Merker Member



Join Date: Aug 2016 Posts: 107

July 2018 Update



This we had a great deal of work coming from Plusnine as he went on a painting spree throughout the month. The PBR texturing on these really requires a lot of TLC, but as you can see below, the fruits of his labor are spectacular. Later in the month we also had some unwrap adjustments from Kryb that will bring up the detail in certain areas of the external model.



















Additionally, we have a few breakthroughs in bug testing. Much like myself running in the hot, humid weather of the capitol, we’ve been squashing bugs left and right. This includes our long time issues with our canopy glass. Previously, during a storm or any other time a bump map was in use, strange gray shapes would appear in our glass. After discovering that it was mixture of weird polygons and the result unwrap (whoops) we’ve corrected it with no additional work needed to adjust the texture.







Speaking of the cockpit, Plusnine has also been hard at work with interior textures. In the weathering phase, there is a lot that happens in the cockpit, included paint chipping and sun fading on certain surfaces. There’s also and awesome texture for our glare shield. Check out the screenshots below!















Moving on, I have an update on carrier ops. We will unfortunately be unable to include catapult-assisted takeoff with the current configuration of the SFM and the carrier takeoff coding in DCS. Never fear, however, as you can still takeoff using the rolling takeoff method that our flight model allows for. Perhaps post-release we could build an EFM to allow for such takeoffs and more realistic flight dynamics, however in the interest of releasing in the near future, it makes sense to go with what we have now.







Next month we hope to complete our unwraps of the external aircraframe and continue our work on PBR textures. With the changes to our external unwrap, we will have a much more detailed external textures but will bring with it some additional work to get all of our skins up to the latest standard. There is also some standing issues with internal lighting for objects such as the gear handle and our warning lamps which need resolution. Our bug tracker also has an assortment of random other issues that we’ll be looking into.



Going forward we are continuing at a good pace with minimal road blocks. As always, we’ll be sure to post here once we have a solid release window, which we'll likely do around 2 months before release. We also had some fun streaming this month, check out a short clip aerobatic clip from our last group flight!



https://www.twitch.tv/videos/270622368





I hope to make some additional videos covering our cockpit systems in the near future once I have access to be a better mic.



Thanks again for your continued support! Hello again and thank you for indulging in another update from us! This month we’ll be featuring the advanced texture work done by Plusnine, including a few of the skins he’s been perfecting at a rapid pace. Other highlights include bug fixes, an update on carrier ops, and the usual release time anecdote.This we had a great deal of work coming from Plusnine as he went on a painting spree throughout the month. The PBR texturing on these really requires a lot of TLC, but as you can see below, the fruits of his labor are spectacular. Later in the month we also had some unwrap adjustments from Kryb that will bring up the detail in certain areas of the external model.Additionally, we have a few breakthroughs in bug testing. Much like myself running in the hot, humid weather of the capitol, we’ve been squashing bugs left and right. This includes our long time issues with our canopy glass. Previously, during a storm or any other time a bump map was in use, strange gray shapes would appear in our glass. After discovering that it was mixture of weird polygons and the result unwrap (whoops) we’ve corrected it with no additional work needed to adjust the texture.Speaking of the cockpit, Plusnine has also been hard at work with interior textures. In the weathering phase, there is a lot that happens in the cockpit, included paint chipping and sun fading on certain surfaces. There’s also and awesome texture for our glare shield. Check out the screenshots below!Moving on, I have an update on carrier ops. We will unfortunately be unable to include catapult-assisted takeoff with the current configuration of the SFM and the carrier takeoff coding in DCS. Never fear, however, as you can still takeoff using the rolling takeoff method that our flight model allows for. Perhaps post-release we could build an EFM to allow for such takeoffs and more realistic flight dynamics, however in the interest of releasing in the near future, it makes sense to go with what we have now.Next month we hope to complete our unwraps of the external aircraframe and continue our work on PBR textures. With the changes to our external unwrap, we will have a much more detailed external textures but will bring with it some additional work to get all of our skins up to the latest standard. There is also some standing issues with internal lighting for objects such as the gear handle and our warning lamps which need resolution. Our bug tracker also has an assortment of random other issues that we’ll be looking into.Going forward we are continuing at a good pace with minimal road blocks. As always, we’ll be sure to post here once we have a solid release window, which we'll likely do around 2 months before release. We also had some fun streaming this month, check out a short clip aerobatic clip from our last group flight!I hope to make some additional videos covering our cockpit systems in the near future once I have access to be a better mic.Thanks again for your continued support! __________________

Former A-4E-C 3D Artist



Logo Credit to Plusnine Last edited by Merker; 07-01-2018 at 02:22 PM . Reason: Added carrier landing screenshot