It, er, turns out that most folks weren't having a problem with the transparencies in FSX for the F-14 :oops: However, if one only downloads one of the two packages, then the canopies are black in FSX. The Sunset package for NAS Oceana works fine apparently although I recall trying it once and had t...

A standard, unmodified F-14 AI with transparent canopy and nice slightly reflective textures taxies past dozens more. My F-14 work for FSX is done, just P3D to go. Put a cheque in the post, put a jar at the bar...

I am intrigued by the apparently invisible boy that seems to have jumped off the intake. LOL! That's the shadow of "Bob", a free-walking character from ORBX that I use to wander about in FS checking things out up close when developing. Mate, I solved the problem of the F-14 black canopies...

Hold the press!! How on earth did I manage this? I've been tinkering with the textures but not the armed models of the F-14 and suddenly they have transparent canopies

Will investigate. It doesn't alter the fact that the model won't work in P3D but it sure makes life easier for FSX users!

Looks very nice. Thanks Steve, I spoke a bit too soon though. Isolating the wheel chocks also took some of the undercarriage with it. Nick used the same material for the majority of the airplane so it's very hard to isolate any one part. I may end up having to re-build most of the airplane in the l...

OK, some headway made. Although I'm re-building the main fuselage of the F-14 due to stuck visibility components, I have managed to isolate the wheel chocks and also applied an XML code that removes them before the airplane taxis, in line with other animations. If I can manage to isolate out the boa...

Ah no worries chaps. The only reason I mentioned the visors and had the idea is because Nick appeared to have modelled for it but not implemented it. If you look at his texture sheets, he's textured the crew's faces, and the visors were separately modelled also. It's why was able to make them glossy...

I do have the awfority chaps, via Martin, who contacted me via PM and suggested I could take on the F-14 provided I gave it the full works ( all variations, all packages etc ). I'd already agreed to convert my P-61C / RF-61C to AI for MAIW, and this project sort of grew out of that as so many people...

Thank you, thank you from a Tomcat fan! On the moving crew heads, while airborne with the wings swept back, anyway to have the pilot hand raise with middle finger extended? That would be awesome! 8) I am considering having helmet visors that raise when the airplane is below 50 KIAS but I don't want...

Awesome, sounds like a common sense approach. I'll do that, cheers!

gavinc wrote: ↑11 Apr 2018, 07:55 BTW - welcome to the frustrating, addictive world of AI

Cheers Gavin!

That was going to be one of my next questions, how many LODs? The F-14 currently has no less than seven, but I've read here that msot folks are creating about three now. Does that sound about right?

Cheers,
Dean

I couldn't wait and had to check, and can confirm that using the RADItor tool fixed the taxi issue. All the airplanes are now behaving as they should. I need to work on the visibility for certain model parts such as wheel chocks and RBF tags, but it was fun watching the revised Tomcats in the circui...

Have you checked and corrected the model bounding box with Arnold's Radiator tool? Not sure if this is fixed by now, but not long ago this value was massively increased during conversion and needed to be resized. Martin, you're a genius! :) I completely forgot about that! The F-14 had been given a ...

OK, either there is some massive difference between the AI engines of FS9 and FSX or there is another factor at play here. Best to ensure that you only have one afcad for Miramar. We made several over the years so it must be a possibility. The un-altered, FS9 Tomcats operate normally: only the FSX ...

No changes made to the FDE or .cfg files at all yet, just mdl conversion to FSX standard. Interesting.... The airplanes fly okay as I watched one land.

Cheers Firebird, I suspected that the heads were using Tick18 - it should be quite easy to rectify. It's the taxiing, as you say, that's odd. They land at Miramar OK, then taxi off the runway fine, but after that they slow right down and just head off in a straight line. I found two of them a couple...

Hi folks, I'm delighted to say that I'm now working on the conversion of Nick's F-14 for FSX / P3D. It's going to help me learn how AI are done ready to convert my P-61C Black Widow and RF-61C Reporter when they're ready into AI, and I didn't think I'd ever get to work on a Tomcat as there are so ma...

Wow, beautiful work guys!

Thanks for the answers and encouragement gents! Mike: if I can get permission to upgrade the F-14 I'll definitely take it on, I've always loved that plane, even before Top Gun was released. John: Many thanks for the answers. I noticed the larger 2048 files and wondered whether it would be an issue. ...

And after typing all that, I find the "Tutorials" section of the forum. It's an age thing...