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The B737 Classic Project


Morten XPFW

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This is a quick "where are we".   There are some aspects to projects that are slow to get past.  This occurs generally when you do not have the proper information, or proper reference photograph in order to do a task...so you kind of "guess" and if its wrong, then you have to redo and redo and it bogs down quick.  For a while now, I have been chipping on the flap animation.  The team is super-picky about visual realism and trying to animate the flaps such that everything looks and works and you have no mesh collisions or overlaps, especially in the super-tight tolerance areas of the flaps has been a real challenge.  I've walked away more than once.   If the flaps aren't right, then you can't do the mechanisms right and all this stuff is visible when the flaps are deployed so if you want to get it right you have to build it right.  Well I am happy to report than the flaps have been "substantially" done.  This means all the surfaces, fore/mid/aft flap have all been animated and their motion is such that the mechanisms can now be animated and all the motions "jibe" with real mechanism properties...i.e. the hard part of the wings are done.  What remains on the exterior is quickly coming to a close...some misc mechanisms to model and texture...some gear well stuff, a few odds and ends and finally the door animations.

 

Inside we have the aft cockpit to texture, the aft galley to UV and texture and then we will be in '3D scrutiny' mode to see what we need to add, or re-UV map, increase or decrease in detail / resolution.  That will substantially conclude the 3D.  I keep using the word "substantially" because the work is never done...we touch up here and there, probably till the very end, but all the pieces are in place, no more difficulties remain etc.

 

At that point, we'll go back to the programming and work on finishing up the FMS and begin testing all the systems in order to get ready for a beta test.  Again, NO telling when this will be.  We can see the end of the road, but aren't quite sure how far away it is.  Getting pas the flaps was a big hurdle to jump.  I'll include a work in progress screenshot below.  Texturing on a lot of things is "quickie mode" and we'll be adding higher detail in the upcoming weeks.

 

TomK

 

Screen%20shot%202013-10-13%20at%209.54.0

Edited by tkyler
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I myself would like to, but its one of those things that we'd save for the very last and see how it goes. Its just a bit more mesh work,  and one of those things we'll look at later and if the mesh rework doesn't bring up any surprises, we'll slip it in.  Just know that we have no objection to having that option.   We're inclined to simply provide a preference that will toggle  the windows "on or off" as it were.

 

TomK

Edited by tkyler
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Our general design philosophy has been to always optimize solutions where possible, but to never omit critical functionality for performance reasons. Making the most realistic 733 possible is the primary goal. So far she's still performing acceptably and better than many way less complex and detailed models.

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