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June, 2009 "Real" ModellingAnother slight pause in all my computer modelling while I get ready to go to the UK Model flying championships in August.
2 months to stock up on (build) catapault and chuck gliders for the kids and to finish off my rubber powered peanut Austin-Ball AFB1 for flying in the Barkston Heath hangers.
I was surprised there were not more chuck or catapault glider plans on the internet, so I scanned a couple from the July 1945 Aeromodeller and added them to my downloads section (http://cid-06b528339820717e.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Downloads/Chuck%20Gliders)
June, 2009 Catch the train or fly?Since the release of Railworks the UK trainsim forums have been full of complaining posts about the Steam/Valve software used to install RW or register the DVD version.
To be honest, when I first came across Steam a couple of years ago I was horrified at the thought of how it worked and how invasive it could potentially be.
Even if it were the greatest rail simulator in the world I would never install Steam.
So that's the end of my model trains?
No, I'll just keep playing with my N-gauge layout, MSTS1 and the original Rail Sim 1 for a while.
Time to get back to flight simulators.
I am determined to finish a few aircraft for these sims and while my enthusiasm for trains is low, now would be the best time.
The BA Swallow is nearly there for FS9 and FSX. I just need to sit down and make a real effort on the panel and virtual cockpit.
My copy of X-Plane has also arrived. I'm impressed with the company, their efficiency and the dedication of its followers.
The file formats look simple and whats more, it seems to run really well.
Finding the time to play with it will probably be my most difficult problem.
It would be nice to be able to export the Fs9 and FSX models from 3D canvas to X-Plane as well.
April, 2009 Happy New Year!!!!It's been quite some time since I blogged anything.
I can't pretend I'm not disappointed at the cancellation of TS2 and (unbelievably) the whole Flight Sim product line by Microsoft.
My thoughts are still with all those very talented programmers and artists who lost their jobs at the end of Jan. Just over a year earlier I had the good fortune to share a beer or two with some of them at a p*ss up in a real brewery organised by MS.  Mike Porter shows us what might have been here: http://www.portergraphic.com/?cat=9 UK content as well as other newly released images in his PorterShowcase.
So with FSXI and TS2 cancelled, where does that leave my hobbies?
FSX/FS9 has a few more years life left in it, hopefully by then X-Plane (http://www.x-plane.org) will have evolved a bit more or Vehicle Simulator (http://www.hangsim.com/vsf/) will have taken off (and may eventually include trains).
MSTS1 - still has a good core of fans and will run for a couple more years.
Trainz - Auran have released yet another version (patch) which provides very little new and it is starting to age.
They have announced TS-X as a major update - as usual with Auran, we'll see. Oddly this is what the TS community were calling MS TS2 before the name was announced.
OpenBVE 1 - A good community freeware production. Getting there slowly, still not quite up to modern standards but I would like to see more.
Rail Simulator - Originally Kuju, funded by EA and Fund4Games now passed on to RSD Ltd (http://www.railsimulator.com). Looks good, which as a modeller is something I care about, released early 2008. It's initial popularity was hampered by quite a few bugs, complexity of modelling and operational issues.
Some say it was also hampered by those waiting for TS2 - I don't really believe this was a huge factor, other than visuals Rail Sim was just not much of an improvement over MSTS1 for a lot of people.
They had something they were familliar with and a huge library to play with - The Rail Sim library of freeware is still only growing slowly as a large number of developers move to payware. Now that will hamper it's development.
The patches, good support from RSDL and the recent announcement of RS2 (June 09), which unifies the current UK and US releases, will all help improve it's prospects. I still have a few reservations about the quality of it's internal programming but for now I believe it's the best hope fro train simming. As a consequence my FSX work is temporarily "on hold" till I get to a stage where 3D canvas will properly support RS and RS2 with a couple of extra helper plugins. Canvas 7.2 due soon, will also take up some of my time while I convert my plugins to the new API. Bone animation export for RS/RS2 may also become possible.
I have been gradually getting up to speed with the Rail Sim models and many of them are now available to download from UKTrainsim.com or from the Rail Simulator Downloads section on this website. November, 2008 Modelling toolsI do know how difficult it is to learn another 3D modelling tool when you are used to using one already - it takes a lot of effort to change and very few manage it.
Although I work with 3D Canvas I am always happy to promote other tools - for me, the production of good models is more important for the hobby than the tools used.
Mr 75027 (no one knows his real name
 ) has been writing an export plugin for FSX for the free XSI Mod tool- http://adventuresinmodelling.spaces.live.com/ definitely worth keeping an eye on this.I was a little saddened to learn that XSI has been bought by Autodesk a few weeks ago - they own 3D Studio and bought Maya last year, now XSI. I always get nervous when companies buy out competitors, Corel did it a few years ago and we lost a few good 2D paint packages.
If I can finish off the FSX aircraft tutorial Doug and I are writing before christmas, I may find some time to do a bit fo work on and FSX export (scenery objects only) for Sketchup. October, 2008 File DownloadsMy free Brinkster website (http://www31.brinkster.com/decapod) keeps running out of bandwidth so I'm putting some of the files in the download area here (left hand colum on this page)
A copy of my plugins for 3D Canvas 7.1.2 is there along with a few other files.
There's an old beta copy of the FSX sparrowjet there too but a better version will be available soon.
The MDL viewer is going well - I've corrected the transforms so all the parts are positioned correctly.
I'm just tidying up the interface and including some basic material handling. October, 2008 MDL file viewerGetting closer to displaying an FSX MDL file, just a bit more work needed to sort out the matrices from the scene graph....
