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How to make an Aircraft....

Questions and discussion about creating aircraft. Flight dynamics, 3d models, cockpits, systems, animation, textures.

Re: How to make an Aircraft....

Postby openflight » Wed Jun 05, 2019 2:43 am

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Re: How to make an Aircraft....

Postby openflight » Thu Jun 06, 2019 11:21 am

How to build an aircraft? It seems to me that the best way to start is with the interior, which seems to be of lower quality than needed for most FG aircraft. The creators make the outside shell of the airplane and then add a panel, with the inside views showing flat sided cardboard cutouts for the interior.

For example let's take an aircraft: Cessna 177 Cardinal, faster than the Cessna 172 and not yet created for FG.

Background information:

http://www.cardinalflyers.com/prep/info/flyimp.php

https://www.trade-a-plane.com/search?ca ... e=aircraft

You can see from the interior photos how detailed it is.
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Re: How to make an Aircraft....

Postby openflight » Fri Jun 07, 2019 4:37 am

There are several aircraft in the Flight Gear root AI folder (for AI aircraft) including the Cessna 177. Could these be developed since they are under GPL?
How about the pilots of default aircraft?
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Re: How to make an Aircraft....

Postby wkitty42 » Fri Jun 07, 2019 5:05 pm

they might could be used... they might be too low poly, though...
"You get more air close to the ground," said Angalo. "I read that in a book. You get lots of air low down, and not much when you go up."
"Why not?" said Gurder.
"Dunno. It's frightened of heights, I guess."
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Re: How to make an Aircraft....

Postby openflight » Sat Jun 08, 2019 2:08 am

Also don't forget the excellent tutorial by Dave Meggison,

Mini-HOWTO: 3D Aircraft Models in FlightGear
11 March 2002
David Megginson


now found here:

http://www.vorkon.de/VorKon-12.1-Lesepr ... howto.html
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Re: How to make an Aircraft....

Postby openflight » Sat Jun 08, 2019 3:42 am

I did a quick conversion of the Cessna 177 from the AI folder and it works in FG1 without slowing down the system:

Image

Image

Description here:
https://sites.google.com/site/flightgea ... cessna-177

Much to be done, the model starts floating in air, and the re positioning tags do not seem to work.
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Re: How to make an Aircraft....

Postby Octal450 » Sat Jun 08, 2019 4:44 am

openflight wrote:All newer aircraft work

That isn't even CLOSE to true. Any decently developed aircraft will be using things not available back then. FG has changed significantly since then.

Kind Regards,
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Re: How to make an Aircraft....

Postby openflight » Sat Jun 08, 2019 5:16 am

Not sure where I quoted this.

I agree that FG has changed and improved since the older versions, in fact, it is upto the quality of commercial sims now, especially the aircraft.

What I meant is that newer versions can be made to function in the older versions:

1. For those who need to use the older versions
2. For developers like me who does not like to wait for FG to start up to view development iterations. Once the model works in 1.0 I can always transport it and add functionality.

By the way, any objections to transporting your IDG PA 28 model to FG 1.0 for testing?

Should I open up a new thread for the 177? I may end up in the Bermuda Triangle but right now it seems to be progressing.
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Re: How to make an Aircraft....

Postby openflight » Sat Jun 08, 2019 9:24 am

One way of creating an aircraft is to make a copy of an existing one and make changes to the copy. I call it "morphing".

I am also using the Wings3D model editor which is free and easier to use than blender. The advantage of morphing is that many of the references can be left unchanged as they refer to the original aircraft folder, and will still work. You can work on selected items of your new aircraft at a time, for example the 3D model, and leave the rest for later, and have an aircraft that loads and flies in FG, though not everything may work, animations for example.

For example, I have started a project to improve the standard Cessna 182, which has not changed much in later versions as far as the exterior is concerned.

Steps:

1. Copy the c182 folder and rename it, I decided to rename it using the tail number, so it is named c182n301dp.

2. The aircraft is started in FG using the name of the set file, so I rename the file c182n301dp-set.xml

3. The description inside the file was also edited to show in the Flight Gear launcher.

Now the aircraft you are working on can be loaded into Flight Gear

4. The 3D model was imported into Blender version 2.64 that allow import and export of .ac files and exported into .3ds format.

5. The model imported into Wings 3D, and changes were made. The model was then saved into the c182n301dp folder

6. The aircraft model reference was changed to c182.3ds in the /models/c182n301dp folder settings file which is named c182-dpm.xml
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Re: How to make an Aircraft....

Postby gooneybird » Sat Jun 08, 2019 10:21 am

openflight wrote in Fri Jun 07, 2019 4:37 am:There are several aircraft in the Flight Gear root AI folder (for AI aircraft) including the Cessna 177.


I would be wary of using the 177, it was one of my first Blender models for FG, not entirely accurate and probably full of errors so would need a fair amount of work on it.
My Github repository (mostly AI stuff) https://github.com/gooneybird47
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Re: How to make an Aircraft....

Postby openflight » Sun Jun 09, 2019 7:10 am

Let me try my luck. The model looks great, better than the standard C 172 in the early FG versions. In any case I need to do a lot of work to make a 177 model anyway.
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Re: How to make an Aircraft....

Postby openflight » Mon Jun 10, 2019 8:06 am

How to make an aircraft:

Before updating any manuals, I think a walk-through the modification and creation of aircraft in the aircraft development forum. I think we will all learn from this exercise.

Refining the Cessna 182
Creating the Cessna 177 (Using AI 3d model)
Creating a new aircraft from nothing (SNCSE Durandal : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNCASE_SE.212_Durandal)
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Re: How to make an Aircraft....

Postby Octal450 » Mon Jun 10, 2019 9:18 pm

You wrote that on your website.

Any of my planes simply won't work no matter how much you try due to the complexity. The whole thing would have to be rewitten, and much wouldn't even be possible. Probably it's true for many others planes too.

This is why new FGs are so great, and why I recommend upgrading obsolete hardware. (A nice i5 with Nvidia from years ago can be had on eBay for extremely cheap).

Kind Regards,
Josh
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Re: How to make an Aircraft....

Postby openflight » Tue Jul 30, 2019 12:17 pm

Since the title of this thread is "How to make an aircraft", making an aircraft can be done in several quick steps:

Copy the folder of an existing aircraft to another folder. Rename the folder.
Rename the aircraft-set file in this folder: this is the name used to select the aircraft FG starts with.
Create a new 3D model (Wings 3D is easy to use) and export it to .3ds or .obj format (Wings 3D does not export to .ac)
Create the flight model file using tools such as mentioned above.

This model will have no animations or textures, but it is a start, and you can refer to the Wings 3D manual or updated how to files in the Wiki (I may have to write this myself).

Please don't give up: that is the main thing. Blender is hard to learn and use but the newer versions are better. F Wings 3D is much easier.
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Re: How to make an Aircraft....

Postby openflight » Tue Jul 30, 2019 12:19 pm

For information on modifying an existing aircraft see my site : https://sites.google.com/site/flightgea ... g-aircraft .

Questions will only help me improve the clarity of my instructions so feel free to ask.

EDIT: For example the 3D model in the image was created in 30 minutes using Wings 3D. It is an original design for a 2 seat light aircraft. You see what can be done in a short time after one is familiar with Wings 3D.

Image
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