Tried another 4 or 5 exports with 'elevator' (left and right) dummy cubes, linked in different ways....lunchbag letdown so far, nothing but strangeness and dysfunctional animations. My method here is sound, but the way the 'aileron' dummy cubes are already linked to the actual 'flaps' animated parts is somehow now severely limiting how and what I'm able to link the 'elevator' dummy cubes to. (Like that makes any sense to the casual reader!) Put it this way, I'm not diving into writing .XML animation code for this pig because I'm too lazy to learn it, and now I'm lost when it comes to gmax linking methods for a second dummy part....soooo...I dunno....crap.
Well, a few more linking games and then maybe I can look at animating something else to suggest some sort of elevator movement, the tail end of the W.A.S.P.V. is segmented after all...could be possibilities there. Hmmm, I also modeled in rotatable joins between each of the three main body parts; head, mid-body and tail-end. Lots of possibilities for animations still exist, jeez, if I wanted to get fancy I could try for some rudder movement with these joins even. Don't know how adventurous I want to get here, this project's already taking a loooong time and I don't always do well when I get too bogged down on any one aspect. Updates to come, got a few more days off over New Year's and may see progress.
Last edited by harkonnen on Tue Mar 11, 2008 7:10 am; edited 2 times in total
O.K., this thread just hit 1000 views.....do I get a donut or something?
OMG, I suppose I better just get busy and start wrapping up the remaining work on this thing, eh? That's a lot of yapping & a lot of viewing. Holy crap.
...and it certainly is fun watching a W.I.P. thread bloom into such a pig. The absolute best part is just after I've uploaded the finished package and know that my next post will be "Go try it out!" *Gets all goosebumpy*
Hiya...not really an update, I haven't done squat. Well, I did look long and hard at trying to add suspension to the landing gear. I kill myself, should have been done right when I animated the one gear-leg that I copied 5 times in gmax. Big D'oh! there...now it would just be a nightmare to try and animate 6 legs for suspension. Not only that but 'scale errors' have been killing me on my landing gear sets lately. Gmax won't export a decent animation with a scale error, but when you select the offending parts and reset the scale (which is the proper fix for this anomoly), the animations go awry and require re-animating.
Oh, I did set up a folder with all the wing textures in it, along with the templates, and colour-coded reference screenshots of all four wings, top and bottom. Now I need to take some time and match up the wireframes in gmax to the bitmaps with the UVW editor.
I have at least three bitmaps for each wing, top and bottom - a clean wing with just metal shine and rivets, that plus panel lines and detail, and another with the weathering all on it. They're not proper layers for aircraft repaints as each subsequent bitmap is a composite of the previous layer plus the current bitmap. Oh alright, ...I know it's no fun reading all this stuff if I don't get working on it and actually finish it.
Hmmm..as far as gear suspension goes, it's doubtful I can pull it off without way more grief than I can get interested in, here's hoping that once the contact points are refined that it lands onto the runway with some grace and realism anyway.
I do have a free weekend now, and only 3 projects on the go so maybe I can tackle these waspwings, they have promising textures and a neat shape.
I do however, have a simple project that's actually just about ready to kick out the door. For real. Honest. It's a skyskimmer...something you'd see on Star Trek, or StarWars, or similar future shows. Just a small, personal shuttle that I kept rather low poly by doing no interior model whatsoever. The windows are nice and reflective, and opaque, so I didn't need a pilot and cockpit. You know, one of those lazy-assed models where you get a Lear panel, no V.C., and no pilot to look at in 'Spot' view. Cool design though, with some neat landing gear animations, decent looking crap-ship textures and a kick ass super sci-fi engine cluster in the behind part. That tech-talk enough for ya? I'll throw up (not regurgitate ) a few shots in the open screenshot forum, bug RD for some permission for FX use, and kick it out the door. Really. No, honest. 'Kay, you'll see..
It's not much, but it has a certain cool factor...I built it for me, for when I'm searching for shuttley-type spacecraft for FS9 to zoom into the lower altitudes from up at 75,000', like you were coming in from a space trip, or another planet. There's not much new like that getting uploaded for FS9 now.
Will update as I tackle this wasp stuff.
EDIT....Ewww - too many smilies. (OMG! I had to resist adding the rolling eyes right after this sentence...where can I get help?)
Yeah. Overwhelmed is a good word for this gmax-challenged hack! I think I stall a bit on a project when gmax refuses to co-operate. I get on a roll, especially when I'm at least three-quarters done, then - WHAM! - a bunch of scale errors and animation goofiness, or just my general lack of experience with UVW mapping, etc....kills the fun factor and I sort of wander into other projects to try and keep some momentum....keep the fun part of this happening while I figure out work-arounds. That's how this SkySkimmer got done, it was the 'go to' project for when I'd bogged down on the main project! Ah well, I'll have them all done soon, and at least those that are interested can see what I've been dreaming up and yapping about.
I actually need to re-install the FS9 gamepack for gmax and get my scenery exports working properly...I really miss doing scenery stuff now after all these 'flying machines'.
.......Been playing with the landing gear contact points for days now - I've gone full circle a few times from being stable on the runway with the model floating just slightly to crashing into the runway in all sorts of rude ways upon loading.
...FINALLY got it back to where the feet sit pretty accurately on the runway, now I just have to try and do something about the slight rocking back and forth...it looks like hell with no suspension to the gear-legs. Well, I'll just tweak it and play with it 'til I get it the best I can without having kittens and then I'll at least be one step closer to kicking this thing out the door. Geez, if it's not one thing it's another. Ah well, keeps me on my toes....and I didn't want all that brown hair...gray's just fine thanks.
After spending hours reading the updates on the W.A.S.P.V (is that what its called?) I have offically decided...........
I cant wait to fly the plane (if you could call it that )
I am sure you will do a great job on this
njbb1995
P.S you do deserve a donut for reaching 1000 hits
Thanks for the interest Njbb, yeah, it's called the WASPV, and she's a handful to develop. Probably be a cakewalk for the experienced folks, but this amateur, wannabe, hack newbie gets mired in these grand fantasy projects with big animation ideas, etc. - and then realizes that lack of planning ahead has created six times more work than is necessary! Will I learn? Probably a little. I literally stumble through some of these projects, just managing through trial and error to make things work or look half decent. I've got the points set now the best I've had them yet, but I'm not happy yet.....these VTOL aircraft sit light on the runway and I'm not experienced enough to make them settle down on the tarmac through the points data in the .cfg file. Plus I'm working with skidders, or 'feet'....rather than wheels for landing gear and what would normally look like a bit of tire compression ends up looking like skid pads disappearing into the asphalt when the craft rocks beyond the suspension motion. Setting the compression and max/static ratio and the damping ratio with those three sets of numbers can be like playing the lottery. Then if you change one set too much the gear point's location itself will be sitting higher or lower and you need to adjust it with the 'Z' coordinate setting.
Geez...see what happens when you encourage me? I get long winded and digressive. No donuts for me until this monster is out the door!! (Do Not Feed The Amateur Developer!)
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