Third-party developers have provided plenty of new goodies today, showing off upcoming add-ons for Microsoft Flight Simulator.
First of all, Military Visualizations (Milviz) just released the first look at its upcoming SR-71 Blackbird. It’s a single image, but considering how unique the aircraft is, it’s certainly great to see.
I certainly can’t wait to fly at over Mach 3 with this record-holding beauty. The screenshot was shared on the developer’s Discord Server.
Next is a gallery of SC Designs’ F-16C Fighting Falcon, alongside a development update.
“I’ve been working this week on the F-16’s undercarriage, which has quite a complex general assembly and retraction cycle. It’s important to get this area right early on, as an identical assembly is shared on the F-16D variant, so getting one right means getting them both right. It also allows for the flight model contact points and compression cycles to be adjusted and locked in, getting the aircraft ready for flight testing.
Further work in animations has been done with flaps, spoilers, and other exterior surfaces now animated and operating as required. The leading-edge slats will be done next week. The F-16’s maneuvering slats work in much the same way as those on the F-14 Tomcat, so that’s one area of the aircraft that can easily be integrated into the flight dynamics. Special effects have also been added in such as contrails and tyre smoke on touchdown.
One area I’m not so sure about is decals. All warning texts and other finer details will be done with high-resolution decals for close-up viewing, but I’m not sold on the idea of decals for panel lines. The DC Designs F-15 Eagles have texture-mapped panel lines and look fantastic. The DC Designs F-14 Tomcats have the modelled-in panel lines and look equally awesome, but I don’t know whether the huge amount of additional work is really worth it unless you’re absolutely right on top of the aircraft. I think that adding the rivets might be worthwhile, while keeping the lines as they are. What do you think? Is it worth it to model in thousands of panel lines and rivets that cannot be seen in detail when you’re more than 10 feet from the airframe?
Next week I will be finishing off the exterior to the extent that flight testing can be properly conducted, and then moving on to adding full detail to the cockpit including all instruments and controls. Things are shaping up nicely and we’re on time so far!