Poof! I'm an amateur developer...

[harkonnen]

But for Orbiter, not FS. About a month ago I finally downloaded Orbiter and it's wicked. (You've gotta have the Level 9 high-resolution Earth textures!) You can also download a host of Sci-Fi type add-on ships that go stupid-fast and ignore gravitational and orbital restrictions. A lot of my FS2002 flights originate at 100,000' descending, as if re-entering from space so Orbiter has been a blast for me.

So about 2 weeks ago I discovered that a lot of these add-ons are created in Anim8or, a free 3D modelling program, and after about 20 hours of trial and error in Anim8or I created a ship and pilot from scratch, converted the .3ds file into a .msh file and I'm test flying it in Orbiter now. Just a few more config file tweaks to do.

There's about 15 features in Anim8or that I don't know how to use yet but I'm getting by for now by lathing, squashing and warping my meshes into submission! I should call them 'messes' as they are just jammed together, I have to remember to start cutting out those unseen polygons, as this poor little ship is almost 6mb! (I should change my username to 'Wasted_Pollie')
No 'textures' were used, these are custom configured 'materials', made and applied within Anim8or.
It's a simple design but I think she has some nice lines and I spent about 5 hours getting my pilot to look decent.

Anim8or may not be as robust as the programs FS developers are used to but it's a LOT of fun! (And free, as is Orbiter.)
NOTE: As I'm sure Surclaro doesn't want this thread to turn into a mini Orbiter/Anim8or forum I have provided all the links you will need to do what I have done if you find this interesting!

Orbiter main site
http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/orbit.html
Dan's Orbiter page (Dan is the author of FS Passengers!) This is where you get sound for the silent Orbiter
http://orbiter.dansteph.com/
Orbiter Forum tutorial for newbies: Create your own add-on ship
http://orbit.m6.net/v2/read.asp?id=16976
Anim8or main page
http://www.anim8or.com/main/index.html
Good link to MeshMaker2.1
http://orbithangar.com/searchauth.cfm?search=Radu094

http://www.eharm.net/shop/freeware/orbiter/orbiter.html
http://www.anim8or.org/pn/index.php
http://members.lycos.nl/jonim8or/
www.orbithangar.com/ (Lotsa add-ons)

I present 'The Scarab'. Is she fast? You bet, look at the lower left corner of the last screenie. Thats T+240 seconds folks, 4 minutes of flight.
WOOHOOOoo! Can't do that in MSFS!

[lortiawhak]

Wow. You learn quick. When I tried Anim8or a while back, it took me about 20 hours to make an eggplant. I also tried Orbiter a while back. I never got higher than 100 feet though. Never could figure out how to fly. I think I'll try it again. Ship looks awesome btw.

[harkonnen]

You can't even do a hover liftoff from earth without disabling the flight realism setting, and you do need an add-on ship like the DeltaFlyer from Star Trek (not the default, realistic DeltaGlider) to go booting into space like in the Sci-Fi movies. Otherwise if you're patient, you can bring the default ships or realistic-flying add-ons into orbit with persistence. You kind of keep trying to bump the nose up through the top of the atmosphere until you finally break through. Once you hit SPACE a default song starts playing ('Air on a g string' by Bach, I think), it's very cool with good speakers and you can load it up with a playlist of up to 200 of your own tunesand they play through Winamp! There are many comprehensive tutorials on all aspects of flight in Orbiter but I'm just flying by the seat of my pants of course. As for the Anim8or learning curve, I so wanted to make a good ship and I fell in love with the program once I realized the easy export into Orbiter, plus I'm fairly artistic in general - I can see the ship in my head before I even touch the PC. Way too much fun to be had on the 'net for free!. (Just the kind of programs to keep me enthralled AND tearing my hair out 'til FSX!!)

[Exxman]

Nice work Hark! Keep it coming...

Exx

[harkonnen]

Guess who's figured out how to apply 'materials' to individual faces in Anim8or? Every time I fire up this program I figure out how to do 3 or 4 new things. I can cut apart and rejoin meshes reasonably well now, I know how to 'Shell' an object (adding thickness to the walls of a mesh - although I didn't use it on this model), and adding materials to any face I wanted is very cool. Getting more comfortable with modifiers (I bent the following model into submission.) Next I need to figure out how to make the glass seem to have thickness that is different than the solid faces of my ships. This big girl is meant to be an interplanetary luxury people mover. Each passenger pays big bucks to have a seating area the size of a small office cubicle. You could swing the chairs around and have a board meeting while you and your associates rocket towards Mars. I don't think I'm even going to import this one into Orbiter as it was more of a learning project. My desire now is to make an even cooler, more luxurious space-limo with glass bottom and top for planet gazing. I wimped out on the interior and passengers on this one but the next one is gonna rock for details. Gotta figure out "real" texture mapping too. 'Til next time....

[harkonnen]

Thanks 'G' for implementing an Orbiter section, cool.

Wow, I read the above posts and looked at the date. Was it only 4 years ago that I caught the developer bug? Seems like longer for some reason.

Pretty cool times those were for me, not too long after I found out how easy it was to export models to Orbiter and started building some 3D modeling skills, I figured out how the gmax gamepack works for MSFS, and it wasn't too long before I figured out how to get a model from Anim8or to gmax, then out of gmax into MSFS. That was that, I was hooked on creating out of this world air and spacecraft and whipping around in the both of these fine simulators in my own creations.

I'm still very much amateur, but I've come a long way.

Just recently I downloaded the 2010 Orbiter, and have the desire to do a spacecraft of some sort for it again, especially since my modeling skills are much more refined now.. started modeling a ship in Anim8or, I think it's going to be a gunship sort of vessel, we'll see how it turns out.

[harkonnen]

Here's a link to some very handy tools and tutorials if you have any desire to enter the world of developing for orbiter.

http://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=715

Down the page a ways there is a link to some anim8or tutorials.

If you get good in Anim8or, it's not that hard to get the model into MSFS as well as Orbiter.

It's all a ton of fun, but takes some learning.

[rd]

I'll tell you what Hark, you build them, I'll paint them.

If I need something made, you'll be the first person I'll contact.

.

[harkonnen]

Gotcha.