swambast

The original request for the Pearl Harbor National Memorial came from Wrench here: https://combatace.com/forums/topic/94790-3d-object-request/?tab=comments#comment-767482 Today in the United States it is Memorial Day. A time to remember and honor those who have died in service to our great nation. And specific to this request, “The USS Arizona Memorial, at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, marks the resting place of 1,102 of the 1,177 sailors and Marines killed on USS Arizona during the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and commemorates the events of that day.” I unexpectedly found some free time, and have been working relentlessly to get my version in a decent condition so I could post an update today. Everything has been scratch built including most of the texture work. It started off as just a quick hull mesh, but as time went on, I felt a sense of honor and patriotism in creating this – and that’s when things evolved. With the state it’s in, dare I say you can even take a fairly convincing virtual walk-through of the memorial – overkill perhaps but I found it extremely gratifying. I’m still making some overall form tweaks and other updates, but am proud to be sharing the latest progress especially today and hope it is a proper tribute.

I dread cylinder mapping, not to mention the risk of distortion but also having to figure out the seam lines, etc. Anyway, one suggestion definitely to try is using the "Relax" tool. Under Edit UVWs, goto "Tools..." and choose "Relax..." - that tool for sure gets me out of a jam every now and then! Edit - I see you mentioned it was between segs, then I would start by trying "Relax by Edge Angles" specifically.

LukeCH, seriously? What the hell kind of first post is this - asking how to convert the game models?

Will share more details later...but coming soon finally a proper overhaul and respect for a London legend...

@Sundowner Thanks m8, I was having a hell of time deciphering what it actually looked like during that time because most of the reference photos were in black and white, appreciate your feedback! Do you have any reference photos you could share, or alternatively I can just make a swag at it. Thanks again for the feedback.

Ok, some more details. Completely inspired by Gepard’s Operation Seelöwe work, a comment alluded to needing an upgraded London Bridge. Rightfully so, the one we have is archaic and definitely needs an overhaul. First – full disclosure and acknowledgement that the original base model mesh is not my work. It is based on a publicly available free source model with no author attributed. Next, that being said – like many free models, you get what you pay for. This model was an absolute bastard to work with and had countless issues. I mean endless open edges / unwelded verts, massive 8K+ poly pieces, double-faced/overlapping polys, incorrect texture mapping and God knows what else. So I created new scratch mesh pieces, brand new textures, new UVW mappings, fixed shadow issues and basically re-worked the whole thing over. Why? Well, I invested a lot of time researching and gathering reference photos/textures – but kept coming back to this option especially because it had some really great main texture pieces. This model will most likely never meet the level of quality I was hoping for, and I’m sure there will be some issues here and there. Unlike most of my stuff, this one is definitely tipping on the higher poly side but I plan to make some lower level .LODs and tune up performance eventually. In hindsight, wish I would have taken my friend Del’s advice when he said, sometimes the time to fix issues is better spent starting over – wise words indeed in this case. Having just started from scratch would have resulted in cleaner mesh topography and probably given me more satisfaction in the end. But it's good to at least be at a place where it's feeling "decent enough" and dare I say even rivaling some other flight sim payware additions like this one... OK, enough of all the boring details, right? On to the screenshots for you to enjoy! This will be available as an exclusive feature in Gepard’s Operation Seelöwe project – so stay tuned as his work progresses! As for future ideas – I eventually would really like to add in vehicle and pedestrian traffic on the bridge (but would need help researching era-specific vehicles) so more to come. In-Game Shots

For goodness sakes, why not just take a "good" wheel, clone it and rotate it as needed! In my opinion, you don't need to be messing around with symmetry, mirroring, or any of those other modifiers that are just more likely to make things worse - to me this seems like the easiest and "safest" way unless I'm misunderstanding something?

OK, good luck - and as Russ says send to us via PM if you want a different perspective on things.. And Russ is right, your final modifier should really be editable mesh and the recommended way to export properly is to collapse the entire stack to editable mesh.

