OldCrow

Wow... The detail is amazing! Those sliders you got there, they seem quite helpful, could you share some knowledge about what they do and how to set them up?

Thats a good looking model there Only feedback from the screens is maybe to get some better skins, they look a little "blurry" to me in some places. Model looks good though. Though the nozzle might look a little off, but I'm no F-16 expert myself, so maybe some models has this kind of nozzle, but I haven't seen it before.

You wont need LOD for your cockpit model, as this model will only be shown from the cockpit view in game. Though there is a trick to get the mfd's and hud to work on your custom pits which is done using the lod system, but nothing of that is done in 3dsmax. You wont need a dummy for each object either. We don't have the "correct" procedure to create cockpits since it was never released from ED, so most of the knowledge about cockpit models have been found doing t the hard way. So with that said, it might be that ED uses dummy's etc when creating cockpits, but personally I haven't found it to be necessary. If you're from the FSX modding community I can also add that lockons system for gauges etc is just normal animation. THe gauges are built up in 3d and then animated in the appropriate argument. Each function in the cockpit (and outside model) has its own argument. So you assign the correct argument for the part you want to do, and then animate this part accordingly. Personally I find it to be a organized system, but can be a bit of a pain to get right the first times. Also, to my knowledge object names does not suit any purpose in game.

Yep, with fc2 its not difficult. Make sure your system unit setup is set to 1 unit = 1 meters. Coordinates 0,0,0 will act as the eye position in game. The x axis is the forwards and backwards direction, the y axis is the sideway direction and z is the up and down direction of the model. Another "issue" when modeling for FC2 is that you will need to assign a material with texture to all parts. If a part of your model doesn't have a texture, it will be invisible in game in most cases.

I believe the whole of Norway is in shock after this. It is unthinkable that this could happen in Norway at this scale. I'm not directly affected since I don't know any of the victims in person, but I'm quite affected as a Norwegian by these terror acts which were done in such a horrible, inhuman way. I am lost with words describing what has happened in Oslo and on Utøya. My deepest condolences to the victims and their families, and a deep gratitude from the bottom of my heart to everyone involved with the rescue operations.

I believe you will find some useful info on structure modeling here: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=26447 If that fails, you could try and open an existing structure in the model viewer and check the arguments.

I have the same problem on my end, would be cool to know the answer, and a working max model for export would help allot cheers

This is not the place to discuss such matters, and you're not doing yourself any favors by doing so

lol, row row row your boat...:D

It will be released at some point, though it will need alot of time testing etc etc before that day comes.

In renders like these, the materials helps you alot aswell (reflections, refractions), along with global illumination. And ofcorse, polycount isnt really an issue in that cenario. I recently started working making renders for a company that designs ships, and its not uncommon the poly count will be quite high indeed, in fact to the point where you will see the result on rendering time. But thats also just about what limits the poly count in that situation. Textures helps alot ofcorse, but they are more important in a game then in a render I would say. For some of the ships I've rendered, we've only used materials alone, and it gives quite good results depending on the rendering engine. Then again, panel lines, weathering etc etc wasnt really an issue in that situation. I guess what Im trying to say is that textures are very important for a game, but so is a detailed 3d model. If you lack one of them, the result may be poor.

looks like a fun project, the robot is starting to take shape, looks good :) May I ask what kind of cartoon you making?

All animations in lockon will be linear even if your animation in 3dsmax is curved. I would suggest to convert all animations in max to liner animations as then you would get the exact result you would get in game. EDIT: also link the two parts of the airbrake piston together, and they will stick together like glue.

I am no expert, but I'll try and give you some pointers on some of your issues. 1. Are you using turbosmooth or meshsmooth? In that case, are the pics of the model after turbosmooth/meshsmooth or is it the base model? If its the base model, I would recommend you to ease up on the polys a bit, and let the turbosmooth/meshsmooth do the smoothing work. Otherwise it looks like you have mostly 4 sided polygons there which is good. For the places where you have 3 or 5 sided polys, try and make them into 4 sided. (This is most important if you are using turbosmooth or meshsmooth ofcorse) 2. Not quite sure what you mean here, but you can animate that part as a separate object, or animate it using a bone structure and a skin modifier. There are different ways to ensure the part to open and close only to certain degrees, but I'm not too familiar with that. 3. Didnt quite understand what you mean here, but you could use boolean to cut objects to a different object, however this will screw up your topology quite a bit. Sometimes, the manual labour gives the best result. 4. Add a shell modifier. This adds a thickness to all your polys following the normal direction. You can set the thickness and which direction the shell should be added. I don't have a lot of experience modeling characters, so form the little experience I have I would recommend creating a low detail base model with a turbosmooth modifier on top to smooth out the model.

Yep, args should work in the same manner for FC2 as FC1. The arg numbers should be the same aswell, so theres actually not any work requiered in 3dsmax to port over the model from FC1 to FC2 if I remember correctly

That looks great! Keep it up :thumbup:

Wow, really coming together now!:)

So you add this using material ID's on the objects then?

Impressive details in that model, keep it up!

Ahh thats great! Love that plane

Great stuff! +1

Alright, couldnt quite find the post, but found a little info, or key word to maybe get you going. Heres the link: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=560009&highlight=billboard#post560009 Its a billboard function, if I remember correctly it should be set to z axis. EDIT: added some pics to help you along AS to what exactly the setting should be on these I am not sure. But can be pretty certain billboard should be selected.

Gonna do alittle digging, see if I can find that post describing the part of using one plane for the nav lights

Yea, can be alittle lengthy process, but if you make one object completely finished, its just a matter of moving keys and editing the mapping. Thought I'd also add that the visibility argument can be used for other things aswell, like the undercarriage when its retracted and the nozzle on afterburner.

One note on the animation bar: If you set your animation bar to start from -100 and end at 100 you also should make sure your FPS is set at 100. If you set your animation bar like this, you set it in accordance with how you should set it in regards for lockon models. This is (I believe) the way the animation bar should be set. This doenst mean that this is the only settings that works, but its the most simple one, and the one they used themselves (most probably). Another note on the visibility argument: This is a really great tool to use to make things invisible/visible. When you use this method, you will also optimize your model in regards to fps so that the objects thats set to be invisible wont be rendered (as Alpha explains). If you only use scale to do this though, your objects will still be rendered and you will get worse performance, especially when damage model is introduced. Also, using the visibility arguments literally takes seconds to set up, its not a complicated procedure and its pretty simple to handle.