@star_creations: try playing around with hemishperical gizmo's, stretched into a suiteable long cone/flame shape and add a 'fire effect' to your liking to it. I find that using this in combination with volume lights can produce quite nice effects.
Oh I am sorry for the lack of postings, I just got a game called Civilization's Revolution and MAN!...it can be addicting...but I promise I will send a update soon.
Ok finally some progress, I think I have the engine burn affect down the way I want it. The engines are going to burn a high energy plasma, leaving a small trail. Not the most efficent design at the start of the story, plans for refinement as the plot rolls out. The burn affect done I think I can manage to concentrate on finishing the fuesalage finally, just one of those ticks you know. I also did something last night to see if I could model a flame on a candle that would look good for set pieces, this is what I came up with.
Thanks meph I really appreciate it. Ive still got the same three lights as before, but i added the two gizmos, only mine are cylindrical and i deformed them a bit. I figure the burn length seen in these shots was about right for actual dogfighting with out being at full burn, just high speed. But the praise from you means alot. And I really do have that last render of the Heracles on my desktop. I even put a "by meph" on the bottom right.
I just said this to you on Yahoo, but I want everyone to see it...
I quote, "well....to be honest here...and I am being full honest, for a person that is still new to 3d art and special affects, you are actually better then I was at first....and your catching on even faster then me, thats my honest answer..."
I'd beef up that foot faat a bit, a little bit longer, a tiny bit wider, a tad higher. Perhaps a little bit more of an angle for the 'toe' bit and something to beef up the joint between the leg/pistion and skid/foot a joint perhaps, doesn't that thing need to fold up when being retracted?)
My first thought was definitely, curl up the toe a little.
I'm not sure it really needs a lot of beefing up though, as provided that it is VTOL, the pilot can set down fairly gently, so industrial strength landing gear is not essential - current airforce jets tend to have relatively spindley landing gear as they land gently on prepared strips, where-as navy jets have big string gear because they slam down on carrier decks, this will be the former, a gentle (perhaps computer-controlled) vertical set-down as smooth as a baby's bottom.
One question? Is this intended to fold up, or do you intend it to telescope up, with the foot itself then becomming it's own landing gear door? The depth of the fuselage behind the cockpit is such that you would have room to have it retract straight back up like a reverse periscope, and this would save on excess articulation of the foot.
The other question remains, how is it towed around on the ground or on a space carrier deck? Will there be one or two small wheels incoporated into each foot, or a kind of catapillar track on each foot, or will carrier decks have some kind of magnetic-levetation system to allow these planes to be shifted around?
Ok I really couldnt make the skid any beefier than it is due to where it is positioned in the craft. But I did add a few more hydrolics and a pivot point on the foot so they have a reason for being there. I also put in some hydrolic cables, added a mounting block for the join connectiong the telescoping arm and the skid, for support. I also started putting the rear skids together as well.
As for how they are getting around monkey, I was leaning towards tow jacks. However the thought of magnetic-levitation is very interesting. It would also open up another area of plot devices. It would also be able to serve as a cushion for the skids incase of a hot landing, where a computer controlled landing wouldnt be the best choice.:thumb::flippy::devil::D:cool:
Interesting, I don't see the benefit of this system over wheels, but I guess its scifi. Some advice: put a smooth modifier on the skid and make those cables thicker, like a lot thicker. They are practically invisible when you make images of the full fighter.
Ty berbut, I looked at more than 30 different old soviet Embloms and then tried my hardest to modernize it. I dont know if the entire image is going to be used as the main emblom, but I think the image came out well myself. The Soviets have been branded!
Off to texture the gear then...
I present to you my first Morphean! This sketch is about 80% done and I thought it was close enough done to get some feed back. This is the alien species of the story.
ty meph ty, Im currently texturing it now. Im playing a bit more with weathering for this since there would be pits and scrapes on the bottom. I should have the texture for the skid part this evening. maybe one of the arm peices as well. Im going to have to post a render without the lens flare on the emblom it hides a little of the thinest parts.
(Pardon my grammar spelling: I've been feeling bad for over a year, and especially so this month)
I've read pages 18-21 (the beginning pages no longer had images). You've come a long way since the pencil drawings on paper from back in 1997!
