My first WIP. Criticism? Yes Please!

[JSpal]

I'm a couple of days work into my first FSX add-on aircraft. I posted a couple of pics in another thread, but it's in a forum way down at the bottom of the index, so I'm not sure many people have seen it. I think it's coming along nicely, but I've never done one before, so I'd appreciate and advice, criticism, tips, tricks, etc.

This is what it looks like in the program I'm doing most of the modeling in.

http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/JamesISpalding/ch750T004.jpg
(Trike with tundra tires)


http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/JamesISpalding/ch750a001.jpg
(Trike with standard tires)

http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/JamesISpalding/ch750TT001.jpg
(Custom tail dragger model with tundra tires)

http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/JamesISpalding/ch750T005.jpg
(a peak inside the cockpit)

And what it looks like imported into Gmax.

http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/JamesISpalding/screencap001.jpg

Obviously I have a lot of details to work on still. At this point I plan to concentrate on getting one model done all the way and functional in FSX (probably the tundra trike) and then come back and maybe finish up the tail dragger and maybe a float or amphib model.

I have a few questions straight off.

1. My copy of GMAX (from my FSX Deluxe SDK) doesn't have the plug-ins to export to the format for FSX. Are those plug-ins available elsewhere? Milton Shupe said it would be on the FS2002 SDK, but I don't have that version of FS. Do I have to hunt it down and buy it or has MS released the plug-ins elsewhere? Is it possible to export from any other program (I have access to 3DStudio and a few others at my school).

2. The colors of the individual vertices in Gmax - do those mean anything? Are they going to give me headaches when I start working in Gmax on the animations and such? I plan to split it all up in SolidEdge (the program I'm modeling in) and then import all the parts when it comes time to work on animations.

3. Gmax says it's "828 objects" in size. Is that the number of triangles? Is that any indication of how it will eventually perform in FSX as far as framerate goes?

4. The edges look all jagged (aliased?) in the perspective view in Gmax, do they all look like at this point or is it likely a problem with the importation process where the faces aren't actually joining up right?

FWIW, it's supposed to be a Zenith Air STOL CH750. It's a little off, but at this point, I'm more motivated to muddle my way all the way through the creation process from start to finish than to get all of the details just right. If I can get this workflow to work (creating in SolidEdge, animating in Gmax) then I think I can have a lot of fun with it and crank out a couple of decent planes, but I'm not 100% sure it's going to work out right.

Like I said before, any advice or criticism is appreciated. Feel free to be brutal, I've got all of about 6 hours work into it, so I won't get my feelings hurt.

[PRB]

You got much further along in GMAX in six hours than I did! I never did progress beyond the flying cube with wings stage!

Looking good!

[djscoo]

Well, you got the first part right! I immediately recognized the Zenair ( I've been a fan since seeing her in amazing STOL youtube vids).:ernae:

[spotlope]

It looks great, JSPal (name?) -- much farther than I got in my first week or two w/Gmax. I think you're off to an excellent start. If you've got the FSX SDK, then you have the exporter tools. You have to copy the FSX Gmax gamepack from the SDK folder to your Gmax gamepacks folder, then start Gmax using the shortcut that's contained in the game pack. The sign you've got it right is that you'll see an "FS Tools" entry in the top menubar of Gmax.

[stiz]

2. The colors of the individual vertices in Gmax - do those mean anything? Are they going to give me headaches when I start working in Gmax on the animations and such?

Nope



3. Gmax says it's "828 objects" in size. Is that the number of triangles? Is that any indication of how it will eventually perform in FSX as far as framerate goes?

Nope, i'm not sure of the exact location but if you go to file -> file information (or file properties) it should be listed. Dont have Gmax installed at the mo so as i said i'm not sure



4. The edges look all jagged (aliased?) in the perspective view in Gmax, do they all look like at this point or is it likely a problem with the importation process where the faces aren't actually joining up right?

Sounds more like Gmax viewport settings, setting the driver to Direct X tends to solve this for me

Its looking really nice as well :applause:

[Lionheart]

Great looking model JSpal!

