Katana Revisit

[td9cowboy]

I agree Maj. If adjustments need to be made, always the wire frame. This design just cramps your style a little knowing what we know about the prop wash being so close to the fuse.

 

[abaser]

Upon closer inspection, I've got a ton of rework to do. It seems the import to blender added several edges that were not originally there. Is this a problem in max a well? I exported from wings as a 3ds. It also brings the model in triangulated funny. Would an obj give better results?

 

[jeffpn]

You may have an option for retriangulating polies checked (or not checked) somewhere. I have had some models that had funny issues when retriangulating solved them. I think faces with more than 4 adjacent vertices can mess with the model sometimes.

 

[abaser]

As per Jeffs request, before and after repairs, the rudder cutout that came through fine, and last but not least, what happens when you fix the problem. Yup, I should've realized Id lose my mapping

 

[Boof69]

It's probably yet another import settings. Look for entries referring to UVs. They can be excluded from imports.

 

[abaser]

Losing my tga is due to how I had to fix them. In Blender, when you delete a vert or edge, you lose the face associated with it. You must manually create a new face, therefore the face is unmapped. Anyway, Im going to check my settings for 3ds export in wings, and also try an obj to see what happens.

 

[jeffpn]

In Wings, the export options are available by clicking the square next to the Export file type, but I bet you knew that. I think there's more options on the .obj side. There's one that will create material naming havoc. You'll have to play with that setting. It's "One group per material." I forget if it needs to be on or off. You'll know, if you get it wrong.

 

[abaser]

Funny you should mention that. I have a problem with that using a 3ds. When I did my pawnee, I believe I had 5 materials assigned on the fuselage. I got 5 different fuses on import. I have the same situation now. The material becomes part of the part name. Is that what you are talking about?

 

[jeffpn]

I told you you'd know it when you saw it!!

 

[abaser]

At Flexible. How do these changes look?

Wing leading edge and rear stabs have edges added
Wheels are sized to your suggestions
Pipes are redone for cans
Fuse at rear stabs is rounded off, not flat.

 

[flexible]

That all looks much better. The shade error on the wing tip might be a Gost vert. Selest the verts one at a time, then move them out of place. If you have a gost, you will see it.

 

[jeffpn]

You can also rubberband select in vert mode. Wings will tell you how many verts are selected. Should be 1.

 

[abaser]

Flex, I think I pretty much have your suggestions revised. Id just like to make sure its right though. Ive seen a couple different ways to set up the tail wheel, so Im not certain its where it needs to be.

All in all, Im pleased with the results. I managed to work in 10 servos, 12 pushrods, and 12 control horns at 8274 polys. So, looks like a coll mesh is going to be in order, but being the stubborn headed guy I am, Im still going to try to sneak one in just for laughs with no mesh

One thing that does have me puzzled is the canopy. It looks like there are two different materials on it, but I have checked many times and all faces are the same. Ive checked angles of the faces, checked for bad geometry, and have even holed the inside faces thinking it was the alpha on alpha problems Ive read about. No matter what angle you look from, you can see these different shadings. Any ideas that I haven't mentioned?

BTW, the wing tip problem was indeed ghost verts. Fixing it in wings would require remapping the wing and ailerons, BUT I figured out that the very same problem can be fixed in Blender by this nice feature called remove doubles with no other work necessary, including a remap

 

[flexible]

I'm not sure what is going on with the canopy. Jeff wake up.
It looks to me as though you might need to do more work at the rudder hinge line.
I do not see air intakes or exits on the cowling. Remember three to one.
Also the center line of the wheel and the center line of the rudder hinge line must be the same.

 

[abaser]

Oh ya, the cutouts. My plan at first was to just bump them in, but now that Ive broken the limit, I guess Ill cut em out. Thing is, when I do that, I guess Ill then have to add a motor, huh

As for the wheel, you are saying that the wheel center and the rudder hinge line need to line up vertically, and that I need to move things forward a bit, correct?

 

[Boof69]

It's more like the SG and the rudder pivots should line up perfectly.
What have you named your canopy material? ~CANOPY right?

 

[abaser]

Honestly, I think I have only used that naming on the Pawnee. All of my other models have had the window material named simply glass, with tinting and transparency added in the material editor. Ill change the name and see what happens.

 

[Boof69]

If your baking the glass it won't matter. I honestly don't know what's causing that.

 

[flexible]

I would suggest that you do a save selected of just the canopy, and post that file here so we can have a look see.

 

[abaser]

Let me revise my canopy problem. I now see that it might very well be the transparency on transparency issue. Down on the fuselage, the problem goes away. However, when you look from one side, you see the light an dark areas, and when you go to the other side, the faces are just the opposite. My cursor is located on the faces exact opposite each other to show what I mean.