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Author Topic: WxTech P-39 Cockpit for Stock P-39N-1 (and D-1, D-2, P-400)  (Read 16492 times)

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WxTech

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===================================================================================

UPDATE, Feb 19, 2022: The main things this small update does:

- Adds a pair of night lights, attached to the forward door frames.
- Adds the 10's of thousands altimeter needle (no stock planes I'm aware of have this.)
- Updates the texture for the radio equipment in the after cabin (I do want to further refine this.)
- Adds a couple of minor tweaks done since the cockpit mod was released in May, 2018.

If you already have the P-39N-1 cockpit folder, merely drop these files inside; overwrite as nesessary.

If you don't have this mod folder already, then put this "Night Lights for P-39N-1 cockpit" folder into whatever is your mods folder.

This should work for any game version.

I've not yet updated the full archive, as I have some plans for further work. A brief readme file is included. Here's a screenie (all the following ones are older, preceding this new addition):



Get the add-on here (the download link for the full cockpit, should you not have it already, is farther down in this post):

https://www.mediafire.com/file/1ygcl5wic2v6cn9/Night_Lights_for_P-39N-1_cockpit.7z/file

===================================================================================

















Get it here:


https://www.mediafire.com/file/oz56ub2l69k8jlb/00_WxTech_P-39N-1.7z


WxTech's Cockpit Mod for the Stock P-39N-1
==========================================

The Stock P-39N-1 cockpit serves also for:
P-39D-1
P-39D-2
P-400

The same external changes have been applied to all these same variants in their relevant \Plane\ folders.

This supercedes my previous gun sight mod--all of that content is included in this comprehensive pack.

If there is a door opening mod (I don't know if there is one on offer, nor do I have an interest in such), it may conflict because I've added the new door lock bits to the door meshes. At the very least, the door locks I've created would open out with the doors instead of remaining fixed in place on the canopy frame.

I have not addressed the later P-39 variants; my interest is much more the earlier war period. If you wish to use these textures for others like the Q-1 and Q-10, be aware that there may be a few discrepancies and misalignments. That's because some adjustments have been made for improved mapping.

I should state at the outset that the damaged version of the gun sight has not been undertaken to build. And so the undamaged version is used instead.

And further about damage... Hier.him doesn't include meshes for damaged instrument panels. It seems one or more classfiles would instead control the activation of such damaged textures. This means that my reflection textures for the undamaged gauges remain displayed when the gauge's basic damaged texture replaces the undamaged one. This is odd looking in cases where there is no glass present to induce the reflection! But on the premise that one has bigger fish to fry than scrutinize the artwork when damaged, which furthermore is hopefully an infrequent occurrence (right?), this discrepancy is, I hope, a worthwhile trade-off. In the interest of completeness I include the damaged versions of the glass reflections--maybe someone will eventually alter code so as to make them display?

This is a fairly extensive re-work, expanding greatly upon the fine work in Stenka's cockpit repaint, and with a few external model changes by me. First I'll list the external model alterations, which were done purely with an eye to appearances as seen from *inside* the plane (I put a much higher emphasis on visuals related to the pilot's view, as opposed to admiring from outside. ;-)  )...


External Model Changes:
=======================

1) The longitudinal frame bar running along the top of the aft canopy has been narrowed from 68mm to the same 40mm for the interior model width.

2) The air intake just aft of the canopy has been somewhat rounded.

3) The interior of the air intake has been made essentially black, by remapping to the lower right corner of the skin's .tga, which appears to be black or very dark grey in all P-39 skins (I hope this is universal!).

4) The airflow separator just inside the air intake has been altered so as to not be seen to practically fill the lower aperture.

5) The aerial has been made almost 4X thinner.

6) The glass has been made less opaque, so that the portion seen from the inside is not so distractingly obvious (more so if your POV is well forward, where the clip distance includes more of the rear canopy.) If you don't like the more transparent look as seen from outside, simply increase the alpha channel value in the glass2.mat file's ColorScale line entry in each of the plane folders. The value in Avala's PlaneShine Mod is 1.0, or the maximum; I've made it 0.3. Moreover, the Shine value of 0.5 has been made 0.0, because I don't like glass glowing in the dark!


Internal Model Additions (including my earlier gun sight stuff):
================================================================

1) Added the armored glass and its frame just behind the seat.

2) Added the horizontal bar across the main arch and just behind/above the seat.

3) Added the seat attachment hardware.

4) Added the missing arching canopy frame bar over the pilot's head.

5) Added the side canopy reinforcements, which run horizontally immediately abover the doors.

6) Added my N-2 gun sight, with brand new rounding of edges/corners.

7) Added the pair of gun sight lateral bracing bars, with brand new adjusting nut textures.

8] Added the missing external armored plate on the aft cowling, covering the lower forward windscreen.

9) Added the door lock hardware, located at the top of both doors.

10) Added the canopy frame edges, which sandwich the perspex. A different, appropriate treatment is given to the car style door windows (which in the real plane roll up and down just like in a car).

11) Added the 'box' for which the left side panel is the front face.

