The reference measurement I'm using is the distance between the two centre-line stringers on the SatV part in the screengrab, which I make 44.76mm (diameter is 46.66mm, but that's a bit variable as the part might be buckled a bit).
The measurement I have for the width of the front of the canopy reads as 27.391mm (I'm not claiming to be accurate to a µm, that's just the exact distance that the software reports), but that's with hard edges. If the edges were chamfered off, then 27mm - or possibly a shade under - would be just about right.
Awesome, Ray and Flintlock! I suck at Max, Rhino is the only thing I'm any good with. So thanks for stepping up, Flintlock, can't wait to see your results.
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Thanks for the in-depth explanation, Colin. That makes sense.
So how close did the EFX studio scale offering come to the ILM models? I ask about this one because it is the most readily available for a large portion of the community to look at and assess.
Hector
The measurement I have for the width of the front of the canopy reads as 27.391mm (I'm not claiming to be accurate to a µm, that's just the exact distance that the software reports), but that's with hard edges. If the edges were chamfered off, then 27mm - or possibly a shade under - would be just about right.
So i had a few minutes to play, softening up the hard edges of the transitional part of the fuselage/canopy on a v3 casting got me to 28mm pretty easily. Not sure how clear it is in this pic but it does make it closer to at least this pyro casting. It's a subtle difference but it does make a difference. However i am not sure how this area is on other x wings, only this pyro casting....just some food for thought...
I have a scrap casting here of the V3 that i may play with a bit by rounding this area to see how much closer it can get to the 27.4mm.
mike
I'll work on getting a pic of that angle later today, it was a bit of a back and forth to keep the frame from degrading so while it was a simple mod, it does take some playing around to restore the harder edge. It is a bit of smoke and mirrors as well as there seems to be a couple of forces acting on that canopy frame that can't be changed on the V3, at least easily....
Cheers, it's much appreciated! Looking again at your photo, I'm getting seriously tempted to try it... what exactly did you do? Just file it and sand it?
Oh, forgot to ask - Mike, any tips on finding an early-gen pyro recast? I wouldn't mind one for the collection at all...
You may want to hold off on trying it until i do a little more messing, there is another thing i want to tinker with before posting up an alternate view...
Ray, I got all the files and it opens up fine in Max 2009. In some of the camera views, however, the bitmaps do not show up on the image plane. I'll need to figure out how to fix that, and get a feel for working this way... It's new to me, but I am always interested in learning new things. I may also need to get a memory upgrade for my machine.
I have some other images of another ship, and I wanted to know what information is necessary to correct distortion with PTLens, so that I can set that one up in Max as well... I'd be able to improve my CAD models for that one too.
Ok, so after the adjustment i made in the pics above I took another look at some of the Red 3 pics and at the pyro castings canopy frame and I think that if you are going to make this adjustment the actual canopy frame rail can be thinned out a bit on the top as well, i think only on the order of about .5-.75mm. In the pics below you can see that the port side rail has been thinned down a bit by scraping off a a bit from the side, making the top thinner, pardon the crudity of the clean up but i wanted to show the steps as much as i could. To me this seems to "pull" the canopy in a bit closer, getting it a bit closer to the 27.4mm that you guys are looking for. Again there is some smoke and mirrors going on with this and the changes are so subtle that many people may not be able to decect it. In fact it has taken me years to be able to detect small stuff like this myself, and i am still getting better at it all the time, often with the help of many of you guys here
mike