swambast

Skyviper, congratulations - way to stay persistent and realize your goal, all the best to you!

The Hot Dog Stand is over a decade old; time for the new 2020 “Swambast” overhaul edition! This version is based on an actual hot dog stand known as “The Dog House.” It was owned by Dick Portillo who spent his family’s life savings to open up a hot dog stand in 1963. The hot dog stand was originally inside a cramped trailer located 18 miles west of Chicago, Illinois (USA). In my opinion, my version does a good (not great) job of replicating the original considering the FPS/performance balance I wanted to maintain. Also, I took it off the trailer and made it more of a solid fixture. As always, I get suckered by details, so I added in the working "grill smoke" and a delicious “hot dog combo meal.” Also, thought it would be fun to create a custom destroyed model that has burnt hot dogs scattered everywhere (). Working on a few final tweaks including hit boxes/collision mesh but should be ready soon. P.S. @Wrench: time for your “Wrench’s Weiners” hot dog stand to be updated. PM me with some details and I’d be happy to make it for you. Also, might have a surprise for you regarding the early genre firetruck you were looking for at one point.

Hey Ant, sure I have for another project... Send me a PM and let me know what you need done.

Vietnam '67...River Rats Patrol.... GKABS-Swambast partnership project: credit GKABS for almost all modeling; myself for new texturing and misc details.

Awesome GKABS! Will you be making the base M109 Vietnam variant too? I believe the M109 first saw combat operations during Vietnam. Just was wondering if that was a consideration...

All, been out of regular modding for a long time due to real life demands. I'm getting things fired back up, but I can't remember the degree of export support on 3ds Max Opacity Maps. For example, can I apply an opacity map as follows and the exporter will support the setting and applied texture map? Alternatively, of course I could combine the textures - in the diffuse map create a new alpha channel and import the alpha mask texture and save as .tga - but it would save a lot of time and effort if the Opacity Map setting was natively supported. Appreciate any insight on this, thanks. 3ds Max Map Panel: I've applied Opacity Map Texture Sample Opacity Map Texture: rw6_alfa.jpg (gray scale opacity map saved as .jpg)

Hi Sophocles, yes this should work if I'm understanding you correctly and of course it must be exported as .tga only as that is the only native transparency that the game engine supports as far as I know.

Gkabs, LOVE IT - anything 'Nam and now you've got my attention! Let me know if there's anything I can do to help including updated texturing - actually had an unfinished PBR at one time so will be good to see one come to life! Also for the ATC model and concept was done even long before that, I'm grateful to be the keeper of some great project assets such as this one, for example used elsewhere:

@alexis99 Although I don't model a lot of aircraft, I really like this idea and think it's a great suggestion.

Man, exactly what this guy says - totally agree! Let me know what we might be able to help with on this request.

Let me be the first to congratulate Menrva and all those involved in this incredible achievement. The attention to detail, countless enhancements and level of quality places this mod (in my opinion) as one of the greatest ever made for this series!

Man, that's dope - looks fantastic!

Excellent addition, thank you Stephen1918! Love how you made them generic, looks like they are totally FPS friendly and look fantastic - nice work!

Hi GKabs, if you're referring to the actual mesh shaping: you could try Boolean but sometimes it can leave messy edges/polys esp. on complex surfaces (ProBoolean might be another option that has better results). Or you can try a quick subdivide using a Tesselate modifier. Otherwise if you need precision, then use edit poly and "connect" the edges manually to get the polys you need. I'm sure there are other ideas... But if you're referring to just getting the texture, then I totally agree with Russ's advice: "windows I would paint on or copy real ones onto texture then bump map will make em look realistic"

@Von : your supports and comments are incredibly helpful. However, I'm getting overwhelmed by all the different variations, dimensions, models, etc. (for example, found different configs for wings, horizontal stabilizers, etc.). Can you help me by picking just one version, hopefully the most diverse/flexible version that can be quickly turned into different ones later. I'd like to stick with just one version for now and any/all source reference photos and dimensions just for that single version to start with. From earlier comments I think this one might be a decent candidate? That being said, I can't decipher what the rest of the wing shape should be from just the side view - are there any more reference photos to go off (top view, rear views, etc.)? If someone can gather all the source photo references would be incredibly helpful esp. as mentioned I have no knowledge of this era... Does this version equate to this view below?

