killi

Richard thanks for the links i'll check them out. have seen a couple on discovery. I think I'll get onto the dogfight scene now. Black Mage I'll take a look at camera shake for the next one. And some higher speed moves like the video. Would love to get the animations up to that quality but time is short and I'm not that good (yet!). Heat haze is brillient and the plane going through the cloud looks great on the discovery animations.

I'll have a look at speeding it up a bit but, to be fair after watching a load of airshow videos low speeds don't seem to be that much of an issue. Not same plane but gives you an idea. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as33-0npooQ I've speeded up the view from the ground as suggested. Looks better I think, If I ever got to fly a plane I would definitely crash it . ANIMATION

OK Here is the Eurofighter Animation revised with crits in mind. Black_mage Thanks for the material. It got used indirectly to generate a texture for the afterburners which still need work, but had to be modelled to generate an alpha channel. I'm learning terragen at the moment so i've got to get my head around it. I think i've nailed it for this scene now and the camera matching has worked out well. When I get onto the f22 the a morning scene would be good. Shadows on the ground are missing, how do get the shadow buffer to render out as a usable layer in a 3rd party application. Anyone?

With the plane's I'm putting together I'm just screen grabbing the component I want from top side or whatever. Then dropping the grab in Paintshop Pro upping the resolution cutting colours or panels from actual aircraft photos and putting them on the texture. Draw a few panels in. Add magic ingredient insomnia and the job gets done. Then hide the bits you don't want decalled and just import your image and it as a decal. Seems to be working well so far. The uv stuff I would use for faces or surfaces which are not very linear and require unwrapping. What i've worked out so far with texturing aircraft is that panel lines and a little dirt is key.

Cheers guys for the input, I'm plugging away at it. Currently tweaking my php script which pulls the camera paths/targets out of AM into terragen. Bit of an exercise on my part to improve my programming which has just been for web/databases up till now. I think it works well enough to get footage for my showreel although not great. The plane animation is to cover work I did for someone but am not able to show. I'm watching whole load of discovery wings etc.. with dog fights and so on taking note. I've got to not get too carried away as time is a factor for me I can't miss too many trips to the gym plus gotta keep those paying customers happy. Also must get a real life again at some point 3d and design is like a drug to me at the moment. As for the terragen my effort is pretty weak compared to what it can do. The backgrounds and environments you can generate are absolutely stunning.

Here is a 360 render of the Eurofighter with the Terragen background. Not quite flying yet but getting there. you'll to loop it to get the full effedt. It kind of needs a pilot up this close Download

Yep the jet flame is modelled on the F22 would be interested to see your method. Just trying to actually nail this project my new years resolution was"finish the personal projects I start".

This project kind has of snowballed into something a bit bigger my modelling has seemed to improved along the way the stuff at the start looks aweful compared to the these latest models. I'm just trying to do the maths on the speed and watching allot of promotional videos of both planes to get some ideas of what works. Seem to of gone from finding AM modelling a little frustrating to rather enjoying it, before anyone chirps still love poly modelling as well they're both great modelling methods. I'm going to camaera match the planes over terragen footage so there isn't really any wireframe at the moment. I would be interested if anyone has managed to come up with a method to created heat haze in AM.

That looks brillient. look forward to see it animated

Glad you like it. Since the F22 turned out so well I've remodelled the Eurofighter from scratch now allot more realistic The material may be a little shiney on the body it should probably be matte. Anyway it's edging closer to completion this project

Quick update here's a couple of renders of the F22 textured up so far. Getting into this now. I'll have to take look at the Eurofighter model next as it looks a little lame in comparison.

If it's only practice you want modelling copyrighted charaters is cool. But otherwise it always seems pretty pointless to me. Best come up with one of your own.

Well it's OK I suppose

That's a dead good that character, Nice work

Thanks for the info. I've been watching some dog fight footage, some of the moves they pull are pretty crazy. I am looking into the speed. The original idea was the plane was out of control just before it's demise. But now I'm modelling an f22 for the eurofighter to spar with so the anim will be getting longer. F22 would benefit from poly modelling rather than splines Eurofighter definitely easier in splines.

Cheers for the feedback. I'm playing with the speed to see what's realistic, Trying to get the impression of speed rather than the total realism e.g watching a motorbike race on tv always looks slow, watch it at the track and you can't believe the closing speeds. Makes tv footage look very sanitised. On another note. I'm having fun again with 3D finally after having to work through a horrendously badly organised project a over a year a go which killed it dead for me. But now my sleep pattern's gone to hell. I find my self daydreaming camera angels again and wondering how to model everything again. Once more unto the breach maybe...

Ok Slight update I wrote a php script to get the camera rotation out of an AM action and put it into a terragen file, more sensible than remodelling the entire landscape in AM. So here's the result so far, So the landscape is completely rendered in terragen rather than the light box method. The lightbox method seems to fall apart if you get too close to the walls. Anyone got hints regarding correct usage of light box seems ok for skys to me. Rendered in AM and terragen and then composited together. Animation Test The PHP script seems to have worked but has been a bit of a strectch for me as I 've only done a bit of web programming up till now. Still missing a shadow for the plane but I'm getting there.

This is good stuff. I'll keep plugging away at it. I'll put the central rock/hill together in AM with the suggested plugin. Looks rather handy that, cheers.

I think I will model some of the hills in hash or one central one. Reflections will have to be added via compositing will have a think about that, Cheers for the feedback

2 years later and I finally do some more work on this. Anyway here is a new version. Basically the I created the background in terragen then used a lightbox to to map it in AM. The terragen maps are avis and they run when rendering making the water shimmer which you can't really see on this anim. Compression makes the background a little jerky compared to the full frames version. Many thanks to all the good info on the forum I've got my head around light boxes. Lighting etc.. still needs work In 40 years time I may have a decent showreel Still: Animation (mpeg): Click here

I'm waiting for god to post what he thinks about this, doesn't seem to post much these days though if ever. Spose he's sticking to the frontal lobe epilectics to pass on instruction, I think he should start using the internet as well these days.

I'll take a look at the nose, I'm really getting into this texturing didn't mean to take it this far I'm amazed how much it adds to the character for such little time compared to modelling that is.

A slight update He's getting there, may have some time son to finish him soon. Belly button definitely needs work though.

Caught with eyeliner, The price we pay for 3D. Seriosly good work so far.

Yeah he is kind of scary, When I get to rig his face i'll try and loose the cold dead look. An eye patch and feathers are on the way. I'm thinking of developing him into Queequeg type character.