lar
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Posts: 74
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Post by lar on May 12, 2012 14:46:11 GMT -8
While browsing ferry photos I came across a really *great* collection on Flicker posted by FerryDude, www.flickr.com/photos/ferrydude2010/ who I understand is a member of this forum. Jay has kindly given me permission to use his photos for my models, and I thought I might post a link to a small album showing my first use of them. Thanks Jay! I decided to revise my Queen of Cumberland model to take advantage of Jay's higher resolution images of the Cumberland Queen, which additionally have a soft feel from the evening light that I like. Here's a link: skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?cid=d9374555cbe355aa&resid=D9374555CBE355AA!595&parid=root I found a lot of significant errors while updating this model, which makes me sure that there are more. :-) Any suggestions or comments greatly appreciated, Larry
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Post by lmtengs on May 12, 2012 22:21:41 GMT -8
The model is great! The first things i see are some scale issues. the deck between the bridge deck and the passenger deck is too short. It should be about the same height as the other two. Also, the hull shape and bulwark shape is a bit awkward. Other than that, a quick glance doesn't bring up any errors. Nice work!
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lar
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Post by lar on May 13, 2012 6:18:31 GMT -8
The model is great! The first things i see are some scale issues. the deck between the bridge deck and the passenger deck is too short. It should be about the same height as the other two. Also, the hull shape and bulwark shape is a bit awkward. Other than that, a quick glance doesn't bring up any errors. Nice work! Thanks so much for the help! Something seemed wrong, but I couldn’t figure out what it was, because I take the profiles right off the photo images, initially ‘projecting’ them in Sketchup, which preserves the geometry in the plane of the photo. And after you stare at something for a long time it’s easy not to see what’s not right. But now that you point it out, it was a silly error. :-) Unlike the WSF ferries I’ve made where the railings go right to the deck, that is not the case for the passenger deck of the Queen of Cumberland. The deckhouse there extends below what you can see on the athwartships view photo. The result was that the top of the deckhouse was about 1’ 7” too low. It’s not as hard a fix as you might imagine. I’m also not sure I’ve got the in-slope right. It looks it’s about 60 degrees on the athwartships view. But my bow on view seems to show that the sides are not inclined as much, perhaps because of the perspective. Maybe I can check some additional photos. I’ll see if I can figure out what’s making the model look awkward. When I finish the fixes I’ll post a few new screenshots and if the vessel still looks odd, perhaps someone can spot the issue. Thanks again for the help! Larry
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Post by lmtengs on May 13, 2012 8:45:34 GMT -8
The result was that the top of the deckhouse was about 1’ 7” too low. It’s not as hard a fix as you might imagine. I do SketchUp modelling too, I know how fixing a model can be. Sometime easy, but if it's just the perfect fix, it can take all day. I’ll see if I can figure out what’s making the model look awkward. When I finish the fixes I’ll post a few new screenshots and if the vessel still looks odd, perhaps someone can spot the issue. Thanks again for the help! Larry ...or maybe the Cumby is just an awkward looking ship! Also, did you include the platform decks in the model? Even when retracted, they're visible to some extent.
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Post by lmtengs on May 13, 2012 18:29:41 GMT -8
Noticeable thing I can see, is the the Cucumber is sitting too low in the water. She should be a little higher, she would be approaching her hull speed, with wash buildup foward slightly, with sinuous troughs as one goes aft. She is sharp bowed, but the bow isn't that deeply inclined as it would be with a cruise ship, but far more so than a tugboat. She doesn't have a hull yet, so I don't see how she's sitting in the water at all. Flag forward (BCF house flag) isn't flying the same direction and plane as flag aft (Canadian ensign). Both would be on the same plane and flying same direction (remember there is a windstream forward to aft, caused by the movement of the ship unless the ship is moving ahead very slowly). The flags are flying in the same direction... look at the last photo of the bunch. Funnel looks a bit odd, more of "somethin' ain't right". True. The funnel could be a touch taller and have a bit less slope to the sides. Also, the 'waves' are in the wrong direction on one side. Shadows ain't right. There's the "dark portion' under house, but on a fine day, there would be shadows underneath the truck and car, mot likely offselt to what time of day it is (and also the time of year (longer shadows towards winter, shorter towards June's 3rd week). Given the latitude (48 degrees, 57 minutes, 10 sec. north) the sun would not be right overhead. Examine some shadow offsets. Doesn't have to be exact, but consider an offset as if she was sailing north with the sun 30 degrees of her port side aft above, or if sailing south, the sun 60 degrees of her starboard side forward above. Nice touch on the edges of the deck, rust of the steel caused by ight perpetual bumping and scraping into wing walls. All these textures and shadows are there because he used real photos to texture the surfaces of the ship. He hasn't actually spent time on the shadows and rust. I also don't think that's what he was after in terms of advice.
