New member introduction

[Matt66]

Hello all. I came across this site and had to join! I love RV's and it looks like I am in good company here
My name is Matt Fuller and I love everything about airplanes and flying. I come from a family of pilots. Father (retired Delta -757-767), older brother ( captain triple 7 for American) younger brother (private pilot) and Me with my lowly Sport pilot.
We just completed a RV-10 build, fresh out of the paint shop. So far we have 12 hours on the fledgling.
Unfortunately the -10 comes in well over the 1,320 lb LSA limitation, so I just have to watch my father fly it.(uh huh)

Just wanted to introduce myself and to say what an AMAZING!!! job you did (and are doing) on the -7 Danny. Simply the best RV, or maybe even ANY GA aircraft I have ever seen modeled for a simulator. Congratulations! Really unbelievable

I also enjoy 3D modeling. I am no where near the caliber as Dan yet so I might hit you guys up for some pointers if I could.

Attached is a couple of shots of the -10 just out of the paint booth.
Also some screen grabs of the RV-4 I am modeling for X-plane. The -4 is still in early development but it looks like I found the right forum to help me continue on

[maherd]

Wow Matt, your four looks awesome! You’ve got a great eye for details
What parts are you working on? The modeling looks done and that's a huge amount of work.
I like the way the paint scheme shows the waterline, so to speak, when the tail-dragger is on the ground.

It's great to see the RV-10. It can be beat when it comes to four seats
Cheers, Danny

[Matt66]

Wow! I am honored to have you welcome me to the site Danny Thank you so much for the compliments on the -4! You know as well as I the amount of work and research that goes in to attempting to reproduce an accurate model...and to have some positive feed back on the project makes it all seem worth while and you want to dig in even harder

Thank you.

I use blender. I am currently working on modeling the instrument panel. The altimeter is the first instrument I attempted (didn't show up on the screen shots...for some reason my 800x600 images were cropped?

Anyway, after some "tweaking", I have the altitudes accurate and the barometer spot on. I figured start with the hard one right off

You are right about the basic modeling...it is the hardest part, but it seems like I am forever going back to fine tune something while trying to work on another area of development! It never ends.

So yeah...I am in the process of modeling the instruments now. I have the GPS and the altimeter basically completed.
Of course I want to shoot for maximum realism where practicable. Any hints with textures to mimic reflections in the instrument glass is what I could use at this point.

I want to make this a good add-on so X-plane can soak me for every hour I have in it (kidding of course)

Trying to keep my feet on the ground but my head is often in the clouds

Thanks again for any help.

Matt

[Matt66]

Some shots of another project I have been working on. Super King Air B-200 within blender.
The last picture shows preliminary textures.

Zoom in on the pics for best clarity.

If you keep photos 6,7,and 8 all open at the same time in separate tabs you can switch back and forth to see the overlay.
http://oi43.tinypic.com/357j33m.jpg
http://oi42.tinypic.com/fwq3vq.jpg
http://oi40.tinypic.com/2954feu.jpg
http://oi41.tinypic.com/zkk4no.jpg
http://oi44.tinypic.com/35k2vjs.jpg
http://oi40.tinypic.com/1z4wutt.jpg
http://oi39.tinypic.com/6elow6.jpg
http://oi43.tinypic.com/1z6v13c.jpg
http://oi42.tinypic.com/18gai0.jpg

Matt

[maherd]

Matt that looks awesome Are you making it for FSX too?

[N7RV]

Please make it for FSX Matt

[Matt66]

Man guys...to be honest, all I ever used was MFS. I use x-plane for modeling aircraft because I am familiar with the interface and have no idea how to model for FSX (data ref's, materials, animations, textures)etc. If I could build the perfect sim though...It would probably be about 80% MFS, and 20% x-plane (mainly for the flight model). I understand it is a bit more complicated to model for MFS. Would love to hear about any export script and formats to be able to do so. As posted previously...I use blender.

Thanks!
Matt

[BrandonF]

Man guys...to be honest, all I ever used was MFS. I use x-plane for modeling aircraft because I am familiar with the interface and have no idea how to model for FSX (data ref's, materials, animations, textures)etc. If I could build the perfect sim though...It would probably be about 80% MFS, and 20% x-plane (mainly for the flight model). I understand it is a bit more complicated to model for MFS. Would love to hear about any export script and formats to be able to do so. As posted previously...I use blender.

Thanks!
Matt

The FSX SDK comes with an exporter for the free modeling program GMax. You should be able to export the model from Blender, bring it into gmax, do animations, textures, apply materials, and export it from there for FSX. Once you learn how every thing works, making aircraft for FSX is not that bad.

[Matt66]

Thanks for the info Brandon. I haven't used GMAX and it would probably take a little while to get up to speed on the interface, but when I get some more time I will certainly give it a go.

[Matt66]

Some update photos of the Super King Air project. Will be starting in on the 3D cockpit soon

Matt

http://oi40.tinypic.com/21caxqf.jpg
http://oi44.tinypic.com/rk96dv.jpg
http://oi42.tinypic.com/2wncpqc.jpg
http://oi42.tinypic.com/xbpz4.jpg
http://oi42.tinypic.com/apfq89.jpg
http://oi40.tinypic.com/zmaw4n.jpg
http://oi39.tinypic.com/2a6qtt0.jpg
http://oi44.tinypic.com/1ekr4g.jpg
http://oi40.tinypic.com/23rsfuu.jpg
http://oi44.tinypic.com/23utt3c.jpg
http://oi42.tinypic.com/2yl4jd4.jpg
http://oi40.tinypic.com/bgsccw.jpg
http://oi39.tinypic.com/2udusmu.jpg
http://oi42.tinypic.com/2iqfr02.jpg
http://oi44.tinypic.com/9zq2qs.jpg
http://oi41.tinypic.com/s5h0jo.jpg