[WIP] Neist Airliner parts

[neistridlar]

12 hours ago, MaverickSawyer said:

That cockpit is spot on for stockalike. The cabin... Eh, not so much. But, that's just my 0.02...  

I have not yet done the cabin right, that is still just a placeholder.

12 hours ago, Bottle Rocketeer 500 said:

@neistridlar The cockpit is really good, just missing the smudges. If you send me the texture, I can do it for you. The process is described in @Porkjet's post in

Also, watch the following video:

 

I have checked out both, and I do belie I have the smudges, but maybe they need to be turned up a bit. The textures should be in the sneak peak in the OP. Here is the .xcf file as well: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6ts8kiefcz2b68y/1875CRJ-Texture.xcf?dl=0

[Bottle Rocketeer 500]

@neistridlar Sadly, I have tried to make it more stockalike by adding smudges to the texture, but it still doesn't look to good. There are two things that I think could lead to it looking better, which can do if you give me the model, preferably in .dae of .fbx.

• Windows are just textured on, affecting IVA and making it look worse in general
• Model is not smoothed, leading to faces being visible ingame

[neistridlar]

3 minutes ago, Bottle Rocketeer 500 said:

@neistridlar Sadly, I have tried to make it more stockalike by adding smudges to the texture, but it still doesn't look to good. There are two things that I think could lead to it looking better, which can do if you give me the model, preferably in .dae of .fbx.

• Windows are just textured on, affecting IVA and making it look worse in general
• Model is not smoothed, leading to faces being visible ingame

The beams in the middle of the window are just textured, and the mesh is not quite optimal for the purpose, that is on my todo list. The edge of the window is modeled and baked in to the normal maps as well. What do you mean by the model is not smoothed though? It does not have the most polys, I could easily add more, or rather remove less, if that is the issue. The model should appear fairly smooth as well because I baked the normal map from a much higher resolution model. I have seen that the edges between the faces have some aliasing in the normal map, but other than that it looks smooth to me.

Exported the model to .fbx for you here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lrnfsl19jdp21um/18CRJ.fbx?dl=0. Don't pour your hart and soul into it though. There are multiple things I am planing on changing, and I am thinking I might just throw the entire model out, and start from scratch, so I can do everything right. Just need to figure out how to do it right first.

[Bottle Rocketeer 500]

@neistridlar Sorry, I meant that the normals are not smoothed, so you can see the faces on the model ingame. Also, if you are planning to replace it, I can just make a new one for you.

[neistridlar]

@Bottle Rocketeer 500 If you want to make an example for me to study, that would be nice, but I do want to learn how to do it right my self. I just did a little experiment turning saving the blender file with shading set to Smooth, and with it set to Flat, and that does seem to make a difference, is it possible that this is what you mean by normals not smoothed? I had it set to Flat, because I thought it was only a render setting for the view port in blender.

[Bottle Rocketeer 500]

1 minute ago, neistridlar said:

-snip-

@neistridlar Yes, I meant to apply the edge split modifier and set shading to smooth (both in Blender).

[GDJ]

On 4/23/2018 at 2:21 AM, neistridlar said:

Would you mind testing the curvy tail with far? It is supposed to be a smooth curve all along the fuselage. That is good for transonic design right?

Well, if you want absolute accuracy for transonic, then no. It's a good shape for mid subsonic (Mach 0.3 to 0.6)

Here's a great article on Supercritical Transonic airfoil research. Its a long read but worth it.

https://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/pdf/87892main_H-916.pdf

And the profile generally follows this:

Edited April 25, 2018 by GDJ

[neistridlar]

9 hours ago, GDJ said:

Well, if you want absolute accuracy for transonic, then no. It's a good shape for mid subsonic (Mach 0.3 to 0.6)

-snip-

Oh, boy, my brain is not ready for ingesting this kind of information right now. I have to wonder though, if that is the ideal shape, why are not airliners shaped like that? Also, would a shape like that actually be advantageous for FAR users? I'm mostly interested in making parts that look kind of like they do in real life, but if there are some small things I can tweak here and there to make them functionally better for the user I am interested in that as well.

9 hours ago, Bottle Rocketeer 500 said:

@neistridlar Yes, I meant to apply the edge split modifier and set shading to smooth (both in Blender).

I did like you said, and rebaked the normal maps. It looks much better now. Thanks. I hope to have a better model as well tonight (CET), with properly modeled window frames and windows, as well as an overall more pleasing shape, and hopefully a more sensible mesh.

[Bottle Rocketeer 500]

@neistridlar OK, then I'll let you make the cockpit yourself, just please make it 24-sided, as are all other current parts not .625m in diameter.

