JazAero

boy do I feel stupid… :-)

I don't know what MER's and ters stand for, and judging from how fast this thread went ice cold. I'm guessing no one else knows either. Unless I missed something somewhere, how about a little explanation guys? @southernrebel and @Paganus. :-)

We are more than happy to confirm that we are working in collaboration with VEAO to bring the Skyhawk to DCS. For Obvious reasons I cant go into details for the module and appropriate announcements and confirmations will follow from the guys at VEAO in due course. Watch this space!

I wish I could say more, but all I can say is I have over 4000 files of research on this aircraft and all its models. Stay tuned…

all I can say is, I've got it covered. :-)

Absolutely…!, I don't do anything halfway, that's not my style.:smilewink:

how thick is that front windscreen ? from the frame, It appears to be much thicker than the one we have modeled.

Not at all condescending or adversarial. I welcome comments. I've always said that "While high praise is nice for the ego. It teaches nothing. Criticism is where we learn" and I am all about learning.:smartass: @aaron886 I welcome your comments as well. I don't take anything personally (I'm too old for that:thumbup:) I appreciate all the feedback it gives me a lot of things to think about, who knows, perhaps this old dog can be taught new tricks. :D

That is my understanding as well. screen AO was used in the past to show shading and make up for the shortcomings of the earlier graphics cards light rendering capabilities. I believe New cards though, really don't require it if the geometry is there for the light to play off of. I hope DCS moves to a PBR system. in the future

Got It… (the 1st one on page 1 does appear flat.) The ones from in game that are lit correctly however do not, Doesn't ambient occlusion. basically soften the texture? screen depth ambient occlusion is an approximation, true ambient occlusion is calculated from geometry. edited because when I read it back the 1st time it sounded adversarial and that's not my intent. I appreciate all the comments in the future though I wouldn't use FSX to show graphics examples, only because it's already out of date Technologically and graphically speaking. I'm sure if they rewrote the program today it would look much better because it would take advantage of the more advanced rendering techniques built into the graphics cards

This is perfect. Thank you very, very much. I can't tell you how long I've looked for these. I am considering modeling the KAhU version now if time permits , just as a thank you. I have over 4000 files, photos, and reference material for the Skyhawk and did not have a picture of the stupid hinge.:-) Again, you have my thanks

thank you very much these are exactly what we have been looking for… :smilewink:

I'm not sure if it's a limitation, but I do know that it is widely known that X-Plane 10 and for that matter all of the series are optimized for rendering geometry over texture. which sort of makes them unique in that respect. In many instances they actually recommend substituting texture with geometry Whenever possible. I have often wondered if that's not the reason why aircraft look exceptional in X-Plane, but landscapes tend to suffer. But I digress this is not an X-Plane forum. I do know that DCS handles things differently. so, I will have to adjust the model accordingly.

@X93355 Thank You, really only one, if you can get a picture of the canopy hinging system. That's the only thing that we have no images of. I have close to 6 GB of reference material and out of all of that. Not one picture of that mechanism or hinge exists. Unfortunately, I have no Skyhawks close to me where I could go out and snap some photos. And of course any in cockpit shots are always considered a plus. Thank you again for your offer

I have a different take on the importance of textures. I think they're overrated. allow me please qualify that. Years ago graphics cards didn't have the processing power necessary to render good geometry and proper lighting. So modelers got around that limitation with texture and with what I like to call texture tricks, which include bump maps, etc. With today's modern graphics cards. There is more than enough power to render complex geometry and lighting and allow the light to play on the geometry and in essence create its own texture, just as it is done in real life. sure, you can add various subtle elements such as dirt, paint smudges, decals, etc. but I don't believe it is necessary anymore to create extra elements to "simulate" the geometry. Which always looks game-ish in my opinion. I offer the screenshot below as an example of what can be done with just geometry and lighting and some very simple decal work or what some like to call textures. this is an in game shot from X-Plane 10 which the model was originally developed for. edit, don't misunderstand me. I am interested to see what a good texture artist can do with this model, and how it would hold up against the original here, would it enhance it? or would it actually cheapen its appearance?. Right now, it is by no means perfect, but I've had more than one person think that this was a photo of a real aircraft. And to me, that says a lot

