Well, here's my first attempt at cutting out a cockpit area.  I am building the cockpit as a separate model that I can just drop in and scale after I'm ready for it.  Obviously, I am not ready for it yet.    I could use a few tips on lining up the points, because it gets real confusing, especially when looking from the front of the plane.  I read several tutorials that suggested I build the inner fuselage from a tube and then cut a hole in it and then make a third fuselage segment to go in after that!  It seemed like a little too much work for me, so I took a tube, flattened it, and the rolled it around (ever see a roll pin and you'll get the idea).  Then I put it in and shaped it from there, with the last step being to use the split where the two ends meet to shape the opening so I wouldn't have to eliminate any points.  Clear as mud?   





BTW, I have no illusions.  I have a long way to go and much practice to do in this.  This is my first plane after all...

Kevin

Hey, for a beginner, that's damn good

I first experimented with the VC back in the days of AF99 & progressed to a proper DVC with FSDS1. I don't claim to be an expert but I find it easiest to copy/paste the fuselage & remove the parts I don't need. Then flip all the polys & you have the basis of your DVC. No problems with lining up points or scaling as it's an exact fit. Being the inner view of the visual model, it's just like the real thing. You can easily fill in the missing parts later & create new parts as necessary. It's obviously best to finish the normal model before using this method.

Creating the DVC separately from scratch would involve just too much work for me to contemplate.

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Hi Kevin. Bear in mind that it's some time since I last used FSDS in anger. This is from memory. To add a point you have to select 2 adjacent ones from Points mode. The new point will be midway between them.*

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In FSDS1 it was possible to use mirrored polys that displayed when viewed from both sides. In FSDS2 the polys display on one side only. For the interior to display you would have to flip all the polys. Using my method you would have 2 versions of the fuselage. The full exterior & the interior view of the normal model. The latter can be duplicated to use as the basis for the DVC model.

*PS. Remember to delete the existing poly when adding points. New polys will have to be added manually to include the new points.

PPS. If you copy/paste a part it will already be in the correct position. There's no need to insert it as it's already there. The one you copy paste into the DVC model might need repositioning slightly on the Z axis (fore & aft) to fix possible display problems. This won't affect the normal external model.

My problem with this is this; if you make a second fuselage, then cut out the points, aren't you still going to have that see-through effect?  It still looks like there is no back side to it and just making another fuselage wouldn't seem to make a difference, since if you stack them you can still see through all of them.

Thanks for the compliment. Ender.  The plane is Bob Odegaard's F2G-1 Super Corsair