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trainings mission at the range

Boeing F-112J Thunderstrike - VMFA-232, United States Marine Corps, 1972

Started surface mapping the Bleriot XI Type 2 this morning. As Crawford pointed out, few Bleriots were identical due to significant detail variation. Therefore, the model is a hodge-podge of details grafted on to an airframe based on the Italian Bleriot shown above.

This is another nice FREE script that I use and I thought it would be nice to share it with you. This Tool is useful for extruding border edges of an editable poly. You can also add a tilting angle and choose to use corrected corners. How to use: For installation instructions download the .zip below and read the readme file included. In max, open the “Customize User Interface” dialog and locate the tool in the category “RacoonScripts”. After you have made a hotkey, menu item or button, simply select some edges of your editable poly object and start the tool. Extrusion Depth = the absolute amount the new edges are extruded Angle = The tilting angle of the extrusion Smoothing Group, Inherit = Inherits the smoothing group ID from the adjacent faces Respect loop ends = If you are not using straighten corners, selections that end on corners are extruded perpendicular to the bending, if this is not desired, activate this option – it will extrude the those edge perpendicular to only the selected edges. Tips & Tricks: Alt + Apply = negate the angle value and apply Alt + Cancel = undo the last apply Known problems: * Haven’t tested it myself (still using 2014) but it I heard it might not work properly in Max 2017 (I blame Autodesk, it works in all versions prior to 2017). Also, for installing in 2017/2018/2019 installation instructions might not work anymore (again, haven’t looked into it myself). One user commented that evaluating the macroscript (RacoonScripts_Extend_Borders.mcr) once using the menu items “Scripting”->”Run Script…” did the trick for him. * Distorted polygons (e.g. skewed and rotated) may be problematic for the straighten corners algorithm. It’s better to disable this feature in these cases. * Since it’s a Maxscript it is not very fast in calculation speed. Higher edge counts may slow down the tool considerably. Download

Worked on the cockpit for the Nieuport 28, one of my favs.

The Eternal Foe

And these guys really need to look back.............

further tests with 'wet' terrain..Isonzo and waterfilled shell holes working on V 2.0 and campaign and 'wet' fields

Nice looking model of the Fiat CR.32, in a WW2 Mediterranean camo scheme (and hoping for some lower poly LODs in due course):

I've always found the SF1 GUI to be nice and I've been converting it for my personal mod folder. The main menu screen is my modified version of the NACA menu screen mod once available at CheckSix-FR. Is anyone interested in this? Also, so far I have been unable to convert the campaign screen. The original SF1's CampaignScreen.INI file might have something which makes the game CTD whenever I attempt to enter that screen. If you can help, please feel free to post your ideas. I am getting crazy over this CTD thing. Of course, I have tried to fix various statements and parameters, because a simple copy-and-paste of the .ini file would not work as intended. But in all other cases, I have managed to make all screens work as they should after lots of .ini editing.

Martin-Baker Vortex FB.2 - No.6 Squadron, RAF Middle-East Command, 1949 Skin Credit: Charles

I found this 3d max script and I thought of sharing it with you. and it's Free Why Blueprint Manager? Most modelers will tell you that the most annoying part of creating a new model is setting up the reference images. Once you have them prepared in Photoshop or your 2d graphics software of choice you have to create the image planes having the same proportions with the images, you have to create materials for each plane, apply the materials to the planes and make sure they are properly mapped and visible in the viewport, align the image planes and make sure they properly fit with each other, then lastly, change the properties of the newly created image planes so they are non renderable, when they are forzen they still display the images, and have backface culling on so that they don’t interfere with viewing your model. Tired yet? Just to add to this, when you finally start working on the models you will need to hide/unhide or freeze/unfreeze the reference planes. Well, with Blueprint Manager, all these tasks are reduced to a few mouse clicks! What is it? Blueprint Manager is a MAXScript which automatically creates a set of mapped planes from a series of blueprint images, sets their object properties to non renderable, backface culling on, and show frozen in gray off, and places them in proper position. This is the URL to download the script

Small world... I've quoted you in that thread. I saw the screenshots before they went down, not sure when it'll be ready but its looking really good.

I think it is not released yet.

I did a data ini for Yakarov79's MT-LB and still doing some work to it however works well on the battle field.

Thanks for another comprehensive, and accurate, pair of reviews. The CloD and WotR people have a lot of work to do before they can approach the quality of what are three venerable simulations. At least there are standards that have been set. It is great to have the choice of them all. In fairness, WotR is also venerable, but unlike the other three mentioned, it is very technology-demanding. Although I thought it reasonably-priced, I didn't go for it for this reason but went back to EAW, instead and I've never stopped messing about with BoBII. I think it very unlikely that the latter will ever be equalled as a simulation of the Battle of Britain.

PS we needs must mention Wings over the Reich as a contender here. But haven't got it so can't say much other than what I've seen and read from those who have. German raids seem wildly small, the bomber formations are way too wide and seem readily to break up, all of which is really bad for the BoB and disastrous if carried forward into US daylight raids. There seems to be no Controller, save what he tells you before you scramble rather than letting you get off then telling you when you're in the air. R/T traffic is better than CFS3 but a bit twee at times. Specs are high, possibly as resources are wasted (IMHO) running flights the player will never see if he sticks to his mission - apart very largely from weather, channel or photo recce flights, the Luftwaffe activity should be simulated as consisting of large, discrete raids not separate much smaller formations, which the player is scrambled against if in his Sector, or knows little or nothing about if they're not. Multi-skin is only a little multi. May still be some irritating anachronisms or Americanisms like 'intel' (yuk). The 109s don't have operating slats. Bailouts are not very well done. The in flight map is not as bad as CFS3 but still not good (no Solent, last time I saw). And the port wing Hurricane camo pattern is missing some prominent Dark Earth, a very basic research gaffe! Playable planeset is very small but a Spit is planned along with the Battle of France. The air combat AI is reportedly good, tho AI-led flights seem as in WoFF to spend a bit long after a scramble pottering about near the deck. You can play a proper squadron campaign, picking any Hurricane squadron or 109 gruppe. Currently seems good value for a full-feature sim, if you can forgive the small, wide bomber formations and the apparent lack of ground controllers, which I regret to say I can't. Call me inconsistent but CloD-B's sins I forgave, though only as it was going for £8.99 :) Would be good if someone who has WotR would do a mini-review or maybe a decent-length, imagination-free screenie-based mission report or two over here, with particular reference to things like formation size that other reports seem a bit vague about.

Looks like the product of an encounter between a Scimitar and a MiG-19

Nah....time travelling crash test dummies...that went back 6 years lol

these are the cockpits and they only have the basic instruments modeled

WBS unfortunately hasn't been around these parts for quite a long time now, wouldn't get your hopes up.