Douglas Kallen's Stearman

[magoo]

Well.....I'm absolutely shocked and amazed.....in the happiest possible way. I've never seen anything like this in any flightsim......ever.

No detail spared, plus an excellent flight model, and damn fine sounds. And it's free. What a tremendous gift.

I dunno....I've never seen anything like this Stearman in flightsim....I mumble repetitively, I mumble incoherantly, I mumble aloud, .......I mumble.

....What would a Hornet cosume per hour..? About twenty-five....thirty gallons...? Man it's got a ton of power for a clipped Stearman. Sure...it's gotta be rigged for Ag work....the big mill, clipped wings, hooded cockpit. It's massive ability to lift......

....Now it's mine....heh-heh-heh....spray gear is gone....and I'm just going to love it. What a little hot rod....what a little diamond.

I remember my first sim....CFS1. Mountains were green triangles and airplanes were slightly more than cardboard cutouts, scanned and kinda three-deed.

Now look at this interactive museum piece come alive....what bloody artistry. Beyond the detail, this rendering has character, an evocation of reality. I want to refer to it as, "her".....and give her a name. Her heart beats, her breath is hot, her voice from a whisper to a thundering roar.

She's a red head.

I'll call her Lucy....

Any questions about the flight model....man....it's seems totally right for this girl.


Dang....!!!

Did I mentioned that I'm shocked and amazed...?

....In the happiest possible way.



Mr KALLEN......THANK YOU..!!!

[Wing_Z]

Bravo, sir!
I don't even bother to fly it much...

[YOUTUBE]BwW14pU0OII[/YOUTUBE]

[Fnerg]

First off, thank you Douglas, for this most generous gift. Let me tell you, I can appreciate all the hours and patience that went into this project.
I'm doing this technique with the Firefly, and I've decided it will be for free as well. My first model. It's going to be great, my Firefly on the tarmac with this model. Wow.
I guess like you all, I'm really passionate about warbirds. To realize a model, to be the most realistic I can, without polygon limits, drives me to want to complete more and more every day. Bill Lionheart would understand.
Once you see how easy it is, you just bounce between a few programs, your only limited to your knowledge of the plane. But research is part of the fun. Learning more about something you're passionate about. As far as the model goes, if you're patient, obsessive, and artistic ( not particularly in that order ), you could probably do this too, and man, is it fun to know what it will look like in the end. This Stearman is incredible.

This Stearman has set the bar at the highest level. This new Unlimited Export is the bees knees for us wingnuts - who will now fly FS9 forever! I feel honoured to be sharing the stage during this new revelation concerning FS9, you know, the new guy! WooHoo! I'm so excited for you guys to get my model I got a lot of work to do!!

[Wild Bill Kelso]

Any questions about the flight model....man....it's seems totally right for this girl.

I totally agree to your statements, mate!
Especially to the one mentioned above!

Please let me state clearly that in my eyes not a single rivet (or a single FDE parameter) needs to be adjusted or tweaked.
My remark on the aileron effectiveness entry was aimed to the (maybe) few (like me) who feel the inexplicable need to tinker on their aircraft.
It's just hard for me to take a new aircraft out of the box and use it "as is". I can't stop looking for anything to be adjusted (even if the result turn out worse!).
I tried hard to find anything improvable -
FOUND NOTHING!

What an aircraft!

Cheers,
Markus.

[casey jones]

Thank you Mr Kallen for this wonderful plane, but again I am just amazed at how the FS designers like Mr kallen can build these planes, MS made this program very very complicated which is designed from a word program and spread sheets.


Cheers

Casey

[aardvark62]

I use FSAutoStart to shut down unneeded programs and processes and free up memory to run FS9. You may have only 1Mb of physical ram, but background programs consume your resources giving you little left to run FS9. Typically, FSAutoStart will free up 800 to 850 Mb of that ram just for FS9.
-WH

Cheers WH - I have tried FSAutoStart but now use Game Booster which I believe does similar; I defrag regularly and also run FreeRAM XP Pro before flying, alas all to no avail.
I think my poor old system is just showing its age. Gonna have to start saving the pennies and do an Obio !!

A.

[Milton Shupe]

The texture folder has 110MB of 32-bit textures and that is very high compared to most aircraft we fly. For older computers or those with OMB video capabilities, this much will be a challenge.

DXT3 conversion may help with a bit of hit on quality, or the textures could be reduced to 1/2 their size (1024 to 512) with or with out the DXT3 for the same savings. Or do both. Size reductions are a bit more painful in that you must preserve the alpha channels in the process.

Converting 1024 to 512 reduces size each from 4096KB to 1024KB as 32-bit textures, and to 256K by going the next step to DXT3. The end result should get you down from 110MB to around 10MB.

I am fortunate to be able to run this beautiful example of extreme modeling in its native state thanks to txnetcop. :-)

[txnetcop]

The texture folder has 110MB of 32-bit textures and that is very high compared to most aircraft we fly. For older computers or those with OMB video capabilities, this much will be a challenge.

DXT3 conversion may help with a bit of hit on quality, or the textures could be reduced to 1/2 their size (1024 to 512) with or with out the DXT3 for the same savings. Or do both. Size reductions are a bit more painful in that you must preserve the alpha channels in the process.

Converting 1024 to 512 reduces size each from 4096KB to 1024KB as 32-bit textures, and to 256K by going the next step to DXT3. The end result should get you down from 110MB to around 10MB.

