Yeah, apart from the cockpit shape and seats as that was 'borrowed' from another model. But everything on the dashboard was made by me.

Looking forward to installing this when it's done. Keep up the great work

I can't remember any specific ones I used. I used to do 3D modelling as a hobby when I was young, starting on an Amiga! I also did Design Engineering at university which involved computer aided design. So that gave me a grounding in how to create the shapes. It's just learning the tool that you need to do, in this case lightwave.

I would say you should focus on using the primitives to create shapes, Spheres, Cubes etc, and learn to use the boolean tools to create cut-outs in shapes. Extrude and lathe are 2 other useful tools to learn, as you can then create a flat polygon using points, and then extrude or rotate it to make a 3D shape.

For example the switches started off as a sphere. I then selected polygons at one end which stretched out the stalk of the switch, then shrank the bottom end of the switch to create a taper. So size, move, stretch are other tools you'll need to know.

Youtube is probably the best place to look.

This playlist looks quite good...

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT4uM5OzlKn19WDjj6mGZzg3nJuHRSg8Y


And these videos look quite good as well (I might try these to improve my skills)

https://youtu.be/TTpbLrnSxU8

https://youtu.be/iAPOl3CSxyo

https://youtu.be/F2CBel2trR0



I hope that helps.

Right, I'm trying to get back on this...

Texturing the MFD's. It's this stuff that I find time consuming and a bit annoying, but it needs done.

Finished texturing the MFDs, and I've fixed the errors when converting from an LWO to EEO. So in theory, this could go in the game as a static model. I'm going to try that next, just to see how it renders.

So now the majority of the Dashboard is done. There are a couple of instruments that need textured, and there is a couple missing. But I feel these are minor for now.






My next target is to try and start coding it so that it's a working, flyable cockpit in the game. Initially there'll be things not working or animated. But if I learn how the scene and coding all work, then adding updates should be quicker.

I see a light at end of the tunnel.

Here goes.....

I thought I'd just try getting the model in the game before I went to bed....




I should have just went to bed. Not really sure where to start with working this mess out.

Looking nice so far. Can't wait!

Thanks!

I don't fly the Blackhawk for the reason that the current model in game doesn't have a useable sensor. It will be nice to be able to use the helo as intended.

Looks great messyhead, will be usable also for 1.15.2 ? i'm using this version cause too many issues with 1.16.

I think it will. Although I think some of the texturing was changed for 1.16, so I might need to see if it works better in that version

I managed to get the model converted and working in-game as a static cockpit. I just modified the Blackhawk cockpit that is in v1.15.4.

There's some issues with the texturing though, and I might need some help in getting those working.

For now, I think I'm going to start investigating how to make some of the instruments work.

Just to keep the updates coming...


I've been looking into a couple of things.

1. The code required to get the cockpit working
2. Why the textures are not rendering properly in the game

For 1, I've found how the MFDs are drawn in the game, and it looks like I'll need to do a bit of re-modelling and texturing to get this to work. For the MFDs, they seem to have a uniquely named texture for each MFD.

And for 2, I think the issue is that in Lightwave I used boolean cuts to create some shapes, and it seems that either the converter or the game doesn't like the geometry that is created by that. So for all the weird textured instruments in the screenshot above, I'll need to remodel those. I think to get some progress, I might just make them simple primitive shapes initially, then try and change the look through texturing or other simple geometry changes.

Still need to sort out the broken textures, but I've been digging into the code, and now have the main MFD working. Now that I understand how that works, I should be able to get the 2 smaller ones working as well

That's looking better. Worked out the texturing problem - too many UV maps per object. I also simplified the geometry to get rid of some strange rendering. Excuse the jaggy lines though, it was running in low resolution.

I just need to work over the other parts to fix them.

This is coming along nicely, thanks for all the work!

Now that I know what the issues are, I should be able to progress with it

Dashboard instrument textures finished off. It's looking much better, and it's actually flyable now as it has one working MFD.

p.s. ignore the artificial horizon poking through the central display. I've not edited the scene yet to remove unused items.

Looks awesome messyhead!

I can't wait to play with the Blackhawk with this cockpit. I believe this is the "push" that I need in order to restart playing EECH

Thanks. I'm off work this week, so trying to get all the mfds working. It's tricky though, as I'm the only developer around, so no one to ask questions.