Zenith and well done on proportions. Even several versions available on your single model. Nice!! I thought I was the only one that did that...


Bill

[SolarEagle]

Tundra tires are funny. Looks like one of those airplanes your dad makes out of wood when you're a kid, the kind with the big black wheels on it so it rolls around real good. :icon_lol:

[Baron von Blutwurst]

I like where you are...a little food for thought though, accentuate the mesh ,it is FSX and your limitations are no longer there. Dont think in the FS9 Low Poly creation...not really necessary now.

Cheers
Randy

[Gibbage]

From a professional point of view, I think you have promis! The only critique I have is that the prop needs a twist. Since the outside edges move FASTER then the inside, the outer portion of a prop has less "cut" or bite in it, so there is a gradual twist. The tops are almost horizontal when looked at the side, with the inner portion being between 45-20 degrees. I have a prop modeling video tutorial I did on youtube that I think can help you, along with some other tutorials you may find usefull. I think it all applies in Gmax.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Qv-jRK3IW0

[txnetcop]

You got much further along in GMAX in six hours than I did! I never did progress beyond the flying cube with wings stage!

Looking good!

Mine looked like something the BORG would fly! Looks dang good to me.
Ted

[stiz]

I like where you are...a little food for thought though, accentuate the mesh ,it is FSX and your limitations are no longer there. Dont think in the FS9 Low Poly creation...not really necessary now.

Cheers
Randy

however theres no need to overdo it :engel016:

[Snuffy]

You got much further along in GMAX in six hours than I did! I never did progress beyond the flying cube with wings stage!

Looking good!

Geeze, I never got that far ... I couldn't change direction of my head from my technical mechanical cad to a "free form" graphics package.

:banghead:

[6297J]

Nice work JSpal. Looking forward to further development shots.

[JSpal]

Thanks for all the replies! It helps stay motivated to work on it when others appreciate the progress.

I checked the properties and it says it's 26,372 vertices and 33,245 faces. That seems much more reasonable - 828 seemed ridiculously low.

My importation process involves converting the model from the program I am using to a .IGE, in the program I am using to do the modeling, then from a .IGE to a .3DS in another program, then loading it up in Gmax. At both steps I have the option of how much complexity I want retained, so it's possible for me to tweak it that way. Right now I've been setting the complexity sliders right in the middle, so I'm probably losing some detail in both steps, but now that I know I'm still on the 20K-30K vertex and face range, I can play with the sliders some.


Geeze, I never got that far ... I couldn't change direction of my head from my technical mechanical cad to a "free form" graphics package.

:banghead:

That is exactly the problem I have with programs like 3DStudioMax. I got an academic license of SoildEdge (which is a technical, engineering typre 3D CAD program) when I was in college before I had the class that taught it. I went through the tutorials and taught myself how to use it. Later on I had a class that taught 3DStudio Max and I struggled all the way through it because I was always thinking about how I would model something in SolidEdge, and 3DS would just do it completely different.

As for the prop on this one, I did that in about 10 minutes just to have something there for the moment. I need to find good pics of the actual prop for the Zenith, then I think I can get it to look better.

FWIW, this is one of my previous projects. Someday I want to build my own car, this was just day dreaming of what it might look like.

http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q245/bfifteenv/BANG40.jpg

http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q245/bfifteenv/bang39.jpg

http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q245/bfifteenv/bang27.jpg

-James-

[OBIO]

You did all that in 6 hours? Amazing. It took me 2 and a half weeks in Gmax to make something that looked like a Tic Tac after a hard night of drinking.

To my untrained eyes, those models look great. My only "complaint" is that you are making them for FSX, and not FS2004. Especially the possible float version...I love float planes and can never have too many of them.

OBIO

[IanP]

Can you export that car to the SimBin engine please, preferably for GTRevo, but failing that I'll cope with rFactor... Cheers! :ernae::icon_lol:

Seriously, I just threw the towel in on gmax again for refusing to let me texture a flat surface for love nor money. You certainly have my respect.

Keep us posted!

[JSpal]

You did all that in 6 hours? Amazing. It took me 2 and a half weeks in Gmax to make something that looked like a Tic Tac after a hard night of drinking.