A few pages back, I saw something that left me perplexed though. (maybe you answered this further back) If you have wings on this vessel, they would apparently be designed for atmospheric flight, and that then brings to sight a serious part of the design missing.
Vertical stabilizer and ideally a rudder. If it were a "flying wing" design it might get away without a vertical stabilizer. Since it has a side fuselage that will be affected by side drafts in atmospheric flight, it would need vertical stabilization. A rudder is not _needed_ for flight or dogfights, but... rudder allows you to move your sights left and right without altering you direction of travel or roll. Rudder is useful for countering sideslip (though I image a slight bank could do the same) to keep you heading in the right direction during normal flight. During landing it keeps you aligned with the runway when there are strong side winds.
Looking at the wing surfaces of a B2 Spirit, it seems like the ailerons are positioned to be able to provide a slight rudder effect. I didn't read that anywhere, that is an inference by looking at detail photos. *** I just googled it, and saw in the 4th paragraph on this page, that the those outer control surfaces are indeed for yaw control/stability. On that same page they show older "flying wings" that have tiny vertical stabilizers.
Now, I realize you probably want to avoid the "old Terran look" of a vertical stabilizer, and keep in futuristic looking. The F-22 and F-35 vertical stabalizers are not perpendicular to the ground, but angled to the side. Canards are usually used for lift and increased increased pitch/roll rates, but... maybe you could fudge some yaw control by moving the canards higher up on the fuselage so the canards control surfaces (or the entire canard if you move to the design of the entire canard moving like the Eurofighter) provide a tiny bit of yaw control and therefor stability. I imagine in real life this tweak would probably introduce new problems though.
I suppose you could add "hook like extensions" (should I scribble the outlines of the extension on one of your renders?) to the wing tips so you can have off axis control surfaces like the B2. Of course, its your choice to keep it as it is, I'm just pointing out suggestions to make it a more realistic design.
Given that we both had a similar way of thinking, do you think you can point me to where you started your modeling learning. (by PM, email, or Yahoo) I tried a few beginners tutorials, but I never could "wrap my head around" modeling, to quote your trouble with coding. My interests in modeling would lie more in adding models for realism mods in military FPSs (Project Reality, ArmA, etc) though. I still have a concept of a realistic space story though (technologically somewhere between BSG and Star Wars) and I never modeled some of my old Star Trek ship designs. Well, I once modeled the batwing-like fighter that was for the USS Hawking support group, but it came out pretty crappy.
I'm not sure if you want to get that an*l about it, but if you bought the flight sim X-Plane, you could actually test the flight dynamics of you design: atmospheric and non-atmospheric. However, you said you weren't interested in games and sims, so it might be best if you avoid those "drugs".
Edit: If you design the main thrusters to be vectored thrust, you could get a form of yaw control. However, that would be more moving parts than needed to solve a problem. If you served while the F-14 was still in operation, you probably saw what lots of complicated moving parts does to a design's maintenance schedule.
When I told my sister (she's 18yrs old now and into art/drawing) you weren't into games but creating things with your computer, she immediately wondered if you draw. After
showing your drawing of the alien, she said it looks like Shaq if he was punched in the nose. She said if you cover the nose, it looks like Shaq.
Hrmm... while my sister is... strange with what she says at times, there is a slight resemblance to him when he played in Shazaam.
Will your aliens try to slam dunk the Terrans?
If you want to tease her on her artwork, she is infamousbutterfly on the deviantart website.
wing surfaces of a B2 Spirit, it seems like the ailerons are positioned to be able to provide a slight rudder effect. I didn't read that anywhere, that is an inference by looking at detail photos. *** I just googled it, and saw in the 4th paragraph on this page, that the those outer control surfaces are indeed for yaw control/stability. On that same page they show older "flying wings" that have tiny vertical stabilizers.
Well, since aircraft design and aerodynamics are somewhat of a passion of mine (minus the actual mathematics), i can safely tell you that with a B2, it is indeed the case that those function as a rudder. Since any surface angled to the body axis increases the Radar Cross Section and deflection angle to radar dramatically, they had to leave any actual rudder out to maximize stealth.