12) Added a rubber head protector to the upper arch above/behind the pilot's head.


Internal Model Changes:
=======================

1) Removed the upper sides of the lateral canopy frame, over the doors. The highest point is now essentially the upper edge of the tubes, as in the real bird. Visibility is well improved thereby.

2) Various gaps revealed with 6DOF have been covered:
 - The meeting points of the two forwardmost frame bars with the main upper arch.
 - The side forward perspex where it meets the frame just forward of the door.
 - Small holes immediately ahead of the forward upper door corners.
 - The meeting points of the after cabin deck framing at mid cabin.
 - The meeting points of the after cabin perspex at mid cabin.

3) Made the main canopy frame arch a bit rounder in cross section.

4) Made the 'roll bar' tube just above the upper instrument panel a bit rounder in cross section.

5) Made the .50 MG cylindrical tubes rounder in cross section.

6) Remapped the artificial horizon's horizon bar to a dedicated portion of the  gauge's tga. Formerly it was mapped to the central part of the oxygen flow blinker gauge (!), which if someone re-colored would of course similarly re-color the horizon bar. (Bad practice!)

7) Rotated the megneto's handle 135 degrees, to the point appriopriate for having both mags operating.

8] Added polygons to thicken the formerly zero-thickness plates in the gaps of the rudder foot pedals.

9) Rearranged the seat polygon construction so as to fix the 'undulating' appearance of the seat back.

10) Removed the strange, wide, low strips just below the lip of the outer seat sides, replacing them with narrower 'thickeners' at the very edges.

11) Enlarged the gyro compass cylinder so that just barely more than 50 degrees of azimuth appears within the window, as was reality. Also made this drum more smoothly rounded by doubling the polygon count.

12) Made a new, larger glass texture having the entire canopy mapped out without overlap. This permits to represent extra shmutz along the frame edges. It's also precisely positioned with respect to the canopy frame bar thickness for consistency.

x) Numerous fixes to surface normals, thus improving illumination cues.


Visual Enhancements:
====================

1) Most obvious will be the set of mostly new gauges, given the proper treatment of appearance, where for the most part they are installed in close-fitting apertures, and fastened with the formerly missing screws.

2) Added reflections to the instrument panel glass. While unrealistically static, this still does notably improve the ambience of the illumination. Note that the surface normals have been assigned so that the reflections are most prominent when the lighting is from ahead and above, when the cockpit interior seen in reflection would be most strongly illuminated. With the lighting coming from behind, and hence the after 'pit being in shadow, the reflections essentially disappear.

One disadvantage! When firing the guns (particularly the wing guns), the glass does light up a bit more strongly than I'd like to see. This is unavoidable because of the necessity of making the textures react to lighting ambience. If you don't like these gauge reflections, simply set to zero the alpha channel values in all the *Glass.tga files for the various gauges.

3) The gun sight collimating lens is shown as (doubly) reflected by the reflector plate, strongest when the Sun shines directly down into the sight. The illumination across the reflection varies differentially by illumination angle--it does not fade in and out uniformly. Another example of the little trick involving the directing of the surface normals appropriately.

4) The 'dirty' perspex treatment is arranged so that it's most prominent when the glass is between the observer and the Sun. That is, it's the opposite to the usual treatment, which has the 'dirt' strongest when down sun. In reality, forward scattering is rather more efficient than backscattering. This is achieved here simply by reversing all glass surface normals--easy peasy!

5) Added a reflection to the turn/bank indicator's glass tube, correctly positioned in depth (the ball lies behind.)

6) Added shading and shadowing to the artificial horizon's internal cylinder, reinforcing that aspect of its shape.

7) A photograph supplied the new texture for the radio stack just above the floor and ahead of the stick.

8] A photograph supplied the new texture for the map case flap, which incorporates instruction placards.

9) A photograph supplied the texture for the .50 MG back ends.

10) The door textures were upsized and photos used to create a cleaner and more realistic appearance.

11) A spin recovery instruction placard has been added to the right door.

12) Added the Bell Aircraft data plate to the left side wall of the main canopy arch.

13) A special texture gives a strong specular reflection from the armored glass (behind the pilot) when the lighting is from ahead.

14) Improved bolt/nut textures are incorporated into relevant frame textures.

15) The strange texture mapping for the curving side frame tube sections has been improved.

16) A couple of impact damage textures have been created for the armored glass. Now, in my game there is an oddness in their display whereby at certain viewing angles sections of the textures disappear. I can't determine the cause, and hope it's not a problem for you, too. (They work fine in my Wildcat mod.)

17) Numerous .mat file parameters have been altered for improved balance in lighting characteristics throughout the 'pit.


----------------------------------------------------


This work is offered without restriction, and may be used or modified for any purpose whatsoever, by any and all.

WxTech
Ottawa, Canada
May 13, 2018
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stanislao

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Re: WxTech P-39 Cockpit for Stock P-39N-1 (and D-1, D-2, P-400)
« Reply #1 on: May 14, 2018, 12:37:00 AM »


 :( Get it where ??............ ;)


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SAS~Storebror

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Re: WxTech P-39 Cockpit for Stock P-39N-1 (and D-1, D-2, P-400)
« Reply #2 on: May 14, 2018, 12:38:31 AM »

Nice! Thanks for sharing!