To my untrained eyes, those models look great. My only "complaint" is that you are making them for FSX, and not FS2004. Especially the possible float version...I love float planes and can never have too many of them.

OBIO

My serious weak point is going to be doing textures. I've never done any textures for anything in past, so the learning curve will be steep.

As such, I plan to make the source models available in case somebody thinks they can jazz it up, but needs the source to do so. If somebody wanted to retro it to work in FS2004, I have no problem with that. I just don't have FS2004 so I have no reason to try to do that or any way to test it when it's done.

I won't really have a lot of time or emotional investment in this particular one, so I have no problem with someone trying to do something more with it if they can. If someone tried to rework it and sell it, I'd be more flattered than mad - although I doubt it will be that level quality being my first project.

Other than worrying about someone making money off of my work, I don't see any reason not to make the source available, but if there is another reason I'm not aware of, I'd love to hear it...

[JSpal]

http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/JamesISpalding/ch750TT006.jpg

http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/JamesISpalding/ch750TT007.jpg

I got a couple of hours of work in today. Started on the wing support struts, added some brake lines to the main gear struts, did some more work to the interior, cut open the sunroof, more work on the interior structure (rollbar?), and cut the stabilizers and the flapperons off of their parent pieces so they will be easier to animate.

Gibbage, I watched your prop tutorial. Very helpful! I might just make the prop in 3DStudio, it seems to handle the compound curves better.

I have a question though, in that tutorial, when you delete the flat bottom edge of the prop blade, you say something about "remember you don't want hidden faces" or something to that effect. Is that just a general rule of thumb, or is it vital to the process? The program I'm using for the modeling deals mostly with solids. You can't really cut open a 3D object like you do in the video with the blunt end of the prop.

As a result, I have about a dozen faces that will not be visible in the finished model - mostly where two parts mate up, like the nose to the main fuselage, the langing gear strut to the bottom of the fuselage.

Is it going to mess things up if I don't get rid of those?

I can fairly easily delete most of them in the interim step between my modeling program and Gmax, but some of them are going to be tricky.

[Gibbage]

I thought I smelt CAD on you!!!

One thing to remember when going from CAD to 3D Studio's. Throw perfection OUT THE WINDOW! If you dont, your going to be constantly chasing your tail.

3DS is great at polygon modeling but HORRIBLE in Patch modeling. Just remember that.

As for hidden faces, its a rule of ANY video game modeling. In that you need to optimize your model as much as possible to run smoothly. If your working in something like solidworks or similar, its a bit of a reversal, but having non-stl models is almost needed in video games. Every polygon counts! Its more for performance on lower end systems then any requirement. The video tutorial is more geared twards IL2 modeling with aircraft ranging around 5000 polygons. The base of the prop, depending on how many sides you used on the cylinder, is 12-18 polygons. x3 on a 3 bladed prop, thats 54 polygons. Twin engine? 108. You can see, for something thats never seen, it adds up quickly.

Also, just another crituqie about the design more then the modeling. The rudder seems VERY small, considering the large frontal area. The aircraft would be extreamly horizontally challanged. I think it would need to be at least 2x the area to keep the nose in the right direction.

[EgoR64]

:ernae: Great Job -

It took me 6 hours to make a Line, straight......well almost straight.........took another 6-hours to make it kinda orange.........!!

Cheers !

[JSpal]

I...

Also, just another crituqie about the design more then the modeling. The rudder seems VERY small, considering the large frontal area. The aircraft would be extreamly horizontally challanged. I think it would need to be at least 2x the area to keep the nose in the right direction.

Yeah, perfection isn't really something I'm going for. I'll be happy with a decent level of detail and full functionality.

I agree about the tail, it looks small, but it's actually slightly oversized from a 3 view drawing I got from Zenith's website.

I might make it a bit bigger so it looks right and assume that their 3 view is askew. It does say "not to scale" but I would assume it would be close enough. I've stepped away from their design on how the wing struts attach and on the profile of the nose (although it matches some of the pictures of homebuilts in their gallery) so making the tail more aesthetically pleasing is acceptable too.

http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/JamesISpalding/profs1.jpg

[Piglet]

Not too shabby! Only critism is that it's not done yet!:applause:

[JSpal]

Haha, yeah that's the thing that's bugging me about it at the moment too.

