 MB and more. Even my weak PC "digests" them pretty well.

Edited November 24, 2020 by Crawford

[+Stephen1918 1,474]

10 hours ago, Crawford said:

... Why reduce detail? IMHO, the more details the better. Modern PCs can handle large files easily.
Here, in the downloads section, there are very "heavy" models, the LODs of which weigh about 5 MB, 10 MB and more. Even my weak PC "digests" them pretty well.

I build everything to work well on my computer. I try to keep the file size similar to the size of the stock planes and objects... maybe a little bit bigger. 

My computer can handle planes with much bigger file sizes. One or two heavy planes work fine, but if they're all heavy planes then I start seeing reduced numbers of enemy planes and slower frame rates.

 I'm always trying to find a balance between appearance and frame rate. I've gotten better over the years and my planes have gotten more and more detailed. But it always comes down to the question: do I want to look at the plane, or do I want to play the game?

[Crawford 570]

13 hours ago, Stephen1918 said:

I'm always trying to find a balance between appearance and frame rate. I've gotten better over the years and my planes have gotten more and more detailed. But it always comes down to the question: do I want to look at the plane, or do I want to play the game?

I understood you. I expected something like this. ) Maybe you're right. A little more details adds realism, but who cares, you won't notice them, and neither will I. ))

And yes, your skill grows from model to model.

[Silberpfeil 363]

Nice looking model, Stephen1918 - good work as usual!  I note you've used a photo of Collishaw's "Black Maria" back a few posts regarding the air pump.  That ship was modified with twin Vickers and your preliminary pix show the standard single mount.  Will there be an option for paired MG's in the model?

[Wilches 1,171]

And the early tailplane as I said.

[+Stephen1918 1,474]

14 hours ago, Silberpfeil said:

... Will there be an option for paired MG's in the model?

 

3 hours ago, Wilches said:

And the early tailplane as I said.

I understand your enthusiasm, guys. However, right now I'm concentrating on getting this one finished. It will have the late tailplane and one gun, which seems to be the most common configuration. After that I'll think about making other versions.

[+Stephen1918 1,474]

The Sopwith Triplane is in the final stages. Ojcar is working on the FM. Meanwhile, I'm finishing the skins, finishing the number decals, making the LODs, and tweaking.

I'm also playing around with the landing gear animation, as Quack suggested. I have it working, but I'm ambivalent about the way it looks, I'll keep playing with the numbers.

 

Edited December 3, 2020 by Stephen1918

[+whiteknight06604 934]

this is going to be an excellent Christmas gift to the community.....no matter if it arrives a little early or a little late. It's so great to see new content being made so many years after the game was released. thank you.

[+VonS 1,424]

The Tripehound looks beautiful Stephen, and those latest pics. are stunning. I'm going to take a bit of a break from real work, and also from my WOFF-related stuff, once the Tripe is finally out - to dig into the data ini and tweak the FM for an early and later variant of the Tripe (as per one of my posts above in this thread) - been a while since I've done some in-depth FM tweaking for FE2 so it will be a good opportunity not only to tweak but to refresh my memory.

Fortunately I have all of my notes and details organized nicely from my previous FM packs and tweaks so it should be enjoyable getting back into FE2 modding again (have been flying the sim. regularly but haven't done any deep FM modding for about a year already). Only so much free time and only so many sims. one can get to at the same time.

Thank you for keeping this sim. alive - it still produces some of the best white-knuckle dogfights I've experienced anywhere in a WWI sim - and the post-damage flight physics are also great, as I saw recently again while enjoying some quick combat on the eastern front - some damaged planes fall like leaves, others oscillate, others go into nice downward spirals, others into fatal side-slips, and so on (maybe I'm nit-picky but that kind of realism and variety is rare to see - amazing what the old FE2 engine is still capable of).

Von S

[Sky High 166]

Personally, I'm not too worried about the landing gear, even though I appreciate it's important for many others, but I mostly make contact with the ground in a spectacular crash. Anyway, this is really something to look forward to. The plane is great, but the cockpit...sublime.