Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Snipe Progress........

I had hoped to have the Sopwith Snipe finished before surgery which is now scheduled for next week but illness caused by the after affects of radiation therapy combined with infection I've only had a small amount time to work on it. Model wise I've got to animate the steerable tail skid and add a couple of control wires and animate the pilot who's originally from the Biff and set up for that. The F2B Mk.1 had the throttle on the right while most other British aircraft including the Snipe have the throttle on the left and thus have to reanimate the pilot's arms which are boned. I also have to tidy up the intermediate model of the Bentley engine, consider doing a couple of LODs for MP, create some individual skins, work on the flight model and I would like to create a sound set. I also have to decide on cockpit lighting.

I was banging my head with the flight model as I could not obtain the correct airspeed then I realised the published data for the Snipe's performance was based in true air speed (TAS) rather than indicated air speed (IAS), which the ASI is on the Snipe. A quick search and check at The Aerodrome forums verified that published data on most WW1 aircraft performance was TAS. Thus the sim performance of the Snipe is pretty close after all. :)

I was considering rushing out a preview version of the Snipe as is, without a custom sound set and perhaps just one skin, but given the short time until surgery and all the organising I have to do I won't have the time. There's a slight possibility that surgery may be delayed to check out cardiac matters but I wouln't count on it.

So if I don't post again by Monday 17 November I'll probably be out of action for a few weeks at least.

cheers

Rob