Get it where ??
Link is on top of first post.

Cheers!
Mike
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hguderian

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Re: WxTech P-39 Cockpit for Stock P-39N-1 (and D-1, D-2, P-400)
« Reply #3 on: May 14, 2018, 12:42:43 AM »

Many thanks WxTech!

Great improvement!

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WxTech

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Re: WxTech P-39 Cockpit for Stock P-39N-1 (and D-1, D-2, P-400)
« Reply #4 on: May 14, 2018, 12:56:30 AM »

Some of you pounced pretty fast; I was still constructing my initial post; hence the brief missing d/l link. Sorry for the momentary false alarm. ;)

I attempted to add screen shots, but discovered that my Image Shack account was for a trial period only. Silly me!

In the meantime, if anyone wants to include a screenie or two in this thread, please do.
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cgagan

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Re: WxTech P-39 Cockpit for Stock P-39N-1 (and D-1, D-2, P-400)
« Reply #5 on: May 14, 2018, 02:22:35 AM »

It's a great job you've done, many thanks for sharing! 8)
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urmel

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Re: WxTech P-39 Cockpit for Stock P-39N-1 (and D-1, D-2, P-400)
« Reply #6 on: May 14, 2018, 04:25:30 AM »

Excellent work, many thanks WxTech!!!
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WxTech

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Re: WxTech P-39 Cockpit for Stock P-39N-1 (and D-1, D-2, P-400)
« Reply #7 on: May 14, 2018, 05:09:24 AM »

henky,
Thanks for the quick inclusion of screenies!

But I see some weirdness in the aft cabin, where some non-glass texture covers part of the perspex. And there seems to be some 'box' protruding out the sides of the aircraft's empennage,  just ahead of the tailplane. I don't see this in my game (4.08).

And I don't see how my changes could cause this. If the anyone else suffers this please let me know.
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Gaston

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Re: WxTech P-39 Cockpit for Stock P-39N-1 (and D-1, D-2, P-400)
« Reply #8 on: May 14, 2018, 05:42:42 AM »

Very nice ! But a question : does it affect other versions (modded) of the plane ?
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WxTech

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Re: WxTech P-39 Cockpit for Stock P-39N-1 (and D-1, D-2, P-400)
« Reply #9 on: May 14, 2018, 05:58:42 AM »

Gaston,
As stated at the outset of the included 'readme' attached to my opening post, this mod applies to the stock P-39N-1 cockpit folder, which is used also by the D-1, D-2 and P-400. It does not apply for the stock Q-1 or Q-10, or any later addition which is not based directly on the N-1 cockpit folder. If any P-39 has its own dedicated cockpit folder, this mod cannot apply to it.

I did a few small changes to a couple of meshes in the plane (external model, not cockpit) folders for all necessary variants which use this cockpit folder. (These changes concern rounding of the air intake aperture and narrowing of the topside canopy frame bar over the aft compartment.)

As I also pointed out, most of these textures can be used by other P-39s because they share many elements in common. But there *will* be a few odd discrepancies for some due to the alterations in one or both of the .tga (texture) and .msh (3-D mesh).

Hope this answers your question thoroughly enough. ;)
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WxTech

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Re: WxTech P-39 Cockpit for Stock P-39N-1 (and D-1, D-2, P-400)
« Reply #10 on: May 14, 2018, 06:19:18 AM »

Actually, Gaston, I fear I may have missed the real question. ;)

If you have other P-39 mods, whether there will be a conflict or not will depend on the nature of those mods. My mod includes no classifieds, and is therefore based purely on the stock plane (as of 4.08/4.09). I have made numerous alterations to meshes (*.msh files), which you should see if the same are present in your other mods. Most of my changes *should* be OK to supercede others.

If you have any kollimator, reticle or mask meshes (all related to the gun sight), mine are to be used most assuredly.

The big one that can't be predicted about without seeing what changes have been made is InnerHull.msh, for which I've made *many* changes and several new additions.

And of course the critical file to be most careful about is hier.him, which assembles the whole kaboodle from all the constituent meshes.

In the end, try out any new mod if unsure of a potential for conflict. It won't break the game; you only need disable the offending mod and you're back in business. It can be a sleuthing job worthy of Mr. Holmes when tracking down and resolving conflicts in order to not have to reject a mod--if indeed the conflict can be nullified to the benefit of both.
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henkypenky

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Re: WxTech P-39 Cockpit for Stock P-39N-1 (and D-1, D-2, P-400)
« Reply #11 on: May 14, 2018, 07:29:14 AM »

Hi Wx, yes I have seen these too, made a remark in my original post as this texture acted like the gaps we use to have on some wings with a FOV of 105°, moving with the mouse movement. Aftre putting up the post, I returned to my game and saw that this texture was gone. So I removed the remark from the post. Must have been to early for my computer I'll guess. Thanks again for this wonderful pit!
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