WIP: F-14 B/D
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Yep, birds like Phantom, 'Cat, Intruder or Tornado would be awesome. But first BMS would have to support multi-crew setup ((seat change, communication with AI pilot/WSO/RIO/Navigator)
@okayasugf
Assuming best candidates for inclusion in BMS has to be: single-seat, non-fwb (no need to clone Mav-JP to code different FLCS types) and modern enough to fit into existing campaigns, RedFor planes make a lot of sense. -
It would be nice to see a Maverick & Goose Skin for the Enterprise just for nostalgia Top Gun original.
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So I saw in another thread it looks like there will be a Blender exporter…I just can’t get away from this it seems
Preemptively awarding myself the Golden Wrench for the longest running development, still not in-game mod for Falcon:
Yes that stencil will have to go on to one of the tails.
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@Apolo27 said in WIP: F-14 B/D:
@AdrianEscalona71 It’s easy man forget about the f14, you can’t fly it…fly the f16…you’re in Falcon not Top Gun
I can fly an F-16 rust bucket that looks like an F-14 in Falcon, see us Tomcatters are all style no substance so that kinda just floats our boat.
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@Seifer said in WIP: F-14 B/D:
F15 opened the door. For next aircraft we will need:
references.
a modeller (for cockpit)
a passionate coder.
I’m a big fan of the tomcat, but honestly I’m terrible at coding avionics. But… who knows? -
VERY nice!
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Always that one pesky cat sniffing around…
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I think the moderators should lock this topic now.
Because 9 years have passed since your first message. I no longer believe he will complete this plane. I’m sorry, but this is a fact.
I don’t understand why you share photos like this from time to time. You’re giving people hope for nothing.
Maybe Radium will make the F-14. But Radium has not started the F-14 project, which they said would start in January, even though we have reached June. Maybe Radium won’t either. Maybe he gave up. I do not know.
I guess the F-14 is not very popular in BMS.
In my opinion, F-14 is the orphan child of BMS.
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@meteor Radium didn’t gave up. It’s on the starting blocks but I had to update the Su-27 to Su-30 first. Don’t worry.
It will start soon for the simple reason that it’s a due that it’s a promise that I made to MavJP.
I am a bit late but don’t worry.
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@meteor you have to understand the modelers perspective. This is a very bad take on this. Every modeler has their preferred software, for stingray it’s ofcourse blender and just asking him to do it in a software which he is not proficient is asking the impossible. Starting next update, there will be a Blender to BMS exporter and that’s where stingray can truly shine. So please refrain from dragging others down. Thank you very much. Radium is doing an F-14A which he will do great at! And stingray is doing the B/D which he will complete however long it takes him.
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@meteor You make a valid point in a not very constructive manner. I hear ya. Don’t think my sarcastic and snarky comments reflect my commitment to this, that’s just the way I communicate, not operate.
To make this specific, the blender export functionality will allow me to build/translate my animations into BMS/Falcon DOFs. I also understand that animations can be stacked in a hierarchical fashion to allow for multiple ‘DOFs’ for a single action which is very useful for obvious stuff like the landing gear (the main strut alone has 4 moving parts, rotating and pivoting 4 different directions) but also less obvious stuff like the refueling probe.
It will also allow to test and finalize textures including dynamic bureau numbers and such.
If you’ve followed this thread (no easy task I know) you will have noticed that a lot of information on flight model, characteristics, envelope and performance has been compiled and provides a great basis for the flight model, even with substantial inputs still being classified.
The model itself has been finished for quite some time and has been fine tuned using photo matching and countless pieces of meticulous research. I’m not Heatblur, nor a professional modeler but I will still put this up against any F-14 in terms of proportionality, authenticity, passion for the airframe and just looking right.
Finally, since the beginning, once I had overcome my initial ineptitude to model/efficiently, I’ve struggled with a total lack of understanding of how to get this in-game, how animations can be exported, what materials to use, how to use the editor. Many attempts to get this information basically hit a brick wall. Someone sharing a 1 minute YouTube video showing how sth is done in 3DS, tells me absolutely nothing. I had loaded the model into 3DS but, apart from the fact I’m not familiar with it and was using the 2010 version, I was still stuck on how to export. No documentation accessible anywhere and a team that always had an aura of ‘The Untouchables’ - cool as an interested observer but detrimental as a part time contributor - wasn’t very helpful. The whole “when you’re ready please submit the model to the team so we can implement it” just added the feeling of obscurity.
Ultimately, I gave up on it and moved on to other things.
All that said, I’m glad to see BMS is still alive, I will definitely get the model ready, animation and texture wise, for the game and then see what happens.