Russ, looking good. One suggestion though, it might just be the screenshot perspective,...some of the cockpit accessories esp. the switches look like they're out of scale (too big in my opinion). Not sure if that's the case but something to consider, it's nice to have this included and love the Pilot model

Well if you XFormed it and it had errors in it you're basically stuck as you can't really undo that - if the orig mesh has issues and you Xform it will definitely make your problem worse. Before Xform, go back to your original mesh and ensure you don't have issues such as open edges, unwelded verts, double-faces that kind of thing. Then I would suggest converting the wheel to editable mesh (not editable poly as there is a difference) - and see if that works. Or just upload your max file or just the wheel or whatever if you want and I'm sure between one of us we can take a quick look.

Yeah, if you've used modifiers like XForm esp. collapse your modifier stack so it's editable mesh only - and sometimes helpful is the Unify function.

Congrats Russ, know it was a long haul. And you're absolutely right - Logan's brain power on these kind of challenges is a God Send!

Wrench, if you're not in a hurry and no one else steps up I can add it to my to do list. I'm just really really backed up at the moment with other personal requests but can get to it eventually.

Russ, as Yakarov alluded two - there's basically two scenarios. One in which the gauge reflection is painted on and remains static and constant no matter what type of lighting hits it. It absolutely looks cool though. Another technique is to use a very high specular setting (white) on the glass dials and that will definitely allow the lighting to more dynamically (and realistically) interact - but man it will take a long time and experimentation to get it just right.

Sorry, I should know this by now - but anyone recall what the max allowable mesh poly/tri counts are for: 1) total model and 2) per individual mesh piece?

Russ, that is spot on m8 - superb job and love the fact you just killed off 6k polys - nicely done!

Love it - and good call on the bump map in this situation...

Russ, right on with this - this is an absolutely appropriate use case of leveraging a .tga texture! That being said, overall definitely suggest using tga to just limited and strategic use only. .Tgas under this game engine really hurt performance overall and can cause z-buffering/fighting issues. Also, another thing is that transparency in .tga /double-sided textures will not cast shadows so something else to keep in mind.

Baff, I totally agree with you. Gepard, this is absolutely awesome work, keep it up - and let me know if I can lend a hand (time permitting).

Awesome, congratulations and keep up the great work!

Russ, instrument panel reflections are freakin' awesome - nice!

guuruu, my sincere compliments to you and all who worked on this - this is fantastic work. And I love the fact that you're focused on continuous improvement efforts - great job and cheers to the entire team!

Gerwin, that's all well and good but it's not as easy as just buying a model as you know - and didn't want others to get the idea that it's "buy and fly." Someone needs to create all the animation slots, create the flight dynamics, update the textures, ensure the mesh pieces are linked/have proper hierarchy, perform the .ini/loadout work, etc. Just want others reading this to be aware. There is a lot of work to be done once a base mesh is finished - and for aircraft and carriers especially - I would argue getting the mesh done is by far the easiest part. Please don't take my reply the wrong way, just trying to bring some transparency into the amount of effort that's needed before others go off and consider spending money on such things.

Back in the day, it was a different story with a different answer - today more efforts around brute force converting other helo models. In my opinion, Jarek/Yakarov79 makes the best helos for this sim - period. My recommendation would be enjoy the helo experience he delivers - he offers the full package from great mesh/optimized models, texturing, flight dynamics/physics, etc. and also has a great selection to choose from.

LOL...And when an SF series player like me watches that video, I'm reminded exactly why DCS World is not my primary sim and probably won't ever be even years from now. Back in the day when I was younger and had more time, totally different probability. Now I'm just too old and too busy to spend days understanding the flight manual, 15 minutes getting through a cockpit start-up and clearance sequence and then finally I'm actually airborne - hopefully for more than 5 minutes - before I'm reminded that I forgot to press the aux pressure switch parked in the bottom cockpit panel and crash into the ground. LOL. Anyway, to each their own.