itifonhom

Hi there again guys!! Well, I quit flying by the time OFF moved over to SimHQ. Since then I flew a bit RoF now and then but not anything serious. Got into aviation art creation a lot, which is my main hobby at the moment but lately, bought the WOFF:UE and started a Campaign over again, only to get me really frustrated with the rejected claims over and over again. I´m at my third pilot now, a total of 15-17 victories and a record breaking 100% rejected rate!!! Even with two witnesses and ground troops around, 2km from my own aerodrome!!

Hi guys! Just saw at Steam Sid Meier´s Ace Patrol, a casual strategy/dogfight game, also available for iOS. Really fun game indeed for casual gaming, might be interested.....here´s a link:http://www.vg247.com/2013/08/28/sid-meiers-ace-patrol-now-available-on-steam/

Playing CloD lately too, it´s really nice and fluid and the graphics are awesome too!!

Your kind words are highly motivating gentlemen, please keep them coming!! :-) Working on the prop right now, I think it´ll be finished by tomorrow and then I´m moving to the guns!!

Well Olham, if I was going for a photoshoot at East Berlin not so long ago I could get even greater troubles, even if I was working for Disney. Not everyone is blessed with good neighbors like Germany, Sweden or Belgium for example, there are some things that are serious, even if they're hard to understand for people not knowing the status quo of a region. Edit: and of course no real spy would have "Spy" for his profession!!

I can see Jim and Bullethead got a point here. The only thing that doesn't really match is the fact that if Jim and BH are right, then this means that the Greek Secret Service or the Security Forces are efficient, which, as far as I know, they aren't! So I suppose this is just bad luck for the two chaps. But nobody can say anything for sure except those two guys. To be honest, I don't think it'll be a trial at all, they're going to settle this in some other way, no matter if they really are spies or not.

Just noticed you're Greek too elephant, nice to know! Did my service 91-92. I suppose too the guys photographed something delicate for sure but I don't think they were actually spying, just took too light how serious that could be in Greece. It happened before and will happen again.

Hi Jim. Well, I don't know it for sure of course but since I know very good how delicate and serious these things are in Greece, I suppose that for someone coming from a country that photography is not restricted anywhere, it feels natural on a tourist island to take out the camera and shoot. But getting caught photographing anything military, specially on that borders, is extremely seriously taken by authorities. That is why I suppose it is just a misunderstanding, because it can happen all too easily.

No Olham, I'm afraid not. I served at the Greek Armed Forces some twenty years ago and these things were just the same. I know these guys didn't do anything bad on purpose but if they had the idea to photograph anything military on that island, they got really trouble. Authorities are really touchy about these matters there although for someone coming from the Netherlands for example, seems quite harmful. I can say with some certainty that between those two borders, a small "Cold War" is still going on. There are even deaths among the border and that year after year.

Yes, I know what you mean. But keep in mind two factors: first, although the islands are open, photography there is restricted, like I said, depends where you stand and which way someone is photographing. Secondly, is bad luck. You can take million photographs but only get caught once is enough! I know the guys are innocent but they can have a hard time coming out of this, depending what they photographed. I know it's maybe hard to understand. I work at the major German airport and I can photograph everything as I like but every time I travel back to Greece, I'm not allowed to take a single photo of a runway of a local airport. Sounds strange but it's like this.

Being a Greek, I can say that there are two things that can go totally wrong there, diving and photography. The first because of the antiquities and the second because of the ongoing, since centuries, fear of the mighty neighbor. Most of all, photography on that side of Greece should be really thoughtful. Depends of course where they were or what they photographed but even without knowing, if get caught like they did, someone can be in real trouble in just minutes. I know it sound absurd but unfortunately not every part of this world is like Central Europe, there are still places that not everything's so innocent.

Thanks Olham, glad you liked it! Well, low poly modeling is kind of trying to carve a plastic model out of a single plastic block instead of putting plastic parts together. It's not really hard to make a low poly model but I think to get a good low poly needs some experience. From what I understand though, in 3D modeling there are "ways" to do things, meaning the mesh is good to run across "patterns" for pre-defined shapes so I suppose there are such ways/patterns for low poly modeling too.

Thanks Olham, kind of you! The valve springs are actually quite easy, there is a well known trick about them. Making models for sims is something really difficult, making high polygon model is relative easy, just needs patience but make them low poly means you know exactly where to cut and that means experience, experience I don´t have. ATM I just learn, as I said, this is my very first model that looks a bit descent and actually the second at all, my first one looked really bad and I never finished it. So, the engine is finally finished and I´m going to start modeling the propeller next, after that the Spandaus. Still a lot of work to do but one after the other is finished and my model takes slowly shape. Here are some images from the finished engine (I´m really sorry for the huge resolution of the last two images, had different render settings and noticed too late):

Some further update on my progress. Struts, wires and other smaller details added. Work on the engine also started but still too much to be done. I have to say here that a great help to my first modeling adventure is the tutorial DVD of Pavel Zoch (the creator of the superb Fokker Dr.1 3D model), for anyone that´s interested it can be found here:http://www.c4d.cz/en_tutorials.html . The guy not only knows exactly what he does but shows the best tricks too!!

Thanks BH! My model is going to be a payware 3D model for illustration use and that's why I chose the accurate hi poly path. Not sure if anyone will ever buy it but it's really fun creating it so it doesn't really matter to me. @ Olham: you can find Cinema 4D at the Maxon website, a new version came out just a week or so ago but I have to warn you, this software is one of the market leaders and not cheap. Of course, worths every cent but still.