Zephyr Net

One of the simplest and ugliest shapes that remained unchanged from the first generation USNF'94 until the release of the last FA compilation in 1998 is definitely SU-27.


On the other hand, one of the most modern shape is just its modernized model SU-35 with canards.


Back in 2004, Hotfrog made its first ever attempt at shape modification:
https://jkpeterson.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1048
He just redesigned the SU-35 to SU-27 by removing the canards and then modifying the relevant parts of the aircraft. He did make his modified shape SU30MKK.LIB publicly available, but it's lost somewhere in the mists of time. The method and procedure of editing was also never made public.
CAG Hotshot, based on Hotfrog's research, further refined this conversion, but apart from two images of the resulting shape with SU-27 and SU-30, never released it publicly.

New BETA version:
After 20 years since this event, let me open the doors of my Hangar 18 and present you my prototype with the designation 'SU27Bv06a4b2a_S011P014 - Final BETA.SH'.
Only the main close subshape (LOD0) is modified. There are no modified subshapes (LODs) of distant views and no damage shapes.



Shape modification includes:
These are mainly changes of vertex coordinates, changes of vertex numbers in individual faces (polygons), mainly due to the need to relocate vertexes containing vertex normals.
Recalculation of centroids and normals of all edited faces.
Recalculation vertexes normals and changing their colors (for Gouraud shading).
Change colors and properties of individual faces.
Changing the coordinates of the texture segments and of course a completely new (bigger) bitmap texture '_SU35B.PIC' in the original (low) resolution of the game. Etc...

The changes are:
Polygons (faces) related to the smoothing of the wing leading edge root connections to the fuselage.
For this modification I used vertices and faces from removed canards and other unnecessary (defective) polygons from the fuselage.
Modifications to the shape of the front fuselage and cockpit (mainly correcting the bad longitudinal symmetry of the original).
Modifications to the shape of the right wing (again correcting the bad symmetry of the original).
Modifications to the horizontal and vertical tail surfaces to match the SU-27 design.
Repositioning and modification of the airbrake shield shape.
A few minor adjustments to the original shape.

Note:
All other visible shape imperfections are part of the original shape SU35B.SH. I did not edit this large number of defects because with each additional polygon (face) edited, the probability of a CTD increases.

Known issues:
Unfortunately, after a really very long series of trial-and-error adjustments, I made a fatal error somewhere in the model that still causes CTD, and I can't find it (I assume miscalculated normals and residuals or centroids of the edited faces).
Anyway, as long as you avoid such very action-packed views over the nose of the aircraft, you can circle the camera around this BETA model for quite a long time without any problems.



OLD SU-27_S011P014 - Final BETA RELEASE:

Download:
Extract these 3 files to your game folder, click on Create Quick Mission and select 'Su-35 (Forest)s'.
SU-27_S011P014 - Final BETA.zip https://mega.nz/file/kMUFiAoL#YFZddL6mMQFu8JKUhXCTZM5gMcps5CLCaVZDdgbox-A
'NO_ART.LIB' will cause all roundels, nose-art and tail-art to be turned off for an unobstructed visual experience.

By comparing these two YAML files, for example in Total Commander, you can see the extent of the modifications made in the new shape file 'SU-27_S011P014.SH.yaml' compared to the original 'SU35B_ORG.SH.yaml':
SU-27_S011P014.SH.yaml https://mega.nz/file/MI0VETRI#GLle3V_oxy1C9tqcGlGI5DqaNbrbd6YjWwt0aItzK9s
SU35B_ORG.SH.yaml https://mega.nz/file/YQtCnYZT#eu2QvXyDPvwU71MK7SmZN9WLXhxIO9Xi1mD_3KsTM7c

NEW CORRECTED - SU-27_S014P014 - Final LOD1 RC1 RELEASE:

After I finally correctly determined the values of the normals (view angles) in the face (polygon) line, I revised the SU-27 shape.
By the way, during this revision I also found one faulty place and I corrected it subsequently (a minor vertex misalignment in the place of the last edits).
You will not notice these changes on the final model, but the coding of the model will be technically correct.
So, I am releasing the final version (RC1) of SU-27 for the main (near) LOD0.

Download:
Extract these 3 files to your game folder, click on Create Quick Mission and select 'Su-35 (Forest)s'.
SU-27_S014P014 - Final LOD1 RC1.zip https://mega.nz/file/1UEV3IRS#5qS2BY_NPwejKFXBIZbaJyxjcuHnOmcoxOSbBrBX6dw
'NO_ART.LIB' will cause all roundels, nose-art and tail-art to be turned off for an unobstructed visual experience.

