***SCROLL MONKEY WARNING***
Hiya...my fingers are going numb - I promised a member over at the FreeFlight Design Shop forums a mini, quicky tutorial on building a pilot for his airplane, and I hoped this would be an appropriate place to post it up and link it out. There's 20 pics that I'll put up...they're smaller without detracting from the demonstration, and I think they convey what methods I was trying to describe to this person. I'll start with a link to the Freeflight thread:
http://www.aerodynamika.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?num=1199061409
...and I'll write a brief description of what I was blathering about...I don't know how to insert text underneath each .jpg in this forum, so I'll describe my actions and you can get my meaning by viewing the .jpg's. Once again, I've tried to keep the file sizes down and hope this post is within appropriate limits for server space, etc - if there is an issue with this type of post I can look into another method of making this sort of stuff available....here goes....
First off, I find Anim8or easy to model in, and after selecting 'Object/export' and kicking out a .3ds file, gmax easily imports this .3ds. You may have to rename your meshes individually in Anim8or if the names are already taken in your gmax file by other parts.
So....'Lathing' in Anim8or is the method I use in order to try and model decent organic objects such as body parts.
You select that 'line' icon on the left for the drawing tool, and in the'Front' view, trace out an outline of what you think half of an upper arm should look like. Go to 'Build' in the top toolbar and select 'Lathe'. See that the proper axis is selected and determine how many sides your object will have. Lathe it, then move or slightly scale down the resulting lathed mesh and delete that line drawing line, or 'spline'...you don't need it any more in this case.
Select the 'squish' tool on the left toolbar and squish the upper arm mesh slightly so it isn't all round...now it looks like it might actually be an arm part. Using the identical method, repeat the process and shape your 'spline' like a forearm this time, squish it a bit, go ahead and use the 'rotate' tool from the left toolbar to position the arm in a convincing position...play with where the two meshes join in order to try for a fairly seamless elbow join and bend, lots of fun. Right and left clicking-then-dragging the 'rotate' cursor will position your pieces just so with some practice.
On to 'Lathing' a head, torso and neck mesh...using the exact same easy method; draw your to-be-lathed meshes, lathe 'em, squish 'em, and if you want to get rid of some of the stiffness of the figure - use the 'Modifier' box tool on the left toolbar to bend the torso a bit. I bend my stuff in the front view, plus or minus however many degrees of curve I want. Here I bent the mesh 33 degrees to give the sitting pilot a bit of back-arch, and hopefully a more human look. You need to make your modifier box surround the mesh completely, then have both the modifier box and the mesh selected when you go to 'Build/modifiers/bind modifiers'.
Now double click on the modifier box in 'Front' view to bring up your bend-specific window, selecting '33 degrees' as a positive or negative number, depending on whether you want to bend up or down. See what it looks like, then select 'Effect modifier' in order to actually make the bend permanent.
I hope this actually helps someone, or gives them some insight into the methods and nuances of 3D modeling, and more specifically - a few hack methods at getting something human looking out of your favourite modeling app. The Silver surfer shots at the end where I show off a bit are completely unedited FS9 shots...full reflectivity through alpha and using a 'metal' shader on my 'max material. The model is not animated at all...but very careful positioning of a bunch of lathed and carefully tweaked meshes have resulted in a really nice figure that captures smoothness and motion quite decently.
EDIT: Sorry, I'm crappy at getting these .jpg's to appear in order...just view them in order of #'s so they make sense, thx.
'Nother EDIT: Here's a link to a one and a half year old thread where I was babbling on about making a one or two-piece low-poly pilot...the results were my Maelstrom pilot...he didn't turn out that bad.
http://forums.surclaro.com/ftopic7566.html
Hmm...after viewing this thing a few times I'm sorry that the .jpg's went up so willy-nilly. Honestly, they were all in a proper ascending order when I applied them but they went up like this. I imagine it's time I learned how to put together a more cohesive tutorial, eh - even if it's just a quicky. Any suggestions for the easiest, most idiot-proof way to compose a tute with screenshots and text? Any programs suggested should be freeware...and maybe I'll see if there's a way to make a collage-style tutorial that you can scroll down as one .jpg or something. I'm no whiz at modeling or anything, but I can 'splain most of my methods to someone well enough to get them going on their way, and enjoy the interaction and info-exchange of the flightsim community...so paying it forward a bit is always the way to go.
Any suggestions for the easiest, most idiot-proof way to compose a tute with screenshots and text? Any programs suggested should be freeware...and maybe I'll see if there's a way to make a collage-style tutorial that you can scroll down as one .jpg or something.
Making this into a MSWord document is the easiest. I have written a tutorial or two in my time and once you get the hang of Word it becomes really easy.
Right on...I think between Paint and Photoshop, a long .jpg would be pretty decent. I imagine the ultimate way would be to create a nice little .PDF document, easiest for everyone. Thanks Cat1, working in Word might be cool too, but I've never inserted pictures into Word before, is that even possible? I dove into amateur flightsim development pretty well but still don't know many computer and Windows basics.
Location: COMFORTABLY NUMB, in U.S.A. *** KOFF ***
Age: 51
Gender: Male
omgoodness..... Do I have to do everything for you ???
In photoshop, start a new file. Then figure out what size your pics are, and size vertically or horizontally, the size needed for all pics. Then pull up your pics, then Move each one as a new layer, next to each other. Then edit, to flatten, then save a jpg. Check the bottom of the window. It will tell you the size kb. Move the file size slider, until your under 256 kb. Then save it.
If you don't already have one, get an account from Photobucket http://photobucket.com/ . Then upload it there, and then link the photo here, and it will show up.
Ah, I see, it's put up from one of those image hoster sites. Yeah, I'll have to get registered again...it's been years since I had an account with Imageshack, or photobucket, etc. Cool, thanks - and a Happy New Year guys! (A nice, leisurely day off for me today thankfully, but it all gets real again at 4 A.M. tomorrow as I get back to the grind. )
I did mine in Photoshop CS........... size all your pics, then goto File/Automate/Photomerge. select all your pics, then finally click ok, then place them underneath one another, easy peasy......... he he.
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Honestly, they were all in a proper ascending order when I applied them but they went up like this. I imagine it's time I learned how to put together a more cohesive tutorial, eh - even if it's just a quicky. Any suggestions for the easiest, most idiot-proof way to compose a tute with screenshots and text? Any programs suggested should be freeware...and maybe I'll see if there's a way to make a collage-style tutorial that you can scroll down as one .jpg or something. I'm no whiz at modeling or anything, but I can 'splain most of my methods to someone well enough to get them going on their way, and enjoy the interaction and info-exchange of the flightsim community...so paying it forward a bit is always the way to go. 
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