"Bridgeofstraws" <bri### [at] inboxcom> wrote:

> I had thought about using lights on the aircraft before and what I planned on
> doing when I got there was just use a constant frame number to real time ratio.
>  And if I wanted to add motion blur to parts of the video I was just going to
> use VirtualDub (http://virtualdub.sourceforge.net/ - I have an older version)
> which has a filter that does motion blur for you with no extra time spent
> rendering more frames.  However, I'm sure that rendering more frames and
> averaging them would probably create a better result.  I just don't want to add
> extra time rendering my animation if unnecessary.
>

Understood.  The only reason why I was slightly concerned about that (and the
control surface positioning thing) is because I am making this with the intent
to put it into the Object Collection, and I think it would be much easier to
use if the user could just tell it where to fly and whether or not the lights
should be on, off, or flashing, and it took care of the rest.


> The engine effect for my jet was done using a fairly turbulent bozo patterned
> emissive media with a cone shaped container.  Right now it isn't the best, but
> it is a start.  If you like I may be able to render some closer up views of the
> flame.
>
> I appreciate the offer for help with Wings but I don't think I'll pursue mesh
> modelling for this plane.  However, I could use some help figuring out how to
> lower poly counts on the mesh generated from my isosurface with Wings or
> Blender (if you use it).  Basically my mesh is generated from the isosurface by
> sampling every n (specifiable) units in a 3D grid like fashion.  This mesh
> generation approach requires that you generate a very fine sampling in order to
> get some of the details in the isosurface but afterward I'm stuck with a 2
> million vertices mesh that looks terribly blocky.  I've tried to use blender to
> reduce the vertices count but I can never seem to get the mesh rudders smooth.
> Hope this makes sense. :)
>
> I really like your aircraft.  I can't believe how smooth the mesh for it is.
> Did you use radiosity to light the scene?  Anyways, that is an awesome
> aircraft.
>
> Yadgar - I never knew contrails formed like that.  Thanks for the tip!
>
> Bridgeofstraws


Thank you, and yes, I did use radiosity (when it is untextured and the plane is
white, it is hard to see exactly what is going on).  The mesh is fairly smooth,
but there are a few bits that could use more smoothing.  I usually keep the mesh
low density for ease of working, then do a smooth-on-export with recursion level
1.  This means that the working one is about 2000 vertices, whereas a smoothed
export one is closer to 8000.  I plan on making 3 or so resolutions - 2000 is
more than enough for a high-speed moving spec, whereas a ground scene may
require a fully smoothed model, which is closer to ~32000.
Of course, after that, one needs a burning model, a crashing one, an exploding
one, one crashed on the ground, one partially disassembled for maintenance...

Reactor

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