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D'Elete BC in NJ
Voyager
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Post by D'Elete BC in NJ on May 14, 2012 2:39:16 GMT -8
...with wash buildup foward slightly, with sinuous troughs as one goes aft... lol...though technically in the ballpark as a descriptive word (and I had to look up the definition to confirm that because the alternate definition took precedence in my brain), the word you were looking for is sinusoidal...thanks for the chuckle as I imagined lean, musculature waves rolling down the side of the ship! ;D
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lar
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Post by lar on May 14, 2012 6:18:25 GMT -8
Thanks for all the input fellows! It reminds me of the classes I’m taking just for fun; the discussions get me thinking again! :-) As a result, I found a number of things that I fixed that might be part of what’s causing the model to not look quite right. I bowed out the fore and aft windows of the passenger cabin ~2.5 feet at the centerline, rescaled the vertical dimension to increase the height by .8 meter above the LWL to match my current photo rather than the sketch I started with some time ago, added a bunch of ventilators, got the deckhouse height fixed, including the slopes, etc.
Thanks for getting me to think about the flags on double-enders! Because the ends are mostly symmetrical I copy large sections of one end, make it a group, turn it around and paste it onto the other end. And I’ve just not paid attention to the flags then pointing in opposite directions. Two WSF ferries to fix! (At the expense of one extra texture, I need to do this with the funnel logo.)
I’m not sure what’s wrong with the funnel. I checked as many photos as I could find but I could not identify the issue.
One lesson I’ve learned; trying to patch up an early model which used part of an even earlier model that had fundamental problems (things slightly out of plane, surfaces that won’t fill because of a bunch of hidden vertices close together, basic dimensions a little off, is a pain. So I’m going to do the Queen of Nanaimo again from scratch rather than trying to tune up my existing model.
Thanks for mentioning shadows. I’ve not really addressed the issue. I should check to see if objects like these ferries can ‘cast shadows on itself’ in the simulator, as can piloted craft. (Many turn this feature off because of the performance hit.) On the other hand, my feeling is that in the simulator, even fake shadows or just some sort of variegation helps prevent objects from appearing as if they are not grounded or attached to a horizontal surface. Speaking of piloted craft, I don’t know how to do it, but I understand it’s not that hard to make the conversion of the Sketchup model able to be piloted. It might be sort of fun to see if I could dock the ferry with the wind velocity set to say 50 knots. :-)
Spent my usual Sunday taking the Kaleetan to Bremerton and the Walla Walla back to Seattle, and collected about 30 ferry sound samples. When I post some updated pics of the Queen of Cumberland, maybe I can also post a few sound snips that I might use in conjunction with the custom ferry wake effect.
