WIP: F-14 B/D
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Really solid and lovely work.
One issue I noticed about the petals. IRL they are actually symmetrical along their long axis. The asymmetrical “footprint” comes from the wear of the adjacent petal on the surface.
Thanks Pumpy, glad you like it. As for the petals, these are symmetrical which I tried to explain in my post above “In reality the dark spots are footprints the ‘petals’ leave on eachother so that ‘helper’ plate can be dropped and I’ll save around 800 tris. The look will be achieved by textures on the nozzles.”
I’m simply emulating the real look with my helper plate in the absence of textures. The petals are modeled based on the real thing, symmetric and with the small indentation on top:
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Amazing detail and work! Can’t believe this is gonna be a reality!
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Thanks Pumpy, glad you like it. As for the petals, these are symmetrical which I tried to explain in my post above “In reality the dark spots are footprints the ‘petals’ leave on eachother so that ‘helper’ plate can be dropped and I’ll save around 800 tris. The look will be achieved by textures on the nozzles.”
I’m simply emulating the real look with my helper plate in the absence of textures. The petals are modeled based on the real thing, symmetric and with the small indentation on top:
https://c2.staticflickr.com/9/8684/28126890833_45315daa29_b.jpg
Looks good now. Sorry, I was going by the meshes in the earlier pics.[emoji106]
Sent from my HTC6545LVW using Tapatalk
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Do you have by any chance any pics with engine nozzles closed? Very nice Tomcat!
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Do you have by any chance any pics with engine nozzles closed? Very nice Tomcat!
Without parenting etc. rotating all nozzles simultaneously around one axis doesn’t work. That kind of operation will be done in Max not in Blender. I’ll do it the manual way at some point just to check that the nozzle petal shape works together.
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This is amazing! Thanks for sharing. Never before had the chance to lay my eyes on these…
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Ok guys, now that it’s time to finalize the shape and optimize the mesh as much as possible I unzipped something I’ve had for a while - 1969 Grumman F-14 blueprints :).
https://c8.staticflickr.com/9/8666/28710226511_4cb5b0209f_h.jpg
Will post some updates, comments and renders over the weekend before going into my summer projects (no modeling :)).
Definition of WORK! Great job Stingray!
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Definition of ‘commanding presence’. The more I get into the design the more admiration and respect I have for the designers and engineers at GRUMMAN.
Small update following what was planned as ‘some adjustments’ which resulted in ‘major adustments’ as usual I guess. If you know the cat or have seen it in RL you will recognize the changes and how it now comes a lot closer to RL proportions and looks.
What has been done based on the blueprints in detail:
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intake geometry adjusted in angle, width, height
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front fuselage rounded off on bottom, slimmed down along the sides
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windshield redesigned
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intake area adjusted and prepped for intake ramps
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wing root pivot point area on glove completely redesigned top and bottom
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wing body completely reworked - now rotates correctly and doesn’t protrude anywhere into the fuselage
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wing spoilers and cove and eyebrow door completely reworked and straightened
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wings and vertical stabilizers put into correct angle
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added beavertail details
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added chinpod (WIP)
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added landing light and LSO signal box
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corrected landing gear doors
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lots of small adjustments on the gear, among others MLG wheels now have camber
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rear section of main fuselage widened, straightened on the sides
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reduced Tris count by 10.000+
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realized coke bottle shape on rear fuselage based on blueprint:
Some more impressions:
Wings at zero sweep:
Full sweep:
Nose/front fuselage in detail, note the intake/glove/fuselage adjustments:
Oversweep:
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Great!
Are we more close now to a release?
A big Thank you dear friend.
Nikos. -
I think I hypervenilated a bit at that first image. As for a release… Well if you need play testers, You have PLENTY of Volunteers in this topic!
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So is this planned to be integrated with Mykinge’s cockpit from a few years ago, or is a new one going to be made?
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So is this planned to be integrated with Mykinge’s cockpit from a few years ago, or is a new one going to be made?
Yes.
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Great!
Are we more close now to a release?
A big Thank you dear friend.
Nikos.Status of the model is about 80%. Currently optimizing the mesh as much as possible. I been working a lot (A LOT) on the wings and the components are still not all finished and aligned. Pit is missing as well as lower airbrake and some details. As you seen I already reduced the tris by more than 10k. There’s still a lot of tris to shed :). But yes we’re closer to the end than the beginning if that helps. I never thought I’d be able to bring it this far in less than a year.
Next thing would be 3DS Max. I have a way of importing the model (even with textures and UV maps) without loss into Max. So far so good but I can’t get my hands on a version prior to 2014 because Autodesk are the worst copyright cartel abusers out there. If anyone has any idea pls let me know.
And now let the big cat speak for itself…
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Clean config if anyone was wondering (no weapon rails, no droptanks)
https://c4.staticflickr.com/8/7575/28406114323_267b66076a_b.jpg
Pure elegance. She’s a real beaty and you totally catch the lines. Hope to see her soon with a cockpit that she deserves.
Thank you.
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I already imagine myself flying my Felix 105 above the Middle East… awesome work dude !
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I already imagine myself flying my Felix 105 above the Middle East… awesome work dude !
Thanks man! As you can see in the lower right of the pic below I share your preference :). That being said that is just about 1/3 of the skins I have for the B/D cats.
Fighting 31, Baby.
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Build more than a dozen cat plastic models in the past, I think this might be as much photorealistic as possible!