Dels

Sorry guys, it's still snowing over here! But seriously, I have made some progress, it's just a bit slow. I expect to upload some in-game screen shots by the end of next month. Dels

All the versions I'm building are listed earlier in this topic. I will be building the MC-130J which is externally identical to the HC-130J. I am not planning to build the HC-130P/N however I will build the KC-130T which would be externally similar unless you wanted the Fulton recovery system or the beacon tracking (dorsal) radome. Dels

If only it were two weeks... Sorry it's been a while but I have been snowed under recently. The good news is that I am making steady progress. So what's new? The model is now 100% complete, I have made the basic templates for 3 of the 5 main skins, and I have finished all the skins for the extra items (fuel tanks, add on sensors, AC-130 additions). Can't give you an eta, but I will upload some screen shots once the first skin (RAAF C-130J-30) is completely finished. Dels

Set it to metres.

Thanks again. That wasn't the issue as they were in different directories (C:\3dsmax7\ and C:\3ds Max 2009\ ). But I have since completely removed Max 7 with no change. I just removed Max 9 and cleaned out the registry, then re-installed Max 9. Still no change. The only thing I haven't done is a Win 7 re-install which I don't feel like at the moment. Unless something else comes up I might just use my XP comp to do my exporting. That's much less painful than a re-install. Here's a screenshot of the error: Dels

Yes, I have tried the earlier exporters and they all work fine, it's just the DEC-2010 that won't work. Thanks Russo, I gave it a try but still the same issue. I think this may be the only way. It seems like a bit of a drastic thing to have to do though... Dels

Yes I do have the 32-bit version of Max 2009 installed. I have installed the Feb2010 and Jun2010 directx runtimes. I have re-installed visual basic C++ 2005. I have tried uninstalling Max7 (including all the registry entries) and Max 2009 and then re-installed Max 2009 32-bit. I have tried the atio6axx.dll fix. I've used the Dependency Walker to load up the exporter and see what errors were present and then copied all the missing files into my windows/system32 directory. After all this, the only thing I'm closer to is an insane asylum. Are bump and specular maps really worth all this pain?

Yeah maybe, but I hope uninstalling Max 7 will do the trick. Will try tonight...

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. So far I have had no luck. The only thing left is to uninstall Max 7, re-install Max 9, or worst case full re-install. As a side note, I tried installing it on my XP computer and it worked fine. So it must be something about my Win 7 computer. Dels

G'Day all, I just upgraded to 3ds max 2009 so that I could use the Dec 2010 Thirdwire Object Exporter and I am having problems. I get this error message when max loads up: 3ds max 2009\plugins\twObjectExporter Dec2010-C.dlu> failed to intialize. error code 126 - specific module could not be found. The Feb 2010 exporter works fine, it's just this one that doesn't. My OS is Win 7 64-bit but I've installed Max 2009 as 32-bit because the Exporter readme said so. Google searches for other plugins have suggested installing DX9 but I don't think that's right. Has anyone had this problem or know how to fix it? Dels

Looks like you're taking off with a quartering tail wind...?

Thanks russo. I will keep it in mind but I'm looking into getting Max 9 at the moment. Dels

If there's no extra faces in there then I'm usually left with only one option: 1. Create a new mesh (simple box or something like that) 2. Attach the old canopy glass to it. 3. Delete the verticies or faces of the box you made leaving the canopy glass behind. 4. Move the pivot to where you want it. 5. Re-link the object to the right place in the heirarchy. 6. Assign the canopy glass texure to it. 7. Re-map if required. It's a bit long-winded but it saves building the mesh from scratch again. Dels

I think I've got the setup in max correct but I'm guessing the max 7 plugin/exporter doesn't support specular or bump maps. From the excerpt you posted russo, it looks like the only support it offers for specular levels is to define it for the entire material (so a map defining different specular levels for that material won't be displayed). BTW, I tried the max 8, 9 and the 2010-C exporters but my max 7 won't load them. Thanks for the help. Dels

G'Day all, I've decided to start getting into specular and bump maps for my modelling but am having no luck at all. Firstly, I'm using 3ds max 7. Can you export a LOD with specular and bump maps using 3ds max 7? If you can't, can you use one of the later Thirdwire exporter tools (2008,2009 or 2010) with max 7? If you also can't, I guess I'll stick with what I've got. BUT if you can use max 7 or one of the later plugins, in the below picture I've shown what I've done so far (without success) to try and set up both a specular map (red) and a bump map (green). Is this correct? Thanks in advance to anyone who can help. Regards Dels

I've had the same setup for years (WCS2 instead of TQS). A couple of years ago I did a rewire and USB conversion using the BU0836 (see link below). Took me two days of soldering but I'm happy now! http://www.leobodnar.com/products/BU0836/ So I'd say, money NOT wasted. Dels

G'Day again, Here's another update. The modelling is pretty much finished so I will be moving on to re-painting now. Hopefully it won't drag on. The full detail LOD weighs in at just under 25000 polys so you should be able to drop an entire battalion in formation without the game becoming a slide show. In the meantime, here's some more comparison shots: Rear Fuselage: Nose: Landing Gear Pod: Cargo compartment: Flight Deck: Main Landing Gear (rear wheel removed to show detail): Nose Landing Gear: Dels

Which post? I'm not sure what you mean. Dels

Did you just want the glass to shine in the same way that the canopy does, or did you want the glass to reflect the image similar to a mirror? If you want the first, just make a transparent mesh like glass in front of the mesh with similar properties to canopy glass. If you want the second, I'm pretty sure it's only coded for cockpit use and won't work for an external model. Dels

Looking good.

Sorry for the delay getting back to you russo, I check the net infrequently over the weekends. Anyway, as Crusader said, the gunner cannot engage ground targets so the gun on my Apache just points and shoots straight ahead. However because I also produced a ground object version of the Apache, and with vain hope that TK might include some coding for Air-to-Ground turrets, I did set up the pivots for both the gun and TADS. They would have to move independently but you could have two "gunner" controllers for them. (BTW, I didn't bother to animate the TADS for my ground object Apache). I accepted the fact that the ammunition link wasn't going to be flexible and just had the whole gun pivot vertically (minus the two pronged mount which is the horizontal pivot similar to what you've done). Dels

RAVEN, if you take "rule" to mean: The way things must be regardless of what happens in reality, then yes. And this game has bucket loads of them... Russo, happy to help. (I'm sure it won't be long before I'm posting a similar topic due to short term memory loss) Dels

You're gonna kick yourself but the mesh for all engines need to be set with the Y axis aligned for their rotation regardless of their real world position. This is because the game will always spin them around their Y axis. So in this case you will need to have the radome mesh pivot with the Y axis pointing up. (or the radome motor mesh if you want that to spin too) Dels

What a shame...all that extra drag 100% of the time for the 5-10% of missions where you need it. Oh well, all my C-130's will have the ability to load external tanks so that should cover the RAF J's in the future. Dels

Veltro, You need the Canopy Animation ID in the pilot section also. Dels