Rockwell Space Shuttle Orbiter with Boosters

[Fun2av8RC]

OK, loved the video... Need rocket plume until main tank cutoff. Have you been flying from the cockpit? Really great.. Sure wish I had good telemetry and a HSI.

Agree with Jeff on the gear switch, but the reason they did it is they ran out of switches for the combat aspect of Real Flight. Which leads me to my other suggestion.... 18 channel Real Flight controller "Interlink Super Duper Elite"

Actually, I have flown from the cockpit - it is amazing. The chase plane view is awesome as well. .

Lets say for laughs that you had your own DX18 (http://spektrumrc.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdId=SPM18000&view=test) then of course you would have more switches, dials and knobs to play with.... But then I just answered my own question as i was musing .... can't use what Matt doesn't program in.

But just for the sake of learning something new here. If Matt did add electric seats for the pilot and I plugged in my DX18 to the Interlink and the seats were on channel 15 - would the Interlink pass those signals through to RF and allow me to adjust the seats?

But all and all a lot of fun to fly!

 

[mwilson914]

I've uploaded a new EA with today's date 2-15-2012 to my password protected area of my site. For those that have the password, download and have fun. I think I may re-attach the wings to the fuselage to correct an issue I created with the fronts of the wings. You'll see the problem upon close inspection.

The shading errors I've had with the fuselage where the wings attach cause me to go OCD on my model. This isn't exactly the week for me to be fine-tuning anything.

I'm on-call and I don't sleep when I'm on-call because of a thing I call "Pager-Shock". I also work a LOT of hours when I'm on-call. I had wrote more ramblings but just deleted them all because it's irrelevant. Will try to go to sleep, but highly doubtful since I've only had four hours of sleep since I got up Sunday morning. I will eventually drive over all my phones and stab my work laptop with my pen.

 

[mwilson914]

I just realized how bad the springy landing gears make the wheels look because they are not centered on the axles in the screenshot. I gotta figure out the spring designation. Will research later.

 

[Maj. Numbskully]

Just adjust the camera , same thing as adjusting the seats

 

[mwilson914]

I figured out the shading issues on the fuselage where the wings attach. Eventhough I defined smoothing groups, the polygons covering the broken surface and the polygons on the sides of the fuselage are too shallow of an angle and the smoothing group is ignored. I could either use global options and set the max shading to 0, or just detach the polygons in that area to element.

You can see how it gets darker on the fuselage near the seam of the wing on the one screenshot and you can see on the other screenshot things look more correct.

 

[mwilson914]

I started mapping this model last night and this morning on breaks. There is a lot of surface to cover and it is quite an extensive process managing the UVW unwrap this time around. It is even more labor intensive than most other models I have created--at least for this Sim.

I do have a couple weird issues with a few objects on this model. I always use planer and align to view to get an accurate dimension applied to all parts on the map. I also use unfold and flatten in various cases. The size of the faces are always the correct proportion most of the time doing things this way, but my gear doors are coming out out of proportion.

I will see if it has anything to do with hierarchy, pivots, or the multi-unwrap tool. the problem was worse when I closed the gear doors so that I could get a perfect flush fit of the doors to the fuselage. The result was no longer squashed gear doors, but rather the entire bottom view of the space shuttle became squashed and widened.

For now I am going to lay down.

 

[mwilson914]

Oh yes I forgot to mention that I always turn off normalize clusters.

 

[jeffpn]

D'oh! That's the only thing I could think of!!

 

[Boof69]

I use the object based projection tools found directly below the "Quick Planar" tool. I took some screen shots to show what I mean.
You will have to deselect the tool before you can move the mapped pieces.

 

[mwilson914]

I use the object based projection tools found directly below the "Quick Planar" tool. I took some screen shots to show what I mean.
You will have to deselect the tool before you can move the mapped pieces.

