Going to try a 'real' aircraft model

[lazarus]

That hopefully won't totally suck ass. Picked something 'easy', but interesting, and hasn't been done...
(crosses fingers)
Just a trial shot of the first section. Any guesses? (This is too easy...)

Attachment 55250

[blanston12]

Martin Marlin?

[Desert Rat]

looks like some russian jet powered seaplane/erkranoplan?

[Ferry_vO]

Japanese Shinmeiwa?

[ian elliot]

Would it be a Martin Seamaster

[warchild]

boeing clipper

[lazarus]

You're all on the right general type. Post war, second generation. Very muscular looking, quite a handful, by most accounts.

[warchild]

I dont think anyone has ever made a Sunderland. Should be a great addition to the community..

[blanston12]

Beriev M-10?

[ian elliot]

A high wing flying boat with what looks like jet engine's under the wing, flush with the fuselage, and what looks like gun,cannon pods forward under the cockpit, or at least, thats what im getting from the diagram your using. Boy, am i intrigued , im prepared to be totally wrong with my assesment.

I dont think anyone has ever made a Sunderland. Should be a great addition to the community..

im pretty sure someone just has, although i cant remember where

[lazarus]

Beriev M-10?

Light that man a banana. Attachment 55260

[blanston12]

Light that man a banana.

Yeah! I finally got one!

[lazarus]

Attachment 55261

Test piece before cutting up the wings. If any one has a shot of the flaps, down, preferably from the rear. I think it's got fowlers??
Angling for the -10 and -10M with nose radome and ASM's. First things first.

[huub vink]

I dont think anyone has ever made a Sunderland. Should be a great addition to the community..

Pam,

Shessi did some very nice Sunderlands for FS2004, which are available here in the library, and which might work in FSX.

JustFlight/First Class Simulations has a Sunderland for FSX https://www.justflight.com/product/s...ss-simulations

Now back to Lazarus's mystery plane....

Cheers,
Huub

[lazarus]

I have Shessi's Sunderland, and Jen's Hythe done, just needing the props put on, beaching gear made. The Sunderland got hung up on the VC, over 65000 vertice limit and not exporting
Might have to merge it with the JBK cockpit. The FCS Sunderland is not very nice looking. Shouldn't cast aspersions, but I'm not selling this crap, either.
Attachment 55287

So, lets see...Marlin, PS-1-US-2, P6M, Be-6...all down on my stupendous optimism list. First, have to see if I can get through this one.
Wing fairings and tailpipe fairings on, straightened the nose and chine lines, flight controls coming along. Started it early sunday...it even looks like a Be-10!
So far, so good.

[warchild]

Pam,

Shessi did some very nice Sunderlands for FS2004, which are available here in the library, and which might work in FSX.

JustFlight/First Class Simulations has a Sunderland for FSX https://www.justflight.com/product/s...ss-simulations

Now back to Lazarus's mystery plane....

Cheers,
Huub

Welll, actually I was making a backhanded guess, but also hoping I'll check out the sunderlands. would be nice to have some flying boats.. Thanks Huub

[lazarus]

Attachment 55306Attachment 55307Attachment 55308Attachment 55309

moving along

[lazarus]

Attachment 55356Attachment 55357Attachment 55358Attachment 55359

Most of the bits and bobs done, wing fences, guns, pitots and antenna to add, beaching gear. Whap in some basic interiors, textures and its off to animations.
Current textures are just the assembly drawing.
Attachment 55360
first pass through MCX, 2.3 Mb. Lots of room for greeblies. It starts to come to life once it starts going to MCX.

[lazarus]

Attachment 55396Attachment 55397Attachment 55398Attachment 55399


All the hatches, flight controls done and ready for animating. Couple small, fixed gizmos missing that can be bashed on at any time. Textures next, so I don't have to duplicate effort. My nipples are erect! all six of 'em...

[GaryGB]

Interesting seeing an aircraft being modeled in Sketchup, IIUC from the appearance of the work-space.

What application will you use to rig the animations ?


