3D aircraft scans?

[nick10]

Hi. I was wondering if there was any thoughts on the viability of 3D aircraft scans to import new models into the game? Might this be possible?

 

 

[Silver_Dragon]

10 minutes ago, nick10 said:

Hi. I was wondering if there was any thoughts on the viability of 3D aircraft scans to import new models into the game? Might this be possible?

 

 

 

3D scan has been used by ED and 3rd parties (RAZBAM, Heatblur, etc) to build modules and AI 3D models on DCS, with external and internal cockpits. Meanwhile, the 3D model need export to 3DS Max, and making animations, damage models, arguments, textures and others to export by EDM plubin tools and build associate lua files.

Edited April 6, 2021 by Silver_Dragon

[Черный Дракул]

5 minutes ago, nick10 said:

any thoughts on the viability of 3D aircraft scans to import new models into the game? Might this be possible?

Directly -- obviously, no. The polygon count is way too high for anything game-wise. 

Such scans can be used to help 3D artist with topology, so instead of creating forms, he would draw the required poligons over them in a process called retopology:

Also, these can be used to generate normal maps texture for the model with great detail. 

[nick10]

40 minutes ago, Silver_Dragon said:

 

3D scan has been used by ED and 3rd parties (RAZBAM, Heatblur, etc) to build modules and AI 3D models on DCS, with external and internal cockpits. Meanwhile, the 3D model need export to 3DS Max, and making animations, damage models, arguments, textures and others to export by EDM plubin tools and build associate lua files.

 

Thanks for the reply. I guess I had this idea it might radically speed up the process of importing aircraft

[Dragon1-1]

It can - that's why every developer is already using it wherever possible. It's a lot of work to turn a laser-scanned mesh into a useable 3D model for the sim, but the technology is used quite heavily, because it sure beats doing everything by hand. Racing sims have even been doing that to the landscape, scanning real racetracks to recreate every little quirk of the road surface. 3D models these days are all either laser-scanned or made using photogrammetry, then cleaned up and configured for the sim. It's not models that are holding up module development, but systems programming.

[Tank50us]

On 4/11/2021 at 10:21 AM, Dragon1-1 said:

It can - that's why every developer is already using it wherever possible. It's a lot of work to turn a laser-scanned mesh into a useable 3D model for the sim, but the technology is used quite heavily, because it sure beats doing everything by hand. Racing sims have even been doing that to the landscape, scanning real racetracks to recreate every little quirk of the road surface. 3D models these days are all either laser-scanned or made using photogrammetry, then cleaned up and configured for the sim. It's not models that are holding up module development, but systems programming.

 

The catch of course is getting the scans in the first place. While larger companies are perfectly fine with getting the required access, smaller companies may not be so lucky. TheChieftain talked about it in a speech once as he ran into that issue back when WG was still relatively unknown. These days they practically have the run of the place when it comes to getting scans and measurements. That's not to say it's impossible though, if you know someone's that really skilled with assembling model kits you can get the scan that way, just on a much smaller scale that you'll need to blow up to the correct size.

[Dragon1-1]

Well, if you're doing a modern jet, then sure, but for most older ones, you can usually find a museum that has one. I'm not saying every museum will jump at the chance to let you laser-scan their inventory, but I'd guess most museum people I've met would be open to that sort of thing. That's why they're exhibiting them, after all. There are also other institutions dedicated entirely to researching historical artifacts, even if you can't get access to a museum as a game dev, you can try to bring a university historian onboard and he/she should be able to handle it.

 

Models aren't really the limiting factor, which is why you see devs post pretty pictures and build up the hype years before the module gets released.