F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

[gsnde]

...this model will not respond well as a user flyable model...

Then you have made a real AI model, Mark

[fishlips]

Hi Martin,
I just make the grey squares kinda-a look in the shape of an aircraft, Magic Mike sits in the drivers seat and makes it go up and down, round and round! lol
Who's in for painting this beast when all is said and done!
The stealth fighter is not an easy one to capture its true colours, as I found out.

PS: 3:00am in the morning here Downunder and my poor bright eyes have turned a little a dim. Time for bed me thinks before the sun shines off the ocean and through my window.

[gsnde]

Rest well, Mark

[fishlips]

WANTED!
Any real life F-35 photos displaying the external fuel tanks, no screenies of 3D models please.
Cheer's,

[fishlips]

[Weescotty]

Got your email Mark, will look at it tomorrow.

Meanwhile been working on the XML anims....

Couldn't figure out why G:Vars weren't working....
Then realised I had missed a space out in the nest of } 's.

The landing speed will need reduced by at least 1/3 to make it look reasonable, but the actual XML works a treat.

If I remember correctly for VTOL it also opens the weapons bay doors?

Going to set the gear to raise before the engine swivels back to straight on take-off, and lower before the nozzle starts swivelling for landing.

[fishlips]

Those G' Vars are something else arn't they but missing a space among all those } not like you
I was thinking about how the feathers are coded, may be we could have them animate on the throttle percentage which would see them operate from the threshold on powering up for take-off. (similar to the RAAF GAI-NBAI Hornets)

I have know idea about the weapons bay doors opening on VTOL but it is an interesting option. I wasn't exactly sure how or when those doors could be opened.
That would give more option to just perhaps having the doors open in the 15 minute pre-flight, which really doesn't show much when its sitting so low to the ground. Have some fun with it Kev, make it up as you'd like to see it operate in your sim, I'm wide open to it.

Please let Mike Mac know what you need done in the FDE, I'm sure he will do his utmost to make it happen.
cheer's,
Mark

[fishlips]

[fishlips]

F-35A wearing the prototype external wing drop tanks. Not sure if they will ever be used on the real thing. Still no photos available that I can find on the wing tanks.

[MIKE JG]

She's looking good there Mark.

[fishlips]

Thanks’ Mike.
It's hard to tell if you are on the right track as feedback can be difficult to achieve outside of the normal team of folks who are alway appreciate the effort you have gone too, even if the model kind-a sucks.

I received a whole "two PM's" for beta testing of the A-model and sent several invitations via email to some of the development guys who have previously shown interest so my insensitive to release this model is at an all time high, nawt.
I don't know what is happening around here with the public membership but they seem to be getting more and more dysfunctional, may be if they started paying for the previlage like over at UKMIL, they might start to get involved a bit more and be appreciative for all the hours of work that the guys at MAIW do for their enterainment benefit. I have to say, I'm really thinking of walking away from development for good and just do my own thing.
It's very sad.

[Weescotty]

Still working on the XML.

Added some 'detail' to the model you sent...
a) The spider thing over the upper fan intake.
b) The shaft inside the bay behind it.
c) Some detail on that bays doors.

Taking a little longer than I thought as I am bringing the parts into a workspace one by one and checking for gaps or problems.

[fishlips]

I can image the work in doing all that Kev. It's not an easy model to get around and has a heap of tiny fiddly bits that I'm not use to modeling.
The animations connected to a lot of those bits make it even more difficult to correct gaps and cracks that always seem to find there way into a model not to mention that every part is connected back to a single part node, which if you change something in the link there is a fair chance it sets up a chain reaction for other parts. Not an easy model at all from the outset. I apprecaite your time and effort in this model, I just hope others will also show a bit of appreciation.

The JSF modeling has now exceeded 100 hours of workmanship and while its probably not the best model you'll have in your sim, it sure will be among one the more time costly to develop.

[MIKE JG]

Yea, it's a thing that you have to want to do for yourself and no one else. I know people appreciate the work but until you've actually designed one from scratch, put the work and hours in yourself, people honestly can't appreciate how much effort is involved in each model, the headaches, tired eyes and starting things over from scratch.

I would be proud to have modeled something like this. I think it will be a huge success no matter where you end up leaving it. The textures look great, you've come a long way in that department alone.

The A model is going right into my sim at Nellis as soon as you are happy with it. The B will go right into my sim at Yuma and the C will live at Pax River, all places with scenery and AFD files just waiting for it. I'm sure I'm not the only one with plans for it.

I will happily test any of them out for you if you need help. I don't even remember seeing your request for testers because there are so many threads here to stay on top of these days and my personal time is greatly reduced for this stuff right now.

