F-35 Variants (FS9, FSX and P3Dv4)
Posted: 27 Oct 2017, 09:49
Following on from the F-35 discussions in the "Thoughts on the next project" thread, I can now post an update of the design so far.
I decided to start with the F-35B, because it’s the most complex of the 3 variants. The basic shape was a little tricky to achieve with smooth contours in the main, but with some sharp edges on the fuselage sides and of course some awkward serrated edges. The nozzle animation, having done the earlier test, went well:
The fun started when the bays were cut out and doors put in place. Gmax modellers in particular will tell you to avoid “Boolean” cuts like the plague because they have the habit of screwing up the smoothness of the surrounding mesh. The F-35B has more bays than I have ever modelled in one aircraft before and although the cutting was fine, the resulting disturbance to the mesh was really untidy. It took me a couple of days to get everything back to a respectable finish:
Having made the base “B” model, I looked a little more closely at the configurations of external weapons loads. A bit of relief on that one really because in practice it seems that only GBU-10’s, GBU-12’s plus AIM-9’s are carried at the moment. I’m therefore going to keep the load-out simple for the initial release with 4 x GBU-10’s plus the AIM-9’s (as an alternative to the clean model):
I can revise the loads later when drill configurations become clearer.
The model exports fine and I borrowed the existing F-35A FDE to set it up in FS9. It flew a circuit of my test airfield perfectly first time. That’s of course with a conventional take-off and landing:
All the animation is working fine, but for my first test, I just used “flaps” as the trigger to move the doors and make the engine swivel. My next task is to watch some more videos so that I can determine what positions are used on all the moving parts at the various stages of flight, ie parked, taxi, take-off, cruise and landing. I can then use more refined triggers to get more appropriate animation in all stages.
Once the triggers are all done I can start work on the STOVL FDE. I’ll start with my Harrier STOVL files in the first instance and modify from there.
I’m looking forward to painting the aircraft, but I’ll hold off starting that for the time being. Developing the FDE will give me further opportunities to view the aircraft a bit more so that I can hopefully see any problems before creating the mapping for the textures, after which changes become a lot more time consuming.
I think I’m through the modelling pain barriers and design booby traps (the inner shell of the fuselage surrounding the engine nozzle in particular). I was surprised at the achieved polygon count: 7263 on the base model and 9720 with the weapons load. I was expecting more, particularly with the serrated edges.
It’s an intensive model to make and Mike was right, it needs a lot of references to photographs. I’m doubly grateful to Hartwig who sent me so many. Nearly every one of them told me something about what I needed to do. The one thing I couldn’t find anywhere was a decent underside plan, so photographs were essential here.
Thanks Hartwig for a great resource.
John
I decided to start with the F-35B, because it’s the most complex of the 3 variants. The basic shape was a little tricky to achieve with smooth contours in the main, but with some sharp edges on the fuselage sides and of course some awkward serrated edges. The nozzle animation, having done the earlier test, went well:
The fun started when the bays were cut out and doors put in place. Gmax modellers in particular will tell you to avoid “Boolean” cuts like the plague because they have the habit of screwing up the smoothness of the surrounding mesh. The F-35B has more bays than I have ever modelled in one aircraft before and although the cutting was fine, the resulting disturbance to the mesh was really untidy. It took me a couple of days to get everything back to a respectable finish:
Having made the base “B” model, I looked a little more closely at the configurations of external weapons loads. A bit of relief on that one really because in practice it seems that only GBU-10’s, GBU-12’s plus AIM-9’s are carried at the moment. I’m therefore going to keep the load-out simple for the initial release with 4 x GBU-10’s plus the AIM-9’s (as an alternative to the clean model):
I can revise the loads later when drill configurations become clearer.
The model exports fine and I borrowed the existing F-35A FDE to set it up in FS9. It flew a circuit of my test airfield perfectly first time. That’s of course with a conventional take-off and landing:
All the animation is working fine, but for my first test, I just used “flaps” as the trigger to move the doors and make the engine swivel. My next task is to watch some more videos so that I can determine what positions are used on all the moving parts at the various stages of flight, ie parked, taxi, take-off, cruise and landing. I can then use more refined triggers to get more appropriate animation in all stages.
Once the triggers are all done I can start work on the STOVL FDE. I’ll start with my Harrier STOVL files in the first instance and modify from there.
I’m looking forward to painting the aircraft, but I’ll hold off starting that for the time being. Developing the FDE will give me further opportunities to view the aircraft a bit more so that I can hopefully see any problems before creating the mapping for the textures, after which changes become a lot more time consuming.
I think I’m through the modelling pain barriers and design booby traps (the inner shell of the fuselage surrounding the engine nozzle in particular). I was surprised at the achieved polygon count: 7263 on the base model and 9720 with the weapons load. I was expecting more, particularly with the serrated edges.
It’s an intensive model to make and Mike was right, it needs a lot of references to photographs. I’m doubly grateful to Hartwig who sent me so many. Nearly every one of them told me something about what I needed to do. The one thing I couldn’t find anywhere was a decent underside plan, so photographs were essential here.
Thanks Hartwig for a great resource.
John
