A newby from France

[Vince57]

Hello everybody,

I'm a WWII warbird addict from France; I'm a scale modeler, 3D modeler, aircraft painter and virtual pilot. I'm part of those MS Combat Flight Simulator die-hards; this game doesn't seem to have no limit to what you can add or modify, and this is what I like doing with PC games. Not just playing, but using them as virtual universes to meet other guys, fly and share creations, knowledge, fun and thrill of air combat.

Guess I'll find lots of useful information and like-minded here, and hope I'll be able to bring my share.

Vince

 

[mkloby]

Welcome aboard.

 

[Matt308]

Welcome Vince. And please don't take personally some of the banter that goes back and forth regarding national origin. We can take it as well as dish it out. I'll personally back you up on that.

Bon jour.

 

[ndicki]

Matt's right! Bienvenu à bord!

3D modeller??? CFS3? GMAX? Etc?

Jette un coup d'oeil sur mes signatures, et tu verras ce que je veux dire...

Some pics of aircraft I've been involved in developing, mainly doing skins and beta testing. The only one where the only thing I did is the skin, is the Gladiator.

 

[Vince57]

wooooooh! great stuff!
Merci pour ton accueil!
Très beaux modèles d'avions français!

As for 3D modelling, I work with 3dsmax7. I'm a modeller in a small (but promising ) video game company. But we mainly work on car race sims, so this is out of topic. As for flight sims, I'm a virtual pilot on CFS1 and only make skins and flight models. Knowing 3dsmax rather well for modelling, I just can't figure out how to make models with old proggies like Aircraft Factory 99... So...I guess one of these days I'll make stuff for CFS3...The shots you've posted might have me take that new step maybe

Gmax has obviously exactly the same interface as 3dsmax for modelling purposes. I've also noticed that many Max plugins work in Gmax.
I've also made several WWII a/c 3Dmodels; will post shots soon if I find a topic about general 3D models around here.

A bientôt!

 

[Gnomey]

Beinvenue

3DSMax is generally seen as better than GMax, I have tried both and prefer Max - although I can't use it - I have both 3dsmax 7 and 8 and probably perfer 8 overall.

 

[Vince57]

Do export plugins to CFS3 work from 3dsmax? I guess the answer is yes as Gmax and Max share the same architecture and globally stuff is compatible, but not sure.
But that would allow me work from my usual 3D platform 3dsmax7.

 

[ndicki]

Alternatively, you work in 3DS MAX and export it in a format GMAX can read - then re-export it as a CFS3 m3d file with the SDK plug-in. Should work!

we are actually looking for a good 3D modeller for the Battle of France team as ours has total burn-out after doing 4 original aircraft, and about as many conversions in under one year!

 

[Vince57]

Hey that sounds good; I used to work the same way with an older car sim: I was making the models with Max, then exporting them as 3ds files to a dedicated converting program and then to the game itself. The problem was that 3ds format breaks vertices on the limits of each texture mapping zone, thus creating sharp angles in some undesired areas.
But I would need to make familiar with particular CFS3 requirements in terms of modelling anyway.
D'you have any CFS3 aircraft model in a file format I could load into Max so I can see how it was made (polycount, texture arrangements, moving or detachable parts, texture application type, part axis location and things like that) ?
Typically, Max can read many formats like 3ds, obj, dxf, VRML (wrl), lwo etc.

I know those pics are totally out of topic but this is the kind of models I make for video games. The JPS Lotus textures were painted by a belgian graphic artist from the CREW development team.

 

[ndicki]

I don't know what game that girl came from, but maybe I ought to get it!

I'll have a look around to see what files I can find - the naming convention and so on is very complex in CFS3; I know one or two tutorials, though.

This is good for naming, heirarchy, etc:

From Bitmap to Boom-and-Zoom in 60 Minutes

He is the man who made our French 1940 stuff. Most of what he says you'll already know, but some is specific to CFS3, so useful.

SDKs:

Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 3: Tactical Air Combat Over Europe

You want the aircraft-vehicle-buildings one, which includes the gmax plug-in.

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

haha, he's French

 

[Vince57]

He he the girl is not yet available in any game sorry; she's one of the 'pitgirls' I'm working on, for a coming car race game by :: AdrenalinStorm :: | Welcome to the "AdrenalinStorm". The pic shows her rendered in 3dsmax. She's fully animated. Glad you like her
The car shots were taken from the game 'rFactor'(top pic), but this GT car should only be available in a few months, and the vintage F1 car is part of a carset for the game 'F1 Challenge 99-02'.

OK I grabbed the tutorial and got the 'aircraft-vehicle-buildings' SDK.

Sure I'd also really like to have a model I could open in Max or Gmax (hope I'll find back the setup.exe so I can re-install it), cos a sample is always useful to figure out a lot of things. Thanks for the info. And definitely glad to have come across that forum 8)

 

[PierreL]

Salut!!

Tout cela est "full cool!" 8)