JazAero

I use it primarily for supplemental functionality. The dual throttle levers I actually use as Hand/parking brakes. Because it is a very smooth stick with very little spring tension. I find it to be very good for doing the ground vehicles in DCS. I also like the fact that it is completely adjustable to fit any hand.

strangely enough, because I don't use them as throttles. I actually use them as gear flap and speed brake levers. I know that sounds weird but with the Thrustmaster HOTAS I really don't need anything else for throttle. I don't fly commercial multiengine and the aircraft I design, build and model are almost exclusively single-engine. check out my A4 Skyhawk in the "http://forums.x-pilot.com/topic/595-what-did-you-fly-today/?p=58461" and http://forums.x-pilot.com/topic/595-what-did-you-fly-today/?p=49296 and finally http://forums.x-pilot.com/topic/595-what-did-you-fly-today/?p=49307 that model was originally going to be offered as payware but my brother and I have reconsidered and may offer it as donation ware.

Sad to say when I took this photo. I was running DCS at the time and not X-plane. edit: I guess it would help if I post specs… ASUS P8Z77-V LGA 1155 MB CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W PSU Intel I7 2600 K @ 4.2 GHZ 32 GB RAM G.SKILL Ripjaws 8 GB x 4 Dual 4 GB GTX 670s 10 TB HD total capacity Thrustmaster MFD's Thrustmaster Hotas warthog Saitek control yoke, throttle quadrant, radio stack, LCD instruments Saitek cyborg control stick. Nostromo N 52 Space pilot Pro Real Flight Elite control box. Manhattan Mondo hub 28 port USB 2/3 hub. Matrox triple head to go digital edition with the patch for widescreen monitors. Track IR Pro 3 matched HP 24 inch monitors the remaining monitors are a mix of 24 and 15 inch monitors Windows 7 ultimate addendum: what is not shown is. I also have 3- 7 inch and 3- 8 inch USB monitors that I was going to use for instrumentation but the drivers are a pain in the butt. So I am not running them currently. I also wanted to just add, that some of the controls I built myself but are not in the picture, and are done using teensy 3.0 and buo3086X boards. One of them drives the old Thrustmaster rudder pedals and F-22/TQS which I had for years and I converted them from using a gameport to using a USB port instead. Because my motherboard does not support the old gameport connectors. finally, the 2 side tables are actually angled 6° up towards the monitors which makes for much more natural sitting position for the arms, but not enough angle that your drink slides back and spills For anyone who wonders, yes I do use it all. :-) some of the monitors were actually reclaimed from the local dump, repaired, and put back into service by me. I think that about does it

Another look at our A4 Skyhawk, I have been away for a while due to an illness, but I'm better now and I'm back .

Something I designed. I toyed with the idea of actually producing a real aircraft based on the design a few years ago. It Is a very good flyer and has no need of a canard It is powered by a V6 -V8 pusher engine With reduction, of anywhere between 260 and 600 hp depending on the performance you're looking for. R

DCS World ALL OF THEM

Great scenery guys any plans to do the Northeast? Specifically the New England area Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine which don't require a lot of buildings but offier very good mountain and forest terrain. I have never seen anybody do these areas with any real quality.

PIC J3 Cub Warrior III C150 C172 C182RG Icarus HG Military Maintenance Cert for A4 F4 E2C Former EAA and AMA member Flown as passenger in most commericial types and a few MAC flights And my first "ride" in a cockpit at age 5 in a Douglas DC4 Still have my "junior Pilot" card somewhere from that flight (The one that started it all) !!

I am also a member both sites. Been a member of the ORG since 2008. I find as long as you keep politics out of your posts and topics you shouldn't have a problem getting banned. IMHO