So I figured out the Gmax gamepack thing. For some reason Gmax installed itself in my d: drive whereas the rest of my SDK was in my c: drive, so I had to uninstall, reinstall to get it working.

I've got most of the model to where I want to start playing with it more in Gmax, animating asnd such. I tried to do a practice run on exporting to .MDL, but it gets 90% done converting and it gives me an out of memory error and Gmax closes.

I have 8GB ram, Vista 64, and I even increased my paging file to 32GB and it still crashes at 90%. I've tried closing out all other processed running in the background, it still happens.

Any ideas why that would be happening?

[Gibbage]

About the tail. I thought this was your own design. I didnt know you were working off of 3 views. I guess I was wrong about it needing more tail then!

As for the Max crash, it may be Vista 64x. Try running Gmax in XP mode and as Administrator. Gmax is a VERY old program and its sort of quirky. Also, try resetting the Xforms (under tools) on all the models and try that. This will reset your XYZ so save before doing this. Im sure some of the guys more familure with Gmax will help you out a bit with that error.

Also, if you take a class at a local community colledge, you can buy a copy of 3D Studio's Max REALLY cheep. The tooks work in Max 2009 (32b not 64b version) and youll have a lot more tools then Gmax at your disposal.

[bzhyoyo]

I really like your last renders, very classy stuff!
Were they done in 3dsmax, and if so, could you tell us how you achieve this result?

[JoeW]

Looking great ......... Are you putting the wing slats in?

[anthony31]

Re the hidden faces. I actually did a framerate test on a scenery object in FS2004 to see what the effect was. I nade two simple models a pair of sheds side by side. I made the sheds using simple boxes. in the first model I left hidden faces in (ie the base of the box which noone would ever see because it was pointing to the ground etc). The second model I deleted these hidden faces.

I then placed 200 copies of the first model in an out of the way place to see the effect on framerates. With no models I was getting about 60fps. With the 200 copies of the first, unoptimized model, that dropped to 30fps. Replace the model with the optimized one and framerates were 55fps.

Both models look exactly the same when in game but by deleting hidden faces I was able to nearly double my framerates. Now, for all my scenery, I religiously go through each model checking to make sure I've deleted any hidden faces. I guess the same would apply to aircraft models ?

[maguireted]

Make add-on aircraft has always been a dream for me . Wonderfull . Regards Anna

[JSpal]

Bzhyoyo, all of the renders with the blue backgrounds were done in Solid Edge, the program I am using to do the modeling. They aren't even really renders exactly, they are more like screenshots.

Gibbage, thanks for the heads-up on 3DStudio. My girlfreind is a faculty member at a Community College, as a result I can get free tuition for one class per semester. I've been thinking about taking a another class anyway, if they teach something that covers Photoshop or something like that. I'll have to look into the 3DStudio deal, it seems like it may integrate into my process better.

Also, I enlarged the vertical tail. It's more aesthetically pleasing now I think. It really does look small, even pictures of the real plane it looks small, but it seemed exaggeratedly small in my model.

Joe, the leading edge slats are there, they just needed some smoothing to make them stand out better. I added more detail to the wings last night and they are getting close to where I want them.

http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/JamesISpalding/ch750TT008.jpg

http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/JamesISpalding/ch750TT010.jpg

http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/JamesISpalding/ch750TT011.jpg

Now, as for the Gmax "out of memory" thing. I searched and searched and finally came across and old thread in another forum about a similar problem. The person that was having the problem was given a list of things to try, I started going through the list and when I got to one about materials in Gmax, I tried redefining all of my materials to FlightSimX and gave it a shot and it got all the way to 100%, but I got a pop up warning screen at the end.

The pop-up screen said something like Warning: *deprecated* vertices at and had a list of about a dozen coordinates. I'm not sure it said deprecated, it might have said disfunctional, or something else like that. Anyway, it did make a .mdl file.

