Su-17M4 (SU-22) Full Fidelity Research for Dev Started

Ask Cubanace. I think he has a good model for Su-17. Maybe you can do good team

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=248221

You must create a team

Update:

I took a step back. Was not happy with my 3d modeling on the P-47 tutorial, so I started doing another plane as a learning excerise. I learned a lot, but will need a week or 2 to be able to learn how to design details.

So far I learned how to make the model much smoother and how to make movable parts, and I have a better overall understanding of 3d Max.

Here is where I am with the Acro Sport:

Maybe in the end this will become a how to thread and I will be able to post how I did it step by step.

I want to get to this level of details:

Update:

 

I took a step back. Was not happy with my 3d modeling on the P-47 tutorial, so I started doing another plane as a learning excerise. I learned a lot, but will need a week or 2 to be able to learn how to design details.

 

So far I learned how to make the model much smoother and how to make movable parts, and I have a better overall understanding of 3d Max.

 

Maybe in the end this will become a how to thread and I will be able to post how I did it step by step.

Hey man, like was mentioned above, you should get in touch with this guy:

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=248221

He's also looking to make a Su-17M4 and has some good experience with 3D modeling this plane.

For the lovers of the aircraft, I found some kind of access to SU-17M4. Here are few pics:

2nd pic is not an Su-17 at all, but MiG-23/27

2nd pic is not an Su-17 at all, but MiG-23/27

Sorry about that. I was tired last night. That was of MIG23.

It's absolutely fine, we all make mistakes. Only wanted to point that out :).

Apparently when the M4 carries four SPPU22 pods the two under the fuselage can be configured to fire backwards.

Sukhoi says it definitely supports Archers, also Kh23 and Kh25ML and tactical nukes. Exports can use R13M or R60M, most attack pilots would be familiar with the R60. Some countries put R13M on their Su22 and use them as fighter-interceptors, generally the same places that only got export-detuned MiG23MS and MiG21bis available so they're stuck with CWC fire control and R13M anyway and the Su22 performs as well as contemporary fighters at all altitudes. Several aerial challenges early in the middle east conflict region towards US carrier aircraft were by fighter-configured local area Su22. The M3 export even had the R29 Tumansky from the MiG23M VVS version, with the water injection so it's a pure fighter engine with extra climb power, but the regular Saturn-Lyulka is probably more efficient and barely a shade less powerful, it's a Mach 2 package with either engine. The cliff notes for what I just said is the Su22M3 seen in the ME performed a lot better than the MiG23MS they had at the time, the export MiG had a detuned engine and the Sukhoi used the same engine as the VVS MiG23 version, it's like 20% power difference on the burner.

The basic MiG29 wasn't a terrible burden on Russian industry to produce to replace MiG23, the Su27 far more complicated and expensive, however replacing the Su17 particularly in naval aviation regiments with the newer model strike aircraft would be far more protracted so Caucasus mission building set in the 90s should definitely see these aircraft around, especially being operated by naval aviation so more immediately on hand near neighbours than frontal aviation MiG27/29 and Su24. For example, in 1991 there were about 4000 Su17 in service with frontal aviation and 19 with naval aviation, during the next ten years virtually all of them went second echelon, training groups, naval aviation, export markets and scrapping. Apparently naval aviation absorbed quite a few and considering the economy until just recently undoubtedly found them hard to replace.

Vanir, Thanks for the info. I am interested in those 2 things from you:

1. SPPU22 pod installed backwards.

2. "Sukhoi says it definitely supports Archers"

Do you have pictures maybe of SPPU22 backwards or Archers strapped anywhere on Fitters? Would love to have them.

The Fitter was the ultimate RED ground pounder aircraft from 70's to 2000's (and more). Each country had their own "upgrades". There is so much wrong data out there about Fitters, because of all those versions and upgrades. If I ever do the module I will choose a specific model and stick with the original versions.

I would need to see pictures of everything, otherwise in general I don't trust the online info. For example there were never 4,000 Su17s in "naval aviation" as total produced Su17s was 2,867.