X-Plane has always been more efficient at drawing geometry then it is at drawing texture. For this reason we believe if there is a shadow present is should be as much as possible because geometry has cast that shadow due to the dynamic lighting effects. I know not all people will agree with me but we try to keep the texturing to a minimum. I've never been much of a fan for shadow maps and bump maps jokingly I look at it as cheatingI think the final result speaks for itself when you look at our plane and compare it with some of the other high-end aircraft out there from a distance they all look pretty good when you get up close that's when you really notice how using textures to create pseudo-geometry fails. I may be all wrong about this but I'll let the work speak for itself. whenever possible, when you see a panel line on our aircraft is because that panel line actually exists between two panels and wasn't drawn there as a texture map or bump map. There are exceptions of course such as lit textures because sometimes the only way to achieve certain lighting effects are only achieved using lit textures. That's not to say I'll never ever ever use bumps or shadows I just prefer not to when possible. Oh and yes I will on occasion draw those panel lines for expediency's sake, yeah it's breaking my own rules out of neccesity. But, having said all that..., if the customer decides that they want to retexture their aircraft... I say have at it !! show us your results and who knows I may be eating crow. 0

As you can see from the photos the cockpit still needs a little work. All the gauges are 3-D geometry and all the faces are hand-painted I tried using photo textures but they just didn't scale properly so I went the extra mile and re-created all the instrument faces by hand Jim JazAero

Thank you for the compliments. My intention was to do the glass cockpit version since I already have the steam gauge version here. One of the goals we set out was to have a no holds barred true representation of this aircraft. But if for instance frame rates got ridiculously slow [which they don't by the way on my system] that a couple of clicks in plane maker and you can omit things like the jet engine, the pilot,the guns etc in order to boost frames. We had toyed with the idea of a low poly version but thought it went against what were trying to do here which was creating a true collectible aircraft. Jim JazAero

Some more screenshots like you've never seen before in an X-Plane model. Enjoy Jim JazAero

This is definitely our A4 Skyhawk We've been developing as a future payware project over the last couple of years. Over two years of research a year + of 3-D modeling animations and texturing. I worked on A4's as a jet engine mechanic back in the late 70s the flight model is as accurate as we can make it. All dimensions and flight model information weight and balance and systems come directly from the NATOPS manuals. The animations for this model are as complete as we can make them without resorting to scripting. Basically if it moves on the jet it moves on the plane that includes all hydraulics, mechanics, access panels, control surfaces, the aircraft has full internal structure including a complete animated engine. It has 3-D cockpit consisting of all 3-D geometry All that is left to finish this model is mapping a few digital instrument displays onto the 3-D geometry. I have been having a lot of trouble with this and have been asking for help in the community. I don't know how to use blender and quite frankly too old to learn, I do use 3 DS Max and AC 3-D which has an export script error concerning textures and cockpit objects which is preventing me from finishing this. We will offer it in several versions including A4 C, A4 E, A4 F, blue Angels versions included, and if I can get those digital displays mapped I would also be able to do the NZ version. Since all geometry is already complete. I've even made offers to the right person willing to lend a hand of a percentage of sales as of today no takers. Another of the unique features is the leading edge slats which as you know on A4's are driven by airspeed and G load and ours behave the same. They really are sight to see in operation. Thank you for your interest Jim JazAero

Another screenshot of JazAero's amazing A4 E Skyhawk

I use one of those boards "BU0386X" to rewire my thrustmaster F-22 Pro and TQS joysticks and rudder pedals in order to convert them from joystick port to USB. I'm happy to report it worked flawlessly. Windows recognizes Leo's board as a joystick interface from there you can program it within X plane just like any other joystick. I also use the teensy boards because they have the ability to both be input and output interfaces. Through simple scripting it is possible to have the teensy board follow the data refs to drive home made steam gauges such as engine or altimeter etc. The input can be configured on both boards for momentaries, toggle switches or axis inputs.

Thank you but it was not necessary to start a new topic with my post. If I had gone off topic I apologize. I also noticed that you misquoted me in the forum topic anyway. It was not my intention to start a whole plausibility debate as that has been done already. I was merely trying to elucidate why I would prefer your scenery over the plausible scenery. So please close out the other topic unless you wish to start one on your own. Thank you Jim JazAero

Fantastic eye candy, I feel like I'm watching those endless billboard TV commercials [just kidding] it looks great! I feel Austin's "plausible world" is somewhat of a joke. I think he should've stuck to the real world. His plausible world Is probably the greatest mistake he has made with this program. But that won't stop me from flying it everyday. I've seen many posts on other forums which people wished he would use X Terra or something similar. In spite of the fact he does not like ortho photos I find they are the only way to fly VFR from point A to point B and know where the hell you're going by way of recognizable landmarks.

