Goran_M

Coming together rather quickly now. All gauges and controls are working nicely.

There's always a trade off somewhere. Where they add detail, some detail must be taken away from somewhere else to maintain good fps. ESPECIALLY for FS9 and FSX. Looking at those screenshots, I can see they textured the holes for the switches, fire handles and digital displays instead of modelling them (Holes actually use up quite a few polygons). The gauges... I try to find some kind of middle ground between performance and appearance. Keep in mind, those screenshots I put up are extreme closeups. No one will fly with their viewpoints THAT close and from that angle. Not bashing their work, by any means, (Although I have heard their planes don't work properly) but to each their own.

It depends on what gauges are being used in FSX. SOME of the gauges used in FSX (true 3D mesh) use enough polys to make it look like a nice rounded circle, and those are used sparingly, but MOST gauges are the equivalent of Planemaker default gauges. Flat textured surfaces with animated textures. And those can be made to look extremely high res. A texture doesn't use nearly enough resources as a 3D mesh so it gives the illusion of a high res gauge. You can see this in a 2D panel made entirely with Planemaker. Comparisons screenshots...

And some more screenshots. More videos coming soon. These are all "in sim" screenshots. Perhaps a little tweaking here and there will be done on the textures to adjust contrast/brightness/color saturation. But it looks like I'm finally going to release something!.

Animations of the exterior and panel gauges are just about finished. Have to go through clickspots and manipulators and mapping the Garmin on the the 3D object of the GPS. However, it seems I'm animating faster than Theo is texturing (understandably as the texturing is quite tedious), so might be a little while longer. And I cannot animate some things without textures from Theo as some textures have indicator markings on them. I'll throw up another video soon. Goran

I'll keep you in mind, Dave. Jack......... I'll just say "LOL"

A small video to show the animations that have been on the panel. This is purely a TEST to compare the 3D animations with the planemaker gauges and make sure they all line up with each other. Apologies for the low quality. It's my very first video upload, ever. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aflZGI9As4g&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param'>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aflZGI9As4g&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aflZGI9As4g&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

A small progress update on the Sundowner. Theo and myself are both burning along with this one. Theo is working on UV maps and finishing them at about 3-4 UV maps per day. I animated the exterior yesterday in about 3 hours and spent the rest of the day getting the flight model accurately made. Today I started the interior animations and have 4 of the gauges done. Also, today I did a test flight with it from Mittagong to Hoxton Park airport. (albeit with a 2D panel I made purely for testing the flight model) This one will definitely be finished before the end of the month.

The person doing the animations has been very busy lately and understandably, hasn't worked on it as much as we both would have liked. Depending on what he is doing workwise in the next week or 2, I MIGHT take over the animations as the Sundowner is moving very quickly and I will be able to dedicate more work on the Saab after that. More will be known in the next few days.

There could be different rules for different regions, but from what I remember, if there are no waypoints around the airport, you follow runway heading for a pre determined distance and then once it is safe to turn, you make a turn on the crosswind leg as allowed by the traffic pattern or you can keep going straight or turn away from the circuit pattern of the airport towards the nearest waypoint/VOR/NDB and track that heading.

Oslo?? I'm just guessing since you live in Norway.

Thanks for that. I'll give it a go.

How did you get fscommander to work with X Plane?

I have no problem clicking the link because CHROME will just block a site that is flagged as unsafe. I made a post there as there is no STMA banner on that particular page. I can't see how Mark can say it's safe when Cameron and myself had the exact same problems AFTER visiting STMA.

Small update. The warning now comes up every time I try to go to the org. I have a feeling a lot of people are going to have spyware, BIOS and BSOD problems if they run a windows based PC.

Never knew this had to do with BSOD's as well. I was getting those as well at boot up. Restarts the PC automatically and then boots up fine. Disappeared after the fresh install.