Now, if I rename that .mdl to the same as one of my default aircraft, then drop it into that's aircraft's model folder, should my primitive model show up in FSX so I can admire it before I do the textures, animations, etc? I know it won't fly inside FSX at that point, but I'd like to see what it looks like by now and see if it needs more work on the mesh before I start animating and playing with textures.

-----

I also need to add, that everyone on this forum has been wonderfully helpful so far. I've never seen an online forum that is so knowledgable and willing to help. I haven't seen a single "Read the #$%^%# manual" type post anywhere on this forum but I totally expected it as I started this thread.

Thank you all so much!

The way my mind works, I can handle instructions in small chunks, but if i had to read all the way through all the SDK documentation to find the answers to my questions I would have given up already. :isadizzy:

[stiz]

The pop-up screen said something like Warning: *deprecated* vertices at and had a list of about a dozen coordinates. I'm not sure it said deprecated, it might have said disfunctional, or something else like that. Anyway, it did make a .mdl file.

i get this on some of my models, some people refuse to carry on till they've fixed them all, i just leave em be, saves a ton of headaces and doesnt seem to cause any problems in fsx :engel016:


Now, if I rename that .mdl to the same as one of my default aircraft, then drop it into that's aircraft's model folder, should my primitive model show up in FSX so I can admire it before I do the textures, animations, etc? I know it won't fly inside FSX at that point, but I'd like to see what it looks like by now and see if it needs more work on the mesh before I start animating and playing with textures.

Well your model will show up ... but it will show up pure black and you wont be able to see any details, easy enough to just create a dummy texture (if you've applied textures yet).

-----


I haven't seen a single "Read the #$%^%# manual" type post anywhere on this forum but I totally expected it as I started this thread.

Might do if the documentation was any good .. before other devs jump on me .. its fine as long you know what your looking for .. but otherwise its murder :isadizzy:

[OBIO]

Wowsa! That plane is looking better and better. The increased tail size really improves the look and balance of the plane.

As a guy who taught himself to use Photoshop some decade and a half ago, and as a guy who ripped out all the hair on his chest and half the hair on his head trying to learn Gmax....I assure you, Photoshop will be no problem to learn. I seems daunting at first, but it is really an easy program to use. There are a lot of tools in Photoshop, most of which I have never had a use for.

OBIO

[JSpal]

I just had to see what it would look like at this point in FSX. To me this is HUGE!


http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/JamesISpalding/2009-5-28_12-16-10-374.jpg (file:///C:/Program%20Files%20%28x86%29/Microsoft%20Games/Microsoft%20Flight%20Simulator%20X/SimObjects/Airplanes/PA28_180/model/XXPa28_180.MDL)

http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/JamesISpalding/2009-5-28_12-16-39-775.jpg

http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/JamesISpalding/2009-5-28_12-15-24-367.jpg

And I mean HUGE!

http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/JamesISpalding/2009-5-28_12-13-15-311.jpg

Oh yeah, and backwards...

I think somewhere in my conversion process, it's swapping meters in for inches and rotating around the Z axis - both easy fixes. The invisible tail was an error in my original model that got worse as the plane went through the two steps of the conversion process, I fixed it in the original model and it seems to be converting properly.

It was important to me to see that a model could go from one format in one program, to another format in another, to a third in a third, then into FSX and actually work - without any hyper-expensive software. I was worried that I was spending a lot of time working on details on a plane that would not survive the translation process.

[IanP]

For FSX in gmax, unfortunately, you have to use metres for development, not feet and inches. It's not optional and the result otherwise is the rather interesting scale difference you have noticed.

It's alright for us Europeans who deal in thousands and thousandths all the time, but it baffles a lot of ex colonials who still think in base 4, 16, 22, 1760, etc. ;)

(And yes, I am joking... I work in the British rail industry, which works in miles and metres. Er... Yeah. OK. :monkies:)

[Roger]

Glad the scale is easily converted:engel016:...Bet it frightened the natives as it landed:bump:

[gera]

Congratulations, it will be a great model........see guys!!!! here is a real developer in the making!!!!:ernae::ernae::applause::applause::appla use:

[JSpal]

I got a model working in FSX that is the right size and pointing the right way.

