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pathetic_berserker

Mil Mi-24A Krokodil

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You misunderstand. I wasn't trying to say anything against you, your Apaches are by far the best Apaches out there. I was just saying that everyone seems to be so intent on making AH-64s and AH-1s when there are way more helicopters out there. Don't be so quick to take offense...

I agree, there are tons more options, US aircraft are chosen much of the time due to the amount of information and photo's floating around, both in and out. As for the offense, none taken, I just don't want any possible issues here on my behalf or for it to focus on something other than the primary subject is all. I don't know why my posts come off angry but I'm not upset.

Edited by NodUnit

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Thanks for the support every one.

It is much appreciated and a nice little motivator.

As for why I chose to do a Hind-A instead of a more common bird?

Well of course its because it looks a bit wierd, its a piece of history, first of its kind, and allthough not exactly common it saw active service with a number of countries from Africa, to Afganistan to Vietnam. I also saw it as a bit of challenge.

But most importantly, at the end of the day I'd have to say I had help. This project was many, many hrs spent researching and looking for references untill I got permission and assistance from Eric M and Rock to use thier work to kick start my own.

As Nodunit said many of the choices addon makers make are about the amount and quality of the information available. And I can tell you this one hasn't been easy, with some of the information available on the interthingy being contradictory or misleading and 90% of the photo references being museum pieces wich have been stripped, dummied or left to rust. Then there is the number of variants and varous little changes made by individual service crews making stuff up as they went (yep its true)

So add that scenario like that to to fact the many of us addon making types are a bit anal retentive and its easy to see why we get what we get.

(take breath)

Any way, I'd love to post more pics, but maybe later

A few small issues have come to light wich will require some remodeling around the pilot. I've also stepped up to blender 2.5 this weekend which has a completely new UI , but means I should be able to take advantage of Leopatams import export p3d tool.

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I agree, there are tons more options, US aircraft are chosen much of the time due to the amount of information and photo's floating around, both in and out. As for the offense, none taken, I just don't want any possible issues here on my behalf is all. I don't know why my posts come off angry but I'm not upset.
True, some helicopters have less information, reference photos, etc. than some. I also can understand how some post can convey anger when there was never any in the first place, I misunderstood you on that and I'm sorry.
it saw active service with a number of countries from Africa, to Afganistan to Vietnam.
What it after the Vietnam war or during the later stages of it?

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I know what you mean about the resources. Being a helicopter from the early 80s, my project has been plagued with reference problems. Problems of nomenclature, interversion modifications, museum pieces stripped of equipment, airshow pieces with critical mission equipment removed, people appropriating wrong or vague tags to photos, international differences or modifications, discrepancies in production standards and practices, and just the relative rarity of the model- almost everything you can imagine is a factor in reference... and since it takes a long time to become an expert, unless you've got a rock solid basis, redos are an ugly reality if you're going for accuracy as you learn more about the bird.

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What it after the Vietnam war or during the later stages of it?

In short, after America pulled out Russia was more open in its support of the Nth Vietnamese gov't and supplied a few Hind-A's wich were then used in a border war with Cambodia from 1978 till 1986. AFAIK Vietnam was the last country to cease using them. With evidence of at least one example still being flown by them in the late 90's.

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Looking excellent so far mate.

Gotta question for ya... Are you planning to do the internal textures by hand or by placing 'photographs' in the right place?

Only reason i ask is because, for me, adding photos although it would make it look 'real' they dont look as good as the more 'cartoony' textures that you create for it.

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Gotta question for ya... Are you planning to do the internal textures by hand or by placing 'photographs' in the right place?

I am doing them by hand, though my texture does currently contain a layer with photo references in it, it is just that, a reference. Ultimately the 'realistic' photo can look out of place as much of what makes it look real only exists in the context of when the photo was taken, ie little reflections, shadows etc. But with a 'hand' drawn texture normal map and just enough polies I hope to have something thats good enough to be a bit believable ( or more appropriate, suspend dis-belief ), and look part of the game.

