COCKPIT MODELLING

This section of the tutorial covers how to model, texture and animate the different parts of the aircraft cockpit (and, where appropriate, the interior cabin, which is usually part of the cockpit mesh). Before going any further, please read over the following notes that have been designed to help you correctly create the interior models of the cockpits of your aircraft:

  • All dials and switches that function in the real aircraft should function in the model and be separate mesh objects, and be based accurately on the Visual References.
  • There is a specific material for the windshield glass interior (which is included in the SDK as part of the 3DS Max integration) and this is what should be applied to an interior windshield glass object with inward facing normals. See the section on the Interior Windshield, below, for more information.
  • Clear plastic/glass can be used over dials, switches, etc... (using the Windshield material).
  • All meshes should be "watertight" to avoid light ingress.
  • If the cabin is not modeled then the cabin door should be shut so no gaps are visible.
  • It should be assumed that the camera can freely look around the cockpit, therefore there should be no areas of the cockpit that have missing details or lack of details.
  • Edges in cockpit models need to be modeled with a bit of a margin (i.e. overlapping with neighbouring edges), due to the anti-aliasing that is done by the engine. This will prevent any issues with "white lines" or suchlike appearing as the camera moves around or zooms in/out.

  • Do not use helper objects for dials and switches, you should animate the mesh using local pivots wherever possible. Using helpers will only double the node count unnecessarily.

 

The following pages cover specific details related to the cockpit creation: