[WIP] [Vehicle] Super Etendard

[Rhino]

You've got far more tris than are needed on this parachute cover cone, and also made the cone more rounded like the refs:



The box behind the cone that holds some lights isn't much like the refs, yours sticks out really far right now:



Fixed its shape and smoothing


Also with comparing it with the refs, the parachute housing and cone are much smaller than on the refs right now:



Ended up remaking it since it was easier




I also added these extra edges to the front of the tail to improve the smoothing a little more, was a little hard in places without them and the front all on the same smoothing group



Also noticed the Horizontal Stabilizers aren't quite correct either, since they should totally surround the rear flaps (currently nothing on the inside of them) and should just come outside of the parachute housing while right now its way outside, as well as there being a slight gap between the horizontal stabilisers and the tail thin with an inside face on the horizontal stabilisers too, which both aren't necessary and will look very odd for anyone who looks at it up close.



Fixed that up and also redid them a little, making them smoother/more the right shape and optimizing them, and even after the extra bits had been added they have 3tris less each than before hehe


Also after doing some research, it looks like that our earlier belief about the flaps on the horizontal stabilisers being the elevators seems to be incorrect. After looking at a few different sources it looks like that the entire horizontal stabiliser surface are the elevators and the flaps on the back of them are just for pitch trim. If you look at this video from 8:45 you will see the pilot doing his pre-flight checks, checking all the control surfaces are in order and you see the horizontal stabilisers fully rotate as he tests the pitch controls, but yet the little flaps on the back of them don't move at all and are locked in an elevated position the entire time, even when he pitches down, which can only mean they are used for trimming.

Worth watching the full video btw, has some good refs and scenes in there

Anyways that's it for now, will look more into this later, and if you could start work on the 1p cockpit model in the meantime that would be awesome!

[anantdeathhawk]

Ohh wow, you have corrected so much of it! , thanks! . Saw the whole video, have the landing part on the carrier before on their FB page.Please share with me your improved scene file so i take that as a base for 1p cockpit. I was away from home, that's why i couldn't reply and work on the 1p cockpit. Hoping to see this beauty in action soon.

[Rhino]

Cheers

As for sending you the file, I will in a bit but the overall shape of the cockpit hasn't really changed from the old file, I've only just optimized and I wouldn't use it as your base for the 1p model, I would pretty much start from scratch for the 1p model, only using the 3p cockpit as a basic ref for size and placement, although some things can be a bit off, although would keep things like the seat the same place (would even use the 3p seat once its UVed since the player will hardly see it) so that the player is sitting in the seat properly both in 1p and 3p but other than that, some things can be quite a bit off without the player being able to notice, providing it connects properly with other outside 3p elements he can see like the nose (although unlikely to be able to see the connection) and for that, should use the 3p model / UVs / Textures with maybe a few extra tris to make it rounder.

Still got quite a bit of work to do on the 3p model before its ready for UVing btw.

[anantdeathhawk]

Okay. I'll start from scratch.

[anantdeathhawk]

Update:
Tris-4416.

Screens:










Reference:


source-Super Etendard Walk Around

Thanks!

[Rhino]

Nice work but tbh, I don't think it's worth making the gauge borders 3D. Sorry if I confused what I said to you in PMs but I think it is best to just have them 2D textures and use the normals to bump out the edges and sink the internals

Here is a quick example, not the best but get the idea of more the thing I would aim for. Don't have to do the normals with HP models but I find it helps to do them in some places but for the gauges, easiest to do them by hand with the textures








As for the Artifical Horizon gauge (the big ball), you can do that both in 2D or 3D and admittedly, it will look better in 3D if done right since BF2 normals can't go deep enough to really emphasise them but you can still just about do them with just 2D texture and normals:



I did them in 3D for the Zhi-9/Panther series since these choppers were the second test bed for having working gauges in BF2 but while working gauges worked on a small scale, they didn't on a large scale like here and proved too hard to implement overall so that never happened
Also the way I did these cockpits was overall, not very good so I wouldn't take much inspiration from them, mainly in the texture setups. Again all the dials were designed to move etc and if I was doing a static artificial horizon ball, I would do it as a geo-sphere, tbh I would even do a moving one probably as one now too




And finally I would spend less tris on your switches etc, if you need to control their smoothing, best done with HP normals but in most cases, you don't need that many tris w/e on them, although the bases could be rounder etc. Remember not everything has to be welded up, only thing that are going to zfight or are going to save UV space etc needs to be welded so things like switches and knobs, best to just have them sit on the surface

Hope that helps!

