Don't forget about the DVC (Dynamic Virtual Cockpit). I can help with that and its full animations.

All I need is some information on the interiors. Photo images or diagrams.

As for the sound. Maybe you can get a copy of the sounds from CFS3 (if you have CFS3). There are 2-engine jets in that simulator (such as the Me-262). The are also single-engine jets as well (such as the P-80).

If you want, you can borrow the *.air and aircraft.cfg files from the Learjet in FS2002 or 2000. However, you might want to be careful when ajusting the contact and static height.

If you're not careful, you'll see your plane move around in strange ways. I am still going through this problem for Project Have Blue.

good to hear youve reconsidered jlvandem 

Ok Erie plane. I've got Katahu working on the VC right now. I'll send you a copy of the current model I have so you can do the interiors. I'll send you one also Katahu. As for the site could you throw something together with Cessna Citation stuff on it? Then the team could work together on fine tuning it. Right now we have Katahu working on the DVC and you'll be working on the interior and website. We just need a few more people now.

Justin

Hmm that's a good question what should we call our group? I was thinking something like The Citation Project but I really don't know.  Any ideas are welcome!!!

Justin

Here's my first pic on the Excel. Kind of early, don't you think? 

Since I'm not quite sure of any of your opinions towards this idea, I decided not to Collapse the Modifiers in the Modifier Stack (upper-right corner).



The best way to avoid any perminant mistakes is through this method I use.

1. Any project that is brand new, and is in its starting phase of construction, should have the term Your_Plane_LevelXX (where X is a number like 01, 02, etc.).

2. As you progress through the next phase of construction, such as completing the fuselage, save the project as a different level (ex: From Your_Plane_Level01 to Your_plane_level02).

This way, if you make any major mistake that ruins the project at a certain level, you can always go to the previous level and continue from there.

As for the web title, how does "www.geocities.com/gmax_citation_crew.com" sound?

I found a nice panel pic of a Citation jet. Its not of the Excel model (i found an excel panel pic but its not good) but theres very little difference between them. Anyways you can use it on any other project in the works..



Had to modify it a little but you tell me what you think and ill get started.

   Hey guys I think we've got a small problem  See when I went to do the windows on the model that I've sent everyone I didn't quite understand what I was doing with the boolean operations so instead of cutting out polygons for the windows I just cut big holes in the side of the fuselage then made a copy of the original fuselage and shrunk it a bit and put a transparent material over it so it would appear that I had transparent windows. Now I've figured out how to make the windows a seperate part instead of cutting in a hole. If you guys who have a copy of the model you'll see what I'm talking about. So I was wondering do you guys think I should redo the fuselage with the correct style windows or should we continue on with what we've got? Changing the windows shouldn't take to long.
    Now for my second question. Look at the pic below...

How do I attach the highlighted part to the fuselage? If I redo the fuselage this wouldn't be important but still I'd like to know how to connect to parts into one.
   
BTW Katahu thanks for the tip on multiple saves. It would've saved me a lot of time in correcting the windows so I'll be using the method from now on.
Thanks!

Justin

Hmm I really don't know what font I like. Just make it look as appealing as you can for now then we can adjust it according to what people say. Sound like a good idea? I'm gonna disconnect now but I'll be back later this afternoon. Later guys.

Justin

Hey Katahu I'm still working on getting you some pics of the cockpit. I'll make sure I get some of the seats to for you. Later.

Justin

Hey Oz it looks great! I was thinking maybe you should add a download page to the sidebar links also. Another thing is that maybe we could have a small news section underneath the introduction paragraph. Looks great and hopefully me and Katahu will have some pics for you to post on it soon.

Katahu I've finally found a good picture of the Excel cockpit. I'm still working on getting more.

Ok everything is done except the Members and Project Page. First i need to know the entire list of the Citation jets you are planning to do. Please give me a little update on whats been done and please post some screenies of the model in gmax. Also, im gonna need the list of names in this group, first will be enough. Comments and suggestions are welcomed..

http://www.geocities.com/citation_crew/Home

k, gonna put it in. BTW you just want 'Katahu' on the member list or your real name?