Another try at a different wing configuration...

First crack at new curved wing mesh and first draft of experimental texturing (weathering and beveled/drop shadow wing struts but "squares" not yet symmetrical, etc.). Still not sure if I like the technique so will keep messing around with it a bit more and welcome improvement suggestions.

Von, work on new base airframe and support cables...

OK, I started to shape it more like this, here is the latest rendition. Total balancing act though, trying to keep the poly count down while getting smooth corners/edges. Here's where I'm at so far; but to be honest I'm not totally happy with it for some odd reason. But maybe it's decent enough - just let me know what changes need to be done to it? Also, is the bend too sharp/angled - see render 2? P.S. just noticed the "notch" width in the horizontal stabilizer needs to be increased (made wider). Yeah, I'm kind of thinking the lower poly count is some of what's bothering me, for example here is a higher poly version.

OK, thank you all with special thanks to VonS for the info and diagrams, extremely helpful. I'm going to take each section at a time and once perfected move onto the next section. Let us start with the tail only for now. Please see revision. Is this better? What adjustments need to be made?

OK, thank you for the info. Side note, there are literally several photos with varying degrees of discrepancy on the shape of the vertical stablizer/rudder - I am not sure which to follow! For example, Geezer's differs from what I see in some of the source photos, and some of the source photos differ from others...Here is another revision on the "new rudder" but I need guidance on which "version" to use and any adjustments you might like, please. Don't worry about any of the textures/UV Mapping for now, that will all be fine tuned later. Edit: Also side note, I noticed the horizontal stabilizer in many photographs had a "notched section" to accommodate the rudder. I made that adjustment as well in the model, please advise of any needed changes regarding that.

OK VonS, should be easy enough to sculpt into what you are looking for. I'll start with the rudder changes and post updates as things progress. Also, can you send me as a starting point the 45hp variant of the MS Type G you have in your FM package please.

Of course, would be happy to upload the new textures - should be able to finalize them this weekend! Stephen, I didn't know if it would be better to just send them directly to you so another updated version could be created? The reason why I mention that, is the cockpit.ini would need to be updated to coincide with the new texture gauges (rotation and values).

Hey all, thanks for your comments. You can see my ignorance, had no idea Geezer was already working on one. Now that I track back and do some more reading, all I can say is "DARN! GEEZER'S MODEL WAS LOOKING AWESOME AS ALWAYS!". Would be so much faster to leverage what he started and finish it off. Is there any hope of that? Or do we really need to start from scratch?

All, With gratitude for some previous FE modder help, especially @Stephen1918 I found a timely opportunity to attempt to repay some favors. Real life has left little time for modding, but thought one way I could help was to crash over a few days and take a shot at enhancing the new Sopwith cockpit within my limits. A few comments: all I’m trying to do is improve the user experience. I recognize that others especially Geezer are true artists (and I wish him well hoping someday he will return). In the meantime, I wanted to at least make a contribution that I hope others might enjoy. I don’t know this genre, so this representation was based on research and photographs (and admittedly some creative licensing), but wherever practical I meticulously cropped, hand edited and applied photoreal and hopefully fairly authentic textures including the gauges. Keep in mind this is purely a texture overhaul as I don't have access to anything else; but sure grateful Stephen included unwrap templates. The model cockpit textures leverage 1024x1024; undoubtedly chosen to to sustain good FPS and it definitely should! I mention that, because the size and some conservative UV unwraps means still some grainy/blurry areas and I think could be optimized further (not sure if there is willingness to do that and/or share the source .max file). I’m not an .ini guy, but for sure leveraging these new gauges requires.ini updates. I fully expect some things to be wrong or could be improved, and I’m happy to take suggestions. Well, enjoy some of the “before and after” shots. I thank Stephen for creating the model and for his previous support, hope this is helpful and that’s about it for now…