WIP: F-14 B/D
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Movement looks as though it can be created via a Translation DOF coupled to a rotation DOF. Once you have the model in 3dsMax, WaveyDave’s exporter has some excellent tools for rigging with “bones.” You do have to have some knowledge about trigonometry, but it works. I’ll see if I can find the link to his video explaining the technique.
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If you can modify the cockpit part when make a little bit bubble and height it. look like this photo:
I think this is the perspective making the canopy look bigger. In the photo the camera is close to the plane and a little below, so the parts of the plane that are closer to the camera look very much larger than the parts at the back of the plane. Stingray’s images from blender are orthogonal, which means there is absolutely no perspective correction. Since we can never truly look at an object with 0% perspective correction (a caveat of living in a 3D universe), the best example I can come up with is this: they are more like looking at the plane from very far away with a zoom lens, where all the parts on the plane have no noticeable perspective scaling difference.
A trick you can do to visualize this difference is take an object like a small die-cast plane…um, yeah…I don’t have one either. Ok maybe a pencil. Close one eye and hold the eraser end (carefully) at a short distance from your open eye. The eraser end should look much larger than where the pencil starts to taper down to a point. Then, keeping one eye shut still to avoid stereoscopy’s additional depth cue, hold the pencil at arms length but at the same angle, in this part of the experiment both ends of the pencil (accept at the very end bit where it tapers to a point) should look much closer to the same size.
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Movement looks as though it can be created via a Translation DOF coupled to a rotation DOF. Once you have the model in 3dsMax, WaveyDave’s exporter has some excellent tools for rigging with “bones.” You do have to have some knowledge about trigonometry, but it works. I’ll see if I can find the link to his video explaining the technique.
That’d be great if you could find that video.
If you look at the profile view of the wing in reality the movement actually has 3 DOF, 1 heaving and 1 surging translation and 1 pitching rotation. I guess it’d be overkill to model it exactly so 2 DOF probably is most sensible. I definitely will model the top and bottom ‘flap doors’ also called eyebrow door and cove door. One tilts upwards (1 rotation DOF) when the flap is deployed closing off the gap between the center wing section and the tip of the flap. One is actually attached to the topside of the flap (1 rotation DOF). When flap is stowed it seals the gap between the wing and the flap curvature making it one straight surface. As the flap deploys the door tilts down and eventually merges down with the flap surface.
Lots of clumsy modeling but in terms of tris/polygons and rigging it shouldn’t be a problem.
Thanks for your help!
Some more impressions. Approx Flap down 20 deg, Spoilers up 35 deg, Cove Door fully closed, Slat up and Slat down 17 deg…
The wings make the cat, Baby.
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Well done!!! Keep on the “baby” mate…
Nikos. -
That’d be great if you could find that video.
If you look at the profile view of the wing in reality the movement actually has 3 DOF, 1 heaving and 1 surging translation and 1 pitching rotation. I guess it’d be overkill to model it exactly so 2 DOF probably is most sensible. I definitely will model the top and bottom ‘flap doors’ also called eyebrow door and cove door. One tilts upwards (1 rotation DOF) when the flap is deployed closing off the gap between the center wing section and the tip of the flap. One is actually attached to the topside of the flap (1 rotation DOF). When flap is stowed it seals the gap between the wing and the flap curvature making it one straight surface. As the flap deploys the door tilts down and eventually merges down with the flap surface.
Lots of clumsy modeling but in terms of tris/polygons and rigging it shouldn’t be a problem.
Thanks for your help!
Some more impressions. Approx Flap down 20 deg, Spoilers up 35 deg, Cove Door fully closed, Slat up and Slat down 17 deg…
https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1698/24389166410_95b8a692e9_b.jpg
https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1550/24316995589_e5df75ec9e_b.jpg
https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1446/24316995669_acc99057fb_b.jpg
https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1681/24684672215_24b0b298f5_b.jpg
The wings make the cat, Baby.
we can change that values in dat file later
compliments!
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we can change that values in dat file later
compliments!
Thanks.
I just wrote down the values to indicate the position of the surfaces in the posted shots. Am aware of the .dat file.
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Narrowed down spoilers and inserted ‘gap’. The gap will eventually be positioned near the center of the inner spoiler where one of the flap hinges is located.’
