F7F-1 Tigercat FSX & P3D Native Released

[Daveroo]

hey G,
can i ask what the nevada ang scenery is?

[gman5250]

Oow, I'm sorry Gordon!

No worries...you actually reminded me to refresh my default env maps back to my custom stuff.

Edit: Some shots with the custom envelope maps and fresnal enabled.

Note the modified rear canopy for "La Patrona" and pilot changes.



[url=https://flic.kr/p/y7BGXF]

[url=https://flic.kr/p/y64dF1]

[gman5250]

hey G,
can i ask what the nevada ang scenery is?

That's my KRNO project big guy...part of my black ops projects. Here are a couple of shots of the project under construction. I'll be modeling the entire ANG base as well as all of the airport buildings, casinos and landmarks. There are four other airports in the works and I'm looking seriously at Reno Stead.

Those should be "Hercs" on ready station, but the AI traffic put in the transports. The release version will have custom AI.

Reno ANG & Main Terminal WIP

[Cirrus N210MS]

will the two seater F7f have a Panel in the second seat for shared vc in multiplayer ?

[gman5250]

will the two seater F7f have a Panel in the second seat for shared vc in multiplayer ?

Second seat has a panel about the same level of detail as the driver seat. I'll see if I can set it up for multiplayer.

[Daveroo]

oh so awesome.that will be something ill get when reliesed...im only 125 miles from reno and i also love the place,i plan on moving up there after my parents pass (yes i know thats morbid.but i have to have a plan)id prefer to move to Lovelock or Gerlach,or ifin i was rich,id buy Empire ,have my own airport n even has a town laid out already..lol...but eastward ho

That's my KRNO project big guy...part of my black ops projects. Here are a couple of shots of the project under construction. I'll be modeling the entire ANG base as well as all of the airport buildings, casinos and landmarks. There are four other airports in the works and I'm looking seriously at Reno Stead.

Those should be "Hercs" on ready station, but the AI traffic put in the transports. The release version will have custom AI.

Reno ANG & Main Terminal WIP

[YoYo]

F7F-3 and F7F-3N are beautiful! Big progress and very good work!
Cant wait!

[LE151]

Sweet!!!!!!!!!!

[Kiwikat]

Very briefly coming out of retirement to say thank you for all your work on this one. Been looking forward to her for a long time. Outstanding Job!



Back into the shadows I go!

[ejoiner]

That's my KRNO project big guy...part of my black ops projects. Here are a couple of shots of the project under construction. I'll be modeling the entire ANG base as well as all of the airport buildings, casinos and landmarks. There are four other airports in the works and I'm looking seriously at Reno Stead.

Those should be "Hercs" on ready station, but the AI traffic put in the transports. The release version will have custom AI.

Reno ANG & Main Terminal WIP

Man, soooo pumped to see this beauty. I love the F7F-1 but this 2 seater is the cats ass. Cannot wait for that one. Beautiful! Hopefully a soon release.

Eric

[jankees]

that two seater looks indeed fantastic!

Meanwhile, what if the army air forces would have liked the -1 version?

[WND]

that two seater looks indeed fantastic!

Meanwhile, what if the army air forces would have liked the -1 version?

Jankees:

That I LIKE !!!

Is there a possiblity of that 'skin' being available for us who have the -1 ??

Bill

[gman5250]

Update:

The F7F-3 package is almost complete. I've been working on the historical data, getting the details correct.
The paint kit will release with the set and will cover all of the variants. Hang on Jan Kees....almost there.

I'll release La Patrona as a separate package since this plane is basically ready to go.

Some pics while I punch out the last details.

[NAVY DOC]

Really looking forward to the -3.
Looks amazing.

Thanks,
Doc

[jankees]

Update:

The paint kit will release with the set and will cover all of the variants. Hang on Jan Kees....almost there.

no worries, I'm in the field anyway this weekend. Next weekend though...

Is there a possiblity of that 'skin' being available for us who have the -1 ??

I'll wait with the 'USAAF' paintjob until the paintkit is released.