 October, 2008 The Ghostly Teapot!Now one of the "small" contributions I made to the Train Sim community was a little program I wrote called Shape Viewer.
This was made up from a few modular components, a 3D viewport, MSTS model loader and Trainz Model loader. These were then embedded in a standard windows form which added extra functions such as loading consists, display stands, grass etc.
This worked quite well and the modules were used by several other Train sim utilities to display models.
The program was written using Visual Basic 6 which restricted me to using DirectX8.1. Both are now well out of date and the program needed a bit of an overhaul to upgrade.
I finally bit the bullet last week and converted the 3D viewport module to .NET 2, using the SlimDX library (after Microsoft saw fit to remove .NET 2 support for DirectX)
The conversion was relatively smooth, I was almost able to copy and paste the code with a few small changes. The result was a ghostly teapot rendered using DirectX9.
 I have nearly completed my FSX MDL file reader, it should only be a matter of time before I have FSX models viewable without having to start up FSX.
If I can work out how to use the shaders, they may even look exactly like they do in the simulator!
September, 2008 FSX JetMy test jet for FSX is coming along nicely. It's a 1950's Miles Sparrowjet racer, only one was ever built. The model weighs in at 9000 polys so far with 7 draw calls.
Click on the image for the full sized picture:
July, 2008 3DCanvas FSX Export TestI have been progressing the FSX export plugin to make sure all the material options work. It's slow progress but I'm getting there. I have added attachment point support (for effects etc) and have nearly finished support for skin/bone animations. 3D Canvas users should end up with almost the same options available as 3DMax users. Here are a couple of images to wet the appetite. From left to right the materials are:
Some problem with the translucency as I turned on Z-writing for the material. Click for larger images:
June, 2008 FSX Attach Tool for 3D CanvasAnother small step closer to full FSX support in 3D canvas. I now have a working attachment point editor. It has 2 modes of operation, selecting a face on an object will add a new attachment group and object on or above the face. Selecting an object will convert the group containing the object into an attachment. All it does internally is create an XML string into a Group Custom field. This is then exported as PartData in the X file on export.
Adds the following XML to the new group containing the small purple pyramid in the image below. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?> <FSMakeMdlData version="9.0"> <Attachpoint name="attachpt_smoke"><AttachedObject> <Effect effectName="fx_SmokeStack2.fx" effectParams=""/> </AttachedObject></Attachpoint></FSMakeMdlData>
It still requires a little more work on validation but it works for now. This just leaves export of bone parameters in to the X file as the last major job - then it's on to some proper testing. June, 2008 Back from across the pondI spent the last few weeks in Montreal and New York visiting family. No time for programming or 3D models but I did manage a little research.
I made it to the canadian rail museum Exporail. Lots of large (compared to UK) locos and an A4 class "Dominion of Canada" hidding in a corner of one of the sheds. In need of a little paint - here is a photo of the cab interior:
We drove from Montreal to New York with a stop at the Old Rhinebeck aerodrome - what a great collection.
It was a great shame I was too early for the weekly airshows, but I did get a small demo as they tested the Caudron which did a short hop along the field and back. What a fantastic sound that rotary engine made.
March, 2008 A break from TrainsTaking a little break from train models. My daughter is dinosaur/dragon mad at the moment, so I made her a dinosaur:
Parasaurolophus
January, 2008 More Instant ArtWhen I first showed my Train Sim Engineer plugin to Adrian Woods and Pete Zahn of ACEs they used the phrase "Instant Art" to describe the generation of a few thousand polygons in a few seconds.
Here's another plugin I've just written that also builds geometry.
On selecting a face, it takes 4 parameters, inset from the edge, height, width and number of facets
There is also an option for the type of object to be generated: rivet (cone) or nut (prism)
The result is a rivet or nut object at every corner, equidistant from the two edges that make the corner.
The same plugin can be run 3 times on the same face to produce washers, nuts and the bolt ends:
Lots of polys January, 2008 SmoothThis one has only taken me a few evenings so far. Coming along nicely at about 13,000 polygons at the moment.
December, 2007 A "Quick" Cab - and the development of a new Canvas OperationStill time for one more before Christmas.
A while ago I wrote a Cab builder plugin.
You simply enter a few dimensions for the size, curve height and overhangs and it automatically generates a box with a curved roof. So that part is easy. I took the dimensions from the plan, as mentioned in the pervious blog post, and filled in the form (dimensions in metres)
Ta-da! A cab with a lovely curved roof in a few seconds.
Then I hit a problem.
Being a bit of a stickler for straight edges, I couldn't think of an accurate way to move the points that make up the roof edge to match the plan. Shown below (I applied a translucent material to the roof so the plan could be seen) Ideally the points needed to be "sheared" or I could shift them by hand - but that could lead to inaccuracies.
Then I had an idea - I vaguely remember back to my days of experimental physics at university. There was a method of finding the best straight line through a set of points of one axis was known accurately, which the X axis (left/right) is in this case.
A bit of a search threw up the Least Squares method - http://www.che.udel.edu/pdf/FittingData.pdf
I put this algorithm into a small program that takes a set of selected points, a fixed axis and a variable axis which then processes them into a straight line.
The result is a new operation button for 3D canvas.
From the plan view, I dragged the points, restricting them to Z axis only movement (hold down the Z key) (I did exaggerate the zig zag for illustrative purposes, normally I would be a bit more accurate when shifting points) Select the points and run the operation, selecting the "Align Z, X fixed" option.
The result is a mathematically straight line - no human error.
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