[m4ti140]

11 hours ago, GDJ said:

Well, if you want absolute accuracy for transonic, then no. It's a good shape for mid subsonic (Mach 0.3 to 0.6)

Here's a great article on Supercritical Transonic airfoil research. Its a long read but worth it.

https://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/pdf/87892main_H-916.pdf

And the profile generally follows this

That's a supercritical wing airfoil, it's cambered. Empennage airfoils are symmetric, even the supercritical ones.

@neistridlar I can do some testing once FAR is out (or at least in beta) for 1.4+. As for actual effectiveness of modelling an actual transonic airfoil, I have my doubts: FAR doesn't care about the airfoil for lift and induced drag computations, and for form/wave drag the feature size is too small to detect here, unless you set your voxelization resolution crazy high (which will slow down the game). Also I'm not sure if FAR doesn't calculate wave drag within the lifting surface module for wings, in which case, again, the actual part geometry won't matter. If the actual airfoil used for computations was somehow taken from the geometry, all stock wings would be useless. For the same reason, if and when Ferram releases overhauled wing system with ability to use custom airfoils, it will probably remain decoupled.

Edited April 25, 2018 by m4ti140

[MaverickSawyer]

He's talking about the aft end of the fuselage, not the empennage, right?

[neistridlar]

1 minute ago, MaverickSawyer said:

He's talking about the aft end of the fuselage, not the empennage, right?

That would be correct. In the sneak peak in the OP you can find it under structural as 18-06Curvyytail I believe.

[m4ti140]

3 hours ago, neistridlar said:

That would be correct. In the sneak peak in the OP you can find it under structural as 18-06Curvyytail I believe.

Then GDJ's post makes no sense to me,  because that's a supercritical airfoil, this is not how you design trailing end of a fuselage, you just maintain area ruling while smoothly reducing total cross-section towards the end (rather than suddenly cutting it off into free airstream, you only do that in aircraft with a tail nozzle)

[neistridlar]

13 minutes ago, m4ti140 said:

Then GDJ's post makes no sense to me,  because that's a supercritical airfoil, this is not how you design trailing end of a fuselage, you just maintain area ruling while smoothly reducing total cross-section towards the end (rather than suddenly cutting it off into free airstream, you only do that in aircraft with a tail nozzle)

That was what I though as well, in which case I do believe the curvy tail should be nice, since it starts out tangent to the fuselage and smoothly curves to a smaller cross-section, which should (hopefully) be closer to area ruling than the straight pieces that is in stock and most mods I have seen. If it makes a difference I could do one that is properly area ruled as well.

The sneak peak has now been updated with the new cockpit model, now with 100% more 24 sidelines. IVA has been updated as well, though upon testing I found that the instrument panel should probably be much taller. The textures need work still. The external one is just bashed together from recycled parts of the old one, and the IVA texture is still a place holder. Also the collier and config files need work. If any of you find other issues please do tell

[GDJ]

On 4/23/2018 at 2:21 AM, neistridlar said:

 

 

I was referring to this post, then this statement.....

On 4/23/2018 at 2:21 AM, neistridlar said:

Would you mind testing the curvy tail with far? It is supposed to be a smooth curve all along the fuselage. That is good for transonic design right?

....because what was pictured look alot like a wing.

So.....what's confusing here people? Throw me a bone here.

Or did I miss something?

Edited April 25, 2018 by GDJ

[neistridlar]

5 hours ago, GDJ said:

I was referring to this post, then this statement.....

....because what was pictured look alot like a wing.

So.....what's confusing here people? Throw me a bone here.

Or did I miss something?

 8===8

I can see how that would get confusing if you were just scrolling by in a hurry. But there is already a part with the name curvy tail, which I have shown earlier in pictures as well, and has been in the sneak peak for a while. I will take your input into consideration when I get around to doing the wing parts for real.

 

[neistridlar]

The new model now has new IVA with some instruments and portrait cameras, and new texture. The texture still needs some work, but I don't have time right now. Sneak peak has been updated as well. 

[m4ti140]

One other thing I'd like to point out: area ruling is not that important for airliners that cruise below Mach 0.7, as wave drag is still minimal, but it is for faster (0.75-.85) ones, these use supercritical airfoils in wings too, and use anti-shock bodies to preserve area ruling in wing section. In fact dedicated anti-shock body parts (preferably tweakscale compatible), separate from both wings and control surfaces are something I would love to see in an airliner mod, as those are perfectly functional and do serve their purpose with FAR, allowing the player to fine tune area ruling.

So yeah, you want fuselage parts to be area ruled (smooth changes of total cross-section, as in with empennage cross-section included) and for the wings it doesn't really matter that much - giving them supercritical airfoils would look cool nice and add realism, but it might be a pain to model and it doesn't matter from gameplay point of view, as neither stock nor FAR cares about actual airfoil geometry when dealing with wings.

