1913 Hang Glider - Update 4 - Changes - Errors - Questions
Cinema 4D R13 Project Scale:
As mentioned in a previous post I had changed the scale to feet in the project settings in C4D R13 and they didn't seem to take. No glitche - I forgot. And so here is a tip in case you forget or don't know how.
To change the way the scale is viewed go to Preferences and I believe it is the third or 4th topic down - maybe second heading... In there is the setting you need to change - to Feet or Inches or Meters or Centimeters etc etc.
Then take a look at your Project panels or just add a cube and it should show in the selected increment.
Scaling the Project is done in the Project settings - from one increment to another.
Also I've since updated R13. Running a lot smoother - little faster as well.
However there were some changes to the wood Character I was using and it messed up the rig so I deleted him. I'll re-rig him in the future.
Version 2 of the Glider Frame:
I decided to rebuild a lot of the frame work of the Glider for various reasons. So it is now greatly improved - still needs work but - a lot better.
Center Cockpit Changes:
I noticed I had the uprights on the wrong side of the cross member supports for the center cockpit area. So I switched them around to be in the inside of the cockpit as shown above.
Pilot Safety:
In a past post I mentioned there is nothing to hang onto you - no harness or any support other than the two arm support boards. I asked "Could you imagine if your arm slipped or you lost grip" and added the two hand holds you see in the above image.
Well, I asked myself the same question - "What if you did slip? Lost your grip or your arm got tired of supporting you? Well - I set up two boards as shown above. It is a 13 inch gap between them where the pilot stands. I positioned myself in between using my arms for support and then gradually let go. Surprisingly, the only way you can slip out of this, is if you are less than 13 inches across at the shoulder. Other wise you'd have to turn completely side ways to get out. Which is not easy to do hanging in the air once you let go.
The reason I didn't fall through is pertty simple. The boards wedge you in. And notably - it hurts. The reason being if you let go - you get wedged in - at least for me at the lower rib cage. And the edge of the two boards dig into your ribs - they bind you - but it hurts like hell. As you breathe out - you slip down a tad more - breathe in - and it bites more.
So I need to fix this - perhaps a angled smooth cut and it will still bind you in - but not hurt as much as you won't get the sharp 90 degree edge cutting into your ribs.
Wing Ribs:
I completely rebuilt these using the same method, just another way and they came out much better.
In the original design above, I used a bend effector for the full length of the rib and you can see how it curves all the way to the end. This wouldn't be the case I felt in real life as the rib hangs over 1 ft past the rear wing beam support. It should be straight from then on.
So in rebuilding it - I figured the rib should show a bend 3/4 the length and used a bend effector sized as such. This proved not to work like I thought it would as the end point outside the effector wants to curve back towards the point of origin. Don't know why but it does.
The solution was to make the bend effector 3 foot 4 inches instead of 3 foot of the entire 4 foot rib. You can still see some curve to the very end - though it's not much it still bugs me a tad. Going further or longer with the bend effector makes it go the opposite way so - it is what it is for the moment.
It definitely produced a much better or more realistic sweep to the wing I feel.
An Error in the Book:
Yup, found one. And this is what is great about making it in 3D first. I found it before building it and cutting any wood.
If it doesn't fit - just stretch the wood:
Carl Bates is the writer of this project in 1912/1913 and I don't know if they had a way to stretch wood back then but I kinda doubt it.
He writes the wing width is 3 feet - the ribs 4 feet and should hang off the farthest rear point of the rear wing beam support. Okay, sounds good, till you try to put the bend or arch in the wing rib. To span 3 feet and leave 1 foot for over hang the piece needs to be longer than 4 ft. or it's flat. a 1 degree arch with require longer wood.
I scratched my head a couple times on this thinking I messed up the model till the light bulb came on - He must have stretched the wood to make it fit! lol
Above we see the 4 foot rib with 26 degree bend - fits perfectly. However that center line is the 3 foot or 1 foot mark and should be at the rear most point on the beam - so it shows that in order to have a 1 foot over hang the rib would have to be 4 foot 3/4 inch. not 4 foot even.
