Zurawski

Sadly my first dozen tries were with boolean cuts... which looked fine until I tried cleaning up the 2 million errant verts.

LOL! Actually... the fact that this gibberish causes your mind to seize means your a "normal" person who does not enjoy mental self-mutilation.

As you can see... The cannon ports originally spanned across 4-5 polygons which when I attempted to cut the ports tended to flatten out and screwed the smoothing. I eventually (through trial and error) determined I has to sub-divide these 4 polygons into 16, apply my cuts, then snap-weld the border sections I was working over to fit back into the surrounding polys. Yes, it's ugly and highly inefficient and surely is not how the white-collar modelers (You know... the ones who get paid to do this stuff) would probably do it... but it works for me.

I do the same here most of the time... Occasionally, I find keeping more of the mesh than you need is necessary to keep smoothing continuity... Sometimes if I keep too few polys, when I reattach and weld, it causes pinching problems with the origin mesh.

Hmmm... Never has the black mesh issue. (Knock on wood!) Almost sounds like you might have polygons sharing the same plain. (This I've done...) For cutting, depending on the complexity of the cut I either boolean it or snap-cut using a template. I stumbled upon this technique a few projects back and it's been a lifesaver! http://www.mrbluesummers.com/1225/video-tutorials/monday-movie-45-circular-holes This guys site has a lot of very useful tutorials and highly recommend it!

No problem! I'll do this tonight for you... Mind you, it's not pretty. (This is why I usually never show my wire frames. What I end up with is usually the result of smoke and mirrors... and a lot of Bondo.

I'm right there with you... I feel bad for anyone who uses my PC if they are not a touch typist and are not familiar with key placement because my Z and X are literally unreadable as well. I also save revisions before proceeding onto anything that might potentially screw the whole mesh... I'm up to F86H_57.3ds right now... I started last night at 43.

Don't be jealous... Though occasionally cathartic, 3D modeling is hours of tedium braced by brief moments of euphoria and or raging fits of frustration. ... If I had the skills, I much rather be a texture artist. Sadly, in that particular niche I'm bested by 3 year-olds with fat crayons.

Go ahead... ask me how many hours and revisions I went through to cut these ports. What sucked is the area where the ports crossed was not planar and it only consisted of four quads. Eventually ended up doing subdivisions to get enough quads to avoid pinching, which then created the task of snapping verts to various border verts until I found the right combination to have a clean smoothing. I'd hazard roughly 6 hours, 1 bottle of Jack Daniels and the death of approximately 100 to 200 hair follicles... That said... There is almost nothing more gratifying than taming the smoothing beast!

"It easier to calm the restless natives than to beat back the cries of war". I'm pretty sure everyone here can agree that if TK released anything short of spectacular he'd be lynched before he could utter his New Years resolution... My only fear is the vague transparency of this game's development has left many to over-speculate which obviously leads to over-reaching expectations. It's kind'a like shaking your present on Christmas morning, guessing it's that new video card you've been begging for only to find upon ripping the package open... ... A new set of screwdrivers. I hate it when that happens.

Big monsters gobbling up the daylight? Sounds like my ex-wife... Wait, that was may soul she consumed.

If you let the commercialization of Christmas (Yes.. I said it and didn't bastardize it into X-Mas or winter holiday) get to you, it is about as enjoyable as a festering boil topped with a fruitcake. My stance is if you keep your celebratory spending in check, take a moment to acknowledge Christ (And I say this being a firm Agnostic theism)... and revel in the pure joy that children bring to this season... Then "yes", there is much to like about Christmas.

While I know there are purists who like to see all dash iterations... I'm only modelling the -10. The -10 had the largest contract run at 300 and effectively was the height of the H model as far as I can determine.

wow. Friend-to-friend... While I've never had the pleasure (Oh look a double entendre!) of utilizing a "fleshlight"... I'm pretty sure sure if your wearing it out (not to mention 3 of them) your doing something incorrectly. Might I suggest a petroleum based lubricant or at least reduce your "rate-of-stroke"... Good rule of thumb... If you see and smell smoke, you may want to back off on the throttle...

We've already offered up a Pony... Offering up kitties would be taking this way to far and would drag this thread to depths unknown where gentlemen fear to travel in loose fitting pants.

I am and shall always be your Padawan learner...

WHEW! By the title I though for sure someone got a hold of my honeymoon video... Don't you all groan at once... You know you all thought along the same lines but were too proud to stoop as low as me! Hippocrates Spelling correction: Hypocrites! I knew it looked wrong!

Sweet baby Jane... I feel like I've been living under a rock for a year! Since I've started this project again I've discovered more stuff that I don't know versus what I do! This will definitely come in handy!

<Zur wrings his hands manically> That's good enough for me! Actually I planned to slip the rails and the winders into the build regardless... just not make them part of the default loadout. At least with some sort of affirmation, I feel just a wee less guilty. Thank-you sir!

Thanks Crusader! I'm actually working out that Wartech book as well as another authored by Duncan Curtis I'm finding that there is an over abundance of info pertaining to the A through F Sabres... Info on the H literally peters out with not so much as a whimper. I beginning to believe the H is the red-head stepchild in the Sabre family...

Hell... Might as well give ya'll something to look at while we discuss this mother! Still trying to get affirmation on whether or not this thing ever mounted rails and carried Winders...

>> Dave handcuffed to a steam fitting <<< "DAMN-IT! I'm on alert-5 and have to suit-up!" >>> Queue iceberg impact <<<

Dave & ColStafford Thank-you for your informative educations. LOL! It's clear as with many of the air frames developed in this era, government began wanting birds that were dual-purpose, as such the H was developed as a fighter-bomber... and as we've learned with many early multi-roll aircraft... this concession usually resulted in a bird that could do both but excelled at neither. That said... there obviously is merit in the H's dog-fighting prowess or they would not have been used as Top Gun aggressors to simulate 15s and 17s... I'm really digging this discussion!

I "believe" the early H's used the standard slated wing and were later retrofitted with the 6-3 wing to improve this?

See this is where historical reference becomes hazy. Most historical reference stops after the Berlin crisis. So they did eventually get retrofitted? (I'm sure most have figured out I'm fishing for reaction of installing them on my H... at least as an option)