Ejection Completion

I have completed the modelling and texturing of the Martin Baker Type 9 Mark 3 Ejection seat.

The last, and hardest part, was modelling the straps and buckles, and trying to keep them looking natural, and not looking like rigid parts. I think i have done fairly in that respect, but if the X-Plane rendering engine evolves to allow vertex animation in the future, these straps are definitely something i will re-visit.

With the seat complete, i can move on with modelling the 3D cockpit. Exciting times ahead!

Thanks for following!

Ejection Seat part 2

The Ejection Seat build is progressing, with the port side mechanisms having recently been completed.

The detached part is the Aircraft Portion of Personal Equipment Connector, which sits on the rear bulkhead of the cockpit. The main pilot oxygen supply, anti-g and electrical systems connect through this block, and the top part is pulled away during the ejection process.

Moving from front to rear, we have the Leg Restraint Line release control, then the Manual Separation handle, which is used to initiate manual separation of the pilot from the seat, if the automatic separation process fails. Below that is the pipe that pipes the gas from the Ejection Firing handle breech to the top of the Ejection Gun to initiate the main ejection process.

Continuing backwards, we have the Spring Clip for the Personal Survival Pack line, and the round handle behind it is the Emergency Oxygen Manual Control.

The large part is the Personal Equipment Connector, which serves as a quick attachment mechanism for the pilot oxygen, anti g, and electrical connections.

On the rear of the Seat Pan is the Emergency Oxygen bottle, which provides oxygen after ejection. Below that is the Manual Separation Breech.

Attached to the bottom of the Seat are the rocket tubes which provide the fuel to sustain the ejection and enable the seat to reach a suitable height when ejection occurs at low level or low speed.

I now have a few more bits to add the Seat Pan, the harness and straps etc, before i can model the seat cushion and back support. Then i can convert this model to the earlier Mk2 version, before getting stuck in with the cockpit build.

Thanks for following, and more updates will follow soon!

Ejection Seat part 1

I am slowly building a Martin Baker Type 9 Mk 3 ejection seat, using dimensions I gathered from the exhibit at the Duxford museum. Lots of detail, as usual, and i do plan on altering some parts to make the Mk 2 version at a later date.

I plan on scripting an accurate ejection simulation with Gizmo in the future to go with the detailed model.

To that end, does anyone have any preference or thoughts regarding a pilot model?

My current plan is to have no pilot model visible when sat in the aircraft, or sat on the seat in X-Plane, but to have a model that is shown only from external views. The one drawback to this is not being able to customise the knee board textures to add data that is relevant to your current flight. If you have any thoughts or comments, please leave a comment, or email me directly. Thanks for following!

Revised Twitter Name

Due to some oddities on Twitter, i have altered my Twitter profile name to prevent spam type followers and posts.

Sorry for any inconvenience, should any of you be following me!

Follow @_XPlane_Tonka_

Refuelling Probe

I have completed modelling, animating and texturing the refuelling probe area. Not a lot to say about this, lots of detail, lots of baked parts, and, as usual, lots of hair pulled out trying to sync up flexible part animations!

Next up is the cockpit and ejection seat. Its not going to be an easy job, but it will be aided very much by the photographs and dimensions I took from the Martin Baker Mk9B exhibit at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford, and by the fantastic restoration the Bentwaters Cold War Museum have performed on XX741, a Jaguar GR1A. Thanks very much to the chaps at Duxford, and even more so to Graham and Simon at RAF Bentwaters, who have assisted me greatly with dimensions and their patience!

If you are in the UK, I highly recommend a visit to both the Bentwaters Cold War Museum, and to Duxford. I cannot speak highly enough about either of them, fantastic days out!

I'll post pictures of the cockpit and ejection seat progress as often as possible. Thanks for following!

Aft Landing Gear

It looks like i forgot to post the final images of the aft landing gear assemblies!

The last two images were taken in the sim, and demonstrate the effect that X-Planes texture resolution compression can have on textures!

Air Brakes and Air Generators

A small progress update - Ambient Occlusion has now been baked to the Air Brake areas. I have also coined a new method, Rivet baking.

This is where i place an accurate number of 3d rivets on a structure, in the correct locations, and unwrap said structure with the rivets in place. I then bake Ambient Occlusion for each rivet to a new texture and overlay that on to said structures texture.

This results in 3d look rivets being painted onto the texture, and works quite well:

This method avoids the problem of stretched textured rivets and incorrectly sized blobs on the texture, and also ensures the correct lighting is applied to each rivet, based on its location.

