GrinchWSLG

Okay guys, I'm hesitant to post this, cuz I'm afraid some experianced modeller is going to tell me I screwed the pooch on this, but here goes. My efforts for the past 5 days: The YF-19 Excalibur Before any Macross Plus fans get too excited, let me warn you, this is not the exact version seen in the movie. I've modified it as a fighter mode only aircraft. The head and laser that pokes through the fuselage have been removed (or covered rather), I've replaced the arms underneath the fuselage with a more aerodynamic shape for mounting hardpoints, and there is absolutely no detail beyond what is necassary for the fighter mode (IE, no internal battroid workings). I have done this for 2 reasons. First, this is the first time I've modelled something this far, using this technique, with the goal of putting it in game (there was a failed attempt at a CT-4 Airtrainer for MSFS many years ago) so things were kept as simple as possible. Second, I personally could care less if the YF-19 can tranform into a battroid, I think she's perfect in fighter mode. Okay, lets get some pictures up here. What is left at the moment is the landing gear (doors and bays are done), cockpit, guns, and to cut out the control surfaces on the wings. Also some small fixes such as moving verts and adding a few more edges, as you can see in the pictures a few errors. I have not applied any smoothing yet, as I'm unsure of what the best way to go about doing this is. I feel that I can complete the rest of the model without problems. Having looked at UVW texturing, I beleive I can handle that has well. Beyond this though, I am clueless. Information for getting aircraft animated propery, components named properly, and into Strike Fighters, is spread out and sometimes non existent. If anyone knows of some quality resources detailing the process I would love to know where they are. Lastly, does anyone know how the control surfaces on the wing are set up? Thanks

Thought I'd pop back in here to say hey. I'm not furloughed. But I'm being forced to work and not being paid. Just like very other ATCer in the country. We're very angry. Morale is the pits, and I know a lot of folks who have no idea how they're supposed to pay the bills. I'm okay, for now, but my next pay check will be half of one and after that they'll just stop until these idiots figure things out. Let's just hope like hell nothing happens before they do, without our support staff the airspace system is starting to fall apart.

Had the same thing happen while I was on vacation. Increased my security to require phone verification and reset my password. No problemo.

I'll be at the USAF Armament Museum in a few days. If anyone has any specific requests either post them here or PM me. I already plan on doing tons of photos of the weapons there, but there's also static aircraft and a some archives I can dig through for more specific stuff.

Cool forum. I'll just post my favorites here, they'll all link to my online portfolio. I'll try to remember to keep this topic updated, but for this year at least airplane picture taking season is likely over. F-86 Take Off by grinchwslg, on Flickr A-37 Off the Wing by grinchwslg, on Flickr Discovery Launch 2 by grinchwslg, on Flickr SNJ Formation by grinchwslg, on Flickr Aeroshell Barrel Roll by grinchwslg, on Flickr Hornet Headon by grinchwslg, on Flickr Silver Star by grinchwslg, on Flickr Starfighters Echelon by grinchwslg, on Flickr Ditto's Trail by grinchwslg, on Flickr Aluminum Queen by grinchwslg, on Flickr Riveted Angel by grinchwslg, on Flickr Phantom by grinchwslg, on Flickr Slow Flight by grinchwslg, on Flickr Thunderbirds by grinchwslg, on Flickr

Okay, how about some more on topic stuff for this forum, eh? Went to Seattle for Seafair this weekend. USS Halsey P-47 Rainier Aerobatic Seafair Warbirds Warhawk Seafair Mustang 1 Seafair Mustang 2 Seafair Thunderbolt Fat Albert Blue Angel 6 Blue Angels Echelon Blue Angels Seafair Blue Angels Diamond Blue Angels Seafair 3

And a couple self shot to remind myself how awesome I am Mount Brown Summit Triple Divide Self Shot

Just got back from a week in Glacier National Park. This is gonna be a lot of pics, hold on to your butts. Avalanche Falls Destiny Elysium Quies Aqua Saxa Immortality Mount Cannon Unbound Wild Goose Fountains of Man Sinopah Glacies Lacus

We had a P-3 come down to the numbers once before they figured out what was going on. Its real easy to mistake KGEG and SKA though if you're just focusing on the runway. Airliners line up on Fairchild all the time, its something we have to constantly watch out for.

