I've got these points the best way they can be without going crazy. There's finally enough resistance to crashing if you land a wee bit hard, I added some slight, very simple suspension animation to the very top part of the gear assembly, where the casings meet the underbody...and it helped a bit with the rocking. She doesn't rock too badly now with harder landings or heavy braking. I've gone through at least 150 number combinations trying to configure these gear-points and I think finally they are at 'my best'. *Sigh* Once she settles down after motion, she sits properly on pavement. She was a bit overpowered too....now I've reduced thrust a bit and there's virtually no forward-creep on the ground, and the VTOL action is a little nicer as well....I'm happy to have gotten back to this project this weekend after wrapping up that Zkimmer...I had grown weary of these gear points, and a little tired of the WASP to be honest - having flown it for months straight getting animations right. Now after being away from it for a few weeks it has it's shine back for me....it really is a neat craft - inspired by imagination and realized without too much compromise. Some bitmap tweaking to do and then I need to get this thing out there, I want to do 15 other thing to this bird (bug) but it's not fun if it takes forever...I want to kick it out soon! The WASP lives - Woohoo!
Thanks SU37, the legs look pretty creepy as they retract and fold up close to the body too, ugh! (So it has the desired effect - wait 'til the terrorist scum in Afghanistan get a load of this thing bearing down on them.)
No donuts, no ice cream! I've got to shed this winter fat as it is. Hmmm, I wonder if more time sitting in front of the computer screen would help?
HA! Hiya Mel, I didn't quite know what you meant when you referred to G.S. and legs..then I got it! Yes, that photo of Groundsquirrel sporting the neon-pink shorts is burned into my brain too! (Not in a good way either! )
...So much for resting with the contact points. I've got 2 alternate .cfg files now, and a third in the sim that seems to be about the best yet, went in on a whim and configured a bit more last night. Still not happy with the gear points but they seem reasonable, who wants to get too mired down going 'round in circles playing with numbers, geesh - it's just not fun after 200 edits.
She's full of flaws, but so much fun - I'll just keep plugging away 'til this mess seems releasable. They must be getting tired of me buzzing over their heads down here in Barbados where all the flight testing is going on.
Haven't set the simple contact points for body parts yet, got so dragged down with gear points, but these points are easy.
Back soon with more drivel from Hark - the king of taking three paragraphs to say absolutely nothing.
Are you sure about that king of using three paragraphsto say absolutly nothing I could do that easily but I wont because It will be a waste of time space and possibly money. But otherwise keep up the good work Hark!!!
cheers
njbb1995
Got all ambitious last night and went back into gmax and edited the UVW for the waspwings unwrap, then sorted out the wing textures (ridiculous: 4 wings - top and bottom textures for all four, as separate UVW edits...remember - I had to re-do the rightwings as another whole assembly, no mirroring and no simply reversing bitmaps.) Edited 4 bitmaps into two so the bigwing bottoms and tops were together on the same map and did the same for the smallwing textures. what a chore! I was determined not to go to bed last night until it was done, and I went to bed satisfied that it was the best job I could do. Looks pretty good this morning. There's a small band that rims the wings that takes no texture from the map but it looks alright anyway....and the textures rendered up nicely due to their size (1024 X 1024). I tried 3 or 4 times originally to map these wings for a perfectly clean UVW unwrap but gmax just laughed and did what it wanted. Fortunately with some careful point-editing in the UVW edit window in max I was able to get rid of some nasty image-repeating that occurred at certain triangle poly's. Still a few rogue triangles present but it's minimal, and is, once again, the best I can manage without having a friggin' anxiety attack. I don't think all the coffee and cigarettes help!
Anyway, getting these gear-points half decent and getting my textures onto the wings were the biggest hurdles I faced in the later stages of this beastly, buggy project - and I'm pretty darn happy that I've crossed these hurdles! O.K., I crawled around a few rather than jumping over them, but nobody saw.
I may take a stab at the V.C. thing, but she's high poly as is, and I'm feeling mighty lazy lately...probably wrap this one up and let folks drop in their own panel or use the default aliased one....and taking another month(s) to figure out the V.C. will probably fry my feeble brain....so enjoy the clear screen view when in Virtual Cockpit view. Yeah, I know it's a cop-out and a rip-off, but hey - this is all in fun right...she's a blast to fly - very, VERY different, and pretty darn mean to look at and quite functional...definitely enough to keep you busy for a few flights.
To be honest, I'm not familiar with the real-world capabilities of the Skyhawk, but I'll tell you what I've got going on with the W.A.S.P.V.;
56 Hellfire-type air to ground rockets.
12 small air-to-air missiles.
The above weaponry is not present to the viewer until 'tailhook' is activated - I think it's called a 'clean' profile or something along those lines.
There are also two smaller guns in the Wasp's nose....not turret guns - you aim the aircraft.
Now, the kicker in air combat is that not only can I stop almost dead still from full-forward throttle in a matter of seconds and hover, but I can also spin her around 180 degrees in two seconds, at 500 knots. Literally. ...It takes a little practice to counter insane rudder response with aileron flutters so you maintain a level attitude, but I can spin around and unleash before the other pilot has a chance to say "what the hell?"
If I saw one of these and it wasn't on my side of the fight, I'd be making myself scarce, on the ground or airborne.
EDIT: Other fighter aircraft may have a speed advantage though...this thing is not supersonic, it's a smaller craft and the two jet engines are smaller as well. I hope to install the absolute best state-of-the-art weapons targeting and guidance systems too...sometimes it's all about who locks on first, eh?
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum You cannot attach files in this forum You can download files in this forum
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
Once she settles down after motion, she sits properly on pavement. She was a bit overpowered too....now I've reduced thrust a bit and there's virtually no forward-creep on the ground, and the VTOL action is a little nicer as well....I'm happy to have gotten back to this project this weekend after wrapping up that Zkimmer...I had grown weary of these gear points, and a little tired of the WASP to be honest - having flown it for months straight getting animations right. Now after being away from it for a few weeks it has it's shine back for me....it really is a neat craft - inspired by imagination and realized without too much compromise. Some bitmap tweaking to do and then I need to get this thing out there, I want to do 15 other thing to this bird (bug) but it's not fun if it takes forever...I want to kick it out soon! The WASP lives - Woohoo!
)