What is the correct degree of bend for the Wing rib?
I haven't a clue exactly. This is what Carl Bates states: The amount of bend needed for the ribs is shown in Figure 2. Well lets take a look at figure 2 below.
That's it that is all the info given with the exception that there is to be a 1 foot overhang on the rear beam and it is to be flush on the forward beam. The only real indicator is the cut shown on the cross member support which the wing beam rests showing the method used to create the resting place for the wing rib and create the bend.
I do believe around 26 degrees is correct - but that said I think back to the Aviator about Howard Hughes and how a 1/4 inch rivet head caused considerable drag on a airplane. So is it 24 degrees of bend or 23 degrees or 26 degrees as I have it? I do not know... but perhaps some research on the net will give up the secret. Or at least a good figure to go by.
Weak Spots in the Structure.
As you can see above if it were built as suggested - the forward beam and the upright struts would leave a gap between them. Any gap is a weak spot to me. And there are around 28 of them. Including the Rudder beams and the main wing area.
I came up with a simple solution to corrected them and I feel to be a much stronger and more stable with some simple joinery methodology to butt these joints together. Kinda like - what were those things called? Legos? I don't know - but like Link in' Logs together kinda.
perhaps some pics of this next time...
Wing Covers prove more difficult than I imagined:
I tried what I thought would be an easy solution in R13 - using the Collision Deformer. It kinda worked, but - not really. The reason is - to get it to flex I had to add in more subdivisions to the mesh - but it sagged in between the ribs to it's center point. I could not get it to keep it shape in between the ribs. And the wires proved to be difficult for it as well. It would pick up on the wire and deform but it would cut through it.
I tried making some maps for it - Fall off, etc. but it still didn't work right. The settings didn't seem to make much difference. Though I didn't try a bend deformer with it in conjunction to the Collision Deformer.
Cloth tags - well - I haven't figured them out yet and the one thing I don't like about R13 is everything seems to act like rubber. I've used many of the tags and even metal chain acts stretchy like rubber. Even in the few examples given by Maxon with in R13 - all of it acts like rubbery material.
Till I can figure out how to pin the cloth to the ribs and deform it correctly and get it not to have a rubber like feel to it I'll leave this as - I'm still working on it.
Textures:
You may have noticed the texture in the above image for the cross member looks like it is squishing towards the end. This is due to having it set to UVW at the time I rendered that out.
Cubic will correct this - however - the texture orientation and other things were off. So for most I have them set to UVW - if I made any cuts or like the above for the cross member supports - I found Shrink Wrap worked and looked best.
Questions created yet as of yet unanswered:
Questions have arisen from working on this little glider. Many questions. Like:
Why can't I just sit in the cockpit on a rowing machine seat? One that slides back and forth from front to back? Like say this one:
Motors:
Why do I need a motor to propel this forward? As a Wind Surfer and from what I know of Kite Boarding.
The wings add lift right? And any Wind Surfer can tell you the wind via sail propels you forward. Any Kite Boarder will tell you get both lift and forward momentum from a Kite sail... There jumping what 90+ feet in 35 knot winds?
So why can't I just tack the wind in this thing? Or add some sort of sail to propel me forward or catch a cross wind and like I said - tack it back and forth using the wings as a semi- sail? Is it counter weighing I need like a Sail Boat with a keel perhaps?
Moving Rudder and Steering Control:
Why not add a real rudder and those things on the wings and just turn the thing? Like the stick controls you see in the old dog fight movies...? Seems easy enough to add those things.
Motor/ Propellers again:
Why? Why? Why? Is there a need for a motor /propellers to make it go forward? This one I can't get out of my head... and has me thinking on a lot. How to propel it and steer it using the wind as the propellant force - Harness the wind so to speak - sail the skies if you will. Not so much why or how - but why not? They do it in the ocean - they do it on land - why not three feet above the ground? And if I can do it three feet - why not 300 feet above the ground.
Till next time - I'll let those questions bake your cookies in thought...