When I suggested it I was thinking of the second part of your suggestion. But I think there's a lot of benefit to making a download that takes care of all the must have basics in the view of the CombatAce community. If TK doesn't want to represent this user base then we'll just have to go around him. I have no doubts as to the talents of this bunch of half witted scruffy looking nerf herders.

Here's just my idea: Core Realism Mod: Stuff that spans across all the sims without any issues, the major INI edits, effects, weapons(?), etc Realism Aircraft Expansion (Variants for each sim?): Updated aircraft, textures Realism Ground Expansion (Variants?): Updated terrains, ground objects Or, Core Mod + SF2 Realism Expansion/SF2:E Realism Expansion/SF2:I Realism Expansion The idea is to create simple to install packages the are not too big. Dividing it into modules makes it both easier for people to install and easier to organize. Make a master file list and version numbers so things can be kept in line across the board, so one pack doesn't interfere with another. Just my 2 cents.

Excellent guys. Unfortunately I can't be too helpful in the short term, but in November I'll be visiting the USAF Armament Museum and the National Naval Air Museum. I'll be gathering loads of data at both locations, specifically for modeling weapons. If there's anything anyone needs that might be at those locations give me a shout before November and I'll note it for the trip.

I'm starting to honestly believe TK doesn't know how to code his own game to be honest. Maybe he never did in the first place, he's always hired other people to do it for him. I don't know. But the constant excuses make me wonder, because you see all these indie devs out there that code new features in mere days, and TK can't even make simple revisions to the sim on his own. Maybe his complaints about costs for fixing or bringing in new features is because he has to hire a coder to do it. Maybe its time he let go of his misplaced pride and admitted the truth? I guess in the end it doesn't matter. Not like we can force him to do anything with his product sadly enough. I think its time we put a group together here at combatace to start exploring what realism changes we can make to the sim externally, like a combined realism mod that goes into the ini's and weapons data files to try to get the game to be more what we want it to be, and would be a simple installation. Right now everything is kind of spread across mods and ini edits, can be a bit overwhelming for newer players.

Other than "completely" fictional campaigns I don't see the need for a whole map of Japan. Think about it though, a Japanese Civil War campaign, communist north vs capitalist south. I should finish my Hokkaido map now that it looks like making new terrains for NA isn't going to happen.

Not really sure either. The game should be taking the JPEG's and decompressing them into BMP's on the fly. You'd think that would take up more time then just reading the BMP from the HDD. Maybe these huge BMP's we've been using are outweighing the advantages via HDD read/write times. IE: The game can decompress a JPEG faster than the HDD can read a BMP. I've read that JPEG's look okay till you start really getting into what you can do with textures. Things like mip maps, bilinear interpolation, and advanced lighting are some examples where the data lost in the compression/decompression starts to show. I don't really think the SF engine is up to snuff on most of these features anyway though. There's also the problem with the lack of an Alpha Channel, which means no transparency. DDS files are better I think because they can hold much more information. They can be a pain to work with though.

Sell it and donate the money to TK so he can come up with some different excuses as to why we don't have new features.

I shoot with a Canon 40D. I have a Sigma 24-70mm 2.8 DG EX that I'm not particularly happy with. I also have a Canon 70-200mm 4.0L USM that I love. The picture that means the most to me would have to be the shot I made at Swiftcurrent last year. I struggled with landscape photography for a long time and finally paid to take a weekend course. It really made the difference and when I went to Glacier National Park later that year the results really stood out. Also, Glacier National Park, and particularly the Many Glacier area, is my Shangri-La. I'm going back again this year to do all the stuff I missed out on a year ago. Solitude by grinchwslg Oh, and I shoot full manual, all the time. I use zone method to get my settings dialed in quickly.

Mine's not as fast as you guys but I can go more places Someday I'll get a Triumph Tiger or a BMW F800GS, until then this guy will do just fine.

I saw this the other day after the Google Maps announcements. I thought it was cool as hell. Love to see some of that in a flightsim.

Do you guys have any idea how expensive cloud shadows are?! TK can't afford that.

Played with this one a bit. Red Stallion