Time for a tutorial or two

[MadMaxter]

Ok,

 

Now that FC 2.0 is coming out, I think it is time that you modelers out there started making some tutorials. I have searched high and low for tutorials geared specifically toward animating, lods, damage profiles, exporting into LOMAC.

 

I know pretty much how to model and skin, the things I need to know involve skinning, animating and all that specifically for Lock-On.

 

 

Any help or direction would be greatly appreciated.

 

 

Max

[Luse]

Huge reply, could come up every game has different ways of things to be done as you know.

 

Are you just looking for Lomac stuff or in general ?

[MadMaxter]

Huge reply, could come up every game has different ways of things to be done as you know.

 

Are you just looking for Lomac stuff or in general ?

 

 

As I said, for LOMAC specifically.

[czarnyolek]

Is not that many people who actually made fully functional plane models for LockOn.

You can find:

A-10 by simmod - group of people

F-15C by Walmis

Mig-21 by Beczl

Gripen by Tigrou

F-18E by VNAO - another team

Typhoon by VEAO, yet another team

Ada mod, yes its a team work

Su-27 by 3go - another team

Tomcatz with few models

F-22 by alper

and thats about it...

 

We are looking at some 10 3d plane modelers or teams that can do it.

Not too many to be honest.

And you gotta realize, that if someone have 3d modeling skills, not necessary posses skills or will to make tutorials.

Still gotta take into account people as Blaze who don't wish to share effect of their work with community, let alone sharing "know how".

[jalebru]

here is a link to a couple short tutorials on how to animate and do damage models.

 

http://tigroukam.free.fr/Hotel/Lockon/Models/Doc/LomacAnim.rar

[OldCrow]

The things that is different with lockon apart from another 3d model is basically the animation system. Not much else is different except some limitations on material usage and some other small things.

 

So the actual modelling and unwraping is similar to most other game models

 

Also the reason why you dont see big tutorials on these things is basically because there isnt many people modding for lockon. This is not because the modders dont want to do it or are too uptight to give away some of the secrets, its all about work load and how much time they have to make tutorials isntead of making models. The lockon modding community is generally very open, and most "secrets" are shared amongst everyone in the community. If you have a question and post it here, you can bet you will get some answers to it pretty quickly. If you are interested in making models for lockcon thats very good, the more the better! Even if there isnt tutorials on how to do stuff, theres plenty of knowledge here on the forum about most things ;)

Edited December 30, 2009 by OldCrow

[279KIAP-Snake]

Not sure if this link has been posted yet. Very good tutorials for those getting started in 3d moddeling like myself.

 

http://www.modern-air-combat.de/3DSMAX_Tutorials/

[VireVolte_tigrou]

Explaining how to create a full lockon model from zero is a huge task, there is not ready-to-use recipe. Nobody is able to explain shortly the full process ! But here is a short summary of the different steps. They're all important :

-> Define the project. Which plane ? Which use ? If is for aerobatics only, you don't have to care about payloads, pylon positions, etc... It is for private use or public release ? For private use, you can forget some details, etc...

-> Define poly count : 20.000 to 30.000 is a good base.

-> Find documentation. Beware of blueprints, you MUST check their accuracy by comparison with pictures for exemple. Even if blueprints seems correct, they don't describe full shape of the model. You need a huge collection of picture to validate your work.

-> Create 3D.

-> Create mapping.

-> Create template and skins.

-> Implement animations.

-> Create additional payloads.

-> Edit MeInit and .skins files.

-> Always check your model in game... Fix the bugs, then re-check in LO, then re-fix, etc...

 

Many tutorials exist on the web, especially about 3D and mapping. I let you find them.

 

If you have six months to lose (at least), you can begin now.

 

And of course, don't forget the ED's plugin needed for .lom export...

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=26447

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=23968

 

Cheers

[Alfa]

 

-> Find documentation. Beware of blueprints, you MUST check their accuracy by comparison with pictures for exemple. Even if blueprints seems correct, they don't describe full shape of the model. You need a huge collection of picture to validate your work.

 

Very true! :)

[theGozr]

The problem is the plugins we need new ones

[Renato71]

For start, it would be nice if each modeler could explain only one step in his/hers work. Ten modelers - ten steps and almost everything can be covered without much additional work.

 

Such tutorials should be collected into one topic. Searching through various topics here can produce various off-topic results :(

[jalebru]

For start, it would be nice if each modeler could explain only one step in his/hers work. Ten modelers - ten steps and almost everything can be covered without much additional work.

 

Such tutorials should be collected into one topic. Searching through various topics here can produce various off-topic results :(

 

 

Good idea, sadly with lockon models site going down, and the old sim mod site, alot of information has been lost to those of us just trying to start out.

 

Maybe we should start by asking for specifics, I know I for one need help with damage models and LODs.

 

For damge models, I get the basics about basically having 2 or more different models of the parts and showing/hideing them with the arg vis controler. Have also figured out how to add bullet holes and gashs in the airframe skin by useing "Decals" that get applied with the vis controler. The thing I can't figure out is how to link weapons to pylons so when say, part of a wing gets blown off, the weapons don't just hang there in mid air.

 

For LODs, I know you need to reduce your polys in the model, but I don't know what I need to do in the LOMUtils panel to actually get the stuff to actually save it as a LOD and work in game.

[OldCrow]

For the damage model, im at the same place as you, not sure if its possible to link the weapons to the damage model, think that is done in game automatically (so that the weapons dissapear or explode when the wing goes off which also would relate to the original lockon model and not the one you made yourself). I really dont know though, so I might be wrong

 

For lods, it is quite simple. You simply make different LOM's of your aircraft containing the ifferent lod's. So you would have your basic model, forexample f-15.lom, then LOD0 goes into f-15_LOD0.lom (forexample) and LOD1 goes into f-15_LOD1.lom and so on. All the lom files goes into the shape directory. Then how hte heck does lockon knows what files to use you might ask? That is done in the f-15.skins file. The .skins file is also located in the shapes folder. This is the file that describes to lockon which skins should be used in the meinit file, and it shows lockon what lod models (and what distance they should be active) to work with your model. Take a look at the su-25t for refrance. Hope this helps!;)

 

 

Hmm, maybe there could be a separate forum, or separate section in this forum dedicated to modelling for lockon with only info about stuff like this or maybe one big sticky post, hmm.. Interesting..

Edited January 7, 2010 by OldCrow

[Renato71]

Well, this is "3D Model" section - and it should do just fine. Only that there is no single topic named "3D tutorial" that contains links to various sections (tutorials for each segment of work). So you have to search on your own, and after a dozen pages I definitely get lost. One says this, another says that, try to keep track of that...

I know there are many tutorials for 3Dmax around the web, but it would be nice to see a single thread about making a Snoopy's flying doghouse or whatever, without much OT discussions and distracting questions until the END of the description. That way I could transform doghouse into a plane, and bother other with polishing up the work, not with the complete task.

I've made few tutorials for my gang on various addons and FC features, but I've made them from old forum threads. Pruned, cleaned, and so on, without any distracting discussion. And I update them from time to time when a previously unattended problem occurs. You know, fill in the blanks.

But, I cannot do that with 3D tutorial, as I do not know what is important, and what is outdated or incorrect.