As mentioned in a previous post I had changed the scale to feet in the project settings in C4D R13 and they didn't seem to take. No glitche - I forgot. And so here is a tip in case you forget or don't know how.
To change the way the scale is viewed go to Preferences and I believe it is the third or 4th topic down - maybe second heading... In there is the setting you need to change - to Feet or Inches or Meters or Centimeters etc etc.
Then take a look at your Project panels or just add a cube and it should show in the selected increment.
Scaling the Project is done in the Project settings - from one increment to another.
Also I've since updated R13. Running a lot smoother - little faster as well.
However there were some changes to the wood Character I was using and it messed up the rig so I deleted him. I'll re-rig him in the future.
Version 2 of the Glider Frame:
I decided to rebuild a lot of the frame work of the Glider for various reasons. So it is now greatly improved - still needs work but - a lot better.
Center Cockpit Changes:
I noticed I had the uprights on the wrong side of the cross member supports for the center cockpit area. So I switched them around to be in the inside of the cockpit as shown above.
Pilot Safety:
In a past post I mentioned there is nothing to hang onto you - no harness or any support other than the two arm support boards. I asked "Could you imagine if your arm slipped or you lost grip" and added the two hand holds you see in the above image.
Well, I asked myself the same question - "What if you did slip? Lost your grip or your arm got tired of supporting you? Well - I set up two boards as shown above. It is a 13 inch gap between them where the pilot stands. I positioned myself in between using my arms for support and then gradually let go. Surprisingly, the only way you can slip out of this, is if you are less than 13 inches across at the shoulder. Other wise you'd have to turn completely side ways to get out. Which is not easy to do hanging in the air once you let go.
The reason I didn't fall through is pertty simple. The boards wedge you in. And notably - it hurts. The reason being if you let go - you get wedged in - at least for me at the lower rib cage. And the edge of the two boards dig into your ribs - they bind you - but it hurts like hell. As you breathe out - you slip down a tad more - breathe in - and it bites more.
So I need to fix this - perhaps a angled smooth cut and it will still bind you in - but not hurt as much as you won't get the sharp 90 degree edge cutting into your ribs.
Wing Ribs:
I completely rebuilt these using the same method, just another way and they came out much better.
In the original design above, I used a bend effector for the full length of the rib and you can see how it curves all the way to the end. This wouldn't be the case I felt in real life as the rib hangs over 1 ft past the rear wing beam support. It should be straight from then on.
So in rebuilding it - I figured the rib should show a bend 3/4 the length and used a bend effector sized as such. This proved not to work like I thought it would as the end point outside the effector wants to curve back towards the point of origin. Don't know why but it does.
The solution was to make the bend effector 3 foot 4 inches instead of 3 foot of the entire 4 foot rib. You can still see some curve to the very end - though it's not much it still bugs me a tad. Going further or longer with the bend effector makes it go the opposite way so - it is what it is for the moment.
It definitely produced a much better or more realistic sweep to the wing I feel.
An Error in the Book:
Yup, found one. And this is what is great about making it in 3D first. I found it before building it and cutting any wood.
If it doesn't fit - just stretch the wood:
Carl Bates is the writer of this project in 1912/1913 and I don't know if they had a way to stretch wood back then but I kinda doubt it.
He writes the wing width is 3 feet - the ribs 4 feet and should hang off the farthest rear point of the rear wing beam support. Okay, sounds good, till you try to put the bend or arch in the wing rib. To span 3 feet and leave 1 foot for over hang the piece needs to be longer than 4 ft. or it's flat. a 1 degree arch with require longer wood.
I scratched my head a couple times on this thinking I messed up the model till the light bulb came on - He must have stretched the wood to make it fit! lol
Above we see the 4 foot rib with 26 degree bend - fits perfectly. However that center line is the 3 foot or 1 foot mark and should be at the rear most point on the beam - so it shows that in order to have a 1 foot over hang the rib would have to be 4 foot 3/4 inch. not 4 foot even.
What is the correct degree of bend for the Wing rib?
