F-35C Lightning II

[skariaxil 24]

Absolutely amazing addon. I have but a single question: How do you use the JDAMs correctly?

[CyclonicTuna 87]

Thank you very much for this gem, it is a rare opportunity to see open source of such caliber...I have to ask, LOD0 on the F35C p3d, did you triangulate it for the source model or is that exactly how it was set up when you implemented it ingame?

Does this mean we might get to see an F-35 with one of those sexy cockpits like you made for the AH-64D addon? :P

[olli_ 13]

hmm interesting i did indeed forget the GBU-53 fly p3d. I'll have to figure out a way to update the files on armaholic. The fly variant is the same as the proxy p3d except with wings opened so you could just open the wings from the non-fly variant and resave it.

JDAMS are set up as laser guided bombs. Similar to the GBU-12's that come with the vanilla jets

[nodunit 397]

Does this mean we might get to see an F-35 with one of those sexy cockpits like you made for the AH-64D addon? :P

The multipage interactive displays? Eh I don't know, that is not really up to me.

My question was mostly a curiosity and confusion of the importance between points vs faces.

After opening the aircraft up to see so many faces I was flabbergasted because I thought they were more limited, but the count drops substantially between a triangulated model vs squarized, it was an eye opener.

[olli_ 13]

I think the "limit" (i.e. when the compiler starts throwing errors) is based on vertices and its around 32-35k verts as far as i can tell from my limited experience. whether or not the model is triangulated has no effect on the vertcount and its more to just make sure the topology stays consistent to what the normal map was baked on

[nodunit 397]

I think the "limit" (i.e. when the compiler starts throwing errors) is based on vertices and its around 32-35k verts as far as i can tell from my limited experience. whether or not the model is triangulated has no effect on the vertcount and its more to just make sure the topology stays consistent to what the normal map was baked on

Kind of, O2 uses points in places of verts (in a way, points seem to be equal to 2 verts or something) and bulldozer/Arma3 has a limit of around 18Kish points so yes that does sound accurate (I think Arma 2 was more limited than this though)

I came from the understanding that 20K=peak, a few people mentioned points but more people were more obsessed with the amount of faces which wound up me trying to keep quads as much as possible and wind up with a LOT of floating geometry, so needless to say I was shocked in a good way when I saw 31K.

Further happy to see your aircraft unbinarized because its one of the most prominent examples of a true next gen mesh that isn't infantry, its nice to be able to get a close look and see the methods of baking used to the fullest to achieve more with less. If you don't mind me asking and this is simply a curiosity, why are there so many edgeloops along the top of the body? To avoid too many edges converging on one vertex, buffering edges to translate a better bake?

Edited November 6, 2014 by NodUnit

[olli_ 13]

Three things you need to keep in mind when creating topology:

The silhouette needs to be smooth from every angle. triangles are relatively cheap on hero props like unique vehicles (props that you only have few of in a scene) and the overall tricount of the whole scene can be something like 7 million tris or more, so using a few extra edge loops to keep a silhouette smooth will maybe cost you a hundred tris or so which is really nothing. (its different for generic env props like trees and fences and so on where you might have a hundred instances in your scene)

The surface normals need to be coherent in order for the normal map to be able to do its magic with as few artifacts as possible across all LODs. if your surface normals are intricate, the normal map will have to account for that, and so when you simplify the topology for the next LOD, your surface normals will change a lot and the normal map cant cope with that. This is definitely something i could still work on, and in the end it really just comes to having a lot of foresight in the early stages of the project.

Avoiding long thin triangles where possible. This is a little more technical and less common sense as the others, but doing this will definitely help you with the 2 points above. First of all long and thin triangles can fubar your surface normals in certain situations and you dont want that, secondly they dont deform well at all, although my plane is rigid so this doesnt apply here but it does for characters and plants and such that are animated. Youll also run in to stuff like weird lighting artifacts (especially with an engine like arma that still uses vertex shading for some things) as well as more technical stuff like subpixel triangles that you might not notice directly but will definitely hurt your performance. I guess most of these problems are a thing of the past with stuff like per-pixel shading which isnt as reliant on topology but i still like to keep my mesh clean if only by habit.

