arno54

Well, at the present moment we are on a 50K budget. The hard part now begins as for optimization, as the 2D artwork is obviously much more difficult and technically tricky than the 3D work, and the way systems are dealt with have indeed a huge impact on frame-rate. The interest in vertices count is, to us, quite important, because, a bit like as for the beaver, these are mainly (if no exclusively) vfr planes, and the hability to display a very detailed scenery is a major request for a "good" vfr plane (vertices count is probably not a big deal when a A330 flies at 36000ft, above clouds, but at 2500ft, all that is used for the plane is not for the sceneries.) That's why some very well-known aircrafts by famous xplane manufacturers are, in my mind, ridiculously heavy ( 250 000-vtx/16x2K-textured ) a plane vfr flying in the mist... that's not an option :-) A plane MUST fly on MY netbook with 64Mb Vram and 666mhtz single core celeron. Yes, I'm definitely an extremist and Khamsin is negociating every vertex he's allowed to use, and every bit of texture step by step ! I dream of tying him to his armchair untill he supplies a perfect 10K-vtx plane with a single 1024 png. Well, let's be honest : low vtx count is not the only, nor the major part, of optimization. But I guess it helps quite a lot.

The previous picture was updated, in particular with the radio comm1 installed, as well as some details such has marked tablets. Enjoy !

The Chipmunk now enters the one-before-last stage of her developpement. Here is what she looks like (even though one or two details such as the hobbsmeter or the card-holder are still missing) She's modeled from blueprint up to the least screw, and she carries an exhaustive, fonctionnal copy of her real-life systems (down to the fuses!) . No need to say, I begin to get proud of this will-be born baby. Khamsin did an incredible work on that, that bird is gonna fly with as less ressources as, for instance, our previous Ercoupe, with max high FPS and yet, 100% real-life systems... not to speak, as usual, of some never-seen before features that indeed could change the way you fly in Xplane !

Shear curiosity... how many faces currently ?

Probably because you scaled it several times in different modes (object vs edit) which induces awaiting scaling, which in turn reveals during export (the same way that an unapplied subsurf actually acts when you export even though it's not checked) Make sur your scaling is always achieved in EDIT mode so that the mesh itself is adjusted, not the concatener object, OR make sure the obj properties are locked to x1 scale on all dimensions ('N' to pop-up obj properties in the 3D window), then Ctrl-A, then lock the x y z scales in the 'N' window, and finally work onto the vertices using 'select all' and shift-S. This way you make sure that the appearant scale of the object is the same scale factor as the mesh itself, as the mesh should always be the true reference.

A necessary comment that should be much more enlighted... 50% of the money is actually dedicated to the maintenance of the real aircraft, to help her owner keeping her airborne. That really is to be mentionned and stressed on.

And now comes the interesting part... Khamsin has achieved an incredibly highly detailed interior, yet amazingly low-ressource requiring...This gives you now a good glimpse of what this one is gonna be like... And I guess this is gonna be a great, great little bird ! ... even by my own standards...

anti-piracy protocol, when you have to register to make a product work.

@Pete Was supposed to be sent through PM, but seemingly you can't receive any more new messages. So here it is :

Well, there won't be a GPS inside. Actually, there will never be a GPS nor any kind of modern avionics in K&A's plane. We understand why poeple are very interested in this kind of stuff, and we're aware too, that our choice will lead to low-count sales. As for this, Pete, proposing a modernized Beaver, is clever than us from the marketing point of view. Nonetheless, we do planes that we love and miss, and they happen to be old-school prop planes. A choice is always to be made, "how we like them" vs "how poeple would like and buy them". Well, we've choosen "how we love them". I understand this might not be a good commercial choice... But money comes after passion, here :-) And I know that a pilot who learnt flying with a GPS or FMS or whatever will never be a pilot. He is a winged-computer programmer. Nice job, but i do not regard this as piloting :-P

Khamsin did update the pictures : see original post up here....

For this, simply select ONE vertex in the part you want to work on, then "L". This will select all vertx that are "in touch". Works in the UV-mapping windows, too.

Khamsin is striking hard :-) The project is on planned course.