[anantdeathhawk]

Alright, understood. So, should i detach all guages, switches, knobs including the radar oscilloscope and excluding the artificial horizon and let them float onto the surface?

Thanks!

[Rhino]

So, should i detach all guages, switches, knobs including the radar oscilloscope and excluding the artificial horizon and let them float onto the surface?

gauges, no, they should just be done as 2D textures with normal maps, as per my examples above (not the Zhi-9 example). If they were left to "float on the surface" they would zfight with the face behind them, and would just be a waste of tris and texture space.

but any extruding switches, knobs etc, that are too big to get away having them done with just normal maps, yes, they should be 3D objects, and generally yes shouldn't be welded onto the base and should just float on the surface, providing they are not going to zfight (and if they are, then they could probably be done via normal maps) or not going to waste loads of UV sace under them, which a knob/switch generally isn't big enough to do.

Note this edged frame example here to see what things I have welded up (the sun shaders etc), what isn't welded up (the knobs and switches), and what is just 2D textures with normal maps:

[Rhino]

Right back onto fixing this model after a bit of a break.

Currently, the end of your wings are pretty sharp which doesn't really reflect the real shape of them:



Edits I made, is now double the tris than it was before (was 52, now 114) but also smoothed up a few other parts and looks much better now




I've also added some basic hinges inside the folding wingtips so when the wing is folded in, it won't be floating and can be removed in LOD1 to help avoid zfighting and reduce tris.



Anyways that's it for now, started working on making all the flaps work properly which has required a little tweaking of the model but nothing really big.

[Rhino]

Fixed up the control surfaces but still quite a few other moving parts that need fixing up before they are fully workable.

Anyways before I get onto them need to fix up the Arrestor hook since it isn't quite the right shape right now and sticks out more than in r/l:






New one I've made which is also 1/2 the tris, as well as redoing the bit it stows in








Also think the area inside of the air intakes could use some cleaning up, a few small smoothing issues and needless spending of tris with those small boxes being partially welded up with no real gain of doing so.



smoothing before: https://i.imgur.com/3xVXyUI.jpg
after: https://i.imgur.com/zLoH1d3.jpg

Also after looking at the refs you can see that the shape of the intakes isn't quite right (mainly too boxy at the top) and the inside wall bits are also much thinner than you have now:





Right new intakes are done, ended up reworking quite a bit of them in the end. They where 221 tris per side before, now 449 tris, so just a bit over double and the fuselage was 2,995 tris before, now 3,402 so not a massive increase for a much smoother prominent part of the model

before: https://i.imgur.com/bXQX83W.jpg


after: https://i.imgur.com/GjduOTU.jpg






Anyways that's all for now, Synthetic Dawn has just been released so time to conquer the galaxy as some exterminating robots

[anantdeathhawk]

Wow! man you have done so much to the model. It has taken a lot of your time, only if i wasn't this bad .Haven't worked a lot on the 1p cockpit since, due to r/l stuff, but i am on this, and will post updates soon.
Thanks!

[anantdeathhawk]

Update:
Buttons, knobs, switches are floating, Radar oscilloscope and artificial horizon is welded.Artificial horizon ball is a geosphere and is floating.Removed all dials and depths in other areas.

Screens:








Thanks!

[anantdeathhawk]

Could you tell me how high the cockpit seat must be off the cockpit floor?

