hairyspin

You have to register at TurboSquid to get the code. Alternatively, since TurboSquid are sometimes tardy with their replies, there's a Gmax Registration Work-around available from FSAlpha. http://www.fsalpha.com/gmax_tips/

That can certainly be done: NachtPiloten's Dorniers in ETO have engine gauges on the cowlings, visible (and working) from the VC.

That's the perennial problem in modelling cockpits. If anything it needs to be more detailed than the exterior, because that's where you'll spend your time in combat, but it's the most neglected subject in reference drawings and photos. Then when it's built, some rivet counter tells you the gunsight crosshairs were completely different and the oil pressure gauge was calibrated in squirrels per square firkin and it was below the starter mixture woggle, not between the magneto and ignition retard vernier...... Ah well, back to gmax.

I've used Paintshop Pro 8 for a few years now, but recently bought version 10 very cheaply off eBay - still in the shrinkwrap! You don't need the latest of anything for skinning.

Both take a lot of work, but modelling is the real slog of the two. If you try repainting skins, best have a trawl around Simmer's Paintshop for some introductory tuts. You'll need a paint program that can handle layers - Photoshop (of course), Paintshop Pro, Paint.NET, The Gimp. http://www.simmerspaintshop.com/ Modelling takes a fairly long time to learn the tools (Gmax) and that's before even building something you'll be happy with, but I think it's worth the solid effort needed. Just be aware the sim world is littered with the remains of would-be modellers and their abandoned efforts! Modelling tuts include Viso's Bitmap to Boom 'n' Zoom for an introduction to CFS3 modelling, Hugh Shoult's Stupid Idiot's guide to Gmax, Milton Shupe's C162 tut for FS2004 and Gerard van der Harst's Low-Poly Aircraft Modelling tut. Viso is very good as an overview, Hugh Shoult should be read as another viewpoint IMO, Milton is first-class and Gerard is decidedly intermediate to advanced, but packed with clever tricks and techniques many of which I'm still learning. None of these should be tried without first plodding through the tutorial material supplied with gmax - but oddly enough, not the tut on building a P-38: it's seriously flawed! http://www3.telus.ne...orial/B2BNZ.htm http://www.simviatio...als/gMax_00.htm http://www.flightsimonline.com/C162/ http://www.sim-outho...al&daysprune=-1 Get gmax from http://www.turbosquid.com/gmax or from http://www.fsalpha.com/gmax_tips/ You'll also need the CFS3 SDK from Microsoft http://www.microsoft.com/games/combatfs3/downloads.aspx#sdk Good luck, and don't be afraid to ask questions!

Quite possibly. It dates from 2002 after all: I go back even farther and my wife will tell you I'm much dafter! The Q&D method of getting your model into the sim is to export from gmax and swap the .M3D with one of a stock aircraft. You don't need to build the VC, so long as you put an eyepoint0 node in a suitable place. It won't sit properly on the runway, but it will fly that way, even if somewhat unrealistically - never seen a Mustang with biplane wings before, nor a fabric-winged biplane which could do 350mph in level flight... But first you have to organise the model hierarchy and align pivots correctly, or you'll have a model that flies sideways. Nothing ventured...!

AFAIK Firepower is only available as a download these days (for money...), don't remember where. Oh BTW chaps, I do have OFF, plus other sims. Horses for courses...

We all have bits of an aircraft we think should be modelled in detail - for some it's undercarriage, for others it's engines and props or detailed cockpits, some area we think adds to the immersion factor since the sim won't reproduce every last rivet in photo-realistic detail without slowing to a shuddering, stuttering halt. The Gnome will, as you say, only show the details while stationary and just after the erk shouts contact! so the fps hit will be negligible, unless some Hun puts a bullet through the magnetos mid-furball reducing all to a deathly hush. Then you may have the pleasure of gliding to the ground in slideshow mode! Best thing is to try it out in the sim...

FSX here we come! Looks very good, although quite polygonous, but you can always simplify later. Much more importantly, you're getting the hang of mapping your own model. Funny how what we think is a small job takes ages, but modelling is like that. The first 90% of the job takes 90% of the time - the last 10% takes the other 90%. (programmer's estimating rule)

You've been running that engine rather hard. Cylinders look a bit scorched...

But if you like WW2 stuff as well as WW1, there are some freeware add-ons for poor old CFS3 which do improve it somewhat - MAW and ETO. But I expect I'm talking out of turn here, this being an OFF forum.

Or you can draw a helix and a circle - both from the Shapes tab - and Loft a spring. The best tut on Lofts I know of is at the end of Gerard van der Harst's low-poly tut at SOH's Aircraft Design and Animation forum. A little fiddly to begin with, but the results can be quite splendid. Worth spending some effort on.

Simulate the valves and rockers? While the engine is spinning? I doubt anyone could see that! In any event, this is not FSX and rotating engine is all CFS3 allows us.....

We shall of course expect several oil leaks and staining! If we have to wait for polys to be drawn in the sim, 'tis time to buy a new rig methinks!

Someone (I think Greg Law) built a Ju52 transport with the corrugate fully modelled, but when turning it into a CFS3 model he used the original to generate the skin textures - too many polys for the game otherwise - and mapped them on to a smooth model. It's one of the AvH downloads.

And a nicely undercurved wing. I hope you haven't gone overboard on polys for that, but it's looking good!