I think I have almost all the detail I can put into the mesh without going overboard. There is a wire harness that runs from the firewall (?) in the front, down the left side rocker panel (?) that is clearly visible in most of the interior pics on the MFG's website. I'm going to work through the tutorial I have for modeling wire harnesses and see how it looks. After that, I think it's going to start being overkill.

I also have to finish the right side wing support struts.

The doors open and close, I added exhaust, and I played around a lot today with different modes of exporting to see what works best. The jury is still out on that one. It's time consuming and has mixed results regardless of how I do it.

I downloaded a free 30 day trial of 3DStudio today, I'll see how that integrates into my workflow to see if it's worth buying. It would be REALLY nice if I could export from SolidEdge directly to a format that is compatible with 3DS. I found a plug-in to do it, it's all of a dozen KB in size, and it costs $195! :isadizzy: I'll be passing on that one.

http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/JamesISpalding/ch750TT022.jpg
Door closed

http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/JamesISpalding/ch750TT021.jpg
Door open

http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/JamesISpalding/ch750TT023.jpg
And now that the door opens, the detail in the interior is easier to see.

Before I can go much further, I'm going to have to refresh myself on animation in 3DStudio or learn in Gmax... and then there's the texturing... and then there's the whole flight dynamics, .cfgs, etc...

It's definitely coming along though, and it's tons of fun.

[bzhyoyo]

ahh, I see. Shame because I'd like to make a render in 3dsmax with the same kind of style and print it so that my nephew colour a plane, as I seem to have given him the bug.
Keep up the good work!

[JSpal]

I've got all the modeling done to my liking. I'm working now on finding the best way to export it into Gmax. The way I was doing it, some details were getting weird in the translation process.

So I found a better way to export it, but it will involve a $200 plug-in for Solid Edge if I want to use it past this Friday (it's a free trial).

But now I am trying to export my newly converted model from Gmax to a .MDL to see how the details look in FSX, but when I do that, it tells me I am over the 65535 vertices limits. Is there a work around for that?

I downloaded a free 30 day trial of 3DStudio Max 9. I'm having problems trying to get up to speed using it for the exporting. Is there a set of tutorials anywhere for FSX plane creation in 3DStudio - specifically preparing for export and exporting?

Will 3Dstudio allow me to exceed that 65535 vertex limit?

[d0mokun]

Will 3Dstudio allow me to exceed that 65535 vertex limit?

Are you using a single material?

If so, make another and give it to some parts.

You'll exceed the limit no matter what if you have a single material covering move than 65535.

[Skywolf]

WOW!!! Looks great! I'm just a on and off painter.

[JSpal]

Thanks, I'll try that.

I was trying just now to export in 3DStudio and it seems like it's making progress, then I get a pop up screen that says "Export host is not valid". Then one that says "Export model failed" - or something like that.

Hrmph. This is getting old...

[JSpal]

I thought I'd post a few more pictures of my progress. The entire model is exported into Gmax - except the door handles, not sure how I missed those.

The glass is not present in these pics because I haven't textured anything yet and I wanted to be able to see out for the test flight.

The model is just standing in for one of my other planes currently for FSX viewing purposes.

Nothing is animated either.

http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/JamesISpalding/2009-6-5_13-39-35-410.jpg

http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/JamesISpalding/2009-6-5_13-39-42-456.jpg

http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/JamesISpalding/2009-6-5_13-39-58-521.jpg

http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/JamesISpalding/2009-6-5_13-40-47-515.jpg

http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/JamesISpalding/2009-6-5_13-40-54-564.jpg

http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/JamesISpalding/2009-6-5_13-41-11-393.jpg

http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/JamesISpalding/2009-6-5_13-42-32-878.jpg

She's still oversized and flying backwards. I tried a resizing method that Mathias recommended (thanks again!), but it didn't take. I'll have to retrace my steps and see where it messed up.

The yoke and the front tire need some cleaning up at the mesh level, but I've made more progress in the last 2 hours of work than I had the entire previous week...