Hauksbee

Sometimes called "the Law of Unintended Consequences".

On the whole, I'd say this is true despite whatever may have been going on out in the colonies.

That is as may be, but as of 1919, just about anything could have continued in front-line service. It was peace-time. There were no adversaries to contend with.

I asked Widowmaker about that. Which is to say, I asked him if was a satisfying ride after all the politicking he did to get it in the line-up. He said that in Red Baron he was nigh invincible in a Snipe, but in WOFF it was a disappointment. Completely different FM. I've read that there were high hopes for the Snipe (in RL) as a replacement for the Camel. But it fell short.

Greetings Capt.! Good to see some of the old dogs around. Also nice to see some screen shots. (This one I particularly like.) .

There's been a rumor that I was getting into the WOFF modding biz. With RAF_Lou, specifically. I am here to confirm that those rumors were/are true. It has not been an easy trip. Modeling for PC games runs counter-intuitive to just about every rule I've ever learned for models destined for animations. So many mistakes, so many blind alleys, questions posed on Sim Out House, answers given, which only pose new questions. An exercise in frustration. But, now, at last...a breakthrough. I got a model built and exported in the right file format, which RAF_Lou introduced into WOFF. (his mod of Boistrancourt) It's about 300% life sized. 'Don't know why that's happening, but at least WOFF recognizes my model. Great rejoicing in Wisconsin! That building is a first rough-cut on building a French Chateau for BOC members. No texturing on it as yet, but that will come. .

I think it is. It may be the angle of the wing. Actually, there are five numbers there, not four. (I used my maling Zip Code: 53532) The whole Zip Code was too long for the space and the first number was halfway under the engine nacelle, so I increased the texture size until it all disappeared. 'Going to try to get the fuselage textured today.

Where are you seeing distortions?

Still honing my G-max skills. Tackling texturing now. Tricky. .

Yes, that's G-Max in action. Download your copy and give it a shot. I've built rotary engines. You build one cylinder and duplicate it 5, 7, or 9 times. I've never built a working instrument, but there are tutorials over at Sim Out House.

Olham: The technique shown in your post is called "skinning". You can arrange a series of full cross-sections and 'skin' the whole fuselage, or do half cross-sections. In the latter case, you make a mirror copy and join the left and right sides together. But it's not a true 'copy', it's an 'instance'. I don't know the mathematical difference between copy and instance but, if you made a copy, then made a change to the original side, you'd have go to the other side and do the same thing if you wanted symmetry. But with an instance, any change made to the original side immediately happens on the other side. This is invaluable when modeling living things (like people). So far, I have not had occasion to use skinning. It is possible to import a picture of your desired model into the work windows. In the case of an airplane, you'd use a 3-view (front, side and top) and put the proper view into each window. I have not done so in the model below, but we'll assume the fuselage is box-shaped. We'll also assume that the actual drawing is there too. When your model is in wire-frame mode you can see right through it and select vertex points and size them to conform to the drawing. If the fuselage is like an Albatros, or the Pfaltz D.VI, you'd create a cylinder and adjust all the cross-sections.

Found this on-line this morning. (tho' it'll be old news to many of us here) http://listverse.com/2016/01/19/10-german-world-war-i-aces-as-feared-as-the-red-baron/

A Mosquito squadron flies up a 'Gauntlet of Death' fjord to attack a ship. Much like the 'Tirpitz raid', only this is a freighter. But a very nice bit of film making. .

The trick is to download a copy of G-Max from turbosquid.com and play with making shapes. Don't start with a Roland D.VI because you'll just make yourself crazy. If you want to build a WWI airplane, think in terms of Red Baron models. Keep it really simple.

Interesting internet article entitled "10 Flying Aces From Second-Tier World Powers"; countries like Swaziland, Croatia, Ukraine and more. Men who racked up very creditable kill scores, but didn't make it into the history books, http://listverse.com/2016/01/10/10-flying-aces-from-second-tier-world-powers/

Very kind of you, Eric. Once I get my skill set improved (I still feel I'm fumbling around in G-Max) I, and hopefully Olham, will be looking in to this.

Take a look at the picture of the BOC Chateau at the top. It's enormous! Rather like the Giant's Castle in Jack and the Beanstalk. (and check the SE-5 pic. below. That was the first building I made for Lou) I had been building things on the assumption that one square on the modeling grid equaled one meter in the Sim. That's not necessarily so. But there is a place where you can set it to be so. I think I may be close. 'Waiting to hear back from Sim OH. Rounded parts are not difficult. You just start with a sphere and modify/deform/cut into it. Yes, I could build a WWI plane for WOFF though I might not be able to get the degree of realism in all the parts. Particularly when it comes to the cockpit. But that's just a matter of time and having lots of good research photos to work from. Then you have to articulate all the moving parts. Scaling parts: You don't scale parts up and down. You build them over a grid. One of your tools is a Magnifying Glass. Click on it to select it, then LeftMouseDown and drag downward to the bottom of your work window. Everything gets smaller. Want it smaller still? Do it again. Bigger? Put the cursor at the bottom of the window, LMD and push up. The part and the grid move together, but the part doesn't change size; you just get closer to it or farther away. Go to turbosquid.com and download a copy of G-Max. It's free. Check out YouTube for some quick and easy tutorials. .

Olham: it's really not as bad as you fear. It's just that when you learn how to model and animate for a movie, there's a lot of things that are different when you want those models to be read by a PC Flight Sim. There's a lot of books on animating 3D cartoons, but very little on PC games, less still on CFS3, and none on OFF/WOFF. All PC games are different. As far as Boistrancourt goes, I'm coming into the home stretch. I still don't fully understand how to set the scale. I expect to hear from Sim OH on that soon. In the meantime, I'm practicing my G-Max modeling skills. I'm signed up for a course in 3D StudioMax in early February. (that's the big brother to G-Max) Here's a small attack fighter. It started out as a Drone (it's drone-sized) but I later decided to put a robot pilot in it. I went with the pilot to get familiar with the G-Max bones' system and basic animation. The model will need moving flight surfaces and spinning props. The robo-pilot will need to walk. The colors here are just those assigned in the G-Max program. I'll build the final camo pattern and associated bump maps in Photoshop. The notes in the pictures were for a buddy of mine who's watching the Drone take shape. .

Great program. I don't know how many times I've seen it by now, but it always satisfies.

Welcome back, Olham. It's been quiet around here.

In WW2, the RAF eliminated the white ring from the rondels on wings, and added a yellow ring on the fuselage rondel. What's with that? .

That's a pyramid of German helmets. .

Blimey indeed! But if this were done by ISIS, the heads would still be in them.

...and one more: .