Monday, September 10, 2012

Projects updates....

I have not updated the blog in a while, mainly because my vacations are over and I am back to my "real life" job... which leaves me very little time for my FSX hobby. Also, my apologies if I have not yet replied to all of the emails - sorry for that.
Anyway, here is a brief update on all the projects I am working on.
F-14D Super Tomcat

EXTERNAL MODEL: I still haven't finished the external model....which is like 99% done. Basically I still need to complete some animations and very minor details. It will be ready soon - it is really a question of few hours of work. Here is how it looks now.


VIRTUAL COCKPIT: The main reason why the external model is not yet complete is that I've mostly been working on the virtual cockpit, which in my plans would come after the completion of the external model. The reasons is that I've received a lot of high-resolution cockpit pictures sent by Ken Simmons from the Castle Air Museum which are a fantastic source to bring the cockpit model to a completely new level. I am really happy of the visual quality of the new cockpit, and although it is way too early to show it - I believe it is much better than the previous version.

FLIGHT MODEL: Well, not much to do here... I believe the actual flight model is good enough, but I will go through the NATOPS page by page, looking for major mistakes.
 
OTHER: I am considering to "hire" some volunteers for this project: I'd need one or two repainters, a sound expert and someone who is willing to create gauges for the RIO avionics - by the way this will be an F-14D(R). I have not taken a final decision on how to do it, but if you consider youself an expert in those area and have some spare time in the next few months, please continue following this blog.

T-45C Goshawk

Yes, I am still working on the T-45C... The thing is that making the F-14D I felt the NACES model was inadequate for the new Tomcat VC and I've improved it. But the T-45C is using the NACES seat too, so I have upgraded the VC with the new seat 3D model - and made some other minor improvements here and there. It should be available soon. Here is how the VC is looking at the moment:
 
 
F-35 Lightning II
 
I am considering a further update which will include new animations (crew boarding ladder and maintenace panels), new loadouts (JSOW most probably) and some minor texturing-bug fixes... Should not take long to complete it... but I have not decided the final features list and as you can see there is a lot of things I am working on...
 

 

13 comments:

Josh said...

I think I noticed a bug on the landing gears of F-35 - this is especially apparent on F-35B. Could you check it out?

Josh said...

What I mean is the animation.

ScimmiaSpaziale said...

@Josh

could you be more specific, please?

Josh said...

The back wheels seems to be intruding into the airframe when coming down.

Jiri said...

Hi. Great news. I was commenting on your first Tomcat 2.00 post but you probably haven't noticed. I asked you about switchable loadouts. In my opinion, it could be real improvement even for F-35, because you don't need separate models for each loadout and people could decide which weapons they will put on aircraft. You did this on T-45 (loadout hidden in fuselage) and I think there are plenty of "hiding" room in other two aircraft too. On fsdeveloper, I also read about some way of attaching different mdl file to aircraft via attachpoint (?) but that's magic for me, since I have zero experience in this, so maybe you know better.
I also asked about liveries, but this is now clear. Although I didn't like old textures (not so painter-friendly), it could be easier job with your improved ones. And majority of Tomcats are just tail-art with different number and some minor details anyway. So I'll consider the "job" if there aren't any painters already.
Next thing is about RIO cockpit - I'm a bit worried about performance impact. Are you sure it's not going to be FPS killer? I still think RIO cockpit is a feature for minority of users, so that would be shame.
Last, there was request for catapult "kneel" animation. Do you think it's possible to do? Small thing, but very distinctive for Tomcat.
Cheers, J.

ScimmiaSpaziale said...

Hi Jiri

Yes, I've read your comment - although I did not replied.
There are several ways to make different loadouts - all of them have pros and cons. The best way IMHO is to make a weight dependant visibility (that is, the payload shows only if you input the relevant weight to the load station)...but every time I tried it I had issues compiling the file.
Also, the visual model gets "bigger" in terms of resource consumption (it was acceptable for the T-45, but it may not be so for the F-14).

New textures should be much more friendly, I believe.

Last, I do not see any easy way to make the aicraft "kneel"... it may be feasible (by overriding FSX dynamics) but it is beyond my knowledge.

Jiri said...

Ok then. I was kinda hoping to see external loads since I'm used to them from iris tomcat and it adds some visual appeal for sure. But on the other hand your model looks better even without them because of better texturing (iris looks like plastic model).
And in terms of repainting, hit me with your model and clean textures as soon as you ready. Until then I'm gonna do some research about schemes and find reference photos. J.

ScimmiaSpaziale said...

@Jiri

Well, I did not say there will not be any external load!
I'll first complete the external model with just the pylons and the external fuel tanks...and then we'll see how big it is and what is the texture space available.

Anonymous said...

Hi,
Will the t-45 and F-14 remain as freeware? Thanks

Robbert said...

good job on the F-35, but i am having a problem, the airplane seems to struggle to get past 400 knots, at the same time the speed brake indicator lights up green no matter what the slider on my stick says. is this a known problem or user error?

secondly, i was having problem with all models where the displays in the cockpit seemed to default to the map and get stuck there. i would also get a alternator and battery fault right before that. it seems that flipping all switches on the left side console fixes this but i would like to know what switch it actually is. thanks

Unknown said...

@Anonymous

Yes, T-45C and F-14D are and will be freeware. I am a freeware developer and the only reason why the F-35 is payware is that development costs were way too high.

@Robbert

Sorry to hear that.
I have no idea why you are experiencing these issues, unless there is a third party software interfering with it.
All three variants flight models are supersonic and shall exceed M1.3 in most conditions, and afaik there is no reason why the MFD should reset to MAP mode, unless there is a third party software which resets all Local Variables.

Anonymous said...

Will the F-14 have more authentic sounds? See vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6dnYnKEfeA

Growler Joe said...

Any chance Dino you can please sync Captain Sim's weapons pack with the F-35's Hud?

Thanks!

Josef