Goran_M

The SP is something I have hesitantly considered, although there are no immediate plans to make it, even after the 747 is finished. We'll have to just wait and see. ;D Goran

Still too early for any kind of minimum specs. To be honest, I don't really know how powerful a mac mini is. I'll keep everyone posted on all the necessary details as they arise as we get closer to release. Goran

Any sim renders? A resounding Yes! Interior AND exterior. BUT, we can't show them just yet. Textures are not final. Goran

FS9 has a poly limit of 65000 but FSX is unlimited. So the detail can be added in FSX. Doing my best to make a pretty cockpit. Adding detail and keeping to a poly budget is very similar to driving a ferrari...6 feet at a time. I just want to open the throttle up all the way and go crazy but I can't. Goran

I don't think he meant you in particular, Simon. I like to think he means all the people who admire the work I'm doing. In regards to the lack of complete cabin. I would absolutely love to model a complete cabin. First, Business and Coach. It's pretty simple to make a few seats and just multiply them. Logistically, it would be a nightmare. A Nightmare to texture and a nightmare with the polygon count. Just the inner walls would be roughly double the fuselage polygon count. With regards to gauge quality...I don't really want to go so far as to compare the gauges to the BK-117. I have seen screenshots of the BK panel and it looks brilliant. I can tell a lot of work has gone into that helicopter. I haven't been in contact with Nils in any way, but I do have a great deal of respect for him and I can see him going very far in add on development. What I would LIKE to accomplish is the highest quality I can possibly achieve but at the same time, keep the polygon count to a respectable level. That said, I hope the overall quality of the 747 will make everyone enjoy their simming experience. Also... Jason (aka Airbus) was messing around with some colors in the rendering and he came up with this. Goran

Thanks for the comments Zach. I have a lot of FS9 and FSX add ons and I can safely say that no other FS add on has as much detail in their 3d pits as we do at X-Aviation. Personally, I want to make cockpits that actually LOOK like a real cockpit. Not a bunch of textured leggo blocks. Why do they build such low poly/low detail cockpits? Who knows. But they're more than welcome to continue doing it. Goran

I'm REALLY sorry for working so slowly. I left the computer desk for an hour because my wife ordered me to eat a decent meal instead of some of that instant stuff. Won't happen again! I'm just thinking of this now. What if I were to somehow break or severely injure my "birdie" middle finger? Oh my god. I use that for the scroll wheel and selecting verts/edges/faces in Blender. Who would think 1 finger would be so important to ones livelihood!? KNOCK WOOD! Part of the pre planning for this aircraft was to make sure I was able to fit a highly detailed, high polygon main panel into an aircraft as large as the 747. I'm fortunate I stumbled onto making the Hawker 4000 with a high polygon count before I trimmed it down. I flew the Hawker 4000 in the simulator with a poly count of 600 000 and it flew quite well on my E6750. Eventually, I managed to cut it down to about 240 000. The 747...let's just say the polygon count is climbing rapidly now because of the main panels, but I'm still "under budget" at about 310 000 polygons. The bad news...It appears unlikely there will be any kind of virtual cabin. Not even an upper deck. It's still possible, but I am leaning towards the "no virtual cabin" side of things. At best, POSSIBLY a crew rest area right behind the cockpit. The reason for this is, with the poly count now above 300 000 and quite possibly being able to hit the 400 000 mark by the time the cockpit is finished, any "unnecessary" texture maps for any kind of cabin will slow the sim down. But as I said, it's not a definite "no cabin". Everything will be decided somewhere down the road. Goran

Moving along nicely, although the Captains panel, in particular the HSI, was a little tricky and took a while. I have a couple of people who are willing to experiment with color renders so I'll throw some color renders up soon. But for now, here's the Main panel minus the FO's side and MCP. Comments, feedback and/or criticisms are welcome. Goran

