F7F Tigercat New VC for FSX & P3D

[gray eagle]

Looking sharp Gordon

When I read your term "volumetric vegetation" populating the airports, what came to mind was mowing my lawn covered with abundant grass and other plant life
Is that anything like fractal-generated volume?

That is one first rate job, inside and out - just recently bought P3d and as soon as my new dedicated to P3D HD comes in and enjoy what you've already experienced.
Guess after a decade of flyin' FSX/A, it's about time.


[QUOTE=********;1068189]F7F -3 Virtual Cockpit...In Motion
If you watch closely, you can see my latest volumetric vegetation populating the airports at KBIH and KMMH. Beta testing is showing extremely good performance, even at high saturations. And it looks pretty convincing.

[gman5250]

I'm back online after a two month hiatus from the internet. I concentrated on the move, shoveling mountains of "Sierra Cement", repairing my home and still had some time for my favorite projects. At this point, I've got electricity, hot water and a studio set up on a couple of pieces of plywood in the back "office". When we first got back to CA, there was no firewood available from LA to Seattle. I set up a small space heater in the office to keep the computers from freezing, but the rest of the house was very cold for the first thirty days. Once I dug out the power pole and got the electricity turned on, we used the electric blanket at night.

We faired much better than many of our neighbors. There are many houses damaged from fallen trees, resulting from sustained 110 MPH winds during the January storms. We dodged that bullet and really feel lucky, considering the intensity of the wind and snowfall.

OK...now for a status report on the projects.

I've brought the F7F-3 Tigercat VC to a stage that I would be reasonably comfortable calling a "Beta". While there are still many things to do, I consider the model to be a relatively accurate rendering of the military version, with two civilian versions based loosely on existing airplanes.

Before I went dark, a few of you expressed your desire to see the Project VC in real time simulator conditions. I put this short compilation together as a response to your requests.
The video features the three variants in daytime and night lighting...in motion.

I've invested a ton of time into exploring the light rendering capabilities in Prepar3D.
When viewing the model in real time lighting conditions, you will notice that most of the thrown light is not generated by "baked in" highlights. I do use ambient highlights and occlusion shading to achieve a richer canvas that resembles real world conditions, but 90% of the active light is generated by using Albedo textures, Normal maps and, most importantly, alpha channels to their fullest potentials. This eliminates the need to intensively paint in the realism. The sim is capable of doing it quite well...and in three dimensions.

Can't wait for 64 bit which will open up the DX10+ cards to do their stuff, and expanding VAS to accommodate projects formerly choked to death by 32 bit limitations. I've got a bunch of stuff in the wings just waiting.

Comments are welcome...and it's good to be back.

Enjoy the video and music.

[Mach3DS]

Gordon I haven't finished watching the video yet. Just wanted to say welcome back! I've been waiting to see what you've been up to! Hoping all is solved with your home issues and nothing overly expensive needed repairing!

[Mach3DS]

Gordon the reflection in the Civilian sidewall panels is amazing. The wear on the throttle handles, prop handles and heavy stick wear at the base where the hand wraps around is fantastic! I've never seen appropriate interior reflections used in VC other than on gauges or glass in FS before. This might be a first! I'm really impressed with the subtlety. It's what makes it seem real. I'm also very impressed with the bump mapping for the various panel materials coving different radio equipment. Really nice!!!

[Flyboy208]

Happy you are safe and sound Gordon ! The virtual cockpits are nothing short of pure works of art !!! Mike

[manfredc3]

Glad to see you are back Gordon

[PhantomTweak]

+1 to all the "Welcome Back"s and "Glad You're OK"s.
That Military panel, as well as the civvies ones, naturally, all look fantastic. Can't wait till they come out!

Pat☺

[Sundog]

Welcome back and it's good to know you made it through everything intact. You also managed to put together another preview while enduring a hell of a winter; thanks.

[Roger]

Glad to see you safe and sound, Gordon.

[greenie]

Looking fantastic . Can't wait ! ..good to see you're up and running.

[malibu43]

Looks amazing!

[Daveroo]

watched the video on youtube last night G,nice .cant wait to fly this..how deep was the cement?..they said last week Donner had well over 30 feet on the ground in places.theres also been several homes explode up in the Tahoe area due to the propane tank issues,people dont bother to clear the snow,the weight of it (why they call it sierra cement for the rest of ya)will break off gas lines at both the propane tank and at the house,then propane fills the snow,yes it can happen,or the crawl space ,and BOOM...

[mal998]

Truly a work of art. I've never seen a more realistic looking cockpit in the sim.