With enough texture resolution, a normal map could be made from this process. For the areas i have used this method on so far though, i do not have enough texture resolution to implement normal maps. Perhaps the V10 model, using 4096 pixel^ textures might be large enough.

As always, click on the pictures to see larger versions.

Thanks for following!

Easter Baking!

Click the image for a full size version.

Just got to tidy a couple of things up, let the bake finish for the starboard side, and then paint a bit more detail into the texture.

Twitter Feed

Oh yes, forgot to mention, i now have a Twitter feed where i post more frequent status updates. Follow me @_Tonka_. Name removed to prevent spam...

Cheers.

Baking the Aft Landing Gear

Its been a while since i posted, but things have been progressing. The image below shows the initial results from the first Ambient Occlusion bake i have made on the complete aft landing gear assembly.

More pics will follow soon showing the doors, and after tidying a few things up.

Progress Update, Wing and Rear Landing Gear

Quick progress update;

The Rear Landing Gear is complete, and fully animated. I'm yet to add my customary details, but the main bulk of it and the doors are done.

The wing is also nearing completion, just a few lumps and bumps to add or complete, and maybe a bit of tidying up to do in the future. Lots of details to be seen, including all the drive rods for the control surfaces and the fittings underneath or behind the control surfaces. 

More to follow in due course!

Rear Landing Gear

Just a quick post showing the current state of the rear landing gear model. 

Rear Gear WIP

Mmmm baked goodies!

Early attempt at baking some ambient occlusion onto the nose gear strut;

(click for high res versions)

Blog alterations

I've been messing with the blog in an attempt to get a comments form working. In doing so i have changed the template, but not the content. The comments form is still not appearing for me, and i have no idea why!

For now, if anyone want's to contact me please use Tonka005[at]gmail.com, and if anyone knows how to have a working comments form on a blogger erm blog, please let me know!

Ok, now the comments are working, typical! It seems when you enable comments they are not automatically added to all post's, just new ones from the time the comments were enabled. I'll enable comments on the old post's now. Sorry for any confusion or annoyance!

Added a little more detail....

Another milestone has been achieved. Barring some further texture work, the Nose landing gear is complete.
It has taken many months, hundred's of hours, and a little bit of bad language, but i have carefully added as much detail as i can to really set this landing gear apart from most others. It is mechanically accurate, and contains a lot of animations for structure's large and small.

Click on the photo's to see them at a higher resolution.

As you can see in the pictures above, there is a massive amount of detail to be seen, all of it is accurate to my knowledge, and systems like the uplock unit and hydraulic ram for the aft doors are fully functional.

Many of the surfaces have been textured with ambient occlusion baked in. This gives ray-traced shadows and shading, which really adds to the look of the model and enhances the detail.

I'm also working on a method to make the tyres squash at the bottom with varying pressure from above. More on this later if i can make it work well.

That's all for now, hopefully the next update won't take as long. If anyone has any questions or comments, please e-mail me or use the comments form.

Thanks for looking.

Details Part 1

since my last post i have been busy adding detail and textures to some parts. The main areas i have been targeting are the Speed-brake areas and the parts behind the speed brakes. These parts include the APU on the port side, the APU oil tank, fuel filler, earthing point, and some avionics boxes on the starboard side.

APU

Starboard side

I have also began work on the nose gear bay. I having a few problems getting the rear door actuator and rods to track nicely during the animation at the moment, due to there being no physical constraints placed upon the parts in a virtual medium like there would be in real life when parts are bolted together.

That's all for now!

Propulsion Progress

As usual, its been a while since i posted an update, so here goes, with lots of pictures!

The main progress is as follows;

• I have modelled the Yaw Damper and its associated brackets and mounts.

•  Arrestor Hook, with the wire cup and  pickup hook.  

•  RR/ Turbomeca Adour Mk 102 exhaust and reheat equipment, including animated petals and tailpipe.

Yaw Damper

Arrestor Hook

Arrestor Hook In Sim

Max Dry

Max Reheat

I have also been using the Gizmo Plugin to make some scripts recently too. Gizmo is an extremely powerful, yet easy to use plugin which allows X-Plane users to make useful scripts very quickly to add functionality to aircraft. The first script i have made controls the Arrestor Hook angle by monitoring the aircraft's height, pitch angle and weight. Here is a quick video i made;

That's all for now!

Wings and Animated Doors

More progress pics! This time showing an early stage of the wing build, and all of the animated doors. I hope to complete the wing build next.

Still plenty left to do, but it is really fun to see this model evolve, which makes the build more enjoyable!