[Rhino]

Nice work but your AH (Artifical Horizon) isn't quite right tbh. Firstly my advise about a geosphere probably wasn't the best in hindsight since it makes it much harder to weld to the main mesh. As such, this is how I would model it, with it all welded up, using a normal sphere for the middle then optimized and welded up as one mesh, which is the most efficient use of tris and UV space, since it isn't moveable ingame:



Your knobs/switches could be more optimized but other than that, looks good so far

Could you tell me how high the cockpit seat must be off the cockpit floor?

It's a good thing you mentioned that as I hadn't thought about the size of your cockpit hehe

For the First Person Cockpit, the position of the seat isn't that important since the player won't see it and there are no other players in the same vehicle that you can see sitting in their seats either from the 1p perspective, but it should match up with your Third Person Cockpit sizes as much as possible, only going off of it, if there is a good reason to do so.

What is far more important is your Third Person Cockpit size and sea position for a single seater fighter like this since anyone looking in will see the player sitting in his seat.
Right now, your seat is a little short, both in terms of real-life size and for the size of the BF2 player model, who clips through the seat and the floor in order to sit in the cockpit in the same location he would be in r/l:








Will edit the cockpit and send you back the updated 3p model once that's done

BTW in the meantime here is an update of my Super Etendard refs with a few new cockpit refs for you
http://files.realitymod.com/temp/Super_ ... -09-17.zip

[Rhino]

Hey Anant, updated the 3p cockpit to fit the player and sent you the updated files via PM.

Player now fits in as he should, although won't be able to see exactly how he fits in until we've done a basic export but shouldn't require any changes to fit with the proper animation, and if it does, only minor at most which can be done post UVing/Texturing even. I've also redone the Ejector Seat Firing handle above the players head since your one was a bit small and not quite the right shape etc and also left in a backed up HP line to make the 1p model off of, and that's packed into the "[HP]" Group which you will need to open/ungroup to get at






Best to make the other big 3p cockpit details off the 1p ones you make like the flight stick etc so left them out for now

Anyways back to making all the moving parts work etc

[anantdeathhawk]

Video:



I used the seat from the model that you reworked .So do i have to make the whole structure around this cockpit tub or place it inside the reworked model and then deleting the unnecessary parts?
I'll optimize it further.

Thanks!

[Rhino]

Well first I wouldn't really worry much about the seat etc right now, would focus on the instrument panel but the 1p seat should be high poly, not lower poly, than the 3p seat, since when the player turns his head round to look over his shoulder and sees the seat, it will be right in front of his face and as such, wants to be nice and smooth.

As for how you go about making the other cockpit parts, you can use the 3p one as a base but you may find your better off making it from scratch since the 3p model is just a seriously optimized version of what is there, although yes, most of the tris need to be spent on the instrument panel and what is directly ahead of the player.

So for now, I would focus on the instrument panel and getting that sorted. TBH Think your AH could be better, its smoothing isn't quite right with that tri setup and would have something more like I showed which you can easily do with just making a sphere and cutting it down to only use the front/top 1/4.

Also it may help to look at those examples I gave more and possibly looking at other cockpits in the editor or BFMeshView (pretty hard to view them well in MeshView thou) to get some ideas and see what good and bad points you can take away from the cockpits already ingame. Also worth looking at land vehicle interiors and also how the texture setups are done for them and the aircraft cockpits.

[anantdeathhawk]

Okay i'll fix the AH, and make the seat look smooth and good.
Does eveything needs to be welded in the 1p cockpit or things can be kept floating say the control stick of the aircraft as a separate object?
The problem with the sphere was that, it was protruding way out of the instrument panel to fit the diameter, that's why i did it this way.

Thanks!

[Rhino]

Ye, flight stick etc should be a separate element. And that's why you only use ~1/4 of the sphere, since as per r/l, most of it is well inside the dash.






you can also squish it down from there if you still feel it is too deep.

[anantdeathhawk]

Made the control stick, ejection cord(may be) and throttle, seat reworked. AH is yet to be fixed.Total tris 5326.

Do you need 3D objects on the intrumentation panels on the side panels?


Video:


Thanks!