http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radome Basicly its a material problem. It has to be material that lets radio waves pass. and it should let the antenna inside rotate freely.
interesting... does it also heat my food? :p this reminds me, the microwave heating unit was originally designed inside out as a radar, but kept melting chocolate in a researchers pants or something like that ... science is funny and interesting most of the times
In his every single comment I have just seen flaming. "Oh, anyone in my high school can do better than that." "Oh, I can do better than that." "I don't like your idea." He doesn't give constructive criticism, he just points out all the possible problems in it and never say what's good in it. He disses everything which isn't made by him. Is dissing constructive criticism? (Don't answer that, its rethorical question.)
pics of version 0.2 Hi, I saw Chris0132 Nf barracks and added some more details to my radar. The Dome has now more faces and uses a new texture, but im still experimenting with it. The satellitedish has now 3x more faces, and i did some work on the terrestrial antennas. Here pics of version 0.2: Regards
Looks a bit better, but some of the addons look a bit random. Think about the structure of the building, what's it supposed to do? What's all this equipment for? How is it all connected? Why is it connected? How can you integrate it into the building? Is the building efficient? Design buildings as if you were really making them. To use the rax as an example, it has a few rules governing it. First off it has to be made from portable materials, because it's being constructed in something of a hurry, which means the parts need to be modular and relatively lightweight, which is why the primary construction material is a repeating metal plate and it has a bit of a 'shed' look to it. Secondly, it must look as though it's connected to a larger underground structure, because otherwise where do all these infantry come from? So I put big ventilation pipes running out of the floor into the exterior environment and I should probably put a door hatch somewhere in it as well. Thirdly it needs to look like it's industrial, like it's doing something, so I put ventilation boxes on the roof and connected them up with pipes running across the structure, however you don't just put them anywhere, you build them into the overall shape of the structure, the pipes follow the structure, the big vents run through specific parts of the walls and floor, the roof vents are part of the structure because they replace metal panels. Fourthly it needs to look as though it can take a beating, however bearing in mind it has to be portable, this means I can either entrench it into the ground (which is impossible in source) or I can add reinforcing materials to the outside, so it's got camo netting and sandbags piled around it. You establish the goals by thinking about what the structure needs to do, for the barracks it needs to spawn lots of infantry, so it needs to have somwhere for them to come from, it needs to be tough, because raxes are tough, so it needs to look tough with the sandbags and thick metal plates, and these things are built in the field so it needs to look as though it can be built in the field, hence the prefab construction materials. For the radar you would have some of the same goals, it needs to be tough, constructable in the field, but unlike the rax it has to be a communications system, which means it will have sensitive equipment in it, and sensitive equipment needs to be protected and powered, so I would imagine lots of power cables and railings around the equipment both inside and outside, as well as light protective armor on around the equipment on the outside, it has to be light so it doesn't block the signal from the antennae or anything but it has to resist bullets. Something with that much power and dangerous equipment also needs ventilation which is connected to the equipment and things to keep people from being zapped while walking around, so warning signs and hazard strips would be present. A good thing for any structure is a sense of overall shape, the barracks is desgined around the three angled roof and the approximate rectangular footprint, the radar is an octagon so build on that shape, arrange equipment with rotational symmetry. There's two approaches to doing things, you can either try to make it look good without really thinking about the practicality, or you can design something that works and then try to make it look good. I find that if I design something practical it looks good anyway because to be practical it will require lots of detail and a good neat layout, and it also has the benefit of being practical. Oh yes and some of your texturing and modelling looks weird, the radar dish is warped and the textures are badly aligned on it. If point out everything that's wrong with it then you know what to fix, thus making my criticism constructive. Telling you it looks great when it doesn't doesn't help you improve it, it just makes you complacent, and there's nothing constructive about doing that.
back to topic Thanks Chris for your detailed post. Good idea i'll add some more details. I'm going the practical way, but it's hard to find any documentation / pictures, because the constuction sheets of (military) radars are confidential. its not easy to apply textures on spherical or round models. I'll try to fix it.
You don't really need documentation. The only thing I use is general construction techniques for joining metal, which is usually brackets, rivets, or welding, or a mix. So put brackets where your metal plates are joined. Beyond that you can just make something up, antennae are usually thin metal objects arranged in geometric formations, so add some of those to the thing. The structure inside can be power generation and general computational equipment, for that you just put dials and gauges on everything and use things that look electrical, which means lots of ridges because ridges increase surface area and more surface area means better cooling, as generators are usually hot. You can also do something that looks a bit tesla coil-ey because that always looks cool. For texturing complex things I find it easier to make them flat and then rotate them into position. You can usually just use a planar projection for things like that dish, it should look fine.
Radar v03 Update: Changes: textures on the sat-dish. Textures on the VHF transmitter (copper). Textures on the radardome (fiber glass). Added some colored power cables. Minor details. ToDo: I still need some good textures for the inside. The sat dish still isn't rotating. I don't know why. Add more technical equipment. When i finish pimping the radar, i might start creating other versions, based on the ideas on the first pages.
what about not integrating a "shack" or "house" in the nf radar? basically, the commander is big enough to hold all that equipment, just a tower and a small power centre would be enough imo something like sirsnipes tower, but without the shack