Larry
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lar
Deckhand
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Post by lar on May 15, 2012 6:11:00 GMT -8
Thanks for the offer of BC ferry sound clips! It turned out that it was very easy to have a custom one play along with the wake effect. You just put it in the Sound folder in the sim, and refer to the file name in the wake effect file. Here’s a link to a couple of edited clips; The Walla Walla is a very quiet boat, but I personally like the Kaleetan sound. I find it soothing, especially on a cold and stormy winter day. skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?cid=d9374555cbe355aa&resid=D9374555CBE355AA!121&parid=root I suppose however that the Chief Engineer of the Queen of Cumberland would rather I not use the Kaleetan sound for the model. :-) I’ll send you a PM about your sound clips. And here’s a link to the ‘as of today’ version of the Q of C as it appears in the simulator (FSX) on the Earls Cove – Saltery Bay route. skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?cid=d9374555cbe355aa&resid=D9374555CBE355AA!603&parid=root Besides the general look which may still not be right, I’m having trouble with what seems like excessive spectral effects as one looks into the vessel. No solution yet. Notice the marine aid to navigation light in Agnew Passage which I captured as it was flashing! This is part of the Orbx Pacific Northwest scenery package, and was worked out by Orbx Developer Holger Sandmann. Holger has taken the entire lists of navigation aids both for US and Canadian waters, incorporated them into a data base and then converted it to a form that can be used by the simulator. There are thousands of navigational aids in the PNW; this must have been a *huge* task. Very impressive! About sea states in the sim: currently FSX and Prepar3D seem to have only one sea state animation, which does not change with wind direction or velocity. And it’s 2D at that. It’s very disconcerting to anyone who has been on the water. I know people have requested that a more realistic sea state be included in version 2 of P3D, but I’m not sure how high a priority it would be. Now if the Navy would want to use P3D…. Larry
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lar
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Post by lar on May 26, 2012 4:59:20 GMT -8
A link to my new version of the Queen of Nanaimo, done starting from scratch this time. Once again, thanks to Jay Cowen and Flugel Horn for the kind permission to use their photos for various textures. Because this model is so big I had to make some compromises so that it would still function in a simulator. But I did try to get the flags as well as the starboard side BC Ferries logo on the funnel (not shown) right this time. I hope anyway. :-) I included a screenshot of version one of the model which used only a few generic photo textures for comparison . Any suggestions greatly appreciated! skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=D9374555CBE355AA!612
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lar
Deckhand
Posts: 74
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Post by lar on Jul 4, 2012 7:52:18 GMT -8
After not being able to resist making a model of the Crowley tug "Guide", I've finally mostly finished my model of the Spirit of Vancouver using a few very nice images by Jay Cowen (FerryDude2012) for the photo textures. Thanks again Jay. Here's a link to a few screenshots. sdrv.ms/LnkXkDNever having been onboard, I've had to do a lot of guessing, and because the vessel is quite large I've had to restrict some of the details so it would still function in the simulator. Any comments or suggestions greatly appreciated! Thanks, Larry
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Post by lmtengs on Jul 4, 2012 11:21:23 GMT -8
After not being able to resist making a model of the Crowley tug "Guide", I've finally mostly finished my model of the Spirit of Vancouver using a few very nice images by Jay Cowen (FerryDude2012) for the photo textures. Thanks again Jay. Here's a link to a few screenshots. sdrv.ms/LnkXkDNever having been onboard, I've had to do a lot of guessing, and because the vessel is quite large I've had to restrict some of the details so it would still function in the simulator. Any comments or suggestions greatly appreciated! Thanks, Larry These are great! The only real thing I could find are the ends of the lower car deck; they're a little bit curvier, while you make them look rather flat.
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lar
Deckhand
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Post by lar on Jul 4, 2012 12:49:49 GMT -8
The only real thing I could find are the ends of the lower car deck; they're a little bit curvier, while you make them look rather flat. Thanks so much! I tried to match the curve of the ends of the upper car deck to my aerial photo, but the lower car deck doors (what you are referring to right?) are not visible from directly overhead, so it was a guess. A very easy fix however. The shading affects one's perception too; the eye is so sensitive to these things. I'll double check the curvature of the ends of the upper car deck too. Ahh, I see that I got the forward end of the upper car deck wrong in several ways. I'd like to say how much I appreciated all the photos of this and other vessels forum members have posted. Sometimes I'm just puzzled, like trying to figure out why the aft end of the upper car deck does not seem to terminate at a specific point on my working image, but is instead fuzzed out. One appropriate close up photo of the stern gives me the answer; it's a radar that's causing the issue! Larry
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Post by paulvanb on Jul 4, 2012 15:56:06 GMT -8
Overall, I think it looks great. I think the only thing that would make it better is to have her in the colours she was born in!
