JUST ANOTHER VIEW

I fixed some panel lines and Dzus fasteners and put in an indication of the canopy slide rails.  Getting the prop blur halfway right is tough for me.  It takes operations in PhotoShop that I am not happy with.  But at least the tip blur geometry is calculated by the programs.  I have to export the pixel image twice, with and without the prop and "diddle" things in PhotoShop.  But it is fairly believable.  This cloud scene looks more realistic as well.  

SPITFIRE FLYING AGAIN

The clouds were nice yesterday.  I played with prop blur treatment again.  It sure took a lot of experimenting to get anything near realistic with materials in C4D and it took some manipulation in PhotoShop even after that.  But at any rate the prop arc will now follow the 3d nature of the C4D treatment without external help.  Just reminded myself ... I have to add the canopy slide rails.

MORE MARKINGS

After researching some pictures I have added text markings to the Spitfire.  It seems that the Brits signified Walkways rather than "Don't Walk" regions and that the early Spitfire drank 100 octane gasoline and had an 85 Imperial gallon capacity (and got about 10 miles to the gallon at best).  I don't want anyone to think I have quit working.  I have also refined the landing gear so that it retracts properly and the landing gear cover is flush with the wing bottom when they are retracted.  I still need to cut a hole in the bottom wing surfaces for the landing gear cavities and I have found a Linda tutorial on Character Modeling that has told me more about doing that kind of thing than I have found anywhere else.  +Dale Jackson +Harley Harp +Åke Jon 

44 YEARS AND COUNTING

I fired her up today after 3 years sleeping under a car cover.  A little 3 ampere battery charger overnight got the battery happy enough that it spun right off.  It is a one-owner car.  My wife's pride and joy.  People have often run her down to comment on the car.  It is probably the ONLY '71 XJ6 with a working air conditioner in the world ... which is to say not much of anything because the ventilation system is about as effective as you would expect from Brit machinery ... just roll down the windows ... if the GM knock off window regulators will work.  Hard to say how many miles are on it.  Upward of 200,000.  It has a Series III engine with all external Series 1 stuff ... carburetors, etc. but a workable alternator and a Series III fan.  I expect at 1,000 miles a year on a hard year it will see me forever.  Brand new paint and bright work polish although it has been sitting under a cover for 3 years and needs shined up again.  All it is missing is one backup light lens and I will have to fabricate one or find one scrap.  It even has new windshield seals.  Yeah, a lot of little things would need done to make it "show ready" but why bother.  These things are not a highly desirable collectibles anyway ... more of a curiosity.  Tires need air.  I will take her for a test drive and get them filled up and the old gasoline thinned out with some new stuff.  It can serve as my backup wheels.

+Dale Jackson +Åke Jon +harley harp +Tatiana Youngblood 

HOT TIMES

We had a little excitement yesterday.  The temperature was 102F when a fire started about 1/2 mile west of here and a few hundred yards south in an open brush area known as Coyote Hills.  The fire spread in a strip from west to east just past the housing development south of me and it burned the better part of a mile.  We had a ring side seat and watched a veritable air force of helicopters and the "Super Scoopers" drop water.  Dozens of emergency vehicles and "lookie-loos" (sp?) used our street which is the closest E/W road from the fire that has access from both ends of the involved area.  The closest approach of the fire was perhaps 600 yards.  Here are some shots of the various aircraft involved.  No homes or lives were lost but things got pretty exciting.  I took about 150 pictures right from my front yard.

SUPER-SCOOPER DROPPING A LOAD

SUPER-SCOOPER ORBITING

SKY CRANE DROPPING A LOAD

SKY CRANE CLOSE UP AS IT WENT BY

SKY CRANE SHOWING HOW CLOSE THINGS WERE

GUN PORT TAPE

Actually it seems that the red covering over the gun ports was doped on fabric.  Apparently done for each flight.  To UV map that onto the wing surfaces (top/bottom) with Cinema 4d took 16 rectangles of red.  Each had to be positioned along the length of the wing as well as fore/aft and angled tangent to the leading edge.  They all have to "line up".  In PhotoShop (where the texture resides) that took a lot of layers.  Next problem was to make a version where the covering has been blown away when the guns fire.  I did that with a ragged brush and trial and error bouncing back and forth from PhotoShop to C4D and back again ... over and over and over.  I did all of that painting on one layer on top of the others so making the layer visible or invisible make an un-fired and fired version of the coverings.  Now, I am sure there must be a better way but I am struggling with the "sharp angle" that results at the leading edge of the wing as well as the top and bottom of the fuselage.  It may be that more lines have to be added to both.  It is also disconcerting that the UV mapping is fine until a subdivision surface is added to the wing at which point a stripe at the trailing edge on both the top and bottom is generated.  HUH?  I don't have a clue about that.  At any rate here is what the "after-firing-the-guns" version of the leading edge looks like.  All of the previous Spitfire images did NOT have the guns positioned properly and the guns would have shot up the propeller.  They are now positioned to the 3-view drawings.  There sure is a lot of weight away from the roll axis and the guns would have a lot of "parallax" out at 400 yards so I am sure they had to be bore sighted or the "spread" could have been rather large.  That technology and procedure must be interesting.  Today, just like in about '48 when I built a stick-and-paper model of one of these things, the asymmetry of that one "Lucas refrigerator" hanging under the right wing amazes me.  

I have included the "texture map".  I simply copied the UV map representation from C4D into PhotoShop and did the painting on layers.  Not the easiest thing in the world to do.

+Dale Jackson +Åke Jonsson +harley harp 

WING UV TEXTURE

... "OR EVER EAGLE FLEW" ...

http://www.skygod.com/quotes/highflight.html

DUCT TAPE

The gun ports were covered with red duct tape (which kind-of blows the “NASA invented everything” theory since it predates NASA).  So this is getting to look like what one of these critters actually looked like going into battle.  I will have to make a “duct tape” version with a hole in the center after the guns have been fired and call one or the other version depending on the “scene”.  Same for wheels and flaps.  The guns were put in the wing where they would fit.  One, a pair and another single.  The spent casing chutes are under the wings and about the size of a big hand.  The early armament was .303.  Cannons came later.  Quite clearly this detail generation can go on forever and ever.  I have to work on a “prop-blur”.  I have added trim tabs and some other detail that cannot be seen in this view.  +Åke Jonsson +Dale Jackson +harley harp