W.A.S.P.V. - work in progress...

harkonnen · Post by **harkonnen** » Wed Feb 20, 2008 4:29 pm

....Speaking of exposing your 'Heat sources' - nice avatar.
I was going to comment on it earlier but upon looking at it a few times....it just sort of speaks for itself doesn't it.

harkonnen · Post by **harkonnen** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 3:51 am

Hmmm, just tinkered with lights placement all weekend on the Wasp. 19 lights is the limit in FS9 and I used up every single one...getting the cockpit cool looking, putting navs and strobes and accents here and there on the body. I have it so you turn on the lights (or if FS loads up with the lights on), you immediately hit 'O' to turn off the strobes while the rest of the lights stay on. Then, if you're using the Wasp as a security or Police vehicle you can hit 'O' and 4 strobes come on as emergency lights...they're placed just right and it looks pretty neat. I used to love flying around in that 'Japanese animation model' series Police Spinner by Kaz Ito because of the police lights.

Re-textured a few small wing and body-join parts.
Put small green-glowing screens in the pilot's consoles, with some red and green lit buttons above...seen in 'spot' view.
Might try to attach a HUD disc to the canopy, it would look really neat if I do it right.

Really pleased with the light's set up overall after all that editing and testing - they give the Wasp a whole new look.

harkonnen · Post by **harkonnen** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 8:30 am

Holy moly...the HUD idea actually worked. Well, the HUD doesn't do anything, it's just for looks in 'Spot' view - but it looks cool at night. The .jpegs don't do the effect justice, but you get the idea.

harkonnen · Post by **harkonnen** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 6:26 pm

Alright!...I feel a bit better now that some of these later tasks have been tackled. Set initial contact points for the aircraft body but haven't done any testing yet. Gotta get ready for work.

rd · Post by rd » Mon Feb 25, 2008 6:59 pm

That second shot is wicked. Can't wait for this one to come out.

umm, small thing, but the nav lights are reversed.

RD

mel wilson · Post by **mel wilson** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 7:29 pm

Hark, as you know I have been following your work on this, and it never fails to make me laugh, and those last two shots made me crease up... it's awesome.... and like RD said, cant wait for the release.

Mel.

SU37Berkut · Post by **SU37Berkut** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 3:23 am

Code: Select all

umm, small thing, but the nav lights are reversed.

Green on the right wing, red on the left right?

Cheers!
SU37Berkut

rd · Post by rd » Tue Feb 26, 2008 9:39 am

Always remember Nav lights this way... GIRL ( GiRRiL )

Green is Right, Red is Left

RD

harkonnen · Post by **harkonnen** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 9:53 am

Crap. Really? How silly. I even fired up a default aircraft to double-check the nav-light's order! D'oh. Can I blame this one on Jack Daniels and Canadian buds?

But seriously folks...you couldn't possibly have much more fun flying this thing than I have had dreaming it up and building it. And that says a lot 'cause she's a riot to fly. Cool thing is, this one's not idiot-proof.
With the Maelstrom and the Zkimmer, if you have any VTOL savvy at all, you almost can't mess up a landing. This buggy beast is not nearly as powerful...when bringing her in for a vertical landing you need to pay attention to the angle of attack big time. Even at full throttle with the last two flap settings - if you don't have your nose down slightly and maintain control every second - she sometimes starts to wobble...a sure sign that you are about to dump a four-million dollar prototype onto the tarmac from 30 feet up. If she starts to go and you are on the ball you can recover, but it rarely looks graceful. No worries though, with a little practice at keeping the nose down a hair during landings until a slight flare for level touchdown...she's a champ. And if your buddies give you any grief just pop up a rocket launcher or two, or let a few bursts go from the nose guns and show 'em who rules the land and air.

Geez, too bad this thing wasn't ready for the Maddie Challenge...sounds like a huge hovering jet-wasp might have diffused a situation or two over in the Middle East.

O.K., got a few lights to fix

and then it's bed time.

EDIT: HEY! You kids get outa that Jello tree!! Uh..I mean.... Hey! The navs are the right way if you use RD's acronym: GIRRIL! Like I'm not confused enough already! (on a Monday, no less!

)

EDIT: I bet some will always remember the Nav lights, and still not know what it is.

rd · Post by rd » Tue Feb 26, 2008 10:11 am

Glad ya got it Hark.

BTW: How many BETA Testers are you up to now on this thing???

RD

harkonnen · Post by **harkonnen** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 10:59 am

BETA test? What's that, something you eat? Ha ha, just kidding...no one has the Wasp. I have logged more hours in this thing than any aircraft yet, I think. I'm working 12's this week, but if I direct my ground crew to fix a few bugs and rectify some electrical problems...maybe you could get some flight time this week. As a collaborator and test-pilot for the Maelstrom in the early days you have my confidence as a happening VTOL guy. Keep an eye on your 'inbox' for an invite down to Barbados where she's tarped in a private, very well guarded hangar.
Do I trust you enough to let you up with live weapons?....Oh crap, I guess I'll find out soon enough - I'm getting used to greasing diplomatic palms down here just to keep from getting thrown off the island myself!.