The ailerons/rudder function like this: they actually open up like a 'clamp' or airbrake, one half of the aileron opens upwards, the other down. this creates drag and if they open only one wing, you slow that wing down and the plane swivels around that point. The reason that they put on small vertical rudders on older flying wing design is because they had no flight computers that could hanle the constant and very fast adjustments with those ailerons to keep the thing in the air. A flying wing design is inherently a very unstable design along the yaw or Y-axis (boomerang anyone?). It's only with the coming of digital fly-by-wire that they can keep any tailless design in the air.
About the vecror thrust, very good idea mate! Obvious but sadly overlooked. If you don't want to use boxy designs a la F22, go for the russian way of engineering
Whoa I feel like i never went through ground school In ROTC, yes Doc I did finish that part, I will rethink not having vectored thrust. However my thoughts were, that when in atmospheric flight the slightly angled thrusters on the leading edge of the wing could provide the same sort of y axis control as the alerons of a flying wing.
Whew Im almost tired from reading all that, lol.
Off to redesign the engines. Ill put the script down for a day.
Meph where you been hiding at?
And Doc its good to have you around agian even if it is electronically.
Posts
Oh I am sorry for the lack of postings, I just got a game called Civilization's Revolution and MAN!...it can be addicting...but I promise I will send a update soon.
See ya laters...
Create tab --> helpers --> Atmospheric apparatus --> sphere gizmo
Fire
Rendering -->environment --> atmosphere --> add fire effect, assign to gizmo
Meph thank you yet agian for the help.
And if you ever want a pic on a specific dektop res, don't hesitate
I quote, "well....to be honest here...and I am being full honest, for a person that is still new to 3d art and special affects, you are actually better then I was at first....and your catching on even faster then me, thats my honest answer..."
I'm not sure it really needs a lot of beefing up though, as provided that it is VTOL, the pilot can set down fairly gently, so industrial strength landing gear is not essential - current airforce jets tend to have relatively spindley landing gear as they land gently on prepared strips, where-as navy jets have big string gear because they slam down on carrier decks, this will be the former, a gentle (perhaps computer-controlled) vertical set-down as smooth as a baby's bottom.
One question? Is this intended to fold up, or do you intend it to telescope up, with the foot itself then becomming it's own landing gear door? The depth of the fuselage behind the cockpit is such that you would have room to have it retract straight back up like a reverse periscope, and this would save on excess articulation of the foot.
The other question remains, how is it towed around on the ground or on a space carrier deck? Will there be one or two small wheels incoporated into each foot, or a kind of catapillar track on each foot, or will carrier decks have some kind of magnetic-levetation system to allow these planes to be shifted around?
As for how they are getting around monkey, I was leaning towards tow jacks. However the thought of magnetic-levitation is very interesting. It would also open up another area of plot devices. It would also be able to serve as a cushion for the skids incase of a hot landing, where a computer controlled landing wouldnt be the best choice.:thumb::flippy::devil::D:cool:
Any other suggestions before I move on to texture the front gear?
Off to texture the gear then...
Nice emblem too mate
I've read pages 18-21 (the beginning pages no longer had images). You've come a long way since the pencil drawings on paper from back in 1997!
A few pages back, I saw something that left me perplexed though. (maybe you answered this further back) If you have wings on this vessel, they would apparently be designed for atmospheric flight, and that then brings to sight a serious part of the design missing.
Vertical stabilizer and ideally a rudder. If it were a "flying wing" design it might get away without a vertical stabilizer. Since it has a side fuselage that will be affected by side drafts in atmospheric flight, it would need vertical stabilization. A rudder is not _needed_ for flight or dogfights, but... rudder allows you to move your sights left and right without altering you direction of travel or roll. Rudder is useful for countering sideslip (though I image a slight bank could do the same) to keep you heading in the right direction during normal flight. During landing it keeps you aligned with the runway when there are strong side winds.
Looking at the wing surfaces of a B2 Spirit, it seems like the ailerons are positioned to be able to provide a slight rudder effect. I didn't read that anywhere, that is an inference by looking at detail photos. *** I just googled it, and saw in the 4th paragraph on this page, that the those outer control surfaces are indeed for yaw control/stability. On that same page they show older "flying wings" that have tiny vertical stabilizers.