Thanks for your comments, Andy. The main difference between what we do and what developers for the MSFS series do, is we want to model actual objects that actually appear solid and somewhat true to life within the constraints of a "simming" engine. That includes gauges that are not painted on to flat surfaces. I am of course speaking of add on aircraft. We also do scenery, but I'll leave the technical aspects of that to Eric, Tom or Cameron. We (the developers) also try not to get involved with the X-Plane vs FS9/FSX debate. The developers for FS9/FSX are somewhat convinced that X-Plane is a vastly inferior flight simulator and we really don't want to convince them otherwise. Many have tried and failed. If you have any questions about anything x plane related, please feel free to ask us. We're always more than willing to help people enjoy their simming experience with a little friendly ranting thrown in, just to balance it all out. Cheers, Goran

Spent the day yesterday tidying up the center console. Cutting some polys and making sure it all lines up nicely. Also, I made a successful export to the simulator and have seen the aircraft sitting on the ground at Miami. (No screenshots of that just yet. It wasn't scaled properly) So after all that, I spent the night making the Engine instruments panel and started on the Captains panel before I decided it was enough since the sun is well and truly up and I need some zzzz's. Anyway, Engine instruments... By the way, I am way ahead of where I was when my PC got the virus. Back then, I hadn't done the center console so things are progressing fairly quickly. Today I have to have an animating session with Reuben to get some manipulators done on the Saab.

I plan on adding a few retro, late 70's early 80's bits and pieces around the cockpit. But I won't mention what they are. I'll let you guys find those in future renders. Lol @ Zach! A lot of hours have been spent at the keyboard trying to get used to Blender and building these aircraft. If people like the work I do, then all the late nights (Sometimes watching the sun come up through my bedroom window after a long night of modelling), junk food and often times, stressful situations (I've had Blender crash to desktop a few times after I was modelling for about 4 hours and none of the work was saved.) are all worth it. Cheers Goran

INS will be programmed to replicate the Delco Carousel unit. It will also have fully functioning IRS alignment utilizing the overhead INS panels. Goran

I have the pricing already figured out. This add on will cost $6500. And for every purchase, you get a brand new top end PC for only $1 more! But wait!!! That's not all. If you're one of the first 100 people to call NOW, you get a free 747-200 add on! ;D Just better clarify...polys are still fairly low and when I finished the modelling, I'll be culling some more polygons. So far, the entire aircraft has about 270 000 polygons.

I was going to start on the main panel for the 747, but have decided to get started on the center console as the INS is going to be programmed very soon. I started on the Center console last night and have just about finished it this afternoon. Possibly a few tiny little adjustments. Anyway...Overhead, FE panel and Center console... Goran

Use the merge tool. Alt M and then select where you want to merge them. You have to do them 2 at a time. ie. Select 1 vert, select the next, Alt M, merge to wherever. You could also use the Snap tool and then remove doubles when you're done. Goran

Just a small heads up for everyone who is interested. There is a committed team of 3 people working on the Saab with a 4th person lending an occasional hand to try to get it out as soon as possible. I sincerely appreciate all the emails I am getting and the interest shown in these forums. I love keeping the interest alive by posting regular updates so I can keep everyone informed. Rest assured, Theo, Reuben and myself are working some ridiculous hours (often starting around 9am and going to sleep in the early hours of the morning) to get this project finished and to a standard we are all satisfied with. Over the last few weeks, there have been some unforeseen challenges we were faced with that took some time to resolve. There were some texturing, blender and dataref issues and some of the gauges were behaving very strangely. Only recently have we been able to get them working somewhat correctly. If there are any updates to be posted about the Saab, I will make sure they are posted as soon as there is something worth posting. Posting updates on what datarefs were added and adjusted or what textures were fixed is not really something that many people are interested in and is taking time away from the task at hand. I have a deadline in mind and both Theo and Reuben are definite about reaching that deadline. I don't want to give out "near definite" time frames, but it will be ready in a matter of weeks. Cheers Goran

Thanks, Maxime. Re: the Saab. She's getting a service. When she's ready, you'll be the first to know.