Noticed an error near the beaver tail. My fuselage only extended to the engine shroud and not as is correct to the engine nozzles. Now corrected.
Added canopy vertices, started on forward weapon rail. Drop tanks moved slightly outward and rotated as on the real thing. That said, the drop tanks will be re-modelled later as I didn’t use a mirror modifier when I first modelled them.
Following Pumpy’s hint I removed the ventral fin assembly. During that operation I noticed on ref images that these fins actually are positioned slightly inward below the center of the engine nozzles. Also note the slightly rotated drop tank and fin position inward. Also extended the engine to the point where the turbine outlet sits, detail will be add
In case you were wondering the vertical stabs are straightened for now at 90deg to allow detailed editing…
13K tris at the moment. The wings will require at least another 1000 mainly due to the actuators and stuff. Anyway, the entire bird without gear and AB might actually be close to 15K which would be great given the level of detail which was the goal from the beginning.
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Superb!
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:bdance:
Freaking hard work. thanks mate.!!! looks awesome
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Keep working it…
Nikos. -
Details, Baby!
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stingray_SIX_TWO_ i can se you are working on Blender. (Nice and light program), my question is after you do anywork in 3ds? or you export in 3ds from blender and import wit LE? I think to start to work in Blender cause 3ds is a hell of a heavy program.
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stingray_SIX_TWO_ i can se you are working on Blender. (Nice and light program), my question is after you do anywork in 3ds? or you export in 3ds from blender and import wit LE? I think to start to work in Blender cause 3ds is a hell of a heavy program.
Yeah I’m using Blender for all hard surface modelling pre- texture specifics, DOFs and some other details. You are correct, I’ll export to a file format 3ds can open and then use that and WaveyDave’s toolkit for the rest. Final import into BMS via LE with the three or four LODs. I hear you man, 3ds is not nearly as accessible as Blender but I guess it’s just a question of ‘time and tutorials’. I’m just postponing my 3ds learning curve as long as possible :D.
AFAIK from comments here and reading the guides and best practice material there is no problem with using Blender for hard surface modelling as long as you realize that eventually you’ll have to get a grip on 3ds anyway…
About it being heavy - it is the only program that actually takes noticeable time to boot up on my Lenovo, everything else (EVERYTHING) takes like 3 seconds or less.
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These stabs are a pain just like the actuator housing :D. Anyways the one detail still missing is the bulge around the pos light on the left stab. When that is done I’ll tilt them into their final position which is about 7 deg to the outside and then connect the base.
Helpful image of the day:
Vertical stabilization, Baby.
PS: The AC and Pos lights are modelled but separate objects, not sure if this can be used in the model or just textured…
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PS: The AC and Pos lights are modelled but separate objects, not sure if this can be used in the model or just textured…
Yes they can be used.
Formation lights are on their own switch and can be dimmable.
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Nothing like a cut through to check your proportions…had a lot of bumpy lines on the bottom side. Smoothed them out and adjusted the curvature of the front fuselage on the lower side. Only got around to it cuz the weapon rail just didn’t seem to fit even though I modelled it almost to a tee of what the real thing looked like. Fortunately I did that now, woulda been a pain to adjust later on.
As almost every other part of this jet the rails are asymmetric:
Rails still need some refinement but overall shape and placement should be final:
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Feel free to also check out other updates:
https://www.benchmarksims.org/forum/showthread.php?25067-WIP-F-14-B-D&p=365102&viewfull=1#post365102
https://www.benchmarksims.org/forum/showthread.php?25067-WIP-F-14-B-D&p=365104&viewfull=1#post365104
Further adjustments:
- rebuilt shape of aft side fuselage
- slimmed down the size of side fuselage around area where horizontal stab is attached
- stab can now rotate freely and has sharpened line extending to the main landing gear box
- cleaned up topside where vertical stab base sits
- rotated stabs into tilted position
- added AC lights
- moved main wing into final position (note the wingtip now sits between the lower end of the rudder and the engine nozzle)
- adjusted drop tank connector and position
- adjusted bottom side of beaver tail
What’s next? I’ll now have to weld together all parts, then finish the wings and build the outer weapon pylons. Then onto the gear…
Some impressions:
Time to assemble me, Baby.