Thanks Guys. @Roller25 I did look at this stuff. but could not find what I was looking for. @chief1942 same thing I found pictures of everything imaginable except the one thing I'm looking for. I'm just going to have to go find an A4 somewhere in a hangar, tough to do where I live. :-) . I appreciate all the help you guys tried to give me. Keep your ears open for an upcoming announcement, that's all I can say right now…

I don't know why it did that because I actually did get your PM, but anything you can find out would be appreciated, even if you have any photos I like to see them, especially if they've never been published. I have downloaded every photo that's been published of the aircraft. Thank you

okay some interesting ideas posted here, my solution was rather unique because I broke my stand. So I use a dab of hot glue and an old security camera ball joint mount. Couple of high-strength magnets so it is removable and problem solved...! now I have it mounted on its own arm telescoping from a camera tripod which actually sits on my desk behind the monitors, which I can then reposition anywhere within Eye shot and completely free of the monitor. I will try to get a picture of it and post additionally, I will have the old-style IR reflectors and instead of using the the bill of a baseball cap. I clip it onto the headband of my headphones.

we are currently using 6 but they have not yet been optimized. Since we do this in X-Plane X-Plane allows multiple liveries by simply swapping a set of maps on-the-fly. We could probably do it in 4, texturing is not my strongest area.

2048 square

yes, they are both already done. except for the cockpit instrumentation differences. When we started the project. The idea was to build the aircraft out in 3-D, the way they are in real life so we can just plug parts in as needed to change the models. that render it is actually all 3 models side-by-side in a single render from 3DS another interesting fact is that our models do not use bump maps. What we did instead was model the geometry and then simply paint it the way a real aircraft would be painted and allow the light to do the rest. We feel that using bump maps and texture maps to simulate things like panels and complex geometry lends itself to making an aircraft feel almost cartoony. When you look at our models in screenshots from X-Plane . There is a fullness and realism to the model that we felt that at least at the time you just couldn't achieve otherwise. the hope is that we can continue this and that it will carry over to DCS. It's going to be a matter of how DCS handles lighting and shadowing Another interesting tidbit that not a lot of people are aware of is that X-Plane is much more efficient at rendering geometry than it is at rendering texture maps. This makes for some interesting possibilities with regards to model complexity. Instead of simulating a panel line we can actually create outline by creating the panel itself. When you see a shadow cast on our model is because there is geometry creating that shadow. A good example are the panel lines that you see from the oval wing inspection panels of which there are a lot of them, they are not not baked in to a flat surface with a bump map or normal map simulating the geometry. there are actual individual and removable panels. This is especially useful when aircraft changes orientation in the lighting shadows fall where they are supposed to. and also because panel lines tend to be too thick and baked on textures losing a lot of realism. We tried to avoid that. there are of course exceptions to every rule, and even on our model we use some painted textures to simulate things like rivet heads in the flaps and under the leading-edge slats, the model does not suffer because of that so we left them alone. there's a few other areas.

here is some more photos with various versions. and finally 3 versions side-by-side A4-M, A4-E/F, A4-C (edit had to recheck the filenames) Enjoy, feel free to comment

Thank You, I was a jet engine mechanic in the Navy in the late 70s and actually had a chance to run one of these puppies up. It was so hard to resist the temptation to just punch the throttle and take her out for a spin. :-)

Greetings fellow DCS pilots and mod makers. I would like to direct your attention to my A4 Skyhawk project that was originally started as an add-on to X-Plane 10, but I have been asked repeatedly if I could port this to DCS. I've been working on this on And off for 6 years. Time to make an announcement. A lot of people thought this project was dead. Many more thought we were the "other guys" And I am not taking anything away from them. They are doing great work. This model is completely scratch built every single pixel every single vertex. It has been a Labor of love to model one of my favorite most iconic aircraft. We now have It flying DCS. So I present to you one of many models. We Have the A4 C, E, F, M, K,, T-A4 J All being worked on simultaneously. So here is our first teaser you seen it before. Now here it is In game.

Intel core I 7 stock clock 32 gigs of RAM. GTX 670-4 GB cards x2SLI. Multi-monitor setup. thrustmaster HOTASwarthog track IR my brother system is identical to mine except he has 2 GTX 680 both running Windows 7 ultimate 64-bit