Plus... As for your hole(s) , a very clever way to achieve this is to mesh the hole FIRST ! Do not try and drill a mesh, draw the hole then mesh around. See Khamsin's how-to here : http://blog.khamsin.org/post/2010/11/11/Projet-Ercoupe-E415-par-Arno54-et-XPFR-Modelisation-1

@Simmon Free advice, seing your screenshot : first, hunt for triangles... Your mesh is simply not clean enough. The triangle is your ennemy ! Simply go mesh/faces/convert triangles to quads (in edit mode), your poly/vertx count will drop 30%. Second : Sketchup convertion induces A LOT of free vertx, and double sided faces, and double vertx. Edit mode : select one vertx -> L > W / remove double and redo as long as there are connected vertx that are not treated. Hunt for "fake" splitted edges, too. I'm pretty sure you can divide by 2 or more this mesh and yet keep topography.

Ah oki - thks for that. As for the tiger moth, maybe later :-) meanwhile you probably know about the Stampe by xpfr : http://xpfr.org/?body=aero_hangars&av=2 I thought there already was a payware T.Moth... did I mistake? Actually, if there is no, I guess we can plan that.

What do you mean, "FSE compatible" ? I guess my english still has to improve :-)

Chip, Chipmunk, Chippy, countless names for what could be the most famous trainer plane ever. We're pleased and proud to announce the developpement of the DHC-1. That payware plane will be released shortly : it's gonna be very FPS friendly, very unexpensive, and its flight model will be (actually...is) as accurate as it gets. Khamsin is working hard to have it as eye-candy as XP allows and I'm giving the last hand to sharpen systems and over-all experience. Main features : - VERY FPS-Friendly - Bullet-proof accuracy - A joy to fly (well, that's not because of us, it's out-of-the-box ! but worth mentionning) - Perfect VFR plane with astounding panoramic view and "hand-free" behaviour - Khamsin's 3D artwork (needs no more comment! see his blog and the T28) - release will occur in a matter of days/weeks - no DRM whatsoever Our main goal (apart from validating some new concepts as for work-flow) is to provide you with a very affordable-accurate-beautiful plane, so that most of you can enjoy a real "good" payware whatever his hardware, wallet status, or flying skills. More to come soon !

The questions are simply much too wide. You can't expect to have an answer in a forum thread. Before you get into this kind of work, achieve several fully functionnal 100%-PM planes, with 2D custom cockpits. Then, see step by step tutorials for 3D creations and when you are reasonnably at ease with 3D and texturing, search youtube for DanKlaue step-by-step tutos. The whole process is quite heavy - from scratch, it could take up to 6 or 9 months of solid work before you have your first decent 3D aircraft - provided you're dedicated enough. There's no magic button to have it done in a couple of weeks. EDIT : As for airfoils - forget that for the moment. The main tool is here http://www.mh-aerotools.de/airfoils/javafoil.htm but unless you're exactly knowing what to do and where to begin with, it will be of no help. Use default airfoils until your flight models are precise enough to mandatorily require custom af to be improved.

Yep, Blender turns out to be VERY addictive once you've accepted to get into it as was intended rather than whinning about its ugly interface. Pleasure comes just after pain (anyway, the girl next door taught me so)

In French the Web is sometimes refered to as "internenettes", which for us sounds like "between goo-girls". The reason for this is that, obviously, internet is far more busy with crap such as free porn than with educative content such as BBC/history channel broadcastings. Nonetheless, when one wants to use the web for educationnal or smartly recreationnal purposes, he might unearth some hidden wonders. Here is a document I just came across - I've read it A2Z in a row, tighting my knees to postpone toilet pitch-stop. http://avialogs.com/...ght-Airplane-Co I found this on a website driven by a french pilot who offers collections of aeronautical manuals for free. The site is called "avialogs" : http://avialogs.com/ it requires a (free) account to access the download, and is really a gold mine. I just can't get used with the idea that I can, from my dinner room, get access to the mind of a pionneer, dead long ago, on the other side of the world. WWW might be a porn mine, it stays, for the passionnate poeple, crippled with hidden wonders.

1.15Go... Demo totally undressed of anything that's not definitely necessary to have it running + Gizmo + the default aircraft + the current plane under work.

Definitely one of my favorite a/c, Top 3 as for monoprops. K&I did seriously consider doing one, but we dismissed the project for...lots of reasons - the main one being that the flight model will be a pain a the a*** to achieve, because of stall caracteristics and low torque behaviour ("hands off plane") that would require lots and lots of work to be done "the right way". Very nice project indeed. You did not mention if that's gonna be freeware or payware ?

get your own one ! Perfect to make your local AD more welcoming. http://www.theweatherstone.co.uk/

After the weather forecast tone, the windsock chain. Does somebody here come from Wyoming?