Hey Justin, thats my picture... taking all the credit for it.  hahaha. 

Thank you guys for doing all this work.  This is my altime favorite plane.  I ALWAYS watch them take off at my local aiport.  Theres 2 of them there.

Im trying to get out there and take some pictures for you guys, panel, landing gear etc.   I know alot about this aircraft. 

So if you need my help in any way tell me.

As you can see i love this plane because of my name...best name ever.

Thanks guys

Jacob

I kept the old cockpit modifications just in case. After that, I started on another modification (resembling the one Jlvandam posted).

This new cockpit arrangement looks better than my last one. Hehe.



Hey, Excel560. Can you post a pic that has the back portion of the cockpit in view? I need to know what the back of the cockpit looks like. If the Excel model has a cockpit DOOR, I'll try animating it so that flight simmers can explore the cabin.

I'll let you people know when I will be needing textures.

  Thanks for the great link Felix. Oz will have to add it to our site.
  Katahu the new VC is looking excellent I'm glad you decided to start over on it. It great to see you guys are working so hard and I have to admit I'm being a little lazy because I've hardly worked on the model at all today. I'm gonna get some work done on the windows and I'll put in the door. I'll post some pics tonight.

Justin

Wasup Adam_h.

Thanks for coming in.

To expand your knowledge of GMAX, I suggest you go through the tutorials first (unless you have already done so). There are many sites that can give you a large amount of tutorials (freeflightdesign.com, onnovanbraam.com, and so on).

As for the cockpit, everyone, don't worry about the polygon count. I know that there are a lot of polys in the images I posted. You have to remember, the majority of the cockpit wall (the main cylinder) will be covered by the accessories (panel, flat floor, seats, side panels, cup holders, etc.).

Because of this, a lot of polys will be removed (since you won't be able to see them anyways). At the same time, the cockpit model will be Frame-Rate friendly.

While I was busy make the interior, I realized that the Yokes are one of the most toughest things to make (If you want to be precise) due to their shapes.

So far, all I need to add are these:

1. Floor
2. Animated pedals, and throttles
3. Animate the yokes
4. Add interior textures and DVC textures for active gauges.
5. Back portion of the interior
6. And, if you want, reflective windows.

Thanks to my little skill on the Mesh Smooth feature, I am able to manipulate the interior wall's curved surface so that they almost match the walls of the REAL Excel aircraft.

Hey everyone, glad to be a parr..Ok, do you have to send me any files to start the plane where you left off.  I am also a Newbie to Gmax VERY NEW but I am actually starting to get it(a true miracle  )  I really cant wait to start building!

    Adam

Oz, yea I agree..Also, are we going to let Virtual Airlines take the planes and repaint if they want.  I am in Virtual Flight Options and this is what they fly.  When we advance if you want me to tell them about us I surely will.  Also, what do you guys want me working on. I know you gave me that list but like I said to I have to get a file or do you just want me to make them from scratch and send them to you.

     Adam

  I think having Adam start a new project would be a good idea. Now really all we have to do is decide which aircraft he should start on. Do we wanna work down with the list starting with the X or work up starting with the Mustang? Personally I think starting with the X and working down would be better since the Mustang and CJ3 still haven't recieved FAA approval and the Mustang doesn't even have a prototype out yet. What do you guys think? Also I think we'll let anyone repaint the aircraft as long as they ask permission why not? It is freeware.
  Sounds like things are going good with the VC Katahu. I think reflective windows would also be a nice touch. When your done could you maybe help me with the model? It seems my 3-views aren't to scale and i'm realizing that the engine placement is all wrong. It's still gonna need some major work! Now we just need to find a painter and someone to do the 2D panel.

Justin

Ok sounds good Adam you can't start the CJ1 when you're ready. I'm asuming you already have a 3-view if not just tell me and I can find one. Thanks.

Justin

Ok I found you one. The 3-view is what you work off of to make the model look acurate. Here's the CJ1.



Have fun!

Justin

Hmm I wonder why? 

