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[WxTech]

The formerly sorta-kinda inside door locks, represented as zero-thickness 'clamshell'-like things protruding like ears, have annoyed me for the last time. They are now replaced with more properly modeled mechanisms that look like the latches actually installed.

I'm debating adding the vertical posts to which the seat is attached. The unappealing part that's giving me pause are the not-so-simple cast pieces which attach to the airframe and to which are bolted the upper ends of the posts.

[Fish40]

Looking fantastic! One thing if I may (unless I missed it), if it's not too much of an issue, could the engine air intake be rounded a bit better? This always was an eye sore for me. Love your work!

[WxTech]

Fish,
The work so far has concentrated only on the 'pit. The intake is part of the external model, but your idea has merit. I'll look at it and give it some thought. And I might as well thin down the antenna wire, while I'm clambering about 'outside'.

[max_thehitman]

Super nice details!
Congratulations on a fine job!

[WxTech]

The seat has been cleaned up. The former polygon construction for the back made it look like it was 'rippled', or undulating. I re-made a different set of polygons (from the same vertices) that fixes this. And the texture has been tidied up, being made more symmetrical and better mapped to the vertices. And the strange, rather wide 'ledges' at the sides (no such things appearing in any photos) have been replaced with thinner side edges to 'fatten' up the otherwise razor-thin sides of the bucket.

For the external model, the long canopy frame post running the length of the rear canopy top has been narrowed. The internal model has it 40mm wide, whereas the external model had it 68mm(!) wide. This meant that when the POV is more forward in the cockpit, when looking back the rearmost part of this post (visible due to the clip distance being fixed to the POV) was seen as a distractingly wider version just behind the 'proper', internally modeled one.

As I pointed out in an earlier post... The rear canopy glass, which shows up with the post as the POV is moved forward, is another ugly aspect of the way in which the clip distance is formed as a cube fixed to the POV (not just moving with, but even rotating with the virtual pilot's head). I reduced the distracting prominence of the external model's glass by reducing its opacity in the glass2.mat file. If you have Avala's plane shine mod, you'll have at least most of the planes' glass2.mat files, for which you could so easily make such a change to any plane where part of its external glass is seen from inside.

I'm just starting on the air intake immediately aft of the canopy, where I'll give it a modicum of rounding.

[WxTech]

The air intake just aft of the canopy has been somewhat rounded. In spite of the minimalist work, it looks far better. And I've given the interior a dark grey to represent its being in shadow, by mapping to the dark lower right corner of the skin's .tga. Formerly the same texture was applied inside as on the outer surface, but for not dark paintjobs that looks just far to light. Now one gets the impression of looking into a darkened tunnel.

I might mention that an error has been fixed with the scoop. The 'divider' was built with a couple of vertices incorrectly taken from (shared with) the 'shell', which resulted in odd lighting behavior due to wrong surface normals for it. Bad! I added a couple of new vertices for it so that the correct surface normals now result in more consistent lighting.

The antenna wires have been thinned to just over 1/4 their former thickness (which was just about 2cm (!)--a near battleship hawser of a cable. Much better appearance now.

For both these mods (scoop and wire) I've thus far only altered the undamaged meshes (*_D0.msh). I may not get around to doing this for the damaged meshes. If I don't, anyone else is welcome to take that on.

[WxTech]

The 'roll bar' above the upper instrument panel has been better rounded by doubling the number of polygons.

[WxTech]

Currently working on making the posts and couplers which the seat is bolted to.

I even found a picture of the Bell manufacturer's data plate which attached to the inward-facing frame wall left of and just behind the seat. So I made a texture and added it.

To give an idea of the quantity of additions... The main cockpit mesh is called InnerHull.msh, and builds most of the main cockpit parts, such as the floor, sides, mid-canopy arch, aft compartment and overall canopy (less the glass), plus some lesser bits. The stock polygon count of 948 has been increased to a bit over 1,500. (All done using a spreadsheet.) And 6 new textures were created for this mesh. A number of other meshes have had alterations and/or additions made to them.

Once this current work on the seat posts is done, there may be no more new objects I'll feel compelled to add. Then it's just some texture refinements here and there, whereupon I can finally call this one done and move on to my alterations to Agracier's New Georgia map.

About that map... I've used Google Maps to refine coastlines, more particularly for the numerous smaller islands. But more importantly, the coral reefs will be made *much* nearer to reality. Anyway, a topic for another thread sometime...

[Fish40]

Looking forward to the release! Thanks for your hard work!

[WxTech]

Seat attachment hardware built. Makes a nice addition, in adding some more detail to the rear of the cabin. The pair of them are comprised of a total of 186 polygons, with a new 256 pixel square texture created. It's added to RideOn.msh, the natural  one to use as it contains the seat.

Now it's just down to a bit of texture tweaking, then off she goes. In a couple of days, I hope!

[henkypenky]

In a couple of days, I hope!

I hope so too, these couple of weeks seemst drag on forever 

[WxTech]

Your wait is ended...

Get it here:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/oz56ub2l69k8jlb/00_WxTech_P-39N-1.7z