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lar
Deckhand
Posts: 74
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Post by lar on Jul 5, 2012 5:33:39 GMT -8
.... I think the only thing that would make it better is to have her in the colours she was born in! Thanks! All I would need are high resolution images, bow on and directly abeam, and I could do it. "Simple to fix" ended up being 3 hours of editing with more I need to tweak. I added one more pic to the link above that I hope shows some progress. Larry
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Post by lmtengs on Jul 5, 2012 10:50:13 GMT -8
.... I think the only thing that would make it better is to have her in the colours she was born in! Thanks! All I would need are high resolution images, bow on and directly abeam, and I could do it. "Simple to fix" ended up being 3 hours of editing with more I need to tweak. I added one more pic to the link above that I hope shows some progress. Larry Ooh, I managed to find one more simple fix. This is an issue brought forth by a recent renovation of the ship during which they installed another embarkation gate for foot passengers for use with new berths. Basically, if you want the model to be correct *to date*, this would be an issue. If you want it correct to before mid-2011, then there isn't an issue. Here's a picture of the ship before the modification was done: farm5.staticflickr.com/4037/5165090373_4a9e72ce78_b.jpgAnd here are two pictures of it after the mod. One details the curve of the corner on the railing. farm9.staticflickr.com/8151/7340279096_2aee442d71_b.jpgi78.photobucket.com/albums/j120/DaneNicholson/P1010205.jpgThe added footie walkway runs right along the bow from the middle to the right side.
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lar
Deckhand
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Post by lar on Jul 6, 2012 10:57:03 GMT -8
Thanks for this! In looking more closely at the links I realized that I had the forward bulkhead of the passenger deck wrong. When I started the model I had assumed that the Spirit of Vancouver Island and the Spirit of British Columbia were externally essentially the same, so for the bow on image I used a better shot of the SOBC. At least based on the pics I found, the forward most bulkhead of the passenger deck of the SOVI goes straight across (dead straight?), while on the SOBC it is sort of notched out, with the notch being curved forward slightly in the center. So I fixed that, and then I noticed that I had forgotten to radius the forward bulkhead of the passenger deck cabin on both sides. Fixed that too. Little by little it’s looking better. Time for a test run in FSX soon.
Larry
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lar
Deckhand
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Post by lar on Jul 7, 2012 16:52:50 GMT -8
I've now tested the Spirit of Vancouver Island model as an automated ferry in both FSX and Prepar3D. It looks much better in the latter; I've added a few screenshots taken from P3D to the album to illustrate: sdrv.ms/LnkXkDI like the model so far. The Tsawwassen terminal scenery is also mine. It's rather crude, but otherwise there is essentially nothing, and the simple default ferry terminal is, how can I say it, somewhat less than appealing. Taking screenshots of these automated ferries is a bit like the real thing. The boats run on a schedule, each route controlled by a line of code that looks like this: AC#26,BCF126,50%,2Hr,00:01:38,00:07:53,2867,normal,ferry,01:30:39,01:36:54,2867,reverse,ferry (There are almost 2000 lines like this, covering the entire earth.) The line above tells the program to use boat number 26 on route 2867 at 2 hour intervals. It specifies the starting time, and whether the route is run normally or reversed. All this can be edited with a special program and some patience. The routes are amazingly accurate, down to the meter, done by editing a special file in Google Earth. I've made a little Excel spreadsheet to help me resolve conflicts, but just for fun I've added a worksheet that makes printable ferry schedules. So to take my screen shots, I check my schedule; see when and where the boat I'm interested in will be docking and plan accordingly. :-) And yes, it does show up, although like the real world, it may be several minutes late based on how many sharp turns I put in the route. I've now managed to get 4 boats using the Tsawwassen terminal scenery without conflict, but perhaps not the correct slips. Close anyway. I'm already thinking about what boat to do next. :-) Larry
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lar
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Post by lar on Jul 26, 2012 10:15:56 GMT -8
I’ve just about finished another model; the MV Walla Walla. Here’s a link to a few screenshots. sdrv.ms/MLHFznIf you spot something that could use fixing, I hope you will mention it! I’ve already noticed a few things in the screenshots, textures that are flipped left right from the way they should be. Thanks much for previous suggestions about consistency among other things. Shadows for example. For double enders like the WSF ferries, I make one end, copy it and then flip the copy about the longitudinal axis before joining it. Then I do the asymmetric parts, but it’s easy for me to forget that all the textures in the copy are mirrored, and some need to be flipped back. This model is much more detailed than the previous ones, largely because I was able to take a lot of detail shots onboard. I even did the interior of the car deck to some approximation at least, using a 4 shot stitched panorama taken from the upper car deck. The trick for me has been using .psd (Photoshop) format for all the textures until the model is ready to export. When I used the Sketchup ‘edit texture’ feature with .jpg files after a few edits the image quality would really suffer. Larry
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Post by Mike C on Jul 26, 2012 14:33:41 GMT -8
Good work! This is very cool. I have never taken the Walla Walla, but it certainly looks like a very accurate model!