Justin

good now we have a painter   Check out the members page BTW can you show us some of your previous repainting work?

hey adam, im thinkin though we may not need a painter in the group per se. I think having a designer is much more valuable. Textures are easy, especially for private jets but if we are gonna do the Cessna scheme then things get complicated for an average painter. I think maybe we can ask someone not in the group to do the Cessna scheme, or you or anyone else can make a biz jet-type texture. Or maybe we can ask Geforce if hes not busy......

Im not tryin to 'take your job away' or soemthing, just thought youd be more useful in the designing part to speed up the Citation development.

Hey Adam you can go ahead and start the CJ1 whenever you're ready to start modelling it. As for looking for painters I dunno what we're gonna do. If Geforce will do it that'd be awesome! If Adam does it that'd be awesome to! Right now let's focus on getting the CJ1 and Excel models done then we could worry about texturing. I've found some awesome paint schemes we could use on airliners.net that aren't the same as the Cessna factory schemes. But we'll worry about that later.

Justin

Adam, use the cylinder. Then shape it up into the fuselage. The tutotials should help you out, and its best to do the model while you read them .

No problem adam   . BTW before you even try the modeling in Gmax, may i suggest you 'explore' the program even further. Start making some basic stuff (the discreet tute will show you how to make a mace. Learn where all the options and stuff are since theres a lot of features in Gmax. It took me almost 2 months to really get familiar with the program. I tried makin some stuff but scrapped it cause i encountered some problems...but then again that was a military model and much harder to make. Hmm...i think i might just give this a try and make an attempt at designing one of these Citations myself. Ill see....
Gmax is a very complicated program:
At first it always feels like ''well this might be easy, just gotta get used to it''
Then (after youve had it for some time) you feel like"darn this is harder than i thought, i dont know if i can even go anywhere"
And when you start to understand things you feel like "oh..so thats how its done...ok might just give this another try and get somewhere" The Pro designers out there were the ones who wouldnt quit when they had a problem or thought the program was to hard. They learned and asked and asked and now we got guys like the ground crew boys, Meljet, and katahu and jl  . Well my point is really that in the begining youll find the program is really hard to use but in time youll get used to it  

This one is for fun - I'm not going for deep LDV type accuracy ... sort of to  "match wits" and egg you guys on to finish your projects... I mean, you don't want my
quickie to get out first, do you?

hmm....thats a pretty nice model you got there Felix...sure makes us wanna push our efforts...Im gonna give it another go with Gmax. I just hope i can actually get somewhere...

BTW Katahu do you use the 'spline modeling' method or the mesh method?

I got some more pics on my progress.

Dont' worry about the poly count. A lot of them will be removed since you won't be seeing a lot of them.


What so think of this one?

Ok, ive been workin in Gmax...



For now ive only worked on the side view...comments?
Also, ive got a little problem. I forgot to do the '3views on planes ' thing and have the 3 views set up (cropped of course, top, front etc.) as backrounds. I really have no problem with it. But its the size of each of the bitmaps thats the problem. The side view outlines are just a tad smaller than the top view outline and the side view and top view outlines are just a bit bigger than the front view ones.. So can someone please cut the Citation II bitmap up and resize the side, front etc.  so it appears right in Gmax and either post the pics here or send them to me?..

and if it doesn't have them, will you demand your money back? 

May I suggest that you really intended the tone of the posting to be: "Details to make the Citation project better"  rather than "must haves" ...

I'm sure that the Citation Project team will appreciate the details.

Quote:

Hey everyone, Ok I have been reading the Tut's and starting to pick up the stuff.  I am still playing around but  playing around means shaping the CJ 525 etc.. I hope I am not pushing us behind schedule just I want to make the model as real as possible.  I am still trying to learn all the tools and it is very complicated.  Once again thanks for all your help everyone

Answer to Oz's question:

Splines are usually used for making complicated models like sports cars (Nissan Skyline) and faces of people. Splines are very good for handling the complex curves that the model will have.

However it does have its downsides. Using the spline a lot for making the curves will mean that the polygon count will be EXTREMELY high (the high number needed for the curviture).

