SurClaro Flight Simulator Resources

harkonnen · Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 3:13 pm Post subject: Another W.I.P.

I enjoy posting W.I.P. threads in here, hope you enjoy checking them out...

Yes, I'm juggling multiple projects - the latest one is a 'flying floater', and is supposed to be steam powered!

Here's a bunch of parts for the power supply. I haven't a clue what I'm doing, but I figure if steam can make a train go, then it can spin a prop and turn a rudder.

Sure is fun, but now I've got to put all this crap together semi-convincingly! :lol: :roll:

Boiler room madness! :twisted: :twisted:

mel wilson · Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 4:34 pm Post subject:

Is there no end to your imagination Hark... you never fail to amaze me :lol:

Nice one !

Mel.

harkonnen · Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 5:48 pm Post subject:

LOL, I haven't got much else...but I'm never short on imagination.

This one's going to be pretty awesome I think. I find that my past creations for the most part were really different and fun, but the novelty wears thin pretty quick. This one's so much fun for me so far that I have to shake my head when testing the model 'in-sim'; it's hard to quit FS9 and go back to modeling because even flying the unfinished, untextured model is such a buzz. I honestly think this one's going to be my favourite. :D

EDIT: Oh, and thank you for the positive feedback. :wink:

capt.PropwashKCHS · Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 12:04 am Post subject:

HEY! Now i know where my STILL went too.... ive been looking for it for a while! you've been making Jack for RD in it havent you!? oh well

pics look great keep up the hard work.

(dont forget, im still in the car waiting patiently)

harkonnen · Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 2:32 am Post subject:

The car? ohhhhhh...the cars. Geez. I should really make an effort to wrap up a few of those older projects. Hmmmm, I owe you a flying missile too don't I? If I get off my butt and do this right I could have 7 or 8 pretty decent add-ons out the door in a month. Most of the 'backburner' stuff is 90% done. Hey, we have uploadability back at SurClaro now I think. Maybe I can kick these out the door before it all goes to hell again....be really nice to smack the add-ons pages here with some of my creations.
LOL, it just seems natural for me to have several projects going at once...I guess finishing a few would be a plan, huh? :lol: :roll:

rd · Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 5:12 am Post subject:

:roll: :roll: It would be nice to have something to play with, in order to setup the .xml on your other project, before I get in too deep with the two I'm doing on my own.

And just so you know, by fate, I'm not getting any younger. And there is a real possibility, that I may forget who you are........

....within the next 10 minutes. 8)

RD

harkonnen · Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 12:44 pm Post subject:

:lol: Yup, I know that feeling....10 seconds for me! (I'll close an app and open the next one...only to gap on what I was in the middle of. And if I don't save a 3D file every time I make a change...I get lost. :evil: )
I'll sit there rubbing my temples, thinking "If only I had a brain!"

I'll get off my butt and send off that file bud, and while you're playing with beautiful burners, I'll put together the boiler room on this latest mess.

harkonnen · Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 9:33 pm Post subject:

Hee heeee...this is madness! :twisted:

I've got that boiler room full of...well - boiler room goodies.

In another file I have a propeller, a coal bin with a shovel, one of those awesome old ship's throttles that the captain has near the ship's wheel, and one of those 'talky tube' thangs that you see on the old ships.
Got smokestacks, and ....oh crap... the one thing I have forgotten about 'til now is a rudder for this thing! Okay, gotta go make one.... :D

Oh boy...I also almost forgot about the rigging too....that's going to be fun. I think. :roll:

This is getting out of hand real quick. :lol:

harkonnen · Posted: Fri Nov 07, 2008 12:55 am Post subject:

LOL, never thought I'd be modeling rope in Anim8or!

Oh man, I had better get back to that boiler room, too!

Come to think of it I never thought I'd be modeling shovels and coal bins either. :lol:

EDIT: Woohoo! Got that boiler room almost all together.
Wow...that's a lot of pipe fitting, and I haven't even fitted the valve handles yet.

harkonnen · Posted: Sun Nov 09, 2008 6:07 pm Post subject:

Ooooh baby, I have managed to get all the meshes for the model into gmax, from 5 different Anim8or scenes. Had to do some serious renaming to avoid conflicts that mess up the imports...but it's done, and everything went in. There are parts everywhere! Now I need to assemble everything...this is the part I was waiting for...it was fun building it all, but putting this one together is going to be a riot. The boiler room alone is hundreds of pieces. The only thing I don't have that I wanted is an anchor, and I'll think about that one once this assembly is done. I have to clone several pieces within gmax now, once they're textured, but that should go without a hitch.
I built a simple rudder for this ship, and it's animating properly with the stock part name; 'rudder', now that the pivot points on all 3 rudder pieces are properly placed. Scale is close but will do one more scale test soon. The texturing should go well for this one too, as there are a ton of 'wood' textures to use, and they will be 'slap on' textures for the most part, easy stuff now. Yup, this is my favourite one of all time...I hope you guys enjoy this mess as much as I am...it's more fun than any of my other add-ons.