As for the explicit case of the edgeloops on the spine of my plane, id say thats mostly just making sure the shape is there. I might start rambling a bit here but i think what people conceive as real or realistic is pretty interesting. One one hand you have the simple aesthetics of the model. Does it look nice, is the texture high res with lots of photosourced detail to make it look all nice and realistic. But that isnt enough to make it "realistic" if you take a fictional machine for instance, it can look all intricate and detailed with lots of moving parts but the difference between a good design and a great design is if the machine has an apparent function or purpose. You should be able to look at it and see what makes it tick, thats where the immersion comes from. Now of course thats just an abstract example but i think it applies to modeling and texturing pretty well. You can have a really high definition texture with lots of detail and dirt and grime, but it wont be convincing unless it makes sense. There needs to be a reason behind every scratch, a reason why dirt and grime has gathered in a certain part of the texture but not in another. Thats when the texture starts to convince you its real and not just a 2d image on a virtual object. Now to get back to the point, which is my plane. Consider the F-35. thousands of engineers have spent countless man-hours and hundreds of millions of dollars to define the shape. Wind tunnel testing, computer simulations. There is no shape on this plane that does not have a reason for it to be that way. Now if i were to remove an edge loop from the very subtle, but characteristic curve on the top of the aircraft which smoothly slopes the fuselage down as it approaches the engine (the angle is not more than a few degrees and the slope stretches over 5 meters so its hardly noticable right? wrong. Its the kind of thing you dont notice, but the subconscious does, and for some it might be enough to break the immersion. Obviously we still have rendering budgets to worry about and you cant go around adding edgeloops to everything but i decided the spine of the plane is one of the main shapes that define how the f-35 looks (and also when youre flying in 3rd person you look along the spine, which makes the shape all the more apparent and would reveal sharp edges if there were any) so i figured it was worth the extra 50 or so triangles to ensure the shape stays smooth at all angles.

I have a rambling problem

edit: found some pictures of a very old version of this plane... some history: Originally i started creating an F-35 as a piece for my portfolio back in 2012. Found work shortly after which put the plane on the shelf. Picked it back up in 2013, working on it for a few months pretty aimlessly not knowing what i really wanted to do with it. I was mostly just fiddling around with it in marmoset while also wanting to learn some offline rendering techniques but that never came to be. new contract again took my attention away until around july 2014 when i found out about this MANW contest so i figured what the hell ill give it a shot. Pretty much did 10 hour days from there on out, redoing most of the plane, adjusting it to RV4's needs, texturing and making bombs and so on. most of my time went in to learning this engine because quite frankly its like nothing ive ever used before (i still have nightmares)

aaaanyways here's exhibit 1:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/15275414/F-35C/fuselage_bot.jpg

high poly model from 2012. Ill be the first to admit it looks like shit. granted the selection of reference pictures was really bad back then (still is but not as bad)

and here's a shot from the current belly:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/15275414/F-35C/2014-10-31_00004.jpg

ignoring the texture, you can see how the shape changed over time. The changes were relatively small but they make a big difference.

Edited November 6, 2014 by Olli_

[nodunit 397]

Nah I wouldn't call it a rambling problem, it is very informative and great information to share between people who do similar things. I was curious because I'm only just now getting into cage baking and am somewhat still learning the nuances, smoothing groups, control edges, split UV's and all that other fun stuff so every bit of information that could effect it and otherwise teach are certainly welcome. And I understand exactly what you mean with the silloheutte, its subtle but it just looks slightly off because there is an odd angular jump rather than a smooth transition, especially in the editors.

When you mention the livelyness of the texture are you referring to something such as say for example, a construction vehicle caked in mud and grime but its all over rather than the majority built up around the treads and there being a lack of chipped paint and streaked scrapes where the crew would likely climb all over it, and maybe some smudged paint for hand prints?

After having seen what you were doing on the polycount forums I'm glad that you pushed through the growing pains of the RV engine and brought the bird full on, and thank you for taking the time to explain your methods and why did what you did, it goes a long way to understanding the creative process and helps others not all that familiar with the rules understand why these rules are in place to begin with. And for someone like me who just loves normal maps she's a real beaut to look at.

[erazeri 1]

hmm interesting i did indeed forget the GBU-53 fly p3d. I'll have to figure out a way to update the files on armaholic. The fly variant is the same as the proxy p3d except with wings opened so you could just open the wings from the non-fly variant and resave it.

Alright, I did just that and while I was at it I also animated it :)

If someone wants the "F_35C_GBU53_fly.p3d" you can get it from here:

https://github.com/RealityGaming/OK_F_35C

ps Loving the modelling discussion, I`m an novice modeller myself too

[olli_ 13]

damn you managed to get the animations working. I had animations but i couldnt find a way to play them. I didnt have too much time to spend on it and only tried the "time" animationsource but that seemed to start ticking when the plane spawned, so unless you dropped the bombs instantly the animation phase would already be 1.

also by what i said about the textures i just mean that you cant just put a tileable texture map on something and call it finished (which ive seen done way too much in less experienced products). all those examples are good. For a vehicle youll want the smudged/worn paint and handprints around the parts where the operator usually climbs in/out and so on. for planes you can have scratches on the plane but have most of them on the forward facing surfaces, where dirt and stuff in the air will impact.