Gman, have a look at the tail of La Patrona though, it looks as if the R and L are different sizes?

[TuFun]

[roger-wilco-66]

This is an awesome job, GMAN. Also, the scenery look top notch. This thread is a joy just for looking at all these great screenshots. Thanks for sharing all this!


Cheers,
Mark

[gman5250]

Thank you, Mark, for your compliment. It is comments like this, and the many above, that bolster my enthusiasm even when encountering the occasional rough patch.
Scenery design, and now aircraft development, are a full time commitment for me and I must admit to being on a bit of a "Vision Quest" to explore the possibilities of all.

Thanks, TF, for the video. Awesome as always sir.

Update and a tiny rant:

I will preface this commentary by acknowledging that I take full responsibility for decisions regarding upgrading software, especially as it applies to Microsoft. I am no fan of Bill Gates, nor his OS, but we are all at more or less of a disadvantage when considering alternatives. I upgraded to Win 10 primarily to take advantage of DX12 and my Nvidia drivers. The improvements in the graphics are significant, however there are drawbacks.

Having established this premise, I live with my decisions and am accountable for the outcome.

As Win10 is still fundamentally a beta, the various quirks and failures associated with beta testing have become a constant source of various annoyances and one catastrophic failure. Ten days ago I had an update that hit my computer like a raging bull. I was standing away from the computer when it did a basic hard crash which I later attributed to an upgrade that came in just prior to the crash.

Note: McAfee suite and firewall are up do date, although Win10 has a penchant for disabling the firewall while going about it's tweaks after which I am required to re-instate the McAfee firewall via the console.

When I booted back in, my monitor had defaulted back to TV mode requiring that I physically direct it back to the PC. Upon booting back in to the PC, my system was in full meltdown. Prepar3D was utterly eviscerated, my desktop was a shambles and my cursor was randomly moving about the screen dropping files into other files without my touching the mouse. I shut the system down via holding the start key for five seconds, as the mouse was inoperable.

Upon booting back, the screen went black for a few minutes (typical of a Win10 upgrade installing itself) then went to a black screen filled with multi colored noise with an overlay of white random oblong checkers. After an eternity, the system booted to the welcome screen.

BTW, I still get this pattern every second or third time I boot into Windows 10, usually following an update. Note: Nvidia drivers are up to date.

Digital photo of screen on boot
[IMG]http://i864.photobucket.com/albums/ab202/********/Odd_2_zpsarafrtjq.jpg[/IMG]


Chapter 2:

After retrieving the scattered files, I spent the next four days attempting to re-install P3D after downloading the most current rev., each day resulting in P3D crash on boot, usually at the end of the long list of peripherals installations. As a force of habit I always boot the sim after installing each peripheral.

On the fifth day I got a clean install.

During the same period, when attempting to use GMAX I discovered that a number of the menu buttons i.e. material navigator are now corrupt, even after a clean GMAX re-install. As a final deal breaker, I found that six different .gmax aircraft files for the F7F-3 variants were now missing various parts, which required a massive re-do of work that has been done for quite some time.

After completing all of the repairs, and checking the repaired aircraft for correct function, I then began to encounter some bizarre anomalies of models rendering in the most impossible ways. The attached is not Bravo Sierra nor a joke. The second day into my successful P3D v2.5 re-install, my F7F-3 aircraft displayed as below when I booted into the sim in the morning. They had been fine the night before.

I had to go back and re-export all six models to correct the anomaly. Bear in mind, these are autonomous files, not linked to each other in any way.

One for the books...
[IMG]http://i864.photobucket.com/albums/ab202/********/Odd_zpspvgotc5p.jpg[/IMG]

Finishing the rant, this OS schizophrenia been a relative constant since I upgraded to Win10. The OS upgrades randomly during the day with no regard to work in progress, often destroying or corrupting files open at the time the upgrade comes in.

Summary:

All of this said, I've got the six F7F-3 variants nearly finalized with only small bitmap details to add. I've revamped the exterior model and cockpit as per USN Paint and Markings Directives applicable to the service years of the variants. This means the cockpit is a lovely black and chromate green, with green lower and black from the panel bottom upwards. The wheel bay colors and other details will also be correct to the period.