By comparing these two YAML files, for example in Total Commander, you can see the extent of the modifications made in the new shape file 'SU-27_S014P014.SH.yaml' compared to the original 'SU35B_ORG.SH.yaml':
SU-27_S014P014.SH.yaml https://mega.nz/file/xBtB3YDJ#W44lo4mItkQZ9LNgnARJ_E6QDvHkrf9LD_c2N0L5p28
SU35B_ORG.SH.yaml https://mega.nz/file/YQtCnYZT#eu2QvXyDPvwU71MK7SmZN9WLXhxIO9Xi1mD_3KsTM7c

Known issues:
After this final 'faces normals' correction, I wanted to see if CTD still occurs in the near frontal view.
Nothing has changed, still CTD.
In the end I deleted the modified SU-27 and used the original SU35B with the original texture.
I set the same close frontal / lower rear view and... instant CTD as well.
That means the bug is already in the original SU35B.SH shape included in the FA installation.

These two views in most cases lead to CTD for both the original and the new shape:




Conclusion -> The new SU-27 without canards is as (un)stable as the original SU-35 with canards.

With this, I consider the whole rebuild successfully resolved and all my editing procedures are technically correct.

Enjoy…
Plurry from Hangar 18

I built one of these after breaking the color code on the original Su-35 shape and removing the canards… I think I did that back in 2005 or 2006? But I think yours looks really nice. The skin is equally nice… I don't think I reshaped any other any other part though like you did. Nice work!!

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UPDATE: I just took a look at mine and yes yours is a much better shape! All I did was recolor it and remove the canards and add a new skin… Your blending of the shape to the wings to fill in where the removal of the canards left a straight line really improves the look! I definitely like yours a lot more than my original crude creation! It was one of my first shape edits I did before I knew much about the shapes. Did you edit the 2 other distance LODs of the shape and the crash shapes?

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No, it was back in the spring of 2004 viewtopic.php?p=12073#p12073 and for the time, it looked pretty damn good.
Yes, I also think it was pretty good. Thanks for your compliment, I appreciate you very much for your contribution and it means a lot to me.
After my previous failures, I didn't initially hope it would work at all.
After testing minor modifications, on much simpler shapes (bombs, missiles), I was full of hope, but for complex shapes like planes, these modifications just didn't work.
There are some extra 'internal nested offsets' embedded in there, which, unfortunately, Terrence and I still haven't discovered.
I had to invent and use a completely different, much less progressive method.
I was expecting it to fail anyway.
So originally I was just going to remove the canards, smooth the wing root connection and be done with it.

However, when it was all up and running, I tried to get on with it.
Fixed other parts of the shape and also many of the original bugs.
But this is where I hit a hard roadblock. The first serious CTDs came in, so I quickly backed out.
Shape as a whole, is still very unexplored.
The modified shape with the original skin didn't look very progressive, so I finally decided to go with the new skin as well, just to make it hit the eyes.
Of course I wanted to impress you and Eagle114th ('Flowing Dragon' on Discord).
I have experience with creating new skins for other games, but even so, the new skin turned out much better than I expected.
Anyway, modifying the PIC skin and the new segment unwrapping in SH took almost as long as modifying the shape, mainly because the shape still doesn't match the original SU-27 design.
Too many compromises had to be made and I also broke my basic rule - perfect shape first and then work on the skin.
Yes, that was the main purpose of the whole rebuilding. Not only to remove the canards, but to create the transition from their unused polygons.
In the end, it was much more complicated than I originally anticipated.
All the mistakes and imperfections of the original shape helped me a lot.
Because when I removed them, I was left with a lot of free, leftover vertices and polygons that I could further recycle for the transition.
No, unfortunately not - it was originally meant to be a one-off experiment.
The remote shape LODs and damage models are just a routine repetition of all of the above. Just an awful lot of work.
Maybe Cent and Raptor can convince me to finish the plane so they can include it in the collection.

But I'd rather try to tackle all the unexplored parts of the shape instead.
So that at each stage of the modification we really know what we're doing - just have it under control.
At the current stage, I'm only estimating certain values, and when my estimate is wrong, CTD occurs.

Of course the goal of FAF Stage2 is to port the FA shape display engine to the current LOD/JPG/TGA standard, but that's still out of our reach.
My wish was to finish Stage1 with a full understanding of the SH/PIC format and here, with your valuable experience, you could help a lot.

I am ready to explain to you and Eagle114th my process and everything I know about the SH format.

Terrence can help with the programming stuff - I personally think he's quite knowledgeable.