This is my most ambitious modeling project to date so I just keep my fingers crossed and hope I succeed. :)

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Well if your progress and results thus far are any indication then I think you will do just fine.

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Hey, that looks really great but I would use a bit more ambient occlusion samples. I'm working with 20 samples on my Tatras and It looks just fine.

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Yeah, the AO isn't looking great so far, just a quikie to see how othings are going. My next step is to go over the model flip a few tris (probably see where in the above pic) then create a high poly for the final AO and normal.

@Nodunit, thanks for the kind words. Dont think I'll be quite to the level of your apache on this one though, your work there is stuinning. Maybe on my next project :p

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instrumenttest1.jpg

The instrument panel here is my first serious atempt at normal maping. Using some floating geometry in blender.

Could do with a few extra knobs and twisty bits modeled in but I'm not unhappy for a first stab.

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Really nice mate... How many gauges are you planning on animating?

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From the image it looks like you have some edges from the cylinders visible in the normal map. This indicates that the geometry of the cylinders you're deriving the map from isn't complex enough for the resolution of the map. If what I'm seeing is true and isn't a result of some weird image compression artifact, definitely consider subdividing those cylinders before your final bake.

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Rgr that Max

I supose I'm still a bit hesitant to push some things, as I get a few hours in and start asking my self. Is this going to work? And end up a little short because I fear to spend much too much time on it. But as i learn more and see the results its getting easier.

One of the biggest concerns has been my work flow and how Iv'e approached the order of things. But I'm starting to get my head around this too now that the project has taken over the white board above my desk at home.

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I'm experiencing something similar with my current project- actually, very similar.

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Hey guys, having a little trouble picturing how my chin mount will work from the gunners perspective.So if there are any old time Ruskies reading this and know, please give me aheads up.

What I know is;

The gun tranverses +15 to -45 degs verticaly and about +-16 deg horizontaly

And is controlled by the handlebar type grips with reticule in front of the gunner.

Anecdotaly I've heard that the gunner practically leaves his seat to a crouch position to use it, so I'm thinking of introducing a secondary gunner pos accesible only from the first to accomadate an animation switch if thats possible.

What is bugging me is what role the reticule plays, as the handle bar grips appear to have large degree of movement but the reticule appears fixed. So I'm missing a piece, in either the way the reticule moves, the way its information is gathered/diplayed, or the position the gunner assumes.

I can post some pics later if this is difficult to understand.

Also keen to hear what people may think the gunner should see through the AT launcher sight, ie black and white, monochrome etc.

Just trying to avoid the finished product being overly dumbed down so any thoughts will be greatly appreciated.

Edited by Pathetic_Berserker

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Pathetic_Berserker: keep up the good work. I'm unable to help you with Oxygen and instrument/weapon configs, but be sure I'll finish a Red Dawn map with movie locations along with a coop campaign ;)

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Ok I thought I should post a visual explanation of what I was asking about,

As you may see, its difficult to understand the relationship of distances and angles

chinmountatrest.jpg

chinmount45.jpg

Although I think I can come up with a playable solution, I'd prefer to get as close as possible and not feel I'm making shit up. Well not too much atleast.

And a bonus teaser, LOD 1,

Just needs the rails for the pilots door, comes in at 23.5K tris. Probably one 4096^ texture for the chopper plus one 1024^ for external weapons

Was hoping to show something at the end of the week with better textures but I realised I'll be too busy with other stuff to get them done.

23kp.jpg

PS: re the gauges, I will be animating at least the key ones and any others I can identify and have time for

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Will check what it says in my book.... But scratching my brain... did they not carry an extra Mechanic/engineer with them?

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That sure is an odd distance between the gunners head and the lever, is that what you mean by having to crouch? move forward to use the weapon system?

Also on the model she looks great, very good in fact but there seems to be a problem with smoothing groups, you may want to take care of that before you import it into O2 since it should export with the smoothing groups applied, leaving you to do very little touching up in oxygen.

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Looks great, keep it up

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