(If you get to her this week....no teaser shots on this one....there's gotta be a few surprises left after all the blathering I've been doing. *She's got to get out the door before this reaches 2000 views!!!*

)

rd · Post by rd » Tue Feb 26, 2008 11:13 am

WTH... Giving a Marine a weapon, with no LIVE ROUNDS. C'mon man, give a Leatherneck a break. Don't worry about the puppets, I usually enter thier office unannounced, and TELL them what I am going to do. If they suck in air to speak, I throw down my DD299. Then they exhale nothing, cringe, and wave me on my way.

As you can see, I've been on 14's for a couple days, and a couple days more becuase of the weather.....AGAIN.

No problem on the teaser shots. I only do them when allowed.

Looking forward to shooting up some stuff....errr...flying this baby.

RD

FokkerDr1R · Post by **FokkerDr1R** » Wed Feb 27, 2008 5:04 pm

What's a leatherneck?

Is that like a Redneck?

And how do you throw down a destroyer?

Fokker

harkonnen · Post by **harkonnen** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 9:51 am

...Having a bit of fun tonight trying to come up with a WASPV logo;

I don't even know how to get it onto the wings without screwing things up but I hope I'll figure it out. And hopefully I can finish this hand-drawing into a decent logo between 'Paint', 'Pixia' and 'Photoshop'.

harkonnen · Post by **harkonnen** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 12:09 pm

Well, I finished up a logo that I really like. I have tried here and there for weeks to draw something that would work as a logo for this buggy mess, but always ended up with pure crap. This one works for me, and I was able to reduce it without killing it...now - how in the heck do you apply logos to a Photoshop image and somehow have the white just be transparent? You know...I want to get only the logo onto the wings...without any white showing - just the oval logo contained in, and including the outer yellow border. I know to create another layer for the logo...and I've used the 'Move' tool before to pop one image onto another. Is it a magic wand thing where somehow I select only the oval logo with no white and 'move' that image onto my new layer? I'll do some experimenting but any tips would be helpful for these specifics. Remember, be gentle, I'm pretty clued-out in Photoshop.

groundsquirrel · Post by **groundsquirrel** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 12:33 pm

Okay, once you have your wing map in photoshop, open new image (your bug logo), with the selection tool select the white area, then in the selection menu choose "inverse". You will then see the selection outline shift from the surrounding area (the white part) to the central oval area (the logo), then it's copy and paste and possible transform depending on the scaling of the logo image once pasted on the wing map. Once done, dont forget to "merge visible" in the layers menu before saving.

harkonnen · Post by **harkonnen** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 3:39 pm

Sweet, thanks G.S., this will be a big mystery solved if I can make it work. I've always wondered how just the logos were applied to aircraft paint jobs.

rd · Post by rd » Sat Mar 01, 2008 7:03 pm

There's 2 more ways of doing it.

1. Use the eraser tool, and erase the white section. This will make that section look like white and gray grid blocks. That part is now transparent.

2. Create a new image the same size as the logo box, and click the transparent box. Now use your magnetic lasso tool, and go around your logo. Then move it using the move tool, to the transparency. Viola, done.

Then just move it to where you want it on your WASP. Sizing may need to be done, as GS said.

RD

FokkerDr1R · Post by **FokkerDr1R** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 1:54 am

The Logo resembles the plane alot.

Nice job Hark,

Fokker

harkonnen · Post by **harkonnen** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 5:02 am

Thanks RD, your first of the the two methods might come in very handy. I'll have to look more closely at your second suggestion in order to get it I guess, this is pretty new to me. So far, G.S.'s method of inverting the selection worked for me. I'm giddy...this is a very close to the end step here. I'm burnt on this WASP, I want to kick it out and not look at it for two weeks! I did a little bit of light weathering on a few panels, wee wind streaks, and spent one evening getting that WASP logo decent...then spent this morning 'til now getting these wings finished up. I'm done like dinner on this project...looking at this monitor right down to the pixel level all day is making me dizzy (well, that and other weekend activities). Some contact points to set for the body & wings, a few niggling details here and there and then it's mostly packaging stuff. This aircraft development stuff is crazy.

rd · Post by rd » Sun Mar 02, 2008 5:49 am

Looks good hark.

When time permits, I'll send you a tute on the different ways to get it done.

RD

harkonnen · Post by **harkonnen** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 5:46 am

Thanks RD, I need all the tips I can get. I am however sailing along with layers now in photoshop. I was pretty sick of this thing yesterday after all the bitmap work, but after my housework and some fooling around today, I finally dove back into bitmap heaven after dinner. What was I up to?