About a week ago, I made a post in the org about STMA's servers and the warning I got in Google Chromes browser warning about Malware after wanting to go browsing through STMA's website. After proceeding to the website anyway, after placing a check mark in the "proceed anyway" check box, I later found out my computer was infected with a plethora of spyware and Internet Explorer opening up randomly with pop ups. The only thing I could do was a fresh install of windows as my System Restore function was permanently disabled and nothing I could do could fix it. And believe me, I tried everything. After reinstalling everything (including ALL my back ups...valuable lesson was learned a few months ago), I made a post in the org forums. a couple of responses (1 from a Linux user who would not have problems anyway) and 1 from Ben didn't really shed any light on the matter. So I ignored it and made it a rule not to go to STMA's website again. Well, have a look at this... That's after trying to go to x-plane.org. There is no way I'm going there anymore. It does seem to be random, though. I have gone there plenty of times in the last few days. Nonetheless, I'm done with formatting and reinstalling! Perhaps an org mod can explain it. Goran

Chain and padlock? That's Cameron's and Ben's Job. (DRM) The vacation? That's all the missus. She told me we haven't been on vacation in...wait for it...7 months. But we stayed in the country so it doesn't really count. Even though it was in the tropics. She's been begging me to go to Paris for years. I actually couldn't think of anything more fun to do than sit at home, behind my computer and watch the sun set and rise (in that order) without going to sleep, eating noodles and drinking black coffee, scratching the 2 week old facial hair that makes my face itch, while nudging vertices. Regarding the air racers. They're definitely an option but I am definitely going to be flat out until at least the end of this year (vacation included!) but I'll definitely consider them as a fun side project if I haven't got anything else to do. However, considering the size of the 747 project, I doubt I'll have much time as that's going to be a mother of a job to get it looking and performing the way I want it to and that is going to start taking up a very large portion of my time. Especially if I want it to come out by the end of this year. Goran

I'm slowly learning Modo. It certainly is a very groovy little program and has more shortcuts than Blender. The problem is whenever I use it, I'm using Blenders mouse clicks. I have to completely unlearn Blender and I can't do that yet because the missus ordered me to finish the Sundowner by the end of April. That's kind of my incentive for working this fast. Anyway, after all these tiny closeups of different panel sections, I got Theo to send me an entire panel screenshot. We are aware of the "stretched" texturing issues on the left side and they are easily fixed. I had to adjust the mesh and I did so AFTER Theo UV mapped and textured it. There are other things we want to address first before we fix it. Also, as this is a render, the dark appearance is a Blender light issue. Feedback welcome. And the original cockpit...

So Theo and I have a little friendly debate going. I don't want to say who said what, but I'll put up the screenshot and what I would like is feedback from as many people as possible as to leave it in or take it out. Take a look at the screen right above the "comm". The break in the glass. Thoughts and opinions...PLEASE, so Theo and I can settle it.

Sorry Andy. I didn't see your "PS". The next 2 GA's we're doing are the A36 and G36. I MIGHT do a Beechcraft Sierra as I do have a few hours in that one as well along with the Beech Duchess (What is it with me and Beechcraft??). As of now, though, I want to concentrate on getting these 5 projects done and out. Then a long overdue vacation. Probably taking the laptop, though. I'm sick like that. If I have time in between projects while they're getting textured, programmed, etc... then I'll probably whip up something real quick. Again, apologies for not answering you earlier regarding this.

Coming together. Animations start tomorrow. Feedback...as always...welcome. Goran

In theory, it'll be 2 weeks. :-\ But I do have high hopes that my theory will prevail this time. It certainly does seem to be a short travel distance, but I think it's actually a larger travel distance than a Cessna GA. Note: This is a different panel variant but the throttle assembly is the same as the one I took photos of. My photos just don't look as nice as this one.

Modelling is finished. Interior is almost finished with texturing. All that's left is exterior texturing before I start the animations. THAT shouldn't take too long. Hoping to have this one out in the next 2 weeks.