Hello everyone! This is my first post here (and I hope the beginning of a great adventure 
?). I don’t know how to introduce my subject but here it is; years ago I made a model of an aircraft, the X31, inspired by the quality of the models in DCS. I haven’t worked on it for 5 years, and even if I didn’t plan to make anything of my model, seeing an other post about an xb70 for MSFS made me change my mind.
So here is the main thing; do you know anyone that could be interested in developing (or simply helping to develop) a mod of the X31 for MSFS? Or anything that could be related to such development?
I haven’t worked on my model for 5 years, but I think it is already a solid basis for such development. Right now there is still no color, but I want to work on it soon. Especially if this post gets attention or catches the eye of developers😊.
To sum up what I have for now:
I think that the aircraft’s model is (maybe?) finished by 90%. Some parts need to be revisited. I made the model “medium poly” so I think it is perfect for a game, and I made it in Blender.
About the color of the model, I would like to make the model as accurate as possible (so the experience would be even better), and I think I think I can get 90% of all the details in the cockpit even with the very few visual documentations available on the internet. The cockpit has a lot in common with the one of the F18.
I don’t know anything about mod development, but I know the basics about flight simulation physics (as I will become an aeronautical engineer in 5 months 
)
Enough about the blabla, here is the baby:
(The images may look weird, it is because of the denoiser of the render engine)
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Interesting! I was enthralled with this plane back in the day. Are you going to provide the tailless version as well?
I didn’t thought about it, but it could be a funny idea! I’m keeping this in mind
Hey everyone! I’m really excited to share the progress I made on the cockpit’s color in these last few days. I will work on all the writings soon.
Also I didn’t really precise it in my first post, but I can do the whole model/color myself, I just need help to developp the other things to make this baby fly in msfs so don’t hesitate if you know people who can help!
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Hey! You are doing an excellent job!!! Never seen an exhaust nozzle like the one you have modelled. It is stunning, really amazing!
This project looks very promising, keep on developing it!
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Heyy! Here are the progress I made on the cockpit I added a lot of screws and most of the writings, and I had to re-model a lot of elements to increase their resolution. There is still a lot of work to do on the colors but I think I will take a break and work on the engine.
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Bonjour bonjour 
Do you have any advice about how to read text from low quality pictures? For example here is the picture I have;
and what I am able to read from it:
or if you have any idea about what is written. I have the same problem for other inscriptions.
Also I improved the quality of my old rudder pedal model. It is interessting to notice that even if the X31 's cockpit has a lot of similarity with the F18’s one, the pedals are actually taken from the F16!
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Hellooo! I did some work on the exhaust nozzle, there isn’t a lot of documentation about the mechanisms so I had to guess its behavior. The engine is actually a General Electric F404, the same as the F18’s; they probably decided to remove the covering panels for easier maintenance/weight gain as the fuselage itself was an aerodynamic cover.
(there is a small color bug in the animation, dont pay attention)
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I have to say, this project looks really cool. I have always loved x-planes, and this was one of the more interesting ones out there. Your work looks very good so far!
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Thank you really much! I also love x-planes, I will surely do the x29 one day! 
Hey! New little update, I colored the thrust vectoring panels and remodelled the joystick.
Two interesting things to notice; on the joystick the two main buttons are inverted compared to the usual F18 joystick. Also at the end of the panels there are little probes going on the inside of the tile; I guess they are small simple pitot tubes, probably used to measure the dynamic pressure the exhaust gases put on the panels in order to regulate their rotation when the thrust changes.
Now I will work on the ejection seat
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Hello! Here is the Martin-Baker SJU-5/6A ejection seat, the same as in the F18’s. That was a painful job but I’m really happy with the result I will surely remove some details in the final version if the model is too heavy. Now I think I will work on the landing gears and all the small details of the aircaft before coloring the fuselage.
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Hey everyone! I have some really exciting news: I went to the Deutsches Flugwerft Museum to see the plane for the first time!
Me and my brother took a lot of high quality pictures really close to the aircraft that will allow me to make my model as realistic as possible
I would like to thank the museum and Mr. Adrian Blank for this, and of course my brother who helped me a lot!
With all of these pictures I will try to do photogrametry of the aircraft and if it works, re-model the aircraft’s exterior to make it even more accurate. And after that I will start to color everything.
I am also starting to read all the papers I can find about this aircraft in open source documents to collect technical datas. And I am trying to contact engineers who worked on this project, so I can provide the best experience! I am impatient to show you the progress I will soon make!
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Helooo! Quick update about trying to do photogrammetry. To begin I tried Meshroom, a free tool but unfortunately I don’t have a gpu on my laptop so the usable options are limited. I couldn’t get a great result, a picture will say more than words 
Then I tried Agisoft Metashape which seems more beginner-friendly. It isn’t free but you can have a free trial. However you can’t do manual picture matching on the free trial. It turned way better and the tool is easy to use:
Now I want to try RealityCapture which seems incredible (and it is free!), but before I will have to buy a better laptop as I don’t have the minimum required hardware. I hope I will soon have that fuselage right and colored
My model should already be pretty accurate, but if you want to develop a new plane I strongly recommand, if you can, to base your model on a 3D scan. Because the blueprints found on the internet aren’t always really accurate and you can waste a lot of time trying to fix a model based on an incorrect blueprint.
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And also here is an update of the cockpit! Good luck to find the differences with the older renders I shared, It isn’t really visible but there are a lot of small changes
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Hey everyone, an other upate!
I managed to do photogrametry in RealityCapture. Honestly the result was really similar with Agisoft Metashape. I am currently remodeling completely the aircraft so it fits the 3d scan, and I’ve also done progress in the color:
I also used the 3d scan to fix the whole cockpit, which is now really close to the real one (the modifications are subtle). I’m remodeling the canopy, I think that it really starts to take shape
My goal is to have the whole model finished and animated for msfs 2024, and I think I will do the implementation for this new sim!
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Hadn’t seen any of this until now. Great work on the model and textures!
Regarding the engine nozzle animation. I think the front edge of the forward section is hinged rather than sliding as in your video. The effect means the whole ‘throat’ of the nozzle expands and contracts. Here’s one I did of the F-15’s…
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Thank you!
Yes you are completely right about the engine, I also noticed my mistake after seeing an animation of the B1 engines, I will fix it!
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Helooo, new little update!
I have done progress in the color of the bottom of the aircraft, and I am curently remodelling completely the landing gears and landing gears bays. Next step will be to color them, as well as all of the external “details” . There are still a lot of things to fix, and the color looks too clean, I will add “dirt” later.
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Hi! Here is how the animation of the landing gear will look like. It is the same as the F-16 one. Also I am not sure but I think that the F-16 main landing gear is mounted “perpendicular” to the ground, while on the X-31 it is mounted tilted (maybe 4°), probably to better handle higher AOA landings.
There are still several things to fix on my model and animation. It is hard to get the right proportions.
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