Now, I realize you probably want to avoid the "old Terran look" of a vertical stabilizer, and keep in futuristic looking. The F-22 and F-35 vertical stabalizers are not perpendicular to the ground, but angled to the side. Canards are usually used for lift and increased increased pitch/roll rates, but... maybe you could fudge some yaw control by moving the canards higher up on the fuselage so the canards control surfaces (or the entire canard if you move to the design of the entire canard moving like the Eurofighter) provide a tiny bit of yaw control and therefor stability. I imagine in real life this tweak would probably introduce new problems though.
I suppose you could add "hook like extensions" (should I scribble the outlines of the extension on one of your renders?) to the wing tips so you can have off axis control surfaces like the B2. Of course, its your choice to keep it as it is, I'm just pointing out suggestions to make it a more realistic design.
Given that we both had a similar way of thinking, do you think you can point me to where you started your modeling learning. (by PM, email, or Yahoo) I tried a few beginners tutorials, but I never could "wrap my head around" modeling, to quote your trouble with coding. My interests in modeling would lie more in adding models for realism mods in military FPSs (Project Reality, ArmA, etc) though. I still have a concept of a realistic space story though (technologically somewhere between BSG and Star Wars) and I never modeled some of my old Star Trek ship designs. Well, I once modeled the batwing-like fighter that was for the USS Hawking support group, but it came out pretty crappy.
I'm not sure if you want to get that an*l about it, but if you bought the flight sim X-Plane, you could actually test the flight dynamics of you design: atmospheric and non-atmospheric. However, you said you weren't interested in games and sims, so it might be best if you avoid those "drugs".
Edit: If you design the main thrusters to be vectored thrust, you could get a form of yaw control. However, that would be more moving parts than needed to solve a problem. If you served while the F-14 was still in operation, you probably saw what lots of complicated moving parts does to a design's maintenance schedule.
showing your drawing of the alien, she said it looks like Shaq if he was punched in the nose. She said if you cover the nose, it looks like Shaq.
Hrmm... while my sister is... strange with what she says at times, there is a slight resemblance to him when he played in Shazaam.
Will your aliens try to slam dunk the Terrans?
If you want to tease her on her artwork, she is infamousbutterfly on the deviantart website.
Well, since aircraft design and aerodynamics are somewhat of a passion of mine (minus the actual mathematics), i can safely tell you that with a B2, it is indeed the case that those function as a rudder. Since any surface angled to the body axis increases the Radar Cross Section and deflection angle to radar dramatically, they had to leave any actual rudder out to maximize stealth.
The ailerons/rudder function like this: they actually open up like a 'clamp' or airbrake, one half of the aileron opens upwards, the other down. this creates drag and if they open only one wing, you slow that wing down and the plane swivels around that point. The reason that they put on small vertical rudders on older flying wing design is because they had no flight computers that could hanle the constant and very fast adjustments with those ailerons to keep the thing in the air. A flying wing design is inherently a very unstable design along the yaw or Y-axis (boomerang anyone?). It's only with the coming of digital fly-by-wire that they can keep any tailless design in the air.
About the vecror thrust, very good idea mate! Obvious but sadly overlooked. If you don't want to use boxy designs a la F22, go for the russian way of engineering
Image:Iris vectoring nozzle.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
YouTube - Thrust vector control in Sukhoi and Mig
Su-37 extreme manuevrability demo -Su-37,Sukhoi,37,fighter,russian,jet,demo,manuevrability,thrust,vectoring,Kobra,Kulbit Video Search - The Best Su-37,Sukhoi,37,fighter,russian,jet,demo,manuevrability,thrust,vectoring,Kobra,Kulbit video search engine
YouTube - Yevgeny Frolov's Aerial Ballet (Su-37, 10+ years ago)
YouTube - Su-30 Vectored Thrust
MILAVIA - Aircraft - Sukhoi Su-37 Terminator
Whew Im almost tired from reading all that, lol.
Off to redesign the engines. Ill put the script down for a day.
Meph where you been hiding at?
And Doc its good to have you around agian even if it is electronically.