Edited April 26, 2018 by m4ti140

[GDJ]

18 hours ago, neistridlar said:

 8===8

I can see how that would get confusing if you were just scrolling by in a hurry. But there is already a part with the name curvy tail, which I have shown earlier in pictures as well, and has been in the sneak peak for a while. I will take your input into consideration when I get around to doing the wing parts for real.

 

Okay, I'm probably guilty of jumping the gun. Sorry if I caused any confusion.

[theonegalen]

12 hours ago, neistridlar said:

The new model now has new IVA with some instruments and portrait cameras, and new texture. The texture still needs some work, but I don't have time right now. Sneak peak has been updated as well. 

Hey, that's starting to look pretty good. The panel lines don't quite make sense to me, and my initial reaction is that they might be a tad dark, but the panel color and the shading is looking very good indeed!

The IVA looks like it is going to be delicious.

Edited April 27, 2018 by theonegalen

[neistridlar]

3 hours ago, theonegalen said:

Hey, that's starting to look pretty good. The panel lines don't quite make sense to me, and my initial reaction is that they might be a tad dark, but the panel color and the shading is looking very good indeed!

The IVA looks like it is going to be delicious.

Any chance you could be more specific about how the panel lines don't make sense? And the IVA, I spent a few hours yesterday tweaking it so that it would actually be practical to fly from. It is incredible to me how impractical many of the stock cockpits are for actually flying IVA. Looking forward to see what a competent pair of hands can do with it.

[neistridlar]

So I am currently away from home, and my craptop laptop is not quite up to the task of doing some proper development work. But I made some more concept models.

On 4/26/2018 at 8:04 PM, m4ti140 said:

In fact dedicated anti-shock body parts (preferably tweakscale compatible), separate from both wings and control surfaces are something I would love to see in an airliner mod, as those are perfectly functional and do serve their purpose with FAR, allowing the player to fine tune area ruling.

Would something like this be good for an anti-shock body part:

It is a straight line approximation to linear increase/decrease in cross-section area. That leaves a sharp edge at the center, but what little I have played with FAR, that seems to be what it wants. I'm thinking it could serve as a general purpose surface attached fuel tank as well.

On 4/17/2018 at 8:23 PM, MaverickSawyer said:

On a slightly different note, any chance of adding a CF-34-ish pod engine? SOmewhere in the 0.935m diameter range... Seems to be somewhat lacking for making business and regional jets.

I hope @blackheart612 does not mind me stealing ideas from his/her thread. This is modeled after what I believe is a CF34-8C. I am thinking that the engine it self will be a separate part, which can be surface attached directly, or connect with a node to either of the two pylons that I have modeled. The side mount pylon is also modeled after the CRJ-900 drawings, but the under-wing mount is just something I threw together in a hurry. Not happy with how it turned out, but it shows the general idea. Size is 0.9375m. I am thinking stats will be based off off a tweak scaled j-90, but with only 10k ISP, and price of 1,000, so it sits nicely between the juno and wheesly. I am tempted to give it a name like, j-26 "David".

And lastly, a radially attached modular belly tank system:

It consists of two parts, the straight, and the tapered section. Both will be able to attach radially, but they will also be able to attach in a stack, for more accurate drag calculations. They have a flat bottom, and a flat vertical surface on the sides. By my math they will hold approximately 130 units of fuel each for the 1.875m size.

[theonegalen]

On 4/27/2018 at 2:40 AM, neistridlar said:

Any chance you could be more specific about how the panel lines don't make sense? And the IVA, I spent a few hours yesterday tweaking it so that it would actually be practical to fly from. It is incredible to me how impractical many of the stock cockpits are for actually flying IVA. Looking forward to see what a competent pair of hands can do with it.

I think what is bothering me is that they are so curved and flowing. It's aesthetically pleasing, but I generally think of airliners as focusing on function first, then aesthetics. I guess my mind is just used to panels with straight edges.

New part ideas look great. However, the  cone doesn't look a lot like anything ive seen in the real world. I especially like the conformal tanks, though, and I imagine they will help with area ruling as well.

Edited April 28, 2018 by theonegalen

[neistridlar]

5 hours ago, theonegalen said:

I think what is bothering me is that they are so curved and flowing. It's aesthetically pleasing, but I generally think of airliners as focusing on function first, then aesthetics. I guess my mind is just used to panels with straight edges.

New part ideas look great. However, the  cone doesn't look a lot like anything ive seen in the real world. I especially like the conformal tanks, though, and I imagine they will help with area ruling as well.

I have taken a thorough look at it next to the stock parts now. I don't think the lines are too dark, but way too wide. I will try to make a layout with less flowing lines, but they are actually all straight, if you look at them from the right direction. It is just that the surfaces are curving all over the place, especially on the roof, so they only look straight from one direction. Maybe it would help if I make them more just horizontal and vertical. 

[neistridlar]

Does this look more like airliner panel lines @theonegalen ? An no I have not done more than the lines, it still needs more work before it is done, just looking at panel lines here.