Aircraft shadows............

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day all,How is the aircraft shadow made? I have an aircraft currently using the default Cessna shadow and I wish to make a unique shadow of it's own.I thought it might be done in the Fly! editor but can't see any referrence to shadow production.Cheers, Roger

[Guest danieletona]

Hi Roger,the aircraft shadow is the same model with a completely black texture. You eliminate from the model the particular ones, the cockpit etc. Practically you leave the external profile of the model.Dan

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day Dan,Well I never would have thought of that. :-)Thanks very much for the info. I'll give it a try tonight and see what I come up with. I'll get back and let you know how I go,Many thanks,Roger

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day Dan,Wow that was much quicker than I anticipated. Worked first time!The Jabiru has now figuratively and literally come out of the shadow of the default Cessna. :-lolJust a little pic.Many, many thanks.Cheers,Roger

[Guest danieletona]

Very well, Roger.Thanks to you for your beautiful job.Dan

[flyfisher 0]

Roger,Excellent.How is it that the shadow changes position and shape as the position of the sun changes?

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day Flyfisher,>How is it that the shadow changes position and shape as the>position of the sun changes?You're asking me ? :-lolI guess it's all hard coded in Fly! All I did is what Dan said.1. Loaded the model into truespace, removed all non-exterior parts from the model (seats, joystick, instrument panel etc)2. retextured the complete model pure black ( 0,0,0 ). 3. Then I used the truespace converter to get an s3d file for the model.4. Loaded the s3d into the Keyframe editor and saved the acm file as Jabshad.acm into the models folder. The editor automatically saved the texture file jabshad.tif into the art folder. 5. The last step was to declare the Jabshad.acm in the *.LOD file.In essence the shadow is a "special" model to Fly! II engine. In fact it is totally separate to the aircraft. The shadow flight controls move with joystick input just as the models do.It is this non-exclusive connectivity between aircraft and shadow that allows the use of any aircraft (eg. Cessna) shadow with other aircraft models. I have always assumed some form of "ray tracing" may be involved to produce the shadow shape but that is only a guess. AND I'm a terrible guesser - :-lolCheers,Roger