The Beriev M-10 (aka "BE-10) is a rather impressive aircraft, and would be fun to fly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beriev_Be-10


PS: In light of your latter post, dare we refer to this as a "areola-assault aircraft" ?

GaryGB

[lazarus]

Attachment 55455

A foot lower, it'd merely be a navel aircraft. Just hoping I don't make a complete teat of meself ...Everything is is in groups so I can point and click the bits apart, export the moving bits one at a time through MCX to FSDS objects, pop in to FSDS for animating, back out to MCX and merge. Sounds cumbersome, but nothing changes spatial position, small bits compile instantly, so it's pretty bang-bang, no fussing with FSDS lists and baukiness, just set the axis and away to the races. If you keep the zero point origin of the model, its really fast and easy to go from SKUP-MCX-FSDS, or back and forth until things work properly, or to fix the fumduckers. I also keep the moving bits on separate texture names, though the same textures, so MCX can separate those from the rest of the model to allow back and forthing to fix mistakes with out starting from scratch. Eventually, I'll have a model of the fixed airframe stuff, and another of the animated stuff, all in their positions with respect to one another, When its all happy, the last step is to merge the two, rename the textures so I'll have one or two texture sheets-control the draw calls, and set the model axis from the assembly point to the flight axis.

[gp183601]

Hi Laz,

cracking work as always. I get your approach....but it does have its drawbacks mainly on the time consuming sketchup, to MCX to the 3D studio package with all the capabilities and out again. Sketchup is great for creating the actual model itself but when it comes to texturing and animating that's when you hit a brick wall. Have you considered Blender as an option? Polygon smoothing and UVWrapping are just some of the benefits. You can even still develop the basic framework in sketchup and import the DAE direct into blender then modify, smooth, UVUnwrap, animate and export as an MDL. I've used that approach for some of my mdls as I slowly move into blender full time (getting used to the blender modelling tools and creating the object is still a big chore for me as well as seams and creating the UVMap).

your approach is still sounds and if it ain't broke don't fix it....just thought I'd give you a pointer as a fellow 'sketchup'er' who's been a recent convert to other packages

Looking forward to taking her for a test flight!



Best
Gaz

[lazarus]

I tried to wrap my melon around blender-hated it, another lousy, counter-intuitive U.I. designed by people that should limit themselves to hacking social-disease media crappola for zuckerburg. I absolutely love the simplicity of SKUP, it's just traditional drawing and model-making, little different from scratch building from a set of plans.
It's got full poly-smoothing built in, and a nice capability to apply variable smoothing on individual poly's, or even a single line. Texture mapping is a breeze in SKUP, I've found it much more intuitive than UV mapping- the model is built right on the texture map. The trick is the maps are on a cube that projects the texture from what ever orientation the cube is offered up to the model, most of the mapping happens as part of the drawing process, and in 3D with basic graphic editing via paint. The only down side is no animation capability, but, as noted, I can endrun that with MCX-FSDS. It seems clunky, but I have to say, for this old fossil, it's simpler than the alternatives. It's certainly accessible, given the cost of some of the 'professional' 3D systems. Can't argue with the price tag- free, excepting FSDS, which is cheap. MCX is really the key, though. Be totally boned but for MCX.

[gp183601]

I hear you on the blender UI! And as for your projection mapping process in SKUP I'm intrigued....I need to pick your brains more!

Gaz

[lazarus]

I'm picking at a SKUP texture tutorial while in the interstices of rage and despair engendered by too much FSDS This is a good explanation, probably clearer than my mumbling...

https://youtu.be/XRQLS8P7xsY?t=8

Attachment 55645Attachment 55646

In the mean time... doors and hatches animated and in. The bomb doors were particularly beastly, getting the axis in the right place...then do it mirrored! It's been good for the learning curve, which still looks like El Capitan as you'r plummeting to your death from the Nose...Flight controls going through FSDS now. Perhaps by the time I'm older, grayer and senile I'll have an alpha version. Then the VC. I'm probing the ear/brain interface with a very sharp pencil, eyeing the lump mallet again...