New Planes

[Guest Robs]

Hi AllHow big a deal is it to design new planes?I quite fancy an RAF chipmunk!I would be grateful if people could point me to the places to read (or even answer directly) the following questions.Repaints seem easy - bmps and resviewer right?Flight dynamics - how do you tamper with these? Tools already written?Cockpits - these look difficult - how? and how long?Anything else needs considering??Rob

[Guest twsimfan]

Rob,Cockpit design can be mastered in a matter of a few weeks... repainting is easier than that (good repainting is another matter)... but for a new 3D model... well you need to talk to Ansgar about that.

[Guest Ansgar]

Hello Rob,hmmmmm, the answer is quite easy:With my main gmax-thread I wrote some day

[Guest Robs]

Hi Ansgar,Thanks for your reply and your comments.Let's start from the ground up!My background is "sciency". Maths, Physics, Flight Dynamics etc I can do on a blackboard. My programming experiences are from Basic and Assembler (PC, Z80 or whatever - all very similar except the memory on PC is a bit tricky!).I have downloaded resviewer and repainted some aircraft (with others artwork!). It looks technically simple to export artwork, change it and reimport it - although the storches luftwaffe desert paintwork spots are stretched on the nose as the artwork is curved around. I'd guess the first job for an aircraft would be to put a square grid texture on the aircraft and see how the squares stretch to better judge the artwork! Opps digressing.I have also downloaded cockpit designer and have added some missing panels (again from downloaded data files). I haven't got into moving/positioning/defining dials etc yet or any of the virtual cockpit design but this is where we get into 3 d modelling. I have no experience in 3d modelling (and of course this is the bit that intrigues me!! - incidentally one of the resons I liked the FU series was the flight dynamics - I like the gliding which is one of the purest forms of flying and a great achievment for a fligh sim to allow slope soaring although I haven't felt any thermals in FU3).I checked your link about gmax but I haven't got to LG's white paper yet. The link on gmax seemed to be converting files from 3d modeling tools to a format for FU3 etc. I really need to be a step back and askHow do I start 3d modelling for FU3?What do I need to read and where do I find it?Also I am curious as to why add on planes are based on exisitng planes? Just easier?Rob

[Guest Ansgar]

Hi Rob,thanks for your good description above. After knowing that you know all the physics and a little about programming, that are very good conditions to start also with 3D-modeling!Sure you must be a little bit ambitious to learn all this, but that I could read also "between the lines". ;-)After changing the avsim forum to a new one (some month ago) we lost some of the good old "learning threads" where we can find all the important "basics" and "how to do

[Christopher Low 5,341]

Oh God, that sounds complicated :-eekHow many of these steps can I ignore if I want to build some high detail AI planes ?Chris Low,ENGLAND.

[Guest glidernut]

Hi Rob,incidentally one of the resons I liked the FU series was the flight dynamics - I like the gliding which is one of the purest forms of flying and a great achievment for a fligh sim to allow slope soaring although I haven't felt any thermals in FU3).There is a thermal under every cloud, the biger the cloud the stronger the lift.And you should experince a littl more terbulance.But if you,r too low under a cloud you wont feel anything.Thats sumthing fore you to chek out when you need a brake from modeling frustration.I wounce crosed Seattle from the West mountons to the Est mountons useing thermalsonly.I tried to make a Blak Box of it but the clouds will not stay in sink.glidernut.

[Guest Ansgar]

Hi Chris,it only looks complicated if you see all together (re-importing of existing models with all it

[Guest glidernut]

Hi Ansgar A.gamex is only suposed to work on Windows

[Guest Ansgar]

Hello Glidernut,If you already own a 3D-studio version 2.5 this should be used by you first if you didn

[Guest juvat2]

Hi Glidernut,Pdf is a portable document file. You need the Adobe Acrobat Reader to read those file types. It's free ware available for download.http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/main.htmlTake care and good luck to you on the modeling,Jim B.

[Guest Robs]

Ansgar,Hope you don't mind me asking a few more questions here because I need to get a bit more simple. Could you please confirm or correct my readbackI need to split a plane build down into a few areas1) Outside bodywork ; to define the outside shape of a plane, I need a 3d modelling tool package. Sounds like I need GMAX (this is the free one, yes?). Where do I download this?Then I need to learn it, define a plane shape (800 odd polygons) with axles for moving panels and undergear and then export it in *.E (?) file format. Run *.E thru BSP.exe to get *.bin which resviewer can then import into the FU3 plane.2) Paintwork; Any graphics package that can define and export *.bmp to import to resviewer. (probably best left to last as this is the fun bit!)3)Flight Physics ; download and use tool fu3physics.zip4)Cockpit working; this I am fuzzy on..using cockpitdesigner utility I guess you can define and position guages and switches yes.The reason you mention the resource files is so that you can use the renegade and beechjet switches without redefining them all, yes?5)Internal views; graphic package expoeting *.bmp files and using the cockpit designer import them and design the windows. (I have already done this for your 747!)6) Virtual cockpit; I am confused how you define this as cockpitdesigner tutorial doesn't describe how to do this and I haven't had enough mucking about time on this. How do you model the internal shape of the windows and patch the cocpit art on. Is this the outside views in cockpit designer? Also do you do the windows with the outside rectangles?7) Did I forget any jobs in here?Very Grateful for your help!Rob.

[Christopher Low 5,341]

Rob,You can download version 1.2 of gmax from the following location:-www.discreet.com/products/gmaxClick on the large gmax icon towards the upper right, and you will be presented with a download page. I would advise you to download the INSTALLER (this is gmax 1.2 itself; size = 19Mb), and the TUTORIALS package (size = 14Mb).You will need to register to receive a special code (otherwise gmax will not run), but this does not cost you anything.I have these installed, but I haven't done anything yet. I will probably have a look at the GETTING STARTED section of the tutorials over the weekend.I just hope that I can grasp the basics :-)Chris Low,ENGLAND.

[Guest Ansgar]

Hi Rob,YES! In the most cases you understand it correct, so I only comment some details here;-)You also see that a complete model is a very huge amount of work! And there it is no question or difference if you do it for FS2002 or FU3, the work is nearly the same.1) Chris has already described where you can get gmax, so no answer from me here. For an flyable plan you should try to come close to the maximum of 1900 polygons, 800 gives an relative poor quality. Calculate before! you start the project for which part you would allow how much polygons. This makes it easier to detail the needed parts within this selfdefined limits of polys.As described above you can

[Guest qvdg]

Hi Ansgar, I wonder if you could help me with a question also. I found a Tigermoth made for FS98-2K and I converted to a DXL using the utility you mentioned. However when I import it into gmax it does even vaguely ressemble something that could ever fly. Are there particulier import options to set or is it a compatibility problem.Thanks,Quentin