There are all sorts of cool maps you can bake to help you put the detail where it should go. Cavity map is usually a must for me to get the worn paint on sharp edges, dust and dirt in small cracks and stuff like that. For directional detail (dust settling on the top, scratches on the front of an aircraft, etc) you can bake an object space normal map and then mask your detail in to the normal direction you want.

[Defunkt 431]

Wow, great model and very nice of you to share the sources.

Don't I remember an A2 thread of yours with a very nice WIP Tupolev or Ilyushin?

If you didn't know it there's a script error on mission start (always best to develop with -showscripterrors enabled).

Don't I remember an A2 thread of yours with a very nice WIP Tupolev or Ilyushin?

I beg your pardon, I found the thread and it was not you, but your name (coupled with the quality of your work) does seem familiar to me.

Edited November 7, 2014 by Defunkt

[eduardcomando 127]

I have a problem when placed on the USS Nimitz, when you touch the surface of this or is placed immediately explodes the aircraft is not maintained.

[reconteam 19]

Great work so far, why the silly "FC-37 Thunder" designation though? What's wrong with F-35C?

[miketim 20]

For MANW , you couldn't use any copyrighted stuff.

That is likely why.

[The Hebrew Hammer 10]

This should really be moved to the Addons & Mods - Complete forum.

Anyways, are there any plans for a STOVL variant?

[olli_ 13]

nope sorry no plans for a STOVL

[CyclonicTuna 87]

This should really be moved to the Addons & Mods - Complete forum.

Anyways, are there any plans for a STOVL variant?

Ahem... :)

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?185918-WIP-Lockheed-Martin-s-F35B-Lightning-II-STOVL&p=2825248#post2825248

[drakedaeron 13]

Hey, I love your F-35C, you are really endowed, you are like a developer from Bohemia!

A small question, do you plan to make F-22?

[DusktilDawn 18]

It's fantastic olli. The design and I like how you have made it suit the time (2035) MSG for Chortles: Can you fix the glitch that the F-35 when having VTOL off it still takes off VTOL and starts flying conventionally. Also olli if you have time to could you maybe make some thing like the F-35C you made but the F-35B? or maybe a F-22 raptor would be much appreciated because there isn't enough jets in Arma 3.

[nghiakhungdien 10]

question:how can i place this aircraft on the USS Nimitz?it keep exploding :(

[randomslap 27]

question:how can i place this aircraft on the USS Nimitz?it keep exploding :(

Olli's F35C has Nvidia PhysX enabled and the Nimitz does not which creates the "exploding" issue. When ever a Nvidia PhysX enabled object has collided with a non-PhysX model, Nvidia PhysX will react and it will think that the enabled PhysX object has crashed into a inanimate static object or wall.

[nghiakhungdien 10]

Olli's F35C has Nvidia PhysX enabled and the Nimitz does not which creates the "exploding" issue. When ever a Nvidia PhysX enabled object has collided with a non-PhysX model, Nvidia PhysX will react and it will think that the enabled PhysX object has crashed into a inanimate static object or wall.

alright good to know ,btw this plane lacked afterburn :(

[2rmina2r 10]

Hey, I made this tribute to your awesome plane! It's not informative or anything, just wanted to show people the real beauty of what you have made :)

Also, I was wondering if you could make more loadouts, or a way to customize it deeper, because I would f. eksample only like to use JDAM's and no SDB's for some missions.

Thanks - 2rmina2r

[ice_age0815 37]

nice plane you did a hell of a job

[olli_ 13]

@randomslap Is that so? Interesting. Ive never used the Nimitz so i dont know but dont the vanilla aircraft work on it? I would assume they also have PhysX enabled, but maybe im wrong. Do you know if theres something i can do to make the plane not explode without disabling PhysX, or is PhysX even worth having for planes?

@2rmina2r wow thats a nice video! Really enjoyed watching that.

As for more loadouts; technically its not hard to create more loadouts. The loadouts are handled with the init.sqf script, which basically adds weapons and ammo depending on which loadout variable you specify. The problem is the MFD loadout display. It is animated via model config, and 3 loadouts is already stretching the limits of whats possible with one skeleton. Basically you could just completely remove the loadout display and make as many custom loadouts as you wanted, but i like the loadout display so i decided to sacrifice custom loadouts in return.

@ICE_AGE0815 Thanks :D