swambast

Thanks Gents, traveling but will be back in action again soon - Volker and I were able to connect, thanks much.

What's the poly and tri count on it?

Menrva said it best... LOD trees and shrub groupings have been around for years, but creating 3d models especially those that rely on .tga texture maps are an FPS killer. I agree 100% with Menrva when he says "TOD trees and buildings are the way to go." Unless you're building the 3d trees for a very specific purpose such as decoration around a specific building structure, airbase, etc. - and even then they should be used sparingly as to yakarov's point they may suffer from alignment issues on slopes.

Cool! But hope you are planning to update the textures - right now they look like a cartoon or they were taken from a reference drawing but maybe they are just placeholders for now???

Hi ravenclaw, just in case this helps but when you make the lower level .LODs they must retain the exact hierarchy, textures, etc. Basically start with your detailed model and remove verts/polys but do not change textures, mesh names, or hierarchies or your lower level LODS will never appear. Also, I might suggest take a 2nd level .lod and set it as the first level, remove all other entries and test to see if only that .lod shows up. That can at least help to see if it's a naming discrepancy, etc.

Hi Brian, I see no one replied yet. So in the meantime, I whipped this up real quick (includes spec highlights, mild weathering and bump mapping but hard to see in quick default render). Just in case you're interested or until something better comes along.

And the hidden return of talent...from China now. Oh we are so desperate and excited - yes, gkabs - that is the best I've ever seen and you also are wonderful...wow - can't wait for all the rest you've made. Everyone already knows you are going to be a legend here and have so much more true talent to offer... :drool: Are you accepting requests and donations - we need new models at all cost! Please do whatever you can to supply us everything we need - everyone loves you already!

Looking for good recommendation on appropriate North Vietnamese Mig fonts - thanks for any insight you can share.

Menrva, special THANK YOU for all your incredible dedication and commitment in bringing these to life...Artistic terrain building is a tough and demanding skill and it always wonderful to see your updates - know that they are appreciated and keep up the great work!

Hey fellow modders... When an EffectOffset is defined for a building model in the _Types.ini (say SmokeStackEffect) - where is source of the originating start point that is offset? For example, 0.00,-32.86,24.81: is the offset relative to the model's pivot point, center mass, etc,? And how is it handled for models with multiple mesh parts?

Isn't there already F-5A available, granted I'm sure it's nowhere near this level of detail, but what am I missing? Are you really trying to scratch build a model with what was supposed to be the level of detail Sophocles was going for?

Personally, hope support for LOD based terrain ends up on the bottom - such an unoptimized, clunky terrain rendering approach with such little potential. TOD support would be really interesting, and would love to see progress made on that feature. But above all this: would much, much rather see enhancements to the existing tool such as support for copy/paste, display of world/map coordinates, etc. ability to group and move objects as a group, etc.

Krfrge, Initial base work done - properly scaled, optimized mesh counts/naming, finalized all smoothing groups, added in specular and bump mappings, set pivot points including for top gun. Will work more on it later and send you PM with further updates. P.S. Just my opinion: vehicles are not the easiest models to take on initially. Vehicles require a different level of complexity and logic based on the parent/child relationships and hierarchies to make the .INI gurus like KJakker's job easier! If you're just getting up to speed, I might suggest simpler ground structures/buildings like hangars, water towers, etc. Grab some free models, but then try to model them scratch. Old Diego many years ago was by far the greatest influence and mentor in building my skills - and I had no artistic talent at all. I learned everything on the fly by experimenting - he literally shared with me his models and over time I learned to reproduce them completely from scratch (and dare I say even improve a few). Anyway, I'm happy to help anyway I can - will PM more details.

You need to smooth that model out, looks way too blocky and follow the instructions I sent if you want to set up parent/child hierarchy - which if you're using vehicles with weapons you should especially do! Also, keep in mind poly counts and texture limits that would impact FPS - please don't make the mistake of bringing in 20,000+ poly count vehicles with no LODS found from some free model site like others tend to do (p.s. that model looks like a rip from Men of War or something).

I don't know what blender allows for import/export (been years since I last used it). But in general at least with 3ds max, I like to natively import .obj files because they tend to retain texture mappings and then work on the model from there. I am not a fan of .3ds format personally, because you tend to have to remap textures and the smoothing groups are typically awful resulting in blocky models.