Chronocidal

Whoops... k, thanks, I stand corrected.

Heh.. yeah, if you can afford it.. and, somehow I don't think they'd be able to make something THAT big... I didn't see a size reference, but those samples would have better detail if they were in a large scale.

Actually, that's pretty sweet. I was thinking of doing something like that, but don't know enough yet about making my own instruments.

Ooooooh... pretty... Nothing to be ashamed of there, those lights look great. So, those nacelles ARE big enough for a flourescent bulb. I'm gonna have to think about lighting that one.... You're right though, most lit toys never look decent, simply because the bulbs don't distribute light well. The early Ent-E toy was hideous for that, you could see the bulbs, and since they used white bulbs in a light red engine piece, they glowed almost yellow-orange. Same for the Bandai kits.. as good as that ridged clear stuff actually conducts light, it still doesn't give an even glow, and the deflector looked pretty bad.. I added some clear blue cellophane, and a few layers of wax paper to diffuse the light more, and it helped, but it's still far from perfect.

Actually, apparently there's now a much cheaper way to get a decent Ent-refit... Art Asylum, the people responsible for the Enterprise series toys, got a hold of the rights to release a toy of the Ent-A..It's almost as detailed as the Bandai kit, plus 2-3 inches longer, for about $50 less. I've seen a bunch on Ebay, but none in stores yet. Rumor has it they've also acquired the CGI model of the Enterprise-E used in Nemesis, and are using it directly through CAD programming to make the molds for a new toy of that ship that'll be much more accurate than the Ertl kit, and much more affordable than the Bandai one. The best news about these is that they'll be very sturdy, since they're made to be played with, and, from the pictures I've seen, the toy Ent-A actually has the panels printed on it just like the Bandai one. Here's an Ebay auction with a few pictures, but nothing really big...Art Asylum Enterprise As far as stencils go though, I once made a texture set for a computer model of the Enterprise-A, so I know a lot of the panel lines by heart.. It'd be pretty easy to make a simple stencil set you could print out on the computer... wouldn't be the highest quality of course, but it might suffice. EDIT: Correction, the toy doesn't have the panels painted on, I think they're molded in different textures. Still will probably give the same type of effect in the light though.

Hmm.... I'm thinking the ones near the feet are verniers. The ones on the gear doors are probably lights like on the VF-1 though.

Hmm.. one other purpose I've realized that the head serves in fighter mode...it may stick out a little, but it partially streamlines those big blocky shoulders. Those things would cause such turbulence, it'd be ridiculous without something to direct the airflow around them.

Well, personally I'm pretty skeptic of what they show.. it's plenty detailed, but they also don't show how big the stuff is, or how strong the material is.. it might not work well to make model kits out of.. besides that, apparently, they want proof that you own the copyrights to the stuff before they build it for you... so, that right there probably eliminates 90% of the stuff people here would want to make. In my case, there's only a few things I'd really want, and almost all of them are either Macross or Star Wars related, both of which they'd probably refuse to do. I've got a couple of original designs, but they don't interest me as much as the other stuff. One thing I think this would be great for is making replacement parts for model kits. Say you want to replace a small part of a kit, or add something, like custom missiles or whatnot.. you could make it, and have them send you the stuff, and you could add it to your model. But reproducing a whole kit this way would probably be incredibly expensive.

Oh, it's not that I'm having problems with rudder pedals... it's just that I wish it came with them.. I can't afford a separate set at the moment. I've had to make do with the rudder switch, but it works decently enough. Don't have room for the pedals anyhow.

Heheh.. on that note, I've got to share something.. I know this came up a while ago, but you'd never guess what I found while looking for an old set of Tomcat schematics... Proof that they did make a Jolly Roger version.

Oooh.. I'm gonna have to include some of these schemes when I release my flight sim models... Btw, If you need any YF-19 references, I've got oodles... I downloaded a ton of images to look at when I made my FS model.

Heheh.. Well, my Suncom sticks went bad wayyy before their time (Stinks too.. had a perfect F-18 cockpit replica in those things... but they had serious bad manufacturing problems, the cords broke from the inside. Windows XP won't recognize non-USB joystick stuff anymore anyway.), and the only other stick/throttle combo I could find was the Thrustmaster Cougar, and I didn't have the spare $250 to buy that. So far, the X-45's been the best stick I've owned. I just wish it had an option for rudder pedals. As for playing "tag" or fighting in FS2002, I think that's a no... You get within about 200 feet of another plane, and the sim registers a collision. I tried tailing a 747 once, and found that out. Besides, there's no AI to control aircraft for dogfighting in that program. Best you could probably do is turn off collisions, and simply go at it with another player over a lan or internet.

Hmmm... You know, as much as I'd love to see the YF-23 made into a replacement for the Tomcat, something about that deal makes me think it'd get fugly-fied in the process, and ruin the pristine view of it I have... same for the bomber variant. There's a part of me that just wants it to remain a legend, rather than end up as another disaster of naval modification like the YF-17. If they do make a bomber out of it, I'll be very happy that Northrop finally is getting some business, but I hope they don't change the design too much.. there's only so much you can do to a design like that before ruining it. You know what I'd really like to see? The return of a dedicated interceptor for the Air Force. The last one I know of was the F-106...beautiful plane... all it did was intercept stuff. No worries about attacking ground targets, it had a dedicated air-to-air radar, and that was all it needed. Yeah, the F-22 will be good at air-to-air intercept.. but not as good as a dedicated interceptor. See, my dream would be to see the YF-23 re-introduced as a strict dogfighter/interceptor. Again, emphasis on dream. But imagine if it could be adapted into a next generation quick response fighter. With it's speed, it could be ideal for the intercept role. Not gonna happen, of course, but it's fun to dream.