The FE panel is about 95% finished. Unfortunately, I have to start the main Captains panel from scratch. Overhead is done but I want to go over it and make sure it's all positioned properly. To me, it somehow looks incorrect. The crash didn't really put me behind because programming won't start until the end of the month and I'll get to where I was within the next week. Goran

Thanks for your comments Zach! My wife disagrees with your last statement, however. ;D Kesomir, 20/20 hindsight. BUT, I recently did install Ubuntu and was messing around with it. I love it, btw. All the blend files would not have been salvageable, as far as I know, because I think the windows volume has to be mounted in Ubuntu. While I was playing around with it, I could not see any files or folders that were part of Windows installations and the projects I am working on are all part of the "My Documents" folder. It's all over and done with now, anyway. I've had a couple of people on skype ask me, how can I be so calm about losing all my work and starting again. Well, what's the alternative? Getting mad? Smashing my computer? It was one of those classic cases where I got knocked down (HARD), getting up, dusting myself off, and starting it again. And keeping a clear head about it. I did, however, curse virus makers all over the world for a few hours. Cheers guys, Goran Tough way to learn a valuable lesson. Goran

ok, now I get you. I thought you meant I made a post about losing the 747 over at the org. I like how you think. You look deeper than most people I know. Goran

Can you show me a link of where you read it? I never posted about this on the org. Maybe you are referring to Jasons Starship when he lost it about 6 months ago. Goran

I didn't want to mention anything about this until I felt it was the right time. On Christmas Eve, I had a weekly Virus and Spyware scan scheduled for 11PM. After a day filled with food and kids, I decided to sit down and work on the 747. The virus scan finished and it detected 1 virus, 1 malware and 4 or 5 spyware. My Anti Virus recommended a PC restart to complete the deleting of the offending virus and other nasties. I restarted the PC after saving my work. Upon re-booting, I would get to the Windows Logo and it would shut down and continue to restart. It was stuck in a boot up loop. Instead of risking any further problems, I decided to re-install windows on my 2nd hard drive in the PC and retrieve all my stuff that way. No go. Windows needed to delete all partitions and then re install. So yes, I lost ALL my work, manuals, blend files, programs, documents, absolutely everything. But, here's what was salvageable. Reuben had the Saab blend file as he was working on animations. Theo had the Bonanza and all the UV maps for the Saab. The Hawker 4000 and the 747-200 were both gone. A few days later, Jason (Airbus) and I started talking on Skype and I told him what happened. He mentioned he had a very late version of the Hawker 4000. The only things missing were the pilots seats. Ok, that was saved. But my jewel, the 747, no one had it. I felt so sick to my stomach. I actually threw up when I realized there was no way for me to get it back. I also came very close to quitting the 747 project. I took a day off on Christmas day, reflected on everything, and decided to get started on it again from square 1. Again, I built the exterior in a couple of days and got started on the flaps and control surfaces. Then, I caught up with "Indi" and mentioned to him what had happened. He asked me if I sent it to anyone in "dropbox" and I told him I did send a few versions to Theo (which he subsequently sent back after UV mapping some small sections). He said the web based interface of Dropbox keeps images of deleted files. (Something I had no idea about.) I went to the web based dropbox and low and behold, I found the 747 deleted files. However, A lot of the engineers panel was missing (it only had the electrical and pressurization panels) and the Main panel was not built yet. The overhead panel was intact. I was happy the gear was there because that was a real pain to model. So for the last 2 weeks, I have been pumping the creative juices into the Saab manual and catching up on the 747-200 modelling. BACK UP YOUR WORK PEOPLE. I took it for granted. No more. In saying this, I have an improved FE panel I have been working on. I got my hands on a panel diagram manual used by British Airways and have been modelling against that so it is more accurate than before.

Unlikely dead or dying. If you start seeing artifacts on the screen, I would say it's on its way out. Adjust settings and then set them as default. Goran

Working like crazy. 4 of us are working on this Aircraft now (i'm actually working on the manual) to get it out as quickly as possible with little or no bugs. There are a few things giving us problems that we are trying to sort out and they are proving very stubborn! Once we sort out these issues, it will be ready for release. Goran

So would you be willing to fly a Saab 340 with an immaculate flight model but with 3D modelling and texturing like this? http://www.simviation.com/fsnd/images/2008-11-15_12-53-33-749b.jpg I think what SHOULD be available is a combination of well presented 3D modelling, flight modelling and texturring. Goran