I must apologize for being "down the rabbit hole" but this last bout with the OS required many, many hours of repair and recovery. This also accounts for my lack of presence on this blog.

For those considering Win10, I would recommend possibly waiting for the platform to stabilize before jumping in, but my recent screen caps (prior to this post) attest to the superior graphics rendering....when the OS is not running off the cliff like a panic stricken Ferret.

Sorry for the rant, but I felt the need to vent and to possibly save any of our members from enduring repeated bouts of MS induced Tourette.

Gman...

[Sundog]

Bummer GMan. And thanks for the heads up as well. I'm glad I got this old box running again (Thanks to the great help of SOH'ers). I'll hold off on moving to Win10 until MS gets enough nasty letters to fix it.

I'm looking forward to the -3's. Thanks for all of your hard work in getting these native.

[gman5250]

no worries, I'm in the field anyway this weekend. Next weekend though...



I'll wait with the 'USAAF' paintjob until the paintkit is released.

Gman, have a look at the tail of La Patrona though, it looks as if the R and L are different sizes?

That's a weird angle on the screen cap, but I checked those tail letters...they're good. Good eye...

[harrybasset]

Thank you for sharing your experiences with Windows 10. I was excited when it was first brought to my attention by MS offering the free upgrade. It played on my emotions as a Yorkshire man, free, that's our price range but we are suspicious of new things so I held off. I suspected anyone who grabbed the offer might be an unwitting beta tester and you have confirmed it. I am blown away with your Tigercat and happy with it in Acceleration and Windows 7, eagerly awaiting your F7F-3N. Thank you for all your work with the Tigercat.

[stansdds]

This is why I fear updates. With XP I know longer have to worry, but my laptop has Vista and an update to Windows a few months ago introduced a bunch of quirks in how it operates... or often does not operate. And Gman is correct, Windows 10 is not a mature product, it seems to have been released as a beta product and the world's users are now the beta testers.

[huub vink]

Oops Gordon, that doesn't sound very good. Sorry to hear you had to do all this extra work on the models and keep my fingers crossed that it will work fine soon.

I share your opinion about Windows and went from version 7 to 10 a few weeks ago. Apart from some minor issues in the beginning it all works fine, although there are a few things which are incompatible. Especially with application/games which ask for a CD.

I use a Nvidea GeForce graphic card as well, and although not supported by any evidence, I have the feeling that there are more issues with running a Nvidea card under Win10 than for instance a Radeon card.

Cheers,
Huub

[dharris]

I ran win 10 beta for the last 5 months on a backup pc, and while it worked alright I saw no real benefit to go there from win7 64 bit. Fsx has never run better for me on 7, and it is very stable. Started about a month ago with a couple of win 10 updates, things had changed a little and decided to give 10 up. I don't use touch screen and I don't want tiles on my screen extolling the virtues of all the things I can by, but the last straw was a tile of mylye cyrus twerrking as a link to her latest videos. Had to reformat to get rid of 10 as there is no way to return to prior operating system. I am back on 7 again on back up system and 7 will remain even after MS no longer gives out updates. I don't see any reason to change os just to have latest when 7 is working so well, have two full install cd's for win 7 so am good to go. Followed the info on removing win upgrades in the win update we get an have program installed to not let them work in the registry. YMMV but for me, win 7 64 bit works to well to be a beta testor for ms.

[George Kuhn]

I installed the F7F-1 Tigercat FSX/P3D in my FSX.

I have a couple questions. I installed the plane today as per the install instructions. For some reason I'm seeing two acft configs. They show as Aircraft and Aircraft.cfg. Which one should I be using?. Maybe both configs should be there. Hmm.

I did fly it. I noticed the sound pack in it, doesn't sound like the one I heard in the short video earlier in this topic, which has a real throaty sound so to speak. Where is/can I get the sound pack, to replace the one I currently have when I installed the plane?. The download didn't give me optional sound packs to choose from?.

THX

George