Splines are not very useful when it comes to making aircraft. Aircraft are made better with simple objects (boxes, cylinders, spheres, etc). If you try to use a spline to make an aircraft, you will then have to individually move the points (vertices) one by on so that carefully match the surface. And that will take forever.

As for the meshsmoothing, it is a modifier that is commonly use for basic objects so that you can smooth out the surface of the objects. I'm not going into detail on how to use the features (that is the purpose of the tutorials). Those details are too complex anyways.

The cockpit wall that you see (interior) is really a simple cylinder that has its Normals (polygon surface) flipped inside-out. Then the flipped surface is then extruded as a unit (it comes in the same size though). Then I use Uniform and Non-Uniform Scale tools to size up and stretch the extruded surface.

Then I add the mesh smooth modifier to the object. Where it says itterations in the modifier tab, I increase the number if I want (in this case, the number 2). The higher the itteration, the more smooth the surface is. But also the higher the polygon count.

Note:

I do not collapse the modifier stack for any reason. By keeping the stack as it is, I can go back and forth on the modifiers to make any needed changes. From here, it gets a bit complicated.

Answer to Jlvandam's question:

Sure, I'll send you the cockpit model. I'll compress it for easy sending.

  Hey Felix I e-mailed you the Titan.

  Hey Katahu I have one quick question. How do you flip the polygons so that I can make the interior? Also when you use the extrude to you only extrude the edges around the outside or do you extrude the whole shape? Thanks.

Justin

Thanks for the tips Katah. I'm still a little confused on the extruding of and object. If I've made a DVC and have all of the polygons facing inward so that they only appear if you are looking from the inside of the object and then I extrude the object will the whole DVC have polygons facing outward on the outside and inward on the inside? I would experiment with this in Gmax right now but I'm not at home. Could you please explain this just a bit more? Thanks.

Justin

Ill try and send you some Learjet-type VC textures

sorry I haven't replied in a while but I have the furniture almost done.
BTW I suggest putting FFDS in the link page considering the fact that that's where I got my furniture from (Learjet45 and Gulf Jetstream)

good point felix/ffds. The designer was Rick Sasala

  I don't think we really need a forum EriePlane. I think Simviation is good enough for comunications along with e-mail. I'm gonna post some pics of the interior here on Simviation as soon as I get the windows cut. Thanks again for all of the work.

Justin

hey just a thought; how bout we make a virtual cabin with the seats and all? Its gettin quite popular to include these little cabins in the VC. If it ends up being too much of a frame rate killer we'll just leave the cockpit in. Ill put the FFDS link on the site later, i cant seem to get into geocities right now. Hey and BTW maybe we do need a forum since this post could become extremely long and costly for pete..

Anyways things are lookin good on the excel, gonna post pics of it on the site too. And also, does anyone want the CJ2 i started workin on..?

PS: Katahu, ill try and send you some Lear-type textures for the VC soon..been real busy..

Ills end you the CJ2 in a while. Ive updated the site's Projects page, have added the FFDS link, added EirePlane's name on members, and have made a little note on the members page as well.

Hey Katahu, can you post a pic of the VC areas you need textured so ill make a good enough texture bitmap.

Welcome to my final design.



Hey Oz, I have these pics ready for you. More will come.

Bottom seats


Cockpit floor. The 2 narrow thing you see on the side are those things that merge the side panels with the rest of the cockpit walls (sides walls).


This image up-side down. This is the central panel where the throttle unit is.


Don't mind the curved edge that you see. Remember, I deleted some polygons so that they wouldn't have any problem with the FPS. Some polys however can't be deleted for technical reasons.


Cockpit wall (rear part)


The main panel with the pedals


Panel overhead.

Im getting the forums now

Hey, ok good job on the new forum but I cant register.  I tryed adam_h adam adam hulse and it just keeps saying a error has occured with the letters etc.. in my name.. anyone know why?

BTW do we need an easier to remember address e.g www.citation.fly.to

Yea, i clicked on the I agree..  If you want to register me you can and you can make it Goose adam adam_h i dont care.  My email is also adamhulse@earthlink.net if you want to go forward with this.

Yeah, I agree. Hehe.

