No more Fokkers!

[G. Scott Long]

I think you did a great job on the pilots! Oh , and the tripes too, of course!
best wishes, Scott

[Xeidos2]

Just wanted to add my two cents worth on control inputs.

WWI aircraft required much greater control input than modern day aircraft.

I learned this from taking video of the SPAD VII at Ol' Rhinebeck a couple of years ago. I was in the process of getting ready to join the KOE team in Denver and family matters brought me within driving distance of the airport on a Saturday. I was hopeing to get some reference material for the sim. While studying the video I noticed that the aileron movement on the SPAD was quite extreme and very noticeable even from the ground. When I got to Denver I showed the video to the KOE team and pointed out the extreme control inputs. The lead programmer, who has a degree in aerodynamics and flys his own Pitts Special, said that was quite normal for WW1 aircraft. His explanation was that the ailerons and wings in WW1 were much less efficient than those of modern aircraft and they needed a lot more movement to have the same amount of effect as it does on modern aircraft. So I would say a good rule of thumb would be, the older the aircraft, the more likely control inputs are noticeable.

These stills from video don't show the input as well as seeing the video, but the frames where the action was most noticable were blurred.

[Russell Smith]

Originally Posted by Mark_Miller

nice image Tim
your textures have improved quite a bit and I believe that is what is making the difference.

as for depth cueing
yeah, i agree - it would help the illusion if your color/contrast deadened out as you get farther away from the viewer.

in microstation i use a feature called fog
you define a color - I always use a light sky blue
and then it uses the display depth as the front and back edge and then you define where you want to start ramping up the fog.
uhhh...sound complicated the way i'm describing it - but it is realy simple
I generaly exagerate the effect as it realy helps push stuff back
well...not sure if maya has a similiar feature

another good trick is to render the distant planes out seperately
then you can load them up on there own levels in pshop and interactively work the color/saturation/contrast until the plane sits right.
sometimes just making it a little transparent works well - depends if there is stuff happening behind it - or just sky color.

anyways
great work

Hey Mark, nice job on the Kong! Susan and I sat through the entire end credits so that I could exclaim "hey, I know that guy!" to the whole theater. (actually i was able to do that multiple times).

but this is Tim's thread, so back to the subject...
Russ

[Tim West]

I will post again shortly, but I wanted to try to catch you all while you're on......

I re worked the image some, to try to push the tail back.

[Tim West]

Not fast enough I reckon....

This all makes good sense. I have been trying to add depth by blurring the object as they travel away from the viewer, but this is not enough. With the great comments, I completely understand this idea now. Not to mention there is more than one way to do it. It will definitely be something I think about in future work. Thanks!

Mark,
Congrats on the release. I hear its great. Before I see it, I have to know what you worked on?

Maya does have similar fog effect. I have never played with it. Changing the transparency does help. All 3 planes were rendered at once, with subsequent passes with different items added for detail. Your right I should have done them separately but at a 6 hour render, I was hesitant to do any more for this one.

Thanks for noticing the textures I would much rather do textures, than modeling. Its a little more fluid for me.

About the above image:

Its about all I am going to do with this one. If I dont stop now, it will never be done :/

So I darkened the tail some and lowered the color saturation some. Also I bumped up the saturation on the leading edges a tad. I thought about doing more but its time to put my Wacom down.

Hopefully, there is a slight improvement. Oh, and as pointed out earlier, I pulled the upper crossfields back from the leading edge to more closely resemble the photo in Imrie's book.

Xeidos2,
Great observations. You can plainly see the control surfaces on the Dr.I are deflected quite a bit. Perfect captures, the Spad too. Thanks for instantly clearing that up for me

Thanks all.

[Mark_Miller]

Hi Tim
Dr1
yeah, it looks fine the way it is- probably a good idea to move on.
and I totaly agree with you about textures - it is SO much more fun than modeling.
still, the MOST fun is rendering and compositing
everything else is just required to get you there

as for Kong
my primary responsabilities were the Helldivers.
that was pretty much why i was there.
they have a lot of people at WETA who are great with creatures etc...
but nobody is much interested in "machines" and I think everybody was happy that somebody showed up who actualy LIKES the stuff.
worked out pretty well

after the helldivers I did the Tram that Kong beats on in NYC.
this one was pretty cool - had to texture all the planks individualy so it could break up convicingly.
BTW - it also apears early on - in the background out a cab window.
also did a newspaper stand that wips across the screen quickly
and part of the open double decker bus
also a searchlight truck - well, that was more an organasational task as all i had to do was to combine 2 previously created textures sets into a hybrid version - kind of just a tedious pain, and I'm not even sure if it was used.
and thats about it.

Russ
now tell me honestly - by the time my credit appeared, the entire "theater" consisted of you and your wife ...right?
when I went the only people left was my family and an impatient cleaning crew
second time I went even I didn't wait for it!
definitly a big crew on this picture.

[James Dietz]

OT Mark nice work on the Helldivers ,they made me feel almost there!

[1998328is]

Wow Mark! I had no idea. How did you get that job?
First a model box cover and now movies.
Did you use your CAD program and they imported it into their video software?
PA

[Mark_Miller]

Originally Posted by 1998328is

Wow Mark! I had no idea. How did you get that job?
First a model box cover and now movies.

well...
I got an e-mail from Peter last summer
we swapped e-mails for a while
one thing led to another - and he offered me a job.
God bless the internet

Did you use your CAD program and they imported it into their video software?
PA

no - they have a very involved system set up to generate digital effects
and my software does not fit into it.
all modeling is done in Maya - textures are generated with Studio paint.
fact is I did not do any modeling at all - just textures.

[1998328is]

Peter.... Peter Weir?
OK...
Nuff said the internet is a wonderful thing!


Tim! nice website I had no idea that you did modeling work for the History Channels Dogfights. Great work!
Got any P-38s?
PA