GrinchWSLG

Well, I found some F-16 pilots that probably came with the NATO Fighters mod I installed way back. After playing with some of the cockpit dimensions he sits in there pretty good, although he still looks a wee bit large. I may scale the aircraft up slightly to compensate because I just can't agree with the given dimensions. Thanks. If Isamu really was 6' (I knew he wasn't a Tom Cruise, but he's has big as me then) then I'm almost positive the canon measurements for the aircraft are wrong. They aren't that wrong, but wrong enough I'll need to smudge the numbers a bit. Thank you. While the gunpod may be different, a lot of the missile weapons may still be in use, or we can just model them and say they're upgraded. Thanks for the pic. EDIT: LOL at the HARM. All these advanced weapons and they still use the AGM-88... Holy crap, that completely changes my view on the cockpit. I had no idea it was that deep, that makes things a little easier, especially when I do the virtual cockpit. Thanks!

Thats more like it Works great too, gear animation is wonderful (considering how much time I put into it it better be!) Only one problem. Either A) Thirdwire's pilot is the biggest fighter pilot in history. B) Isamu Dyson was the smallest test pilot in history. or C) The dimensions given for the YF-19 are not right. Why? The pilot doesn't fit in the pit! I can understand him being a little too wide for the seat, it needs to be a bit wider, but height wise it should be about right. Instead I have feet through the floor and his butt is imbedded into the seat.

I guess I get what Xform is now, sorta. Don't worry about backups, I have plenty, I make a new one every time I try something new. I'm on number 24 right now. The weird parts were just ones I could easily copy and make new ones, most would have been replaced anyway. Only one I had to rebuild and that wasn't difficult. Thanks for the help.

I can't edit my posts? Okay, I've been repositioning the pivots and I've got the ailerons, flaps, and rudder done. I started to animate the main gear and something wierd has started happening. I toggle set key on frame 10, where the gear is all the way down. I set the key, the move to frame 5 and rotate the gear halfway to the gear well like I normally would. I set a key here when I have it positioned. However, when I moved the slider back toward frame 10, instead of going back down to fully extended, it goes in the complete opposite direction! EDIT: Well it works fine if I go back and reset the previous key so no matter

Okay, I unlinked and Reset Xfrom on the whole model. All my mirrored parts went black and a copied part deformed, not sure what was up with that. Whats the purpose of the Xform anyway?

Turns out when you "save as" an INI file, you should remember to save it as an INI file, not a TXT file. Woops. Sooo, I got to see it in game. And seeing as how I did the animations and linking all in the wrong order the results were amusing. I did a bunch of animations to help me build the gear and flaps, and I included them in the INI to see if they would work. Most of them didn't... Watching the take off roll nearly made me fall out of my chair laughing. I'm assuming the proper thing to do now is unlink everything, apply Reset Xform to all parts, move all the associated pivot points, reanimate. Also, does shock animation start on the bottom and go up or what?

For now I'm gonna leave it plain jane and just see if I can get it working and flying well in the game, then I'll focus on weapons. Although I wondered something today. See as we have dispersal pods for bomblets, would it be possible to have the same effect except with AA missiles coming out? Thank you. ---------------------- An aside, I would like to try this out in the game, just to see how it looks. I tried modifying the data files for MF's F-15C and exported the OUT and LOD's but the plane still doesn't show up on the list in the game. Does anyone know a quick and dirty way to get the model in the game?

Well, I was gonna wait till I had it in the sim to experiment, but for the moment I'm thinking: 1 under the wing root, each side, AA missiles, light ground ordnance. 1 (or possibly 2) under each wing for AA missiles. 1 centered hardpoint under the fuselage for gunpods (of course). Then a hard point on either side of the gunpod hardpoint for heavier bombs. Thats just what I'm thinking, still gotta play around with it in the sim. Did you make any progress on it? I would love to see an Itano Circus in the sim. Thanks, no problem. Thanks. Like that? However, while I'm not up on my Macross tech I'm pretty sure the two bulges along either side of the nose provide the same function.

The large missiles were carried in the FAST packs, which I haven't modelled. I was just going to give it hard points like any other fighter. I remember someone around here made some micro missiles for their VF-1, those would be worth looking into. Once I start working on the virtual cockpit I'll do everything I can do recreate the features of the original, especially the viewscreen floor and sides.

Wow, landing gear is a pain in the butt!

Oh wow, I didn't even know these pictures existed, these are great! Thanks man!

Thanks Talos, it would help a bunch. If you find anything on the landing gear in there that'd help too.

Thanks for all the comments guys, I really appreciate it. Thought I'd share this update. I've put a rough cockpit in, which turned out to be rather difficult as the references were slim to none. Luckily I have the "Valkyries" art book and that has a decent picture of the cockpit. I also went and applied the smoothing groups using FastCargo's advice of auto smooth. Its looking pretty good on that end, and it helped me spot a few errors I was able to "wax" out. Next up is building the landing gear.

Wow, exactly the kind of advice I was looking for FastCargo, thanks! So the name of a part is just for my own reference. I thought it might have been like is MSFS where naming the part meant the simulator automatically animated it propery, as long as you had the pivot in the proper place. Once again, thanks for the help, I'll save this all and look forward to more.

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

Chuck Yeager's Air Combat, I played the crap out of that as a kid.

They chocked the wheels...