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Post by Kahloke on Jul 26, 2012 17:07:58 GMT -8
I’ve just about finished another model; the MV Walla Walla. Here’s a link to a few screenshots. sdrv.ms/MLHFznIf you spot something that could use fixing, I hope you will mention it! I’ve already noticed a few things in the screenshots, textures that are flipped left right from the way they should be. Thanks much for previous suggestions about consistency among other things. Shadows for example. For double enders like the WSF ferries, I make one end, copy it and then flip the copy about the longitudinal axis before joining it. Then I do the asymmetric parts, but it’s easy for me to forget that all the textures in the copy are mirrored, and some need to be flipped back. This model is much more detailed than the previous ones, largely because I was able to take a lot of detail shots onboard. I even did the interior of the car deck to some approximation at least, using a 4 shot stitched panorama taken from the upper car deck. The trick for me has been using .psd (Photoshop) format for all the textures until the model is ready to export. When I used the Sketchup ‘edit texture’ feature with .jpg files after a few edits the image quality would really suffer. Larry Nice work. The model looks really good - very realistic. Walla Walla is one of my favourite ferries, especially since the MLU several years ago.
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lar
Deckhand
Posts: 74
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Post by lar on Jul 28, 2012 7:02:56 GMT -8
Thank you MileagePhoto and Kahloke!
There is nothing like posting a public sceenshot to get me rechecking my work. Four more hours of ending was the result. :-) I've added three screenshots of this model's first trial in Prepar3D to the link above. One of them is close enough to illustrate the limitations of my current photos… but I have a plan for the next vessel!
With regard to making the model, maybe someone is wondering why I didn't copy one end and then rotate it 180 degrees so as not to have reversed textures. I used to do it this way, but often the result was that things did not precisely line up which led to all sorts of problems later on. Perhaps it has to do with the method used for coordinate transform. Flipping along an axis has been very precise, presumably because all that's needed is to change the sign for the values along the axis.
Larry
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lar
Deckhand
Posts: 74
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Post by lar on Aug 7, 2012 15:01:02 GMT -8
Hi Folks, Here's another one for your perusal. :-) The MV Hiyu was my first Sketchup model for FSX and it had all sorts of problems. I've continued to revise the basic model, but I was never happy with it. Recently I happened to get a few shots of the Hiyu from the sun deck of the Tacoma while at the Bainbridge dock as well as some from Prichard Park. This tempted me to cobble them together in Photoshop to make somewhat reasonable approximations for the textures. Here's the result. sdrv.ms/OKl4TKSuggestions or corrections are so much appreciated! (I've already tried to fix up the WSF green by changing the saturation and lightness for that color. I think my photo made it look artificially drab and faded.) I've included a screenshot of the older model for comparison. Who knows, maybe the older one would look better to some eyes. Has anyone had experience contacting WSF for permission to photograph from within the Eagle Harbor maintenance yard, by appointment say? I would love to have proper photos for this model, instead of faking certain things in Photoshop. :-) Larry
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lar
Deckhand
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Post by lar on Oct 23, 2012 7:31:35 GMT -8
Hi folks, Here's another one; the MV Kaleetan. Each one of these models seems to get progressively more detailed. The last four screen clips (from Prepar3D) show the boat having exited Rich Passage en-route to Seattle, following an adjusted route that is now reasonably accurate. At least it does not cause the boat to go aground! sdrv.ms/POwxqEI hope I've not made another one of my silly errors! If you spot one, I hope you will mention it. Larry
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Post by Kahloke on Oct 23, 2012 8:29:49 GMT -8
Wow! Very nicely done.
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lar
Deckhand
Posts: 74
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Post by lar on Oct 24, 2012 6:18:48 GMT -8
Thank you Kahloke!
Much appreciated; I’m always afraid I’ve made some basic and totally obvious error that I just can’t see. :-)
Larry
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