Help Me!

[Guest]

I really want to do some designing and painting but i dont have a clue! What programs and tools do i need. email me and tell me. i have got gmax but i dont know what im doing.Ill be really chuffed thanks!

[Guest Gangi]

Hey,You can download the gmax toturials from gmax site, and follow the toturial on modelling a P-38 bomber. That will give you some idea how gmax works like.Then you can find many toturials and tips for harder parts at:

http://www.freeflightdesign.com

or [cpde]http://takeoff.to/landing[/code]Good luck ;)Best regards,Aviel

[Guest Fabio Miguez]

Hey James.A copy of this is going to your e-mail.AIRCRAFTVISUAL MODEL:Here you have choices. You can use gmax, which is free, comes with FS, but you also can download from www.discreet.com It's more powerful, big brother, is 3ds max 5, also from discreet. 3ds has a little bit more options, the boolean, I think, works a little better (boolean is used to cut things, usually windows and doors out of the fuselage, for example), and it has a render engine, which means you can not only produce solid models, but you can apply textures or materials to it and render to make a pretty picture :-). The render is not really helpful for aircraft visual models. Read on. To find out more about modelling (tutorials) and many other things, check out http://www.freeflightdesign.com/tutorials.htmlTEXTURESLucky for you, Josh has just published an excellent tutorial on painting aircraft, at http://www.jetdoc.com/FDE (Flight Dynamics):There are at least two different options of programs to use here. My prefered is Aircraft Airfile Manager (AAM), but there is also SS, which I can't recall what the acronym stands for (relatively new program, still being developed) and AirED, whixh is also quite good. Check out Herve Sors' excelent website at http://perso.wanadoo.fr/hsors/FS_Soft/index.htmlSOUNDS:This is an area I haven't really gotten into, but basically what you do is have different .WAV files that will be mixed or presented at different times. These can be created with any popular sound programs, using real recordings. Or you can program your own sounds like Fanda (Oleksyi Frolov) did in his excelent Dash 8-Q300. This requires DirectX programming skills, but the end result is absolutely above any current FS sounds you've seen. Download his plane so you can see what I mean. Oleksyi apparently is the only one that has done this so far, so we have to wait until he publishes a tutorial, or figure out ourselves.PANELSVISUAL MODEL:This can be done either by designing your own Bitmap in a popular photo-editing program such as Photoshop or PaintShopPro, or creating a 3D version of the panel in a program like 3ds. The later is what I do, and although it requires some modelling skills, the end result is usually superior. Here is where you will need 3ds' render engine, to be able to apply materials and texture and render a final Bitmap that looks very close to the real thing, with shadows and reflections. Other 3D programs available for this are SolidWorks and Lightwave.GAUGES:Everything you see moving in a panel, be it a simple clock or an EFIS, are gauges. Gauges need to be programmed to work like you want it to. You can either use freeware gauges that have been already created, or you can program your own. For the last option, download the Microsoft Panels and Gauges SDK (Software Development Kit) at http://zone.msn.com/flightsim/FS02DevDeskSDK00.asp Here you will see Microsoft has published many different SDKs, for all areas of FS. Although helpful, the SDKs are not ideally written for begginers, and contain many mistakes/lack of explanations, so download sd2gau13.zip from AVSIM or the "other site" for an excellent explanation on gauge programming. You will have to get familiar with the C programming language, as this is the language use for gauge programming.Well, I think I covered all the areas of making a plane. If I missed something, I am sure someone else will step in and complete this reply. Hope it helped you, and let us know if you need assistance with anything, but keep in mind the learning curve can be steep in the beggining, so you will have to have determination and focus to accomplish any of your projects.