Northrop F-15A / RF-61C Reporter

[roger-wilco-66]

Way to go, Dean! That looks great!


Cheers,
Mark

[DC1973]

Does anyone know what causes this? The fuselage has a dividing line running from the nose to the tail that's just visible, as if light reflection is different for the two sides. I tested the model itself by applying the left side texture to the right hand side and reversing the X-axis and the line vanishes, so surface normals on the model are not to blame.

I'll be slitting the fuselage texture maps anyway, but I'm not sure this bug will go away - any ideas folks?

[Daveroo]

dont have an answer for that,but im really looking forward to this plane,im wondering since that one company made the tacpac thing work in FSX/P3D.would someone be able to make a recce plane have cameras that would work?..meaning,you fly it as a recce plane,hit the cameras,and get screenshots of what below?..or in the side view,,cant remember the technical word
.

[Tako_Kichi]

I think you are building in FSDS which I have never used but in the GMAX/3DS MAX world that normally happens when you've mirrored a fuselage half to make the opposite side and then not welded the vertices along the joint line.

Try selecting all the vertices along the joint line and then weld them with a radius of something like .010" (or however it's done in FSDS). That usually fixes the issue for me.

[harrybasset]

dont have an answer for that,but im really looking forward to this plane,im wondering since that one company made the tacpac thing work in FSX/P3D.would someone be able to make a recce plane have cameras that would work?..meaning,you fly it as a recce plane,hit the cameras,and get screenshots of what below?..or in the side view,,cant remember the technical word
.

I seem to recall the original Aeroplane Heaven Grumman Panther included a photo recce version. It had a camera viewfinder function showing what the vertical camera was seeing. I don't think it showed what the oblique cameras picked up though. I may be wrong as it was a few years ago that I had the original freeware Panther.

[DC1973]

I think you are building in FSDS which I have never used but in the GMAX/3DS MAX world that normally happens when you've mirrored a fuselage half to make the opposite side and then not welded the vertices along the joint line.

Try selecting all the vertices along the joint line and then weld them with a radius of something like .010" (or however it's done in FSDS). That usually fixes the issue for me.

The fuselage was created from a single cylinder, but I'll check the vertices anyway in case there's something there that I've missed. The booms also suffer from a similar, fainter line. I'll be texturing the tops and bottoms by splitting them into separate parts, so hopefully that might fix the issue.

@Daveroo I don't have any plans at the moment for active cameras, but the airplane will have functioning cowl flaps and removable engine covers to reveal the engines. Maybe something I could add later though as I know how to fit TacPack to aircraft using the SDK

[Mach3DS]

Yes, this happens using MCX as well. The vertices are no longer welded. Dave Garwood helped me fix this on the T-33X project. oops TK beat me to it!

[Lonewolfee1]

Looks really nice! Looking forward to it.

[PRB]

Just great stuff DC1973! Looking forward to the final product!

Martin Caidin wrote many books about WWII aircraft and histories of various WW-II planes in the 1970s. In one, don't remember which, he spent some words on the P-61, and quoted some USAF document that said the P-61, not the P-51, and not the F6F, was the "most maneuverable [US] fighter of WW-II". This due to the innovative spoilers and full span flaps, he said. And the two big giant engines. He was, apparently, a little over-exuberant in his praise of the P-61's performance, as he also was of the P-38, it turns out, but I devoured those books when I was a wee lad, and he had a role in my being a "fan", to this day, of those two planes in particular. That and the fact that they look cool. As to the aesthetic appeal of the P-61B/C vs. the bubble top P-61E/F-15, I always thought the plane lost most of it's great looks when they sawed off the top and put a bubble canopy on it. That stepped green-house canopy was cool!

Can't wait to try this one out in the sim!

[DC1973]

Thanks PRB!

I think both airplanes look fantastic in their own way too, and to be building an airframe that has not yet appeared in FSX / P3D is an unusual but very welcome place to be. There can't be many types out there that nobody has ever released for flight sim after all these years.

The vertices on the fuselage are apparently fine ( it was a one-piece cylinder to start with anyway ). However, I noticed that FSDS sees the fuselage as two pieces, and no matter how many times I use the "Join Selected" function, the fuselage remains in two pieces. I've checked to make sure that no polygons are selected or hidden, but clearly something's not joining up correctly. I'll keep digging...