Also don't forget that it's summer up here on the other side of the planet from you guys. The days are long and the weather is beautiful so there's always a lull in this stuff at this time of the year.

[DaleRFU]

Also don't forget that it's summer up here on the other side of the planet from you guys. The days are long and the weather is beautiful so there's always a lull in this stuff at this time of the year.

I wish we had the nice weather, it just keep raining in the UK.....

[gsnde]

Howdy, Mark. Please find the proof of my interest in your inbox. A whopping 6 MB mail with shots and remarks. This is a great aircraft you have done. And you know it, in case you forget just have a look at it and you will immediately remember



Mike is absolutely right with what he says about feedback.

And like Mike I am looking forward to the release of your F-35, the more versions the better.

[fishlips]

Yea, it's a thing that you have to want to do for yourself and no one else

Mike,
That is my greatest downfall I'm afraid. I usually don't make anything for my self as I don't spend much time in the simulator other than may be doing a bit of on-line flying but then that dosn't involve FS9 models. I keep a pretty clean ship on my flight PC and use OrbX and a few of the better OZx freeware sceneries.
Gone are the days of FS9 and Voz sceneries for me and I don't have any of our packages in FSX at present time, not even RAAF bases by MAIW but I know there are people that enjoy them in both platforms.

I do this stuff for other peoples enjoyment more so and hope that they apprecraite the effort. I guess it can be asking a bit much after so many developers have been spoiled by so many fab models and packages over the years.

This story may not have anything to do with FS but I think its realivant just the same.
I once went camping at a lake and pulled out my guitar and started singing with friends around a log camp fire, before long we had an audence of several dozen like minded campers singing along into the night. The natural sound was incredable as the fire crackled and the valley return, I'll never forget it. Much better than a concert hall or studio could ever reproduce. It was real and it was happening.

Martin,
That was a lot of photos mate, thanks. I'm not sure what I can do about those triangles showing at the rear of the exhaust when viewed in FSX, it seems to be a coding thing from what I can work out. May be if and when this model makes FSX native, that will be overcome but in the meantime I might be able to make them super tiny, like one pixel. Still working on it!

PS:
With that weather so nice in the States, I might have to consider a trip to my holiday home in Peachtree City, Georgia. Such a lovely place to visit.

[clickclickdoh]

As one of the on and off again lurkers, I think I can only personally say that your work in developing this model is not only extremely appreciated, but flat out fascinating. I make a point of checking this thread when ever I see it updated, because frankly, I had absolutely no clue about how much work it took. Every step in making it come to life is fascinating.Anyone who has the guts to try developing one of these models gets mad respect from me.

I would have volunteered to help you test it, but 1) I have no clue what I'm looking for 2) I have this habit of disappearing into work for four months without notice -and- 3) Oh heck, Gifu need an update... why didn't someone tell me they changed the ramps?

[fishlips]

Beta testing of models is usually straight forward stuff that does not require any real knowledge of aircraft design, etc. We leave the finer stuff like control surfaces and FDE to people that know their way around that and they concentrate there efforts on that.

Generally we are looking for people to simply use the AI and view it in the simulator as an AI on flight plans. Look at it from the tower position, from a chase plane and via the traffic board, etc. We are looking for anything that is out of place on the model as it goes through its lod and animation cycles. As an example, "I may have got the LOD 3 canopy animation wrong" instead of lifting in preflight, it stays down.
That is one example of what I am looking for and it will stand out to anybody that uses the model for a few hours.
Another examples may be, "you think the landing light is not operating correctly or there is strange object flying with the aircraft that you think is a bit weird".
Don't laugh, in FSX there are strange objects showing up in the exhaust trail
In the testing phase, we typically need a number of people to take the aircraft out of the hanger and fly it around at your favourite airport, as we understand that no one person is going to find all the faults, if a fault even exists.
Unlike beta testing of airport scenery, you only need to focus on one object as it goes through its operation and if you find nothing is wrong, that is fine but if you find something is wrong, then that makes for better model to enjoy.
It's fairly simple stuff, if you have eyes, then you can beta test.
Of course, we are also looking for people that can do it in timely manner as we wish to complete the model as soon as possible, not wait weeks for input to flow in before we can carry-on with the project. Sometimes there is no choice in this and can lead to a project going dead.

[fishlips]

Going to be a bit more of a delay for further beta testing of the A-model while Kevin and I play code breakers again.
We are looking to develop a new xml code that is based similar to that code used by the AI Tucano but with a twist and a turn and it's proving difficult to achieve with our email programs separating the code lines and making the code worthless to test on the model.
Now that we are aware of that little drama occuring, hopefully the new code can be developed and add a bit more realism to the simulator.
cheer's,