I have to get looking at contact points and other .CFG parameters, as they relate to a flying craft that has no wheels, and lands only in the water.
If anyone has links or pointers to big flying boat style aircraft, where there are no wheels, just a big float as the undercarraige, I would really appreciate the head's up. I'll be looking around too of course, but haven't ever gone to find these flying boat types of aircraft before, maybe you have.

harkonnen · Posted: Mon Nov 10, 2008 1:48 pm Post subject:

AAARRRGHH! Teeth clenched. Brain hurting.

As soon as I started adding a UVW map modifier to a few of my meshes in gmax, everything went to hell. Big time. At least half of the parts of this thing just disappeared 'in sim'. Makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. Tried removing the modifiers but no luck. I have a good gmax file saved from before this lunchbag letdown episode, so all is not lost...but this is a fun-killer. There are a bunch of possibilities for this mess, but I haven't a clue, and couldn't even buy one. No help so far from Freeflight Design shop...looks like I'm on my own on this one, too. Probably viewed as a mickey-mouse problem that I should figure out for myself....or no-one knows what the hell I'm talking about.
This S.O.B. is going to work for me, I don't roll over on this crap, but now I have so much blind trouble-shooting to do that the project is slowed to a frustrating crawl. Piece of crap.
Looks like I picked a bad week to quit smoking/amphetamines/heroin/sniffing glue! :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil:

harkonnen · Posted: Mon Nov 10, 2008 5:33 pm Post subject:

Very strange...when I delete every material in the materials list...every one gone, and all the bitmaps gone, I get a perfect compile. Every last mesh shows up in glorious detail, but they're all featuring the garish colours that gmax assigns by default when there's no material present.
Well, here's where I start the troubleshooting process again for the umpteenth time, trying to see what it is I'm doing to create the problem. Usually not that big a deal on simpler models, but this byotch has approximately 1000+ meshes....so it's going to be slow and painful. Ah well...it's not like I have a life or anything, LOL!
Sheesh, there are so many variables to consider here that it's actually a bit ridiculous. Will report back with fresh whining or any eureka moments. :roll:

EDIT: Well, I did get some sobering and helpful advice from Bill over at FreeFlight. One of my biggest problems in troubleshooting this mess is the 15 minute compile times for the whole model...just to see if the latest changes fixed or FUBARed everything. I can make small, incremental changes, and 'export selected' just the parts that need testing....results in a compile that only takes seconds.
This problem is baffling though, I'm not doing anything with texturing in gmax that I haven't done hundreds of times before. Ah well, a new problem, a new solution...and better work habits on my part, along with a dose of humility, may help me to avoid such confusing, lunchbag letdown moments with future projects. :roll:

harkonnen · Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 2:26 pm Post subject:

Well, I got lucky. I think I have solved my puzzle. Started exporting newly textured parts only, to test in FS9, and each export by itself was fine. Once I had done 4 or 5 of these I decided to do a full export of the gmax scene to be sure that everything would show all at once. Nope. Back to square one, and a series of exports, stepping backward one saved gmax scene at a time to determine the first time that I ran into trouble. I have railings around a lot of the ship, and these were textured with one material. It seems like as soon as soon as I added the same texture to more railings (the ones on the staircases), gmax didn't like that. There must be hundreds of these railing spindles....maybe you can't apply one single material to so many meshes. I'm not 100% certain, but when I used a different material on these staircase railings, suddenly all was fine again and I am continuing to add textures at this time, hoping no more goofiness sneaks up on me. I hate losing momentum on the fun factor. I'm pretty happy that (so far) I got past this mystery, it pretty much shuts down a build when your model's many parts disappear in the simulator. Onwards. :D

harkonnen · Posted: Sat Nov 15, 2008 8:42 am Post subject:

Well, for cryin' out loud. Back in the same boat, so to speak. All was great until I imported the rigging and cloned it six times. Back to having next to nothing show up in the sim. Too many poly's, and too many little cloned parts I think. Now to go back again and find the last good gmax scene, sans rigging, and start the process again, with a different solution for the rigging.
Not beat yet. This pig is going to fly.

rd · Posted: Sat Nov 15, 2008 9:53 am Post subject:

If there is one thing, that everybody should learn, to build, make, or paint, and that is perseverance. If you don't have it, or it's not in your heart to do it. DON'T.

Sorry bud, but your way out of my league of what your doing. With, or without my help, I know you'll find a way to make it work. I have confidence in you.

RD