Unfortunately, this is exactly how I do it too. If I can't resolve the issue later on, I will think of more solutions. One way that might work if all else fails is to insert a primitive object into the scene, then convert it to an editable poly without resizing or scaling, nor adjust pivots or hierarchy. I would create a clone object of the gear door then select the primitive shape and attach the gear door to it. The gear door now has the properties of that primitive shape which should map correctly. I do this trick when I have a pivot point that is defaulted to an odd orientation which won't correct itself via "transform".

Now I still need my pivot location to be where I placed it so that the gear doors sits flush. After I map the clone gear door I will then attach it to the original gear door. This takes on the properties of the original values only now it is mapped. I just select element in the sub-object list and delete everything I don't need.

This is my plan now.

 

[mwilson914]

I almost had the mapping done. I have it done on the orbitor and luckily it's applied. However, the multi-unwrap was still open when I was trying to make my .tga for the boosters and tank and launch pad. Max crashed and all the mapping data is lost. Going to bed.

 

[nemo_uk]

Did you have auto save turned on? I can't remember if it is on by default.

Max will automatically save 4 times every 10 minutes on a loop, the files are called AutoBackup**.max and normally located in your my documents \ 3ds max \ autoback folder.

Have a look for the folder before running 3ds Max again otherwise 3ds Max will save over your backup !

BTW the thing with the strange twists on the UVW's have you tried resetting the XFORM on the object ? Save everything first then go to the utilities tab (the one with hammer) and click on Rest XForm. Then do your UVW unwrap etc.

 

[mwilson914]

Did you have auto save turned on? I can't remember if it is on by default.

Max will automatically save 4 times every 10 minutes on a loop, the files are called AutoBackup**.max and normally located in your my documents \ 3ds max \ autoback folder.

Have a look for the folder before running 3ds Max again otherwise 3ds Max will save over your backup !

BTW the thing with the strange twists on the UVW's have you tried resetting the XFORM on the object ? Save everything first then go to the utilities tab (the one with hammer) and click on Rest XForm. Then do your UVW unwrap etc.

Thanks for the tips Nemo! I actually worked on this yesterday for a bit and got my issues worked out via other methods, but I'm going to try what you suggested in the future. The tips you provide always go in my "Do Not Ever Delete-NEVER EVER DELETE" folder.

I actually do daily back-ups with dated files, so I always can go back to the previous day if needed. I also have mutliple back-up's of any given day depending on the amount of work accomplished. I have been messed over by the auto-back-up before, so I just save like crazy and end up having 30 model files by the time I'm done. I'll delete the old eventually.

Here is where I'm at right now by the way.

 

[mwilson914]

Yes I'm planning on using photo textures on this model. I can't achive the same level of tile detail by meticulously painting from scratch. However, there is a lot of clone tool work to be done!

 

[mwilson914]

A quick update. It doesn't look like much has been done since the last update, but I've done as much tweaking to the existing paint as time would allow.

Phototexturing is a fine art which can look horrible if done rushed. I find using actual photos more challenging than creating something from scratch with photos used as reference material.

I am of course not going to do 100% photo texturing because the external tank is difficult to get a shot of with even light on all sides.

 

[mwilson914]

I have given some x-tra thaut & it wood b kool if I sramped da regular NASA shuttle paintscheme with digital camo and red stripes. Whatcha think jeffpn?

 

[jeffpn]

that wood bee sooper neato i think you should do it i think you could do it justice cuz u r awesum!!!

 

[12oclockhigh]

SWEEEEEET! I just DLd the 15 version.... lots of fun there.

 

[Maj. Numbskully]

it luks vary niece an stuf lyke dat
now it juast knead som bumpy stuf, an stuf lyke dat tue

 

[dhk79]

I konw taht a merdon uvinesrity mdae a sduty taht if the frsit and lsat letetr of a wrod wree crcoret and taht all the otehr letetrs wree trehe, but not in the crorcet oredr, the hamun mnid wolud ajudst and 99% of all popele wulod eaisly cohrepmned waht was benig siad. Taht bineg siaid, hvewoer, yuor atmetpt to cumconimate lkie a hgih sohocl dporuot is mnkaig my haed hrut.