I haven't a clue exactly. This is what Carl Bates states: The amount of bend needed for the ribs is shown in Figure 2. Well lets take a look at figure 2 below.
That's it that is all the info given with the exception that there is to be a 1 foot overhang on the rear beam and it is to be flush on the forward beam. The only real indicator is the cut shown on the cross member support which the wing beam rests showing the method used to create the resting place for the wing rib and create the bend.
I do believe around 26 degrees is correct - but that said I think back to the Aviator about Howard Hughes and how a 1/4 inch rivet head caused considerable drag on a airplane. So is it 24 degrees of bend or 23 degrees or 26 degrees as I have it? I do not know... but perhaps some research on the net will give up the secret. Or at least a good figure to go by.
Weak Spots in the Structure.
As you can see above if it were built as suggested - the forward beam and the upright struts would leave a gap between them. Any gap is a weak spot to me. And there are around 28 of them. Including the Rudder beams and the main wing area.
I came up with a simple solution to corrected them and I feel to be a much stronger and more stable with some simple joinery methodology to butt these joints together. Kinda like - what were those things called? Legos? I don't know - but like Link in' Logs together kinda.
perhaps some pics of this next time...
Wing Covers prove more difficult than I imagined:
I tried what I thought would be an easy solution in R13 - using the Collision Deformer. It kinda worked, but - not really. The reason is - to get it to flex I had to add in more subdivisions to the mesh - but it sagged in between the ribs to it's center point. I could not get it to keep it shape in between the ribs. And the wires proved to be difficult for it as well. It would pick up on the wire and deform but it would cut through it.
I tried making some maps for it - Fall off, etc. but it still didn't work right. The settings didn't seem to make much difference. Though I didn't try a bend deformer with it in conjunction to the Collision Deformer.
Cloth tags - well - I haven't figured them out yet and the one thing I don't like about R13 is everything seems to act like rubber. I've used many of the tags and even metal chain acts stretchy like rubber. Even in the few examples given by Maxon with in R13 - all of it acts like rubbery material.
Till I can figure out how to pin the cloth to the ribs and deform it correctly and get it not to have a rubber like feel to it I'll leave this as - I'm still working on it.
Textures:
You may have noticed the texture in the above image for the cross member looks like it is squishing towards the end. This is due to having it set to UVW at the time I rendered that out.
Cubic will correct this - however - the texture orientation and other things were off. So for most I have them set to UVW - if I made any cuts or like the above for the cross member supports - I found Shrink Wrap worked and looked best.
Questions created yet as of yet unanswered:
Questions have arisen from working on this little glider. Many questions. Like:
Why can't I just sit in the cockpit on a rowing machine seat? One that slides back and forth from front to back? Like say this one:
Yeah that's a new character I tossed in to take the place of the Wood Guy for now.
Why do I need a motor to propel this forward? As a Wind Surfer and from what I know of Kite Boarding.
The wings add lift right? And any Wind Surfer can tell you the wind via sail propels you forward. Any Kite Boarder will tell you get both lift and forward momentum from a Kite sail... There jumping what 90+ feet in 35 knot winds?
So why can't I just tack the wind in this thing? Or add some sort of sail to propel me forward or catch a cross wind and like I said - tack it back and forth using the wings as a semi- sail? Is it counter weighing I need like a Sail Boat with a keel perhaps?
Moving Rudder and Steering Control:
Why not add a real rudder and those things on the wings and just turn the thing? Like the stick controls you see in the old dog fight movies...? Seems easy enough to add those things.
Motor/ Propellers again:
Why? Why? Why? Is there a need for a motor /propellers to make it go forward? This one I can't get out of my head... and has me thinking on a lot. How to propel it and steer it using the wind as the propellant force - Harness the wind so to speak - sail the skies if you will. Not so much why or how - but why not? They do it in the ocean - they do it on land - why not three feet above the ground? And if I can do it three feet - why not 300 feet above the ground.
Till next time - I'll let those questions bake your cookies in thought...
chase
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