On Thursday 25 January 2007 03:57, Brian Penix wrote:
> Now on to the real reason for this post. I have access to loads of data for
> the B-29 Super Fortress mostly dealing with the electrical components used
> and the meters for control panels. I have been crawling all over the wiki
> (and will continue to do so even though I hate wikis) for how to make these
> meters for the B-29 (especially for the currently non-functional Engineer's
> station) look more authentic.
The first point of contact with things like this should be the original model
author (or this list if you can't find their details). The b29 is Josh
Babcock's work so you would be best getting in touch with him directly if you
can (his email address is in the README file)... but he may be busy at the
moment, I'm still waiting to hear back from him myself (hint hint Josh :-)
> The problem is that I don't really write code
> very well but I can do the correct meter artwork based on documented
> sources. (I already have one such meter artwork done but don't know what to
> do with it).
You need to use a 3d modelling package (I like AC3D, but Blender is free, open
source and extremely powerful if you get along with it) to create / modify or
manipulate the instrument that the face belongs to (i.e. to make sure it has
the correct shape /number of hands etc)
You then need to create an XML file to control the animation of it (if it's to
be a working gauge). That instrument-specific XML file then needs to be
included by the main model XML file. It sounds awfully complicated and
long-winded, but once you understand what's going it really isn't. By far
the best way to get to grips with this stuff is to look at existing
instruments and see how they're done - in the b29, check the
Instruments/jrb-wbd-clock.xml file for example, which controls the clock.
You can open the jrb-wbd-clock.ac in Blender or AC3D and check it over... you
should probably start with an existing instrument like this and modify it to
suit your needs.
Anyway, I'm sure that even just the gauge faces ("artwork") would be very
welcome, even if you never managed to figure out the rest (which I'm sure
anyone can do, given a bit of effort).
Cheers,
AJ
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