[DC1973]

It was down to my own inexperience folks. I split the fuselage into four sections to test some multiple texture layers, and it proved very informative. The fuselage I had originally was fine but I had assumed that when mapping left and right, you had to use the whole section of map and could not combine that with selective sections of top and bottom mapping. D'oh!

The airplane's glossy, reflective texture set up compounded the problem also, and made it more obvious that the flaws where there when a matt finish and camouflage or similar might have hidden the "join" better. Finally, a large aluminium sheet overlaying the whole each external texture sheet emphasised the problem as the joins were not perfectly aligned. More time required on this for me, but all part of the learning process I suppose. Thanks to all who offered suggestions, onward and upward

Top texture applied as a test and the fuselage join line magically disappears. Model shown with engine bay exposed - the engine inside is a low-poly version of my Wasp radial.

[DC1973]

More progress now on texturing, after coming to a better understanding of texture maps. Bare metal always looks great and I've a long way to go compared to some of the other recent work-of-art posts here, but things are coming along nicely. Two shots, both in P3D v4, of the Reporter's left wing with bumps and basic bare metal texture - first without dynamic lighting, the other with. Is it me, or does P3D sometimes look better without the dynamic lighting?

[Sundog]

I'm not in P3D yet, but it's coming along nicely.

[Mach3DS]

This is looking beautiful!

[DC1973]

I'm not in P3D yet, but it's coming along nicely.

I'll be releasing an FSX-specific version too.

[DC1973]

This is looking beautiful!

Thanks Rick! If I get anywhere near the quality of your work, I'll be more than happy

[DC1973]

A minor update for the Reporter: further testing bare metal textures using bumps and rivets. It seems that the best combination is painted panel lines with rivets represented by the bump map. Getting some nice metallic looking effects now as I go forward. Lots of cleaning up going on in terms of stray polygons and smoothing groups, but in using the smoothing groups I have lost smoothing around certain areas like the fuel tanks and engine cowlings - not sure how that's happened but investigating as I go

Bump map lines on the left boom are much too deep and wide, an early lesson learned!

[N2056]

Wow Dean, that's really looking good! On the panel lines I use both maps, and I tend to favor being really subtle. The texture size and how parts are mapped also comes into play.

[DC1973]

Wow Dean, that's really looking good! On the panel lines I use both maps, and I tend to favor being really subtle. The texture size and how parts are mapped also comes into play.

Thanks Robert, I'm really enjoying tinkering with these options in texturing as they're really bringing the model to life. I've gone a lot further today as I've had a rare bit of spare time, and really getting some good metal effects now while using alphas as well as the textures themselves. I'm looking forward to perfecting the wing and then texturing the rest of the fuselage in the same way

[DC1973]

Much progress over the past two days on the Reporter's textures, thoroughly enjoying it and the almost limitless possibilities available using alphas and specular maps. Probably posting too many images of this development but what the hell...

[heywooood]

looks kinda like Howard's XF-11...

[strykerpsg]

Much progress over the past two days on the Reporter's textures, thoroughly enjoying it and the almost limitless possibilities available using alphas and specular maps. Probably posting too many images of this development but what the hell...

Such a beautiful work of art! I cannot wait to try her in P3D!

[DC1973]

Almost there now with the external model. I'm about to start doing the texture maps for the undercarriage ( the current ones are just simple stand-ins ) along with the associated bump maps. I'll get everything in place and finish off some final modelling tasks on the spoilers, which are not accurate on my model yet, as well as adding various fins and antenna detail. Then it's onto the full-detail texturing / bumps and adding a couple of other colour schemes. Work on the VC will start in the New Year if all goes to plan

Merry Christmas Holidays everyone!

[Josh Patterson]

I've never noticed to cowlings until now. I thought they were just standard P-61 units, but they're not. It looks like Northrop took some from a B-26 and flipped them over! (I also never noticed the big scoop underneath either. I guess I was just focused on how different the crew pod was!) I wish I could get a hold of Lone Star Model's conversion kit for a Monogram P-61!

[DC1973]

Got a bit more done over the Christmas period, mostly cleaning up smoothing groups, although some still refuse to disappear around the wing control surfaces. I also installed both of the finished Pratt & Whitney Wasp double radials and finalised the alpha for the metallic finish. The removed cowling doesn't expose as much of the engine as I'd like, so I'm thinking about conditionally animating the propeller spinner to be removed when Door 2 is used to remove the cowling - I think limited conditional visibility is possible in P3D v4 but not sure at the moment?

Anyway, coming along nicely and the list of to-do jobs on the exterior is getting steadily smaller...