SWEET MOTHER OF GHANDI! I think I just found myself a present for my 20th birthday.. Ertl, you can just kiss my big fat... umm... ok, so I'm underweight. Wow.. ok, saving up now. That's just beautiful. Of course, with a kit like this, you just have to hang it up. I'd like to see how big a stand you'd need for this sucker...O_O! You know, at that size, it's just asking to have every window drilled out, and filled with clear plastic.. and at this size, you could probably light the whole thing up, and film your own version of the movie. Also, one other good thing about the size... they made the pylons thick enough to add some nice metal rods in there to support the engines.. stupid Ertl.. I must've broken those under-supported pylons upwards of a dozen times.

Hmm... Good deal.. too bad we don't have Circuit City here... I'd have to drive a while to get there, but I'll be sure to go by there if I happen to be in that area. Thanks Btw, I have nothing but praise for Saitek Just be sure to get one of the programmable joysticks, and with a throttle.. no use simming without one. I use the Saitek X-45 myself. Nothing like a six-axis HOTAS setup to make flight sim really fun. Those rotary dials are PERFECT for prop-pitch, mixture, airbrake axis, etc. and the four 8-way hat switches aren't bad either.

LOL.. S'okay... The YF-19 will probably get darker, especially when I make the beige version. I probably just need to weather it a little more. Right now, it's got that factory fresh look that only lasts about an hour before dirt starts to collect.

Well, the colors are supposed to be very bright.. it's a demonstrator craft after all, and they're usually very glossy and bright. But again, I haven't done any textures, so it'll look very different from that, with shaded panel lines, etc. I just haven't been able to draw them yet.

Same here, although I've had to dabble into animation to make the control surfaces and gear work on my Flight Sim planes. I only really know the basics, but I will tell you two things that are of utmost importance in animation of landing gear: 1. Make sure the center of rotation of the gear is where you want it, and 2. Linking parts together (in Max it's called "parenting", I'm sure Lightwave wil lhave an equivalent) will save you from many hours of frustration. Basically, link the lower parts of the gear to the upper parts, so they inherit the motion and rotation of the upper gear, ie, if the upper gear rotates back to retract, the lower gear parts will follow as if they are glued together. Also, if you're animating a hydraulic piston, set the rotation points for the two halves separately, where you want them anchored, then align them later. It's a complex process, but it'll come with a little practice. I'm sure there are probably tutorials online for that sort of thing.

LOL.. Don't worry, that YF-21 doesn't even have textures yet.. it just has single colors aplied for testing. Now, I don't know about anime style though.. There really aren't enough panel lines ON these planes to make them look real. They're probably going to look slightly cartoony, no matter how I do the textures. It's also because of the markings. Once I do a dull camo scheme, it'll probably look much more realistic. But in any case, I'm planning to make the YF-21 textures look pretty much like the YF-19's in terms of style, although I may add more varied shades of blue to look more real. Hope that's not too anime-ish for you. I add some more panel lines to the textures, but I'll have to make up most of the paneling. These things are so smooth, it's like they're organically grown. Btw, I can do a beige YF-19, it's a simple color change. I'll include it as a marking set when I finish up the whole model. Now that I've made the model two-sided, I need to remake all my textures.

I noticed something that might make weathering textures simpler for some people... While working on my flight-sim YF-19, I was having trouble getting the black markings to look right... See, I drew the textures, then added a slightly transparent black area over them to do the markings. But it never looked quite right. I realized why the other day. Black areas don't get darker when they get weathered.. they get lighter. I found a very easy way to do it though... I just left all the areas that would be black as bright white, and weathered them lightly in black as I would any normal white surface. Then, when they were done, I selected that particular area, and inverted the color values. It turned out better than I expected. The light weathering turned lighter than the rest of the area, which was a good solid black, and it made it appear as if the black paint had been slightly worn and dulled, rather than getting dirty. Here's a pic of the results.

And, just for fun, here's a preview of the next one.

#2...

K, here we go, a few shots of the new textures.

Ooops... should have been more specific.. I meant to ask what program you are modeling this in. Some have more user-friendly animation setups than others... I know 3ds Max or Gmax make gear animations pretty simple.

Hear hear! Of course, following the pattern in the past, the YF-23 would probably become the YF-24, and the name would probably be changed as well. (Phoenix anyone? ) Heh. I just think this is funny.. wasn't the F-22 supposed to replace the F-15 in the fighter and attack roles? I could be wrong, but that's the impression I had. If it's the amount of payload they're concerned with, I'd think the YF-23 would be able to carry much more than the -22... from what I've seen, they've kind of given up on keeping the -22 totally stealthy if it needs to carry lots of weapons.. I seem to recall seeing a chart with all the external hardpoints of an F-22, and there were quite a few. If that's the truth, imagine how much the -23 could carry under that gigantic wing...sheesh. Oh well, if it happens, it happens, if it doesn't it doesn't. It's a shame, but the FB-22 will still probably win out. But, on the other hand, they still haven't come up with a decent plane to replace the Tomcat, and I'm still hopeful... *imagines an F-23 in Jolly Roger markings*