[gman5250]

watched the video on youtube last night G,nice .cant wait to fly this..how deep was the cement?..they said last week Donner had well over 30 feet on the ground in places.theres also been several homes explode up in the Tahoe area due to the propane tank issues,people dont bother to clear the snow,the weight of it (why they call it sierra cement for the rest of ya)will break off gas lines at both the propane tank and at the house,then propane fills the snow,yes it can happen,or the crawl space ,and BOOM...

We came across the state through Clear Lake, then straight across HWY 20 below Oroville and up to Truckee. There was significant snow, but I only had to hit the 4WD for the last twenty miles "over the top", then down I80 to Reno. The locals here said we had up to 30 feet in some locations. I personally saw over ten feet on the roofs of the condo's where we spent the first five days while digging out our house. I saw big years like this back when I worked on the hill, so while it was big...it' wasn't a record breaker. It was the fact that we received a season's worth of snow in one long set of storms.

The "cement" was a different story. I had to break out sixty feet by eight feet by four feet deep. This stuff was like brick and needed to be cut in big square chunks to remove it. I got a good workout.
Once I got under the house I found a couple of broken unions in the pipes that needed replacing. My big concern was that I might piss off some resident "Mama" Racoons who may have nested down there. They are not the most friendly creatures when there are little ones about. lol

Anyway...it's all good now. Glad you like the "Firefighter" cockpit Dave. I thought about you while working on it.

[gman5250]

Gordon the reflection in the Civilian sidewall panels is amazing. The wear on the throttle handles, prop handles and heavy stick wear at the base where the hand wraps around is fantastic! I've never seen appropriate interior reflections used in VC other than on gauges or glass in FS before. This might be a first! I'm really impressed with the subtlety. It's what makes it seem real. I'm also very impressed with the bump mapping for the various panel materials coving different radio equipment. Really nice!!!

You have the eye for detail Rick. I'm not sure if it's a first, but there is a lot of room for exploration with the tools we have now, and hopefully in 64 bit the canvas will really open itself up.
I'll PM you with some of the tech details.

[gman5250]

Truly a work of art. I've never seen a more realistic looking cockpit in the sim.

High praise indeed sir.

[cavaricooper]

Gordon-

FIRST- so glad you and yours are safe.

SECOND- The video is fantastic. We are SO LUCKY AT SOH.... the quality of work here is ASTOUNDING!

Looking forward to becoming a "cat person "

Carl

[YoYo]

I'm back online after a two month ...

Thank You for the news and new video preview!

[Penzoil3]

BETA ? That's looking so good I can't believe you call it a beta version. WOW ! If that's beta the release version will be truly unbelievable. It already looks like real cockpit films.
Glad to see you back and safe.
Sue

[gman5250]

BETA ? That's looking so good I can't believe you call it a beta version. WOW ! If that's beta the release version will be truly unbelievable. It already looks like real cockpit films.
Glad to see you back and safe.
Sue

Glad we made it safe...both directions.

Beta:

There is some modeling to complete, and animations that I need to bring live. For instance, the fuel selectors are animated but not "functional" yet. The various indicator lights need to be coded, and some panel switches dedicated to the individual models need to be sorted out.

The military panel wants to be "TacPacked" also, but that can come a bit later.

The main thing is integrating the new VC into the existing model. Right now the exterior model is still Gmax and Win10 is notoriously stubborn in letting me do that integration with the 3DS Max VC. I'm working that out and would be fine with putting the updated moF7F with the new VC in the hands of some volunteers for the beta phase.

[TuFun]

Cool stuff and all is well with you!

[Daveroo]

damn man,shoulda let me know you would be passing through, a cup of coffee and a bathroom would have been yours.

[Mach3DS]

Gordon, not hard to spot your details! Speaking of new lighting engine....

I've been scouring the Internet and been passed a few notes via PM regarding lighting in P3Dv4. From the rumor mill...LM have adopted a very good alternative to PBR physics based rendering...which would allow lights to actually illuminate the objects it touches and introduce self reflection along with dynamic reflections. This is THE game changer. If thos happens, we're talking quantum leap of flight simulation. This would render waves, water, terrain, lighting and their movement in real time. From what I read about in the v3.3 to v3.4 change log, seems like the engine is ramping up to this.

[gman5250]

Mark "Roger-Wilco-66" brought up a very important point on the Heron's Nest thread about PBR.

Physically Based Rendering.

Interestingly, I have been working with this technique...well studying it actually...for the last several weeks.

These "cove" shots are of the new Tigercat exterior model WIP set up for PBR development. The experiment is set up to approach light rendering from a 64bit DX10-DX11 perspective. The new model is going to incorporate many additions to the physical model, as well as extensive use of normal mapping to develop detail.

I'm also very keen to see what LM has up their sleeve for P3D4 Rick.


3DS Max 2015

[txnetcop]

Absolutely stunning Gordon!
Ted