Scratches
Paint chips
Rust
Soot
Dings
Divots
Streaks

Yup, about 3 hours worth of weathering the WASP. It got a bit tedious towards the end but I knew that if the maps rendered up like I was hoping I would have a pretty effective look when you zoom in close to inspect the paint.
Did 4 maps..the midbody, the butt segments, the jets, and I re-did the patch on our buggy pilot's flightsuit.
Did all the maps, one by one - without converting them through DXTBMP to look at them in the sim. Then when they were all done I converted all 4 and threw them into my texture folder. Time to fire up FS9 and have a close look at my baby on the tarmac in the mid-day sunshine of Barbados.
Folks...this may be the last time I need to re-visit these textures....they look...darn good, if I don't say so myself. Sorry, that sounds like horn-blowing...what I mean is that for once a project has turned out amazing to me and now with countless meticulous hours of texture creation and refining, learning all the way...the paint job has enhanced my model beyond my hopes...this is A BLAST!!

It's funny...as I was typing this little gleeful update post I realized that while checking my weathering job I completely forgot to open the canopy to see what my flightsuit tags looked like...I put a little wasp logo on his chest, with a nametag and some gold 'wings'. Gonna go have a look now.

Thanks for listening...you'll see what I'm talking about very soon, here's a list of the few things I need to wrap up before a quick shipment to RD for some quick beta testing and maybe a wing-paint job.

Body contact points - easy.
Clean up texture folder - yipes!
Consider cleaning 75 or so unused materials out of gmax to facilitate one final, smaller .mdl file export. - Yipe, yipe, YIPE!
Re-name .AIR file and configure small final details. Should be straightforward.
Sort FX files and appropriate textures and include properly in package.
Clean up misc. crap leftover in .CFG file and write a description and some brief performance statistics.
Final packaging, Zip-up, unzip, retest and UPLOAD!!!!!!

I'll chip away as fast as possible early in the week, get an invite off to RD and maybe he can 'get 'er done' fairly quickly as well - I'm getting sort of excited and anxious now that I'm this close! WOOHOOO!!!

rd · Post by rd » Mon Mar 03, 2008 6:53 am

eh?!?!?! Your not done yet??????????

ugh.... I've been in front of this thing since Friday, hitting send/recieve on my email account, waiting for the "Yousendit" link. You know, the one you said you would send sometime this weekend????

So I take it, I have wasted the last 53 hours, 22 minutes, 44 seconds, 45 seconds, 47 seconds......... AND YOUR NOT DONE!!!!!!

Satan has had it better (the spider). So I'll just slide out of my chair, and sleep for the next two days on the rug. se e y o u l a t e rrrrrrrrrzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

njbb1995 · Post by **njbb1995** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 6:58 am

good night RD sleep tite dont let the bedbugs bite.

harkonnen · Post by **harkonnen** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 7:33 am

I'm pretty slow at this, but she's sailin' along pretty good now. Yeah, I should shut my yap 'til I'm ready to ship, I know...honest, I'm almost there! The hours seem to slide by pretty fast while I work, then the weekend is gone and I'm fighting to fit in a bit of developing during my mornings. Soon come, as they say in Jamaica, where you may be beta testing this thing...they're getting pretty sick of 6 A.M. flight tests in Barbados.

SU37Berkut · Post by **SU37Berkut** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 4:33 pm

Can't wait Hark!

That thing sounds neat!

Cheers!
SU37Berkut

harkonnen · Post by **harkonnen** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 6:39 pm

Unbelieveable!! I rushed to get .ZIPS off to RD and G.S. and realized I had forgotten the Effects files 10 minutes after the files went!!!!!!!! CRAP!!!!

Have to rectify tonight after work - 3:00 A.M..

CRAP!! RD, if you have time - will you hook G.S. up with your NAV_Blu3's and Tomcat's nav blue? (R.I.P. Steve, and thanks man.)

CRAP!!!! Talk later. rushing off to work now. CRAP!!!

mel wilson · Post by **mel wilson** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 7:14 pm

Hark, if you fancy personalising your W.A.S.P. Have you thought about using Shockwave's 3D Lights, I added them to my Beech 300, effects are awesome.

All Nav & landing lights.

http://www.shockwaveproductions.com/

And now on the Maddie Beech 300 http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=9JBxySWfbB0

Mel.

SU37Berkut · Post by **SU37Berkut** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 8:17 pm

What kind of clouds are you using there mate?

Cheers!
SU37Berkut

mel wilson · Post by **mel wilson** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 9:20 pm

SU37Berkut wrote:What kind of clouds are you using there mate?

Cheers!
SU37Berkut

SU, ask RD, he set them up in Flight 5 of the Maddie Round the World.

Although I have active sky, I dont switch it on during the Maddie project. Now, saying that, it has me thinking..... Mmmmmm

Mel.

FlightSim Forums SurClaro.com

W.A.S.P.V. - work in progress...

okay...