Decaff's Garage

[decaff_42]

That quite literally took a nosedive into the wastelands of animation. Blender and me aren't getting along with complex animations, such as parts that don't rotate along the global x,y,z axis. I spent more hours than I want to count trying to get them to work, only to have 0 of them work in YSF.

If someone would be willing to animate it, I would get the landing gear made, and provide a list of deflections/animations that need to be done to get the project going again.

[Shutter]

dude just use dnmviewer you're making things 10x more complicated than needed.

[decaff_42]

Don't have access to windows machine. Mac only for me.

If i could find an old windows machine I would snatch it in an instant to do modding work.

[Shutter]

My bad I figured you could run it with wine or some shit. But yeah vince has a blender guide on animating, and I really suggest you read all the tutorials relevant to dnm structure and animationg, especially the old ones. Once you understand all the basic compnents of ys modding you'll never have any actual obstacles to making things do what you want, the only difficulty becomes staying interested in a single project long enough despite the knowledge you can make ANYTHING.

[decaff_42]

Yeah Vince's guide was a big help in understanding how to animate things, but when I tried to use his methods, things started to fall apart. Especially the rudder, which is the only thing he shows how to animate along a non global axis. When I did that, the top of the rudder would sway from left to right as I moved through the frames, even through when I defined the animation keys, it looked normal, ie rotating on a local axis the way i wanted it to be.

I really wish the dnm export script would allow the use of armatures. Those things make animations so much easier.

When I look at the different models out there that I assume are assembled in dnmviewer, there is a second layer that contains all of the empty objects that the various srfs are parented to. Do I have to have all of the empties in that layer for the animations to work, or can they be in the same layer as the srfs?

As for using wine, I have attempted to port it twice. My only porting success is gepoly/x but I prefer blender for doing that kind of work. When I tried to port dnm viewer, both the Japanese an english versions, I can get a window that has all the buttons and drop down menus, but the viewer window is completely white, no matter if I just opened the program up, or tried to import a dnm. I don't know why this is happening, but I figure it is worth-while to investigate further.

If I can get dnm viewer to work, do you think it would be worth while to upload it so other mac people can use it? or is there some issues with permissions etc.

[Gunny]

Try buying an old cheap windows xp to use only for modding work.Around here an old dell with xp goes for like $50.00.No need for Internet connections just a couple of USB ports for transferring data to your Mac.

[decaff_42]

Mah Air Berlin models are done!

here's a -700 to complement the 2 -200s.



I'll make a few different planes for a couple other registration numbers.

[Philster]

I'm curious Decaff, have you figured out a way to cut in blender without it causing random creases in the smooth surface?

[Shutter]

I'm curious Decaff, have you figured out a way to cut in blender without it causing random creases in the smooth surface?

That's your normals and your smooth/solid edges getting fucked. Recalc normals when necessary and make sure to smooth edges if they get fucked.

I recently tried the new blender and you can just cut as you please and make n-gons, similar to 3ds max. I recommend exporting your .srf's as .lwo's between blender versions (2.49 and current) to use the current one for painting, since making camo cuts without breaking everything should be piss easy now.

However, I still suggest floating camo as the norm, quadrifying camo cuts leads to SO MANY unnecessary polys it's retarded.

[decaff_42]

I should really check out the newer blender for the painting. Thanks for the tip!

My method is not entirely fool proof, but here it goes

1) Try to cut between vertices so that there are as few polygons generated by the cut as possible.

2) If you cannot cut between vertices, keep the number of SMALL polygons to a minimum. Use the merge function in the edit mode to make vertices merge together to reduce polygons. This only works when you merge vertices that were made from an original, single polygon.

3) You get the weirdness only when you are cutting polygons that are part of a steep curve. For example, the nose of an F-16 is very tricky. For the most part, the fuselage of a passenger get is round enough that this is only an issue in a few places.

[Philster]

Thanks for the help.

I also got 3ds Max from the free program a while ago, so I will also try that.

[decaff_42]

short video of animation woes.

Okay, I'm following Vince's instructions from YSFHQ here:
http://forum.ysfhq.com/viewtopic.php?f= ... 376#p29865

and when i just rotate the rudder around starting at about 1:50 that is how I want the rudder to animate.

However, at 2:50 you can see the rudder is not rotating around the correct axis. i have not idea what axis it is rotating around. Any ideas?


Also, in vince's tutorial here how does one reset the location and rotation? This may be my stumbling point for the animations.

[Shutter]

blender and ysflight use axes that don't match. Blender has a z axis as height, a y axis as width (with respect to ys modding, we do everything rotated 90deg because of the scripts) and the x axis as length. Gepoly and the dnm's don't consider it that way. I used to have a chart on it but sadly I can't find it atm. I think you could figure it out by making a 1x2 flat plane in blender and exporting as a .srf, look at the .srf in text format, and from there you should be able to tell what dimension is which.

Also the menu vince has up is from the n key transformations menu, but I'm assuming you knew that and I misunderstood you?

[decaff_42]

I know that is the n transformation window, but if I'm taking the srf from the tail position and moving it over, and then rotating it, that would make a rotation for the y-direction. he seems to do that and then BAM no more rotation in the n transform window

[Shutter]

just e-mail me a zip of your model and I'll dick around see if I can't figure it out. I left the dropbox folder since I'm using a diff. folder now which takes most of my space from them.

[decaff_42]

Per Turbofan's observation here.

I have been working to modify Takity's -500 737 wings to make them into versions that are truly more like the -600, -700 and -800 in respect to two key features, the engine mount interface to the upper wing, and the length of the rear flaps.

on the -300 through -500 there is a gap in the flaps at the centerline of the engine that is about a foot wide. On the NG (600 thru 800+) models the rear flaps are closer together, virtually touching, but not quite. This has been a great learning experience for me as I deal with all the animating parts and have fun trying to get this next level of detail done to improve the model.

I have also lengthened the wings a little to get closer to the NG wingspan. I cannot get to the NG wingspan without severely re-making the wing, so this in-between seems to be the best compromise. and it is only a few feet that we are talking about there. To compensate for the scaling done to the winglets when I moved them out, I scaled those up a bit and got them better aligned to the angle and curve of the wing IMO than the original model.

I also added the flap support/extender for the inside flaps.

For the moment I am not painting new liveries, and after getting this done, I will work on getting the lights in the blank planes more up to par and then continue to paint.

Some images for those of you interested:





You can see the length addition in the last two pictures.

[VNAF ONE]

This is amazing work. Something I love to see in modders, developing all skills no matter how experienced they may be. Very good to see that you're enjoying your progress and it's a thrill to see the differences in your work as time goes on. The sharing of information is also phenomenal.

[Turbofan]

Me like, me like a lot . Very cool, check out some Youtube or Jetvideos.net videos too (stuff like landings and taxiing out for takeoff-plenty out there) which will give you a good idea on the NGs flap workings. Great work though!

[decaff_42]

Well, here's the first test shot I got of the wings in action...Ghost wings that is...

I noticed that one of the flaps appears shorter in YSF than in blender, so I'll have to check that out and see what is happening there.

Got some lights from the F-18s as requested by some, and I gotta say that I like them.

[Turbofan]

Just make the flaps double slotted (one slot = one flap section), take look here. After landing the flap retraction can be seen at around 2:32. And you can just delete the inboard flap guide (the one that extends outwards from the trailing edge).