Update:

My "step back" is finished. I completed Acro Sport 1 as much as I wanted it. I learned a lot. Still missing tons of info on modeling as I self thought myself 3ds Max. Now I need to research theory behind best practices for modeling.

There is 1 thing that gives me hard time in 3ds Max. I think it is called Proportional Editing, or Organic modeling. It has to do with rounded surfaces. I did my work vert by vert. That obviously is not going to work. I saw something in Blender called Proportional Editing. Now I'm hoping something like that exists in 3ds Max. As that is the hardest part about modeling. You have to Eye Ball the rounded parts, and you somehow have to get the curves correct on those shapes/objects. That to me is difficult.

On Su-17 existing models:

There are Su-17 models out there for purchase, but I was not impressed with the level of detail on those models. I also collected few Su-17 plans and it seems lots of shapes and parts is Eye Balled. It should be good enough for DCS, but there's got to be a better way to duplicate the aircraft.

So the next week I'm going to devote to researching the best way to model, learn few things I'm missing, find out best approaches, and then tackle Su-17.

Here is my Acro Sport 1 model. It has many mistakes, so I'm glad I did him first. If I spent 1 more week on this guy I would get him to Christen Eagle II level type of detail. My Acro Sport plans called for much simpler shapes than in reality, but the model is close enough and updatabale if I want to one day. In case you are wondering all moving parts like tail, tail wheel, ailerons, and etc of the aircraft move around their pivots.

...and here is my Sections pic from Max:

Ask Cubanace. I think he has a good model for Su-17. Maybe you can do good team

Thanks everyone for info, I will talk to him, I really like how open he is with sharing his info. I already have his documents printed out and I'm reading through his paper.

Maya does everything with splines & the mesh is a skin over that- you can certainly do that in Max too, but it's not how it was built originally ( and I hate editing splines in Max ). There are as ever 20 different ways of doing the same thing in any Autodesk tool...

Not sure about this engine, but in general these days worries about pure poly count are *very* much diminished, so don't be afraid of going what seems to be crazy. I'm a bit more worried about large textures with this rendering engine.

Good luck with the Su-17, it's been on my wishlist a long time.

This high performance pitts special is much more famous.

Update:

After 7 days of restoring plans for Su-17 and figuring out 3ds Max, I roughly loaded the sections into the tool. I will write more about the plans tomorrow. Just sharing few pictures and a cool thing I invented.

It turns out there is no real way to insert blueprints into 3ds Max and make them scale up to real world measurements. Every tutorial or advice suggest to load them by pixel sizes and scale up the blueprints to some kind of box/rectangle with a given length. That is the most idiotic thing I have every seen in software maybe since the 90's. The second I saw people put in pixels into x and y I knew there's got to be a better way. I invented the way using pure ruler and mathematics. I will do a video on that one as I'm sure it will help a lot of people.

Anyway attached are few rough photos, this is not final, but enough for today. My rant on plans will probably be bigger as that gave me really hard time:)

...and here is the beauty, this one is my own creation:

Shape coming out the way I wanted it. Not gonna lie, it is going slow for now as I'm learning the tool. Some simple stuff takes me hours to figure out, but I noticed I'm getting faster at it. It seems in 3ds Max the more simplistic I am the better it comes out. Not sure if that's how it works, but that's how I'm keeping it for now.

Looking good.

Well, looks promising like every other project I've seen. Not many of them managed to see the daylight. Anyways, good luck with it!

OK, I did the tail, RWR, ECM, Tailcone, and Transponder, but I can't figure out what that probe is at the end. Anyone know?

some kind of drainage i think

Cool. Btw, those are good pics, do you have more?

You can set plans to a viewport background or several other ways too. In the end any plans you put in like that are going to be a guide & you'll want to make accurate measurements across the model itself anyway, so whatever works, works.

Nice start!

Cool. Btw, those are good pics, do you have more?

Sending you PM

Struggling with organic modeling the RWR section. Converting from M3 to M4 took me all day to get to this point. This is first time where I had to do some organic stuff. I had a feeling it won't be easy to eye ball those angels.

Hopefully will finish this tomorrow.

I need for find a woman or visit Growling Sidewinder to put my worries to rest for now.