Decaff's Garage

[Flake]

You are backing this up on the cloud right?

[decaff_42]

You are backing this up on the cloud right?

It is now! I have a partial backup on External HD and a full backup on a second. the 787 project files are 140 mb right now, but that has a TON of duplicate/updated files.

@ Lor:
The blank 727 model was around 25-28000 vertices (I think). I know for sure that the USAF E-3 that I did was 30k almost on the nose. This is my largest aircraft to date in terms of file size. I am looking for places to trim out detail/vertices that are not really needed, but it is unlikely that I will get many more. Certainly no more than a 1000 vertex reduction if I'm beyond lucky.

I will post more pictures when I get some more work done with animations on the main landing gear.

[dbd000]

Got the main landing gear edited down from 6600 vertices each to 3600 each. I'm about 40% over budget on the landing gear vertex count, but I can't really get it any less and I got a couple of struts to put in.

Blank aircraft is now at 36k vertices. I shudder to think what a nice paint scheme would be at.

Maybe Air New Zealand?

[decaff_42]

My 787-9 blank model is complete from the mesh perspective. All that remains is a thorough flight test and evaluation. At this time I believe I will get this single version of the 787 done before looking at doing any other variants for release. Possibly I will, but it depends on how this project progresses.

I have several paint schemes in mind, including HAVA & PAVA, but those will have to wait. I will be working on decals for these paints in the future during the flight testing.

The flight test program will focus on a few aspects, such as:
- animation motions
- Takeoff performance
- low-speed handling
- Cruise performance

I would like to closely match the real 787-9 as much as possible, but I'm sure certain things will have to be edited in order to make it work. I will be using my modified HAVA B787-8 dat file as a base and then tweaking the parameters.

Stats:
35765 vertices visible, 38k total model (for cabin window lights)
3.6 mb dnm file
Cockpit.srf: 4600 vertices
landing gear: ~9800-10k vertices

[decaff_42]

So I've discovered something interesting to do with the double sided mesh. It has hard face edges. The thing that was annoying me was that it was smooth in blender's solid view mode.

I was toying around with things on the 787 because I had re-discovered the hard edges in flight test (Which is killing my computer BTW). I was trying to keep vertices down by using the double-sided face, rather than doubling the vertices for the window and simply flipping the faces on one side. See the difference below:

Before: (double-sided mesh)

After: (Doubled mesh)

Bonus cockpit picture from flight test:

I think this airplane is going to be pretty nice for cruises. at 37k and ~50-60% throttle gives me 520 KTAS, 270 KIAS and about 9 hour endurance.

[Doggeh1]

Looking great. I'm sure it'll be available for repaints, correct?

[YSFan]

I would like to see an AirAsia repaint on this one!

[decaff_42]

Spent a few hours tonight working on the DAT file, trying to match the YSFlight cruise performance of the 787-9 to the real one. i.e. match the speed and altitude and fiddle with the weights and fuel burn to get the correct range. You can see the different trials that I did.

Google Sheet if you are interested.

I tested at 36000 ft +/- 1000 ft and at a wide variety of speeds. Endurance was in hours, and the 1% time was the time it took (in seconds) to burn 1% of my internal fuel while in auto pilot. At the different test points I would set altitude and speed, and enter AP and see if it held where I wanted and then timed the 1% burn.



As of now all the animations look like they are spot-on, so I'm probably going to be making blanks for the 787-8 and 787-10 over the next few weeks and get those dat files up and running.

Pictures from this evening's testing:

[V8-DLA]

Please make
1.Royal Brunei Airlines
2.British Airways
3.Scoot
4.Thai Airways
for your 787
i'm not requesting,just a suggestion
Thank you

[Deleted User 1872]

1.Royal Brunei Airlines
2.British Airways
3.Scoot
4.Thai Airways
for your 787

Not pushing for anything, but I do agree

[ksh]

1.Royal Brunei Airlines
2.British Airways
3.Scoot
4.Thai Airways
for your 787

Not pushing for anything, but I do agree

Also Air New Zeland would be nice!

[Neocon]

This needs to be painted in USAF Thunderbirds colors.

[Deleted User 1872]

This needs to be painted in USAF Thunderbirds colors.

[dbd000]

Got the main landing gear edited down from 6600 vertices each to 3600 each. I'm about 40% over budget on the landing gear vertex count, but I can't really get it any less and I got a couple of struts to put in.

Blank aircraft is now at 36k vertices. I shudder to think what a nice paint scheme would be at.

Maybe Air New Zealand?

1.Royal Brunei Airlines
2.British Airways
3.Scoot
4.Thai Airways
for your 787

Not pushing for anything, but I do agree

Also Air New Zeland would be nice!

This is an amazing list of paints. The top 5 that should definitely go on this plane!

[decaff_42]

I now have a two blank models, a 787-8 and 787-9 and have begun to paint some airplanes. I'm working on more decals to add to my decal pack and also use on this 787 pack.

Blank 787-8

Some Painting I have started.

[VNAF ONE]

Much happiness looking at these beautiful things!!!

[V8-DLA]

OMG! I knew it was going to be accepted

[Turbofan]

This brings back the level of excitement I felt when CHF was about to release his 777s for the first time. As in epic raised to infinity.

[decaff_42]

Experimenting with blender rendering for wireframe stuff! Looks kinda cool.

[NajmiCreative]

WOW.....that Qatar paint is so impressive....
plus the Qatar 787 also recently being spotted around my school (probably the aircraft flying to WMKK)