I look forward to that, but I have been working with editing the shapes for 20 years now. I have forgotten more than I know now! lol… I have unraveled part of the visibility angles of the polygons as well as the skin layouts and how to compress larger skins onto the shape to increase detailing as well as gear shape and location and all distance LODs of the shape. And the crash shapes as well. Have you seen my P-3C Orion? That is probably the most detailed shape I have completed. You should fly my F-16XL if I can get the lib to Raptor thru email. Its been stripped from the email for some reason but I will try again tonight…

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FA Futures/FA-2 is Still Being Worked On and Will Be Released...

Finally gave the new Su-27 shape/texture a test run in default. After a few dogfights and lots of external views, I experienced no CTDs nor other anamolies. Appears to be very stable.

It looks incredible!!

Good work.

Thank you very much!

Anyway, try that look and you've got instant CTD.


Now that I've finally properly researched 'face normals', I'll try recalculating them again and see how it goes.

NEW CORRECTED - SU-27_S014P014 - Final LOD1 RC1 RELEASE:

After I finally correctly determined the values of the normals (view angles) in the face (polygon) line, I revised the SU-27 shape.
By the way, during this revision I also found one faulty place and I corrected it subsequently (a minor vertex misalignment in the place of the last edits).
You will not notice these changes on the final model, but the coding of the model will be technically correct.
So, I am releasing the final version (RC1) of SU-27 for the main (near) LOD0.

Download:
Extract these 3 files to your game folder, click on Create Quick Mission and select 'Su-35 (Forest)s'.
SU-27_S014P014 - Final LOD1 RC1.zip https://mega.nz/file/1UEV3IRS#5qS2BY_NPwejKFXBIZbaJyxjcuHnOmcoxOSbBrBX6dw
'NO_ART.LIB' will cause all roundels, nose-art and tail-art to be turned off for an unobstructed visual experience.

By comparing these two YAML files, for example in Total Commander, you can see the extent of the modifications made in the new shape file 'SU-27_S014P014.SH.yaml' compared to the original 'SU35B_ORG.SH.yaml':
SU-27_S014P014.SH.yaml https://mega.nz/file/xBtB3YDJ#W44lo4mItkQZ9LNgnARJ_E6QDvHkrf9LD_c2N0L5p28
SU35B_ORG.SH.yaml https://mega.nz/file/YQtCnYZT#eu2QvXyDPvwU71MK7SmZN9WLXhxIO9Xi1mD_3KsTM7c

Known issues:
After this final 'faces normals' correction, I wanted to see if CTD still occurs in the near frontal view.
Nothing has changed, still CTD.
In the end I deleted the modified SU-27 and used the original SU35B with the original texture.
I set the same close frontal / lower rear view and... instant CTD as well.
That means the bug is already in the original SU35B.SH shape included in the FA installation.

These two views in most cases lead to CTD for both the original and the new shape:




Conclusion -> The new SU-27 without canards is as (un)stable as the original SU-35 with canards.

With this, I consider the whole rebuild successfully resolved and all my editing procedures are technically correct.

I think the detailed MiG-29 shape also CTDs when viewing from the nose… I think its a gap in one or mire of the polygons allowing a “see thru” issue the the graphics engine cant render and causes the CTD…

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FAF/FA-2 Design team
TSH Member/Developer
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FA Futures/FA-2 is Still Being Worked On and Will Be Released...

There are a lot of bugs in complex and quite simple original shapes. Maybe the worst are the various see-through holes in the shape.
It would take months just to correct those errors. That's why the game developers themselves never fixed it.

Yes, I'm pretty sure that most of the original FA shapes, cause CTD on really close external views.

That's what caused your confrontation with the 'Jimbo' tester:
https://jkpeterson.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=12086#p12086
https://jkpeterson.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=12140#p12140

I agree… Seems they were most interested in cobbling the libs together they best they could, along with as fast as they could, to release a sim to get funds rolling in…. Anything that caused a slowdown was sinply deleted or ignored.

And Jimbo and I didbt really have any conflict he just liked to poke the bear whenever he could. Also I found a totally different solution for removing polygons that didn't create, (Or contribute to existing CTD Issues) CTDs during my early days of editing and testing new shapes…

And I have to admit I had totally forgotten about those forum conversations…They occurred 20 long years ago!

_________________
Hotshot
"FAF Shape Meister"
FAF/FA-2 Design team
TSH Member/Developer
VNFAWING.com Forum Administrator

VNFAWING Forums
VNFAWING Website

FA Futures/FA-2 is Still Being Worked On and Will Be Released...