Merker Member



Join Date: Aug 2016 Posts: 107

Community A-4E Update: June 2018



Today marks my 24th rotation around our star, and in celebration we have a massive update for you all! We’ve been very busy bees this month, and are ready to (officially) reveal the fully modelled, unwrapped and textured cockpit. Between modelling and unwrapping, this work is the culmination of nearly two years’ worth of work (a celebration indeed). In many development houses, the work we’ve done would obviously go far faster. However as volunteers working with little background, it’s been a constant learning process which has gotten us to where we are today in a greater amount of time. Other important progress this month is the completion of our external lighting, addition of raindrops to the canopy and implementation of PBR textures for our external model. Let’s dive in!



The cockpit textures are really what can take a model to the next level. This is certainly the case for us. Plusnine’s (callmepartario) work is truly astounding for the rest of the team to see. The amount of detail that a model can appear to have without actually modelling anything can be increased a great deal by correct use of shading, substance painting, and other key texture concepts.Keep in mind that these are all still very much an active work area, and even these images are a bit late as a result of the rapid progress occurring on certain pieces in the cockpit.













Also in the texture arena was the implementation of PBR textures for our external model. This allows purely 2D details such as rivets and panel gaps to appear 3D. In use, it really brings the external model up a few notches and on par with other models in DCS. We still have some parts of the aircraft which need to be unwrapped, but once this is done it will have a very high amount of detail and will fit right in with other aircraft. I’ve included some examples below, observe how the panel lines are evident along the side of the fuselage and on top of the wing. These would not contrast like this without PBR.









As an all-weather attack aircraft, the A-4’s cockpit requires good cockpit lighting during many missions. One of the final things which Gos and I worked on in the cockpit was our lighting, which most notably was his final update before passing. Thankfully, he left behind the code needed for us to extend this work to the external model, and with the needed updates, we have functioning external lights. Of course, we see this as an additive process where we will continually improve upon aspects as we go such as brightness.







Another win this month came late last week, when the introduction of rain effects, along with a helpful comment from CptSmiley on reddit helped Plusnine and I figure out how to implement raindrops on the canopy. We’re working to refine it a bit, as I believe I haven’t implemented it with the correct material properties, but so far it looks great. Note the issue with flat grey in the canopy. The fix couldn’t make it into update unfortunately.







Of course, I have several more great screenshots coming to you courtesy of the latest updates to carrier landings. Also be sure to check out my video on landing on a carrier with the A-4. A very big thanks to ED for making some bug fixes which allow us to land again!





If the video link isn't working for you, visit











On the Horizon:



This month I personally intend to complete the unwrap of the external model, as well as implementing carrier takeoff should our code allow for it. We already have existing methods of carrier takeoff (a special condition in our SFM) however we would like to have the most complete mod for you possible. Stretch goals this month include bugfixes for our canopy glass, unwrap of our external pilot and unwrap of our custom MER rack. We will not have an internal pilot, however given the cramped conditions I don’t think you’ll miss having one (it would get in the way very quickly)!



Follow us on Twitch!



We’ve started streaming on twitch around once or twice a week. Feel free to follow us to be notified when we go live!

https://www.twitch.tv/plusnine_tvb

https://www.twitch.tv/merker6/



Behind the Scenes:



Another excellent month of progress! We’re making great strides which I think have certainly kept us on a good trajectory towards the release date I have in mind. Of course, we will not announce anything until we are absolutely sure it will be ready to release on-time and without serious bugs. Many good things to come, it’s not much farther now! Today marks my 24th rotation around our star, and in celebration we have a massive update for you all! We’ve been very busy bees this month, and are ready to (officially) reveal the fully modelled, unwrapped and textured cockpit. Between modelling and unwrapping, this work is the culmination of nearly two years’ worth of work (a celebration indeed). In many development houses, the work we’ve done would obviously go far faster. However as volunteers working with little background, it’s been a constant learning process which has gotten us to where we are today in a greater amount of time. Other important progress this month is the completion of our external lighting, addition of raindrops to the canopy and implementation of PBR textures for our external model. Let’s dive in!The cockpit textures are really what can take a model to the next level. This is certainly the case for us. Plusnine’s (callmepartario) work is truly astounding for the rest of the team to see. The amount of detail that a model can appear to have without actually modelling anything can be increased a great deal by correct use of shading, substance painting, and other key texture concepts.Keep in mind that these are all still very much an active work area, and even these images are a bit late as a result of the rapid progress occurring on certain pieces in the cockpit.Also in the texture arena was the implementation of PBR textures for our external model. This allows purely 2D details such as rivets and panel gaps to appear 3D. In use, it really brings the external model up a few notches and on par with other models in DCS. We still have some parts of the aircraft which need to be unwrapped, but once this is done it will have a very high amount of detail and will fit right in with other aircraft. I’ve included some examples below, observe how the panel lines are evident along the side of the fuselage and on top of the wing. These would not contrast like this without PBR.As an all-weather attack aircraft, the A-4’s cockpit requires good cockpit lighting during many missions. One of the final things which Gos and I worked on in the cockpit was our lighting, which most notably was his final update before passing. Thankfully, he left behind the code needed for us to extend this work to the external model, and with the needed updates, we have functioning external lights. Of course, we see this as an additive process where we will continually improve upon aspects as we go such as brightness.Another win this month came late last week, when the introduction of rain effects, along with a helpful comment from CptSmiley on reddit helped Plusnine and I figure out how to implement raindrops on the canopy. We’re working to refine it a bit, as I believe I haven’t implemented it with the correct material properties, but so far it looks great. Note the issue with flat grey in the canopy. The fix couldn’t make it into update unfortunately.Of course, I have several more great screenshots coming to you courtesy of the latest updates to carrier landings. Also be sure to check out my video on landing on a carrier with the A-4. A very big thanks to ED for making some bug fixes which allow us to land again!If the video link isn't working for you, visit https://youtu.be/MUv34ZsAZ3Y On the Horizon:This month I personally intend to complete the unwrap of the external model, as well as implementing carrier takeoff should our code allow for it. We already have existing methods of carrier takeoff (a special condition in our SFM) however we would like to have the most complete mod for you possible. Stretch goals this month include bugfixes for our canopy glass, unwrap of our external pilot and unwrap of our custom MER rack. We will not have an internal pilot, however given the cramped conditions I don’t think you’ll miss having one (it would get in the way very quickly)!Follow us on Twitch!We’ve started streaming on twitch around once or twice a week. Feel free to follow us to be notified when we go live!Behind the Scenes:Another excellent month of progress! We’re making great strides which I think have certainly kept us on a good trajectory towards the release date I have in mind. Of course, we will not announce anything until we are absolutely sure it will be ready to release on-time and without serious bugs. Many good things to come, it’s not much farther now! __________________

Former A-4E-C 3D Artist



Logo Credit to Plusnine Last edited by Merker; 06-01-2018 at 01:53 PM .