Addendum I think I see now what's happening AC 3-D could care less how many textures are in that object. It is the export script which was written for an earlier version of X-plane that is flagging an error message. When I loaded the object file from the Cessna cockpit into AC 3-D it showed two textures listed which is as it should have, however when I try to re-export it, it flagged an error stating only one texture was allowed. So it appears that what this comes down to is requiring an updated export script for AC 3-D. Perhaps someone can pass this on to the script author and at the very least disable that checking routine for cockpit objects. It appears I have no choice but to try and learn blender which is going to set me back weeks if not months. Thanks everyone for your replies Jim JazAero

Thank you I had actually read all that. I wasn't sure if that was the wiki you were referring to or if there was something new out there. Unfortunately it just makes matters worse. What X-plane calls a 3-D panel is not is not actually 3-D at all. What I call a 3-D panel assumes actual three-dimensional geometry with the texture mapped onto it. So my problem is not a panel issues so much as it is a texture mapping issue which AC 3-D is the culprit. I will try and post some pictures to illustrate what I'm trying to explain. I know this can be done I see it done all the time but not in any of the stock aircraft. What X-plane appears to do is map their panel texture onto a flat mesh as part of the inside of a cube that is not what I am trying to do it all or maybe I'm just doing this all wrong. I know this is going to turn out to be something ridiculously simple and I will look silly for not having thought of it things like this have a way of turning out that way. When I opened up the Cessna panel AC 3-D actually shows two textures listed for that panel. When I tried to re-create that AC 3-D will not allow me to add that second texture. So as I suspect this is a problem with AC 3-D and I do not know how to use blender [sigh] back to the drawing board.

Thank you I understand what you're saying my cockpit object which includes all 3-D geometry including instruments, seats, handles, knobs etc. is called A4SkyhawkII_cockpit.obj. It resides in the aircraft folder A4 Skyhawkproject II at the root level. The "cockpit texture" A4Cockpit.png is in the same folder. I guess where I get confused is the idea that a cockpit object can use 2 textures one for instruments and one for everything else. All I am trying to do is get the instrument texture Located in the folder A4 Skyhawkproject II\cockpit_3d\-PANELS- to actually show up. AC 3-D doesn't seem to recognize the ability to use two textures in a cockpit object. And as a result will not let me map the second texture Also which wiki are you referring to?

I understand what you're saying I guess my confusion comes because I think of objects as 3-D geometry that I create in 3-DS Max. It seems X-plane uses a different naming convention if you will. For instance I see the cockpit as a collection of 3-D objects. Normally I would map the texture onto my 3-D geometry and be done with it. Cockpit objects it appears do things differently and this is where things fall apart for me I just can't seem to get the hang of the actual nuts and bolts of panel textures used in cockpits draped over 3-D geometry. I have all my cockpit 3-D geometry already created including 3-D gauges needles etc. which move or should I say follow the data refs and this was for the mostr part the easy part. I then use a single texture if you will that I map to the entire cockpit. I was under the assumption I could use a second texture in the cockpit over the digital displays for which the geometry has already been created. ACD3D then flags an error saying only 1 texture per object but X-plane says 2 are allowed for cockpit objects. Perhaps I suspect Ac3d does not really recognize a "cockpit object"?? The thing of it is, that once I solve this issue I can crank out some amazing aircraft given my background and available resources. My brother and I started JazAero originally to market a unique homebuilt design that I concieved and devoloped over 5 years and was completelyl designed and tested in X-plane. I am revamping that model to current standards for a freeware release once this project is completed. As a retiree I can devote the time that other devs simply don't have due to their day jobs, family, etc... I've been flight simming for almost 30+ years. Even before bruce Artwicks first sim. I thought it's time I finally step out of the shadows and make some contributions now that I have the time to do so.

Thisis an A4 E Skyhawk This is the only aircraft that I have flown in X-Plane for over a year now and it is one I have developed. it is 90% complete all that's left to do is map some cockpit instruments over my 3-D geometry and I can offer this for sale to the community. Just thought i'd add this is an actual Xplane screenshot with slightly darkened background.

Is anti-aliasing turned on in Photoshop? This often causes the border with two colors to to create blotchy patterns when the program alters the RGB values of the intermittent pixels. Just a thought

Wrong forum my bad