What you need to understand about people like me, spending 1000s of hours on sth for free is we do it for ourselves and for the love of the game and, in this case, the Cat. I couldn’t give less of a s*it if this ever makes it to a game or sim or whatever. So what you expect, were lead to expect, think you should have, what teases you like or don’t or which thread you think should be open or locked passes me by in a wholesale fashion.
I wrote this out if respect to the 100s of people who contributed to this over the years making it the most comprehensive and insightful overall public discussion of this jet down to the last detail anywhere in the sim space. That alone I’m grateful to have been a part of. Ironically, we are now closer than ever so in a other say 9 years that
will be flying in Falcon.
Revival, Baby.
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@meteor said in WIP: F-14 B/D:
In my opinion, F-14 is the orphan child of BMS.
Nope, that would be F-16A Block 1.
F-14 is just a nice to have extra, it would be only a visual upgrade, but modeling the plane itself would mean creating a new code for the F-14 because of its very complex radar system. -
@molnibalage Are you serious ? I agree for Block 15, but honestly, block 1 didn’t stayed for more than 2 years… They were all brought up quickly to block 5 or 10… For me, the F-16A that we should have would be block 15.
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@Radium said in WIP: F-14 B/D:
@molnibalage Are you serious ? I agree for Block 15, but honestly, block 1 didn’t stayed for more than 2 years… They were all brought up quickly to block 5 or 10… For me, the F-16A that we should have would be block 15.
From cockpit point of view they are ~ 100% similar as Block 1. Anytime I say “Block 1” just extend to any A variant with the same cockpit.
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@molnibalage said in WIP: F-14 B/D:
@meteor said in WIP: F-14 B/D:
In my opinion, F-14 is the orphan child of BMS.
Nope, that would be F-16A Block 1.
F-14 is just a nice to have extra, it would be only a visual upgrade, but modeling the plane itself would mean creating a new code for the F-14 because of its very complex radar system.Make all potential bogies in the sim within 130mls turn and run once AWG9 is fired up, there I modeled the radar in a realistic fashion for ya. Make it 150mls for Persian Cats.
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I’ve combined and loaded the current version into Blender 3.6 LTS. As for the model, the only changes I will make are the position lights as they currently only consist of an emmissive surface. I have some ideas to create a refracting effect with light housing, lense and glass using transparent objects and normals layers with pretty cool results even when the engine is unable to create self reflections. Apart from that it’s only clean up and some welding.
The big thing is translating all anims into DOFs that the editor can work with. We’re talking about 57 DOFs in total including AB and including a deflatable airbag around the wing glove area which I am excited about. It is not accounting for some left/right duplications so this will take some time but I do already have start and end points/limits set so it’s just a bunch of manual labor.
I assume the flight model will call on multiple anims at the same time and enforce limits for example pivoting the wing back will affect the auxiliary flap, the cove door, the airbag and the slat at the same time so I will not parent any animation but instead have every single part ready to be called by the flight model. If my assumption is incorrect please let me know.
As for textures I did see Radium’s plan to include dynamic textures through the use of alpha channels which I was planning to do here too. I am not currently planning to have this go beyond image textures to allow users to change model layouts as I don’t see it as necessary.
Once the anims are done and I can move to the editor I will update here. Then textures can also come in.
PS: Yes, this entire model is less than 80K tris including two modeled jet engines
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@Seifer said in WIP: F-14 B/D:
@buraktunahan said in WIP: F-14 B/D:
I used to dream of seeing the F-14 and F-15 at the BMS one day. My F-15 dream has come true. I still have hope for the F-14.
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F15 opened the door. For next aircraft we will need:
- references.
- a modeller (for cockpit)
- a passionate coder.
I’m a big fan of the tomcat, but honestly I’m terrible at coding avionics. But… who knows?
Konichiwa! I can provide references and possibly a cockpit (at least for the D) but am for sure even more terrible at avionics coding but there should be someone who can do that who’s a fan as well.
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@mykinge Hello,as publicly available info - no news on your cockpit. I know BMS team have the files, maybe you should ask someone from the dev team.
Your work was really good and it will be a shame to go to waste. Maybe you can try to finish it some day…Cheers,
Airbuster
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@Airbuster said in WIP: F-14 B/D:
@mykinge Hello,as publicly available info - no news on your cockpit. I know BMS team have the files, maybe you should ask someone from the dev team.
Your work was really good and it will be a shame to go to waste. Maybe you can try to finish it some day…Cheers,
Airbuster
I’m not sure if anything changed on the modeling or avionics side but we’ve had this discussion a few yrs ago. As far as I recall the pit turned out to be very difficult to implement due to a lack of functionality and moving development on from the unfinished state it’s in (by someone who didn’t build it none the less) seemed more work than doing it all over again for a fighter that (at the time) could not ever be fully functional anyway.
It is a thing of beauty no doubt but having worked on various ports and model mashups in the past I do understand the challenge especially with sth as complex as a pit.