Besides, the new forum loads up slighty faster than these simviation forums.

Hey Oz, you're not the only one who stayed up late. I worked so hard on both the cockpit and new project that I actually went to sleep at around 2:30 AM.

As for the cabin of the Excel, try to compress it into a little Zip file so that it can go through the e-mail more easily.

I'll try to test out the DVC in FS2002 so that I can make sure that the animated parts are moving like they are supposed to in the simulation. That way, I won't accidentally send you guys a faulty cockpit.

BTW, I have already registered myself to the new forum.

thats some very good progress indeed. keep up the good work

Hey im thinkin, how bout we send Avsim or flightsim.com an 'announcement' of our joining as a group and our current projects? This way we'll have more traffic to the site and more posts in the forums and all that. Anyways just a suggestion...

BTW im workin on the 2d panel now and just a few things left to do on it. I might post a pic when i get a bit more progress.

PS: Katahu as soon as i get done with the 2d panel, maybe tonight or tomorow ill send you all the VC textures. Almost all are done except a few.

Ok my last post in this thread. First off that's awesome that you love Corvettes too Katahu! I love the Corvette Stingrays. They're just awesome! I'll look for some pics. Ok now back to the topic. Whenever you feel the DVC is ready I'll take it. We'll have to decide what to do to make the aircraft more framerate friendly once we start testing it. I run pretty much the slowest PC you can run FS2002 on so if we can get decent FPS on my PC we'll be good. I'm running a PIII @ 500Mhz and a GeForce 2 MX400 so I think it'd be good for low-end system tests. Oz I've never really figured out how to submit an announcement to Avsim or Flight Sim so if you know how that'd be awesome! It'd definately let the public know what's going on over at our site. Also on the 2D panel there's a handy little tool somewhere on this site that lets you change the colors on gauges. That should help adjust the Lear gauges for you. If you e-mail me I have the administrator's login address so you can make some cosmetic changes to the forums. I agree that the silver bars for background need to go. Well I'm to our forum now.

Justin

I have made your account adam and yur usrname is Goose, your password is in the E-Mail
BTW wuld we be better off with a shorter URL like www.citation-crew.fly.to

Wow guys!  looks great! 

How did you learn gmax?  I would love to help out but have no design skills! 8)

It's alright Oz. I can wait.

Hey Jlvandam, I'm having some problems trying to export the DVC model to FS2002 (for testing purposes).

Maybe you can try it out and see shere I went wrong.

I hope this DVC won't cause any more problems for this project.

This will probably be my last post on simviation regarding the Citation project.

PS: Jlvandam, post your e-mail address using Private Message.

All right my last post here.

The site problem is really getting intolerable. It goes down after at least 2 views. There may be someone who might be willing to help us, youll see the post in our forums. If not we'll have to ask others to help us, i dont know....maybe pete might be willing to lend us 2 or 3 pages. From now on guys take a quick look at the forums for any news or anything.

Total members now: 9 memebrs and non-members

no i dont think its a hacker..

The site started havin these problems after the news post appeared on Flightsim.com accouncing our formation and all. So many people must have clicked on the link..Anyways give it about...well.....time...before the the problem stops happening so frequently. A person at the forum site has offered to give us a site (www.com domain) but im still in talks with him since its for a price..but hes willing to give it to us for free (However, we have to have a donation service...using paypal) Well we'll see what the tide will bring in the next couple days...

Just went to the site, gave it a couple minutes, went to it again and it was down...

All right, thanks to John D. (Flightgeek) we now have a another operational site. http://citationcrew.geekwithus.com Still a work in progress, he made the shockwave animations though. Hes gonna ararnge stuff differently and although he normally charges for his services, he will do this for free - as long as we dont have toooo much bandwith problems, but then we can ask for a small donation on the site. But heres the best thing though: He actually flew the Citation, and might have sounds for it i guess. So we will name him Beta Tester/Technical Advisor and is now a member of the crew. Those were his terms. He is gonna have a redirector for the site so we can type in citationcrew.org (.com is taken) but not ready yet. Anyways, more info on our main forums