I threatened to post more on Booleans recently, so here goes... I’m making this a separate post so it can be found easily. Boolean operations can cause all sorts of grief when things are anything more than simple, so here are some methods for getting out of trouble. This is just a rehash of tips by Mathias over at SOH: he’s a real Jedi Knight of modelling, I just hope to make Apprentice grade some day… Simple Booleans might be like cutting the elevator out of the tail feathers:- which leaves you with the elevator polys ready to Detach as an elevator object:- A more complex cut might be cutting a tail feather into the fuselage:- and you might think this would be simple, but in fact this one won’t work! The reason is the mesh isn’t closed. Hiding the fuselage and looking at the stabiliser from the other end shows why:- The end that is to be cut into the fuselage is open – so create a poly to close it, like this:- Now you can try the Boolean cut, and this time it succeeds (I’ve hidden the stabiliser):- But this is still relatively simple, so here’s what happens in a real-life case. This is the cockpit of my current warbird project and I’m trying to cut the left-hand instrument panel, Box03, to fit neatly inside. I could cut it to just stick through the cockpit inner wall, but that would give mapping problems later, plus the overlapping poly problem would be impossible to hide in the VC. Hiding all but the cockpit interior shell and the left-hand panel makes the problem easier to understand:- A Boolean op here will cut two vertices on the panel and nothing else. Closing over the cockpit opening is likewise no help at all, the mesh is just too complex for gmax. We have to simplify the mesh to make the cut. First, clone the cockpit interior shell and hide the original. I’ve named the clone shell01. Select all polys in Left View and make two slices, one each side of the panel:- Since we're cloning the interior, with inward-facing polys, convert to Editable Mesh and Flip all the shell01 polys to make it easier to see what we're doing.Then delete all the polys except those immediately around the panel:- This gives a much simpler mesh for gmax to deal with, but still accurate to the VC. Now we have to close the mesh. In this case I have a poly at the bottom which can be usefully stretched by moving vertices. Without that I would select the bottom edge of shell01 in Editable Mesh and Shift+Move it to extrude a poly:- The bottom poly is extended beyond the panel. The top poly has a bent edge so, in Editable Poly, select both these polys and slice them straight:- Delete the two excess polys created by this slice. Now we can create a poly to close the end:- Now close the two remaining open ends. If you wondered what use the poly sub-object Border is, here’s one. Select each border in turn and Cap them:- like this:- Go round to the other side, select the open border there and Cap that too:- We now have a greatly simplified, closed object to cut the panel with, so full ahead with the Boolean:- Box03 (the left-hand panel) is cut with shell01 (the simplified mesh) and a dialogue box asks if we want to inherit material from shell01 – this means the panel will adopt the colour of shell01 (amongst other things). No thank you, I’ll make material decisions later:- Finally we can hide shell01 (or delete it) to show a successful operation:- Select and delete the unwanted polys, close any edge gaps as required and the panel is ready to fit perfectly into the VC. It may have occurred to you that I am recommending the Reference Boolean, Cut and Refine in all cases whereas there are more options. This is deliberate, because it leaves all of the cut object visible and the modeller can see whether the operation has been a success before deleting unwanted polys. As you gain confidence, you can try the other options. And just to prove that nobody knows it all, BH has just posted another way around boolean problems:- http://forum.combata...ai-top-decking/

I do like that! And when linked to prop_still it will spin at engine start like the Gnome engines did. You can also make a second one - which can be much simpler - to link to prop_blurred for the engine at running speed. Now you need a propellor, so look up Uncle Milton's C162 tut series for a link to a tut for building one with a beautifully realistic twist to the blade.

The basic shape looks okay, but I can't tell if it's made up of various objects or one entire object made by Attaching all the original cones, boxes etc to each other? Which I suspect it is...

Good one, BH! And I have made another tut on this very problem, coming shortly on another thread...

The 'extra' vertices are where the edges of triangles making up your polys intersect the mesh of the fuselage. You don't see these edges in Editable Poly. As far as the non-cutting at the rear of the deck goes, there are a couple of things you can do. The first is to make sure you're working with closed mesh - no open ends. The next is more complex, but I'll post on it as soon as.

That's because Editable Mesh is based on triangles. When you convert from Editable Poly to Editable Mesh and later back again, you can find the mesh has been re-triangulated and some of your original polys, especially big complex ones, are now several polys instead. This isn't really a problem, gmax usually makes better mesh than I do, but if the mesh needs tidied up first, just converting back to Editable Poly might really fankle up un-tidied bits

You're starting to think like a gmax user. Sounds good to me, just beware of overloading the external model with tiny details which can be kept for the VC.

Sometimes I get strange artifacts on screen, like past remnants of what I've just moved/deleted/hidden. Zooming in & out or panning the view a touch will remove them to show the present condition.

Co-located vertices afaik are only a problem when they're part of the same object. Since you've decided to make the cowling a separate object, the problem disappears. I made my current model (mostly) from one object and then divided it up into fuselage, tail, l_wing, r_wing, etc by selecting polys and Detaching as an Object. So it has lots of collocated vertices which belong to different objects and I have mine flying in the sim... To fill or not to fill in the (very small) gaps? Your choice! I'd say do the six polys for the back edge of the cowl and see what it looks like in the sim. You can always go back and add the other polys later if you think they're needed. Don't worry too much about poly count just yet, CFS3 is one of the most forgiving sims in that department. The limit you do have to watch out for is the 64K vertex limit per object, like cowling, fuselage, l_wing etc. You ain't anywhere near that with the cowling! Models of over 1 million vertices have been built for CFS3 and they didn't cripple the sim - this was an experiment, so I can't tell you where to download such a model!! The real performance killer is textures - the more the slower, generally. There are models around of 15,000 polys at LOD100 which fly and display just fine, even on an old clunker like my last rig. Conrad's rig would eat them for breakfast! The cowl looks good, too!