Advanced Repaint and mod: F-16C 01

A new version of the F-16 has been created with additional modifications:

Transparent canopy
Pilot and seat
Air Force Markings (Pakistani Air Force (PAF))
Retracting Landing gear

There are some flaws in the model, the movement of the landing gear is not correct, the front landing gear initial position is outside the airplane and lower down, tail marking are not applied, and the pilot animation is not working correctly, and the tires sink into the tarmac. A download will be available once all the problems have been worked out, or earlier.

How it was done

First I made a copy of the F-16 (ysg2000f16c) and pasted it to a folder called f16c01. All files will use this 01 tag at the end to differentiate it from the previous versions. I highlighted and used find and replace to replace the f16c folder with f16c01 and edited the .dat file to read IDENTIFY "[YSG2000] F-16C 001"

user/ysg2000/f16c01/f16.dat user/ysg2000/f16c01/f16.dnm user/ysg2000/f16c01/f16coll.srf user/ysg2000/f16c01/f16cockpit.srf user/ysg2000/f16c01/f16_coarse.dnm

Next thing I replaced the landing gear.

The landing gear was created in Wings 3D, imorted to Blender. The landing gear appears in parts, so the wheel, strut and all other parts have to be joined together using the join command in Blender. Once this is done, the DNMVIEWER is used to move the landing gear to under the fuselage heading, as a sub object or child. Once this is done, the landing gear can be animated, the position changed and the initial and final settings changed as needed.

There were many steps and false starts, those need not be described here. One process that was successful is creating a different folder for each of the changes - landing gear, canopy, and saving and testing different versions.

The canopy had to be created and added as a separate object, and then the ZA values applied, which did not take effect until the DNMVIEVER open and save functions, probably the added lines needed to be included in the .srf file, as it makes the Z A values added to the number of lines.

What follows below are some notes and screenshots from the process, for reference.

The modified stock F-16 : colors and black canopy.

Needs a transparent canopy and pilot

The wheels are just black hegagonal blocks. The struts are no better.

F-16 in Wings 3D- canopy mesh pushed downwards into cockpit by moving top faces of canopy .

This same action was performed in Blender to preserve model features,

Imported landing gear into Blender 2.49b, incorrect position. The parts needed to be joined.

Wings 3D was only used to create parts

Saved dnm from Blender, opened in DNMVIEWER. Note the landing gear appears in view, although in the wrong places.

Another view of the landing gear, with the modelled grey landing gear the ones that are imported. The position of the landing gear can be set from DNMVIEWER by changing the X Y Z positions and checking where the landing gear moves to, within DNMVIEWER itself.

The "RightGear+grey1" .srf was moved front the top section to the section under 00000..33.srf (which represents the fuselage) .This can be seen in the picture in the right. The "RightGear+grey1" becomes a child object that can then be moved around by the STA settings set in DNMVIEVER.

How saving as dnm creates the surfaces as a child object. Adding the new gear, the following lines are created using DNMVIWER

SRF "RightGear+grey1"

FIL RightGear+grey1

CLA 0

NST 0

POS 0.0000 0.0000 2.1706 95 -411 32 1

CNT 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000

REL DEP

NCH 0

END

Next >>>>>>

The settings were finally done using the DNMVIEWER program, that allowed the setting of these values through an interface and also showed the start and end positions of the landing gear on command.

The extract from the file is shown for reference.

Notice the NST 0 setting and one line defining the position

SRF "RightGear+grey1"

FIL RightGear+grey1

CLA 0

NST 3

STA 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 -16384 16468 0 0

STA 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 0 0 0 1

POS 0.7000 -0.7500 -2.3000 16333 0 0 1

CNT 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000

REL DEP

NCH 0

END

Notice the changed NST setting changed from 0 to 3. Number of States: 3

The F-16 model was imported into Blender (left image) from Wings 3D, with the original and new landing gear, pilot, canopy and seat as well as the old landing gear moved out of the way, downwards. All animations and textures were lost.

The model was exported to .dnm and viewed in DNMVIEWER.

There was a problem, however.

As you can see on the right, the model consisted of a large number of objects and materials. In the original, there were far fewer objects, with the fuselage consisting of one object.

Obviously a merge of objects has to be done at an earlier stage, but for now, I will be launching the model without landing gear.

One option is to import the original model, then import also the new model and wheels, and rename these as needed. This was the option finally taken.

Although the canopy is transparent, created by extracting the canopy surface in Wings 3D, when the canopy is in place it hides the entire pilot figure and seat. This was solved when the .dnm file was opened in Blender, exported as ,dnm and then opened and saved in DNMVIEWER.

These are the settings for transparency for the preceding faces in the .dnm file under that SRF section.

ZA 0 200 1 200 2 200 3 200 4 200 5 200 6 200 7 200 8 200 9 200 10 200 11 200 12 200 13 200 14 200 15 200 16 200

The F-16 in DNMVIEWER with the new and old landing gear, new working and old canopy shown

The landing gear was rendered properly although not working.

In Wings 3D. The new canopy is an cube that had faces extruded, a closed multi sided block with blue colored surfaces used to identify and then turn to transparent with ZA values. The old canopy is shown above that and consists of extracted surfaces, this did not work out well.

In YSFlight. Canopy and transparencies not accurate, pilot not accurate, and too shiny all around. This fuselage was never used.

One of the near final versions showing the pilot in his seat in the F-16. Overall a good final model, preserving the navigation lights and other animations of the stock F-16

Some notes on using Blender

The animations of the model, controls, landing gear and so on can be seen in Blender itself, though it is not immediately obvious.

SHIFT+Left arrow enters animation mode in Blender and pressing down key cycles through animation. Up arrow - up arrow - up arrow - up arrow bring the landing gear into play. Left arrow then retracts the gear.
All changes must take place in Blender 2.49b. The sequence is as follows:

original .dnm >> Blender 2.49b >> add/delete objects/meshes >> rename meshes >> Export as .dnm

Note that new objects should be combined using J in Blender in order to work and move as one object (landing gear and wheel for example)
The new objects can be renamed after the older objects they were meant to replace (landing gear for example) are deleted.

A screenshot of a section of DNMVIEWER.

STA1 is set to visible, which means the landing gear is visible in state 1 which is retracted. The landing gear can be set to non-visible in retracted mode as it often protrudes from fuselage.

DNMVIEWER: Early attempts to add landing gear, the new left landing gear is added to the model.

In flight in YSFlight

Attemtp to add a dashboard - in this case, a cube in front of the pilot. Needs to be shaped correctly and panels added.

COCKPITP 0.0m 0.9m 3.00m #COCKPIT POSITION

Changed from

COCKPITP 0.0m 0.9m 3.15m #COCKPIT POSITION

Shaped cockpit area in Wings 3D with new pilot figure.

Pilot looking right 45 degrees

(right aileron)

Pilot looking straight ahead

Pilot looking to the right again

How to add a pilot with a moving head? Follow the steps below:

Create pilot 3D helmet and body. Here seat and panel are also created. Note green line (origin) showing axis of rotation

Import the pilot and seat into Blender (it will appear at origin) and move it in the Z axis direction (towards nose) to correct position.

Make sure helmet and visor are one object by joining them.

Rename the object HELMET

Open the model in DNMVIEWER, and click and drag the HELMET object to make it a child object

The pilot in DNMVIEWER, looking left using he STA CONTROL and left aileron selected. (see below)

The settings needed to make it work: highlight the item, select Aileron, and then enter 45 into STA2 and -45 into STA3, clicking he vis checkbox first to make sure the object is visible. Test using STA CONTROL tab and radio buttons for aileron.

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