I am fortunate to be able to run this beautiful example of extreme modeling in its native state thanks to txnetcop. :-)

It was my extreme pleasure to build it for you Milton...thank you for the recognition.
Ted

[Tom Clayton]

This aircraft has been uploaded to Avsim now, a much faster download than at Simviation ... Mike :salute:

And here's the link: http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?DLID=156969

[magoo]

Wild Bill kelso
My remark on the aileron effectiveness entry was aimed to the (maybe) few (like me) who feel the inexplicable need to tinker on their aircraft.

.....Ditto.

I'm used to twiddling the flight models and sound packs for so many otherwise beautiful renderings to satisfy my need. This model goes way beyond that. It's a level of creation that I never expected to see in this generation simulator, or even the next....X.

Beyond the pure artistry, this is a hunk of code that extolls extreme programing skill and talent.

Go-on.....convince me it's only zeros and ones.

Now, with electronic joystick is hand, I'm off to terrify country peasants whilst hedgerow hopping the French countryside.....just me and Lucy...... ;-)

[Flyboy208]

Milton, I took your advice and converted the file sizes from 1024 to 512 and retained alpha channels within DXT3 Bitmap, but all I get is a grey/white aircraft - I know I am doing something wrong, hope someone more talented than myself does an updated smaller file size for the textures type fix ... Mike

[phantomx1]

Nice model with plenty of detail. Is there a way to remove the cowling and filter and still be able to fly it? Nice engine!

[Felixthreeone]

And an update on avsim....http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?DLID=157084

[nigel richards]

Not saying anyone needs to, or should, by any means. . . .but it would be a nice gesture to shoot off an e-mail to the designer to let him know of our appreciation for this landmark aircraft.

Granted, it would be great to do that for anyone who has given to the community, but many times we fail even with the best of intentions and it never gets done, but it would still be nice to follow through on this one.:salute: JMO

A rare consideration, and spoken as a true Gentleman! Sir you have my respect. :salute:

[Milton Shupe]

Milton, I took your advice and converted the file sizes from 1024 to 512 and retained alpha channels within DXT3 Bitmap, but all I get is a grey/white aircraft - I know I am doing something wrong, hope someone more talented than myself does an updated smaller file size for the textures type fix ... Mike

Mike, you must have an issue somewhere in the conversion process because it works fine here.

Reduce the sizes to 512X512 retaining the alpha and as 32-bit. Then convert to DXT3.

[flaminghotsauce]

Just Wow! Impressive work, and for free.

Wow!

[Lionheart]

He is one amazing Poly craftsman. He also showed me and us Gmaxxers how to do this in Gmax/FS9. Now we can make planes like A2A have, and in FS2004....! 'Without Limits'. God hears out prayers! Hoooo rahh!


Thanks PT for helping me get through the Gmax version. You're awesome man.


:ernae:

[magoo]

'Without Limits'.

...The level of detail........I would think my medium-state computer would be on it's knees. It's not. It doesn't even blink. Smooth as butter.

This is some bloody high art.

[OBIO]

Wow! Now I can enjoy this plane to the fullest. My new system is up and running and I have one of my FS9 installs set up and running. I took the Stearman Extreme up for a flight around KSEA to test the system and to get a look at the plane in all its glory. I now have every slider in FS9 shoved to the max....even have the plane detail on Super High or what ever the max is. On my old system, with some of the details pulled back a bit, I only got 12 to 14FPS with the Stearman Extreme.....now I am getting 50FPS (locked at 50) even flying over KSEA at low level.

The plane is a true work of art! I love being able to look out and see the wires vibrating as I am flying. I haven't checked out all the details yet....but I will. Still need to do some tweaking to the new system and get it into place at my desk....currently it is hogging up Deb's computer/crafting/scrapbooking table....tomorrow I should be able to set it up in my area...once I clean it that it....now way am I going to set that brand new computer down in the 3 inch thick layer of dust that covers my sim station.

OBIO

[OleBoy]

I would sure like to try this in FSX if anyone would care to share the procedure of porting it over so it displays correctly.

Anyone?

[Z-claudius24]

Hi,

FSX version (ported)
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RXFD58DC

[OleBoy]

Thanks Claudius, I will try this. I had extracted the files for FS9, to FSX. There are several areas within the cockpit that are transparent and issues the same with the smoke & prop. I may sound as if complaining, though I'm not. It is what it is. This model was not made for FSX.

Even with the minor issues, this model supersedes any level of detail I've ever seen. It's very nicely done and an excellent gift to us all to enjoy

Thanks DK :ernae:

[SpitXIV]

Is this the proptrash one that uses the new fs2004 compiler????? If it is, then this post better get a sticky....FAST!!!!!!!!!!

What's wrong with it? What do you mean by Compiler? You aren't going to get many people to
download it with talk like that. Prop trash? Thanks to you I won't get it.

[Kowalski65]

I may be mistaken but I believe "proptrash" is the guy's username/screenname...it most certainly isnt "trash" as in "rubbish"

And I think the compiler is something that allows more polys in a model than normal FS9 ones, so it's a better model.

All i can say is..it's freeware, d/l it & give it a go.What do you have to lose?

[euroastar350]

Proptrash is his nickname on the FS Developer forums, not a form of a bad name given to him.