Buff

Makadocias · Post by **Makadocias** » 05 May 2007, 08:53

That is looking awesome! Keep it up mate!

ronniegj · Post by **ronniegj** » 05 May 2007, 13:42

Jake, I must amend my discription slightly, as it was over-complicated and not quite correct in any case.

But first -- what do you mean about the not fitting into wheel well? Are you not clearing the sides of the well during the retraction, or are you refering to the space inside the well?

If not clearing the sides, perhaps you can change the timing of the animation for the boggies rotating to an inline with the fuselage before begining the raising motion to insure clearance. If you mean not enough room inside the wheel well, I suggest that you eliminate the well and replace with a polygon with texture which the gear assembly can just come up or go down thru as the well doors will be closed at a time when the viewer can actually see the belly of the a/c from below. On the ground you can not actually view the a/c from below. A detailed well isn't really necessary and just adds unneeded polys.

It has been too many years since I have been able to observe an actual t/o of Buff, I think someoe mentioned that he had contact w/ex-crew chief, and I would suggest that you make use of that contact to get the correct retraction sequence.

So, now, try to visuallize the main strut as an upside down T with the long shaft being the (I think they call it an oleo?) hydraulyic two section assembly and the cross bar being the shaft that rotates from perpendicular to the fuselage longitudinal axis to parallel with it. At the extreme ends of the cross bar, attached and positioned in an up/down orientation to the a/c (in other words exactly as the main gear strut shaft) are the very short (only slightly longer than the compressed position of the wheels) are the boggy struts, which also should be hydraulic struts. At the extreme lower end of these struts is where the axe for the wheels. In real life, these boggys are very articulate, allowing the Buff to taxi at oblique angles (often called crabbing), but don't think there is anyway to do this with AI (damd, one of my favorite things about Buff). If you were to rotate the boggys to parallel, and then raise the main struts, with the bay doors following right behind, I thing the illusion will be near enough to correct and rather spectacular for the viewer.

I wish I actually knew what I was doing, so that I could build the assembly for you to lighten the load of building the rest of the machine.

BTW, that thing is looking awesome. This will be a very popular model, believe me!

Ron

RipPipPip · Post by **RipPipPip** » 05 May 2007, 16:48

Jake, she's georgeus (mmmm, is this right adjective for a plane

).

One thing I would recommend from my side - I would go more for just painted cockpit windows for all planes which do not own bubble canopies.
This is just to save some polygons.

Awol · Post by **Awol** » 05 May 2007, 17:41

Congrats, that is looking really good. Can't wait to retire my "AI" Alphasim thing.

I too would urge just using textures for windows. They actually look better on birds that have roofs.

Post by **gsnde** » 07 May 2007, 09:16

It already beats the MyTraffic B-52 by miles !!!!!

RipPipPip · Post by **RipPipPip** » 07 May 2007, 14:00

Military AI ... works!

aerogator · Post by **aerogator** » 08 May 2007, 20:14

with a little paint...

have to rework the port main gear doors (I had them backward) and get the pogos or whatever you call the outrigger wheels working plus about a million other things but its coming.

untextured polygons

Post by **VulcanDriver** » 08 May 2007, 20:49

Beautiful! I've been waiting for a real AI Buff for ages. Will you be doing retro models as well. And can we have one with Hound Dogs please.

John

nickblack423 · Post by **nickblack423** » 09 May 2007, 07:20

Looking great Jake, well done mate. Looks like SAC is gonna be covered soon.

Nick

Post by **Weescotty** » 09 May 2007, 08:23

RE:Untextured polys.

Reason - If you texture left / right but the polys are horizontal, they wont get textured. They would be done via top / bottom texturing.
Same applies vice versa.

Workarounds -
1) Do individual polygon texturing for them.
2) Move one of the side points 0.001 up or down, this will make it left / right textured poly. (vice versa if part is textured top / bottom)

aerogator · Post by **aerogator** » 09 May 2007, 15:24

Thanks Kev, but I'm still a little confused

1) Do individual polygon texturing for them.

If I texture the polys individually, I assume they will follow the texture map even when I change something else on it and create a new .bmp?

2) Move one of the side points 0.001 up or down, this will make it left / right textured poly. (vice versa if part is textured top / bottom)

Is this when I outline the part on the texture properties dialog box or when I apply a paint or am I missing it altogether?

Man, I just can't get it when it comes to texturing

(and many other things)

But, as always, I'll keep plugging along

Psuls · Post by **Psuls** » 09 May 2007, 18:10

please, don't give up

Dark Morelia · Post by **Dark Morelia** » 10 May 2007, 01:35

I think what Pascal means is those untextured poly's are horizontal in the X axis, meaning they wont be affected by left or right texture mapping, only top.
So if you were to lower the points on one side of each poly, so in effect, you'd be tilting the poly to one side, hence it will get textured by left or right mapping.
Once they're texture mapped, you can put them back as they were. The area might paint a tiny bit weird, but as long as nothing much except grey gets painted there i doubt it'd matter.

aerogator · Post by **aerogator** » 10 May 2007, 15:45

OK

So you actually move the points in the model itself? I don't know what .001 would be, though I suspect it is a very, very small amount: just enough to get it off the horizontal plane? That would not cause a change in the appearance of the model?

aerogator · Post by **aerogator** » 01 Jun 2007, 21:12

OK so some progress has been made...

No gear wells yet and the lights are all scrambled (B777 default) but you can see in the first frame that the gear goes up pretty realistically although I need to delay the doors some. Kev, I hope you can show me how to get that take-off attitude right.

Mike, I've about got a model ready to sent to you. Give me a few more days.

Post by **Firebird** » 01 Jun 2007, 21:47

Jake,

It looks like all that toil is paying off, it looks v.good .

Post by **Weescotty** » 01 Jun 2007, 21:58

aerogator wrote:OK so some progress has been made...
. Kev, I hope you can show me how to get that take-off attitude right.

Attitude?

Oh, and 3 slicker ways of dealing with polys that don't texture -

1) Select the poly, right click choose textures, change it to custom poly then go from there. Same as adding a decal to a poly.

2) For large areas that deals with unwanted overflow between horizontal and vertical surfaces -
a) Texture one face as usual
b) Texture the surface that creates the pesky overflow onto the one applied in step (a)
c) Switch to poly mode
d) Select the poly, right click, texture, just flick it over from part to custom texture.
e) Repeat from (d) for as many polys as you need to do.
f) Go back to part mode
g) Clear that texture.

Result is the overall texture dissapears but each poly changed over to custom retains the texture.

The complete top and bottom of the T-38 was done this way because doing them in part mode resulted in overflow onto the sides.
Also some of the Global Hawk, and the intakes on the Gripen.

3) Select the offending untextured polys and split them off the main part.
Texture as normal
Goto poly mode
Change each poly to custom
Go back to part mode and clear the overall texture
Yet again the part retains the custom poly texture
Select this part then the orignal
Join them
Snap to scale.

Post by **VulcanDriver** » 01 Jun 2007, 22:04

The BUFF takes off almost flat, and climbs without putting its nose up very much, unlike most a/c. Most strange to watch.

John

reconmercs · Post by **reconmercs** » 02 Jun 2007, 02:02

wow, I had actually forgotten you were working on a BUFF Jake, she's looking great, keep up the good work

RipPipPip · Post by **RipPipPip** » 02 Jun 2007, 07:40

VulcanDriver wrote:The BUFF takes off almost flat, and climbs without putting its nose up very much, unlike most a/c. Most strange to watch.

How about XML rotating body solution, Jake?