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RV-6A

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RV-6A

Postby tat » Sun May 31, 2009 8:17 pm

Hi,

Here comes another new aircraft, famous Van's Aircraft RV-6A, created by Japanese FG forum members.
I've committed it to CVS, but is not yet downloadable from FG website, so go visit:
http://macflightgear.sourceforge.net/ho ... aft/rv-6a/
and give it a try.

We're working on it with Mach B&F, an NPO that actually building the real RV-6A.
Since we can have feedback from real pilots, it can be closer to the real one in the near future.

Anyway, have a fun flight.
Last edited by tat on Mon Jun 01, 2009 2:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: RV-6A

Postby screwdriver » Sun May 31, 2009 9:38 pm

Is there a reason why it isn't smooth-shaded?
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Re: RV-6A

Postby tat » Mon Jun 01, 2009 3:17 am

screwdriver wrote:Is there a reason why it isn't smooth-shaded?


It actually is smooth-shaded, but the number of surfaces are pretty big, which makes each surface area very small and flat.
This is why it doesn't look smooth-shaded.

This is the first 3D model that Japanese FG forum members made. Getting not used to creating 3D models, they used a bit too many surfaces for a model, so it is not well optimized. But I think it is good enough for the first model, isn't it?

As they get used to modeling aircraft, It will soon be better, I guess.

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Re: RV-6A

Postby HHS » Mon Jun 01, 2009 11:38 am

tat wrote:
It actually is smooth-shaded, but the number of surfaces are pretty big, which makes each surface area very small and flat.
This is why it doesn't look smooth-shaded.



Hi

Thats's not true- I could get it smooth just using "set smooth" in Object Mode under "Link and Materials" with an crease angle of 80 in Blender. The number of surfaces is o.k.
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Re: RV-6A

Postby tat » Tue Jun 02, 2009 9:34 pm

Hi HHS,

HHS wrote:
tat wrote:
It actually is smooth-shaded, but the number of surfaces are pretty big, which makes each surface area very small and flat.
This is why it doesn't look smooth-shaded.



Thats's not true- I could get it smooth just using "set smooth" in Object Mode under "Link and Materials" with an crease angle of 80 in Blender. The number of surfaces is o.k.


ah, nice catch. I thought I already did that, but actually didn't. thanks!
Now I committed the changes. You can get the new one from either cvs or the following link:
http://macflightgear.sourceforge.net/wp ... 602.tar.gz

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Re: RV-6A

Postby CareyParks » Mon Jan 27, 2014 9:57 pm

Hi,

I have a friend with an RV-7, and I would like to make a copy of your RV-6A and mod it to be his RV-7. Taller vertical stab, tail-dragger, his panel and livery would be about it, perhaps tweak the sim parms a bit. Could I have the author(s) permission to do this? I would copy the files and create a new RV-7 aircraft, crediting those who came before me.

Thanks,

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Re: RV-6A

Postby hvengel » Mon Jan 27, 2014 11:07 pm

If it is in git it is GPL and that means you already have the authors permission copy and modify it.
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Re: RV-6A

Postby Johan G » Mon Jan 27, 2014 11:43 pm

Though leaving him a note that you used it probably will be appreciated. ;) :)
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Re: RV-6A

Postby CareyParks » Thu Jan 30, 2014 4:41 pm

OK, can anyone point me to where the git is? Once you know, you know I guess, but it doesn't appear to be in the documentation anywhere I have looked. I have gone looking three different days, hoping I could find where to get the RV-6A files and have a look at what they contain etc. and get my mind around what needs to be done, but I can't find a working link. I run out of gumption after following circular link chains for an hour or so. I hope the next day, with a fresh perspective I will have more success, but it never happens.

I did find this topic, which contains a link, but it is not working:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=10420

I have found many useful articles that mention what one needs to do, and even what tools to do it with, but no links! Can someone update the link in that post? I hate spending my time when I could be making progress on an aircraft, or learning about making an aircraft wandering around the web accomplishing nothing. Big gumption sink.

Thanks,

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Re: RV-6A

Postby CareyParks » Thu Jan 30, 2014 6:22 pm

I turned over one more rock and I found it:

https://gitorious.org/fg

Whew. Now all I have to do is learn all about git. Which is at least forward progress.

I see how to make a clone. If I wish to turn RV-6A into RV-7, I assume I download the 6A files, do some renaming and of course changing of the contents, and add a new aircraft as fgdata/Aircraft/RV-7?

Now to figure out how to download the RV-6A tree. Downloading file-by-file seems a bit tedious, so I'm sure there's a better way. I'm off to find some git tutorials. (Windows person here, can you tell? By necessity not choice. Happy to learn new tricks though, I've not drunk the blue Coolaid. But it's so painful to go back to being a noob after accumulating so many spells.)

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Re: RV-6A

Postby Gijs » Thu Jan 30, 2014 6:37 pm

The RV-6A hasn't been updated after the latest release (to be precise, there's been no update since 2009), so you can simply grab the latest version from the usual download page http://www.flightgear.org/download/aircraft-v2-12 That'll give you the same files as you can get from Git, but without the hassle :-)

To understand what git is (and when/if you need it), see http://wiki.flightgear.org/Git
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Re: RV-6A

Postby CareyParks » Sun Feb 02, 2014 6:04 am

Thanks Gijs, sadly I can't get the RV-6A I downloaded the "normal way" to start. And the console is not positioned properly to even see the controls on it.I don't see a mag switch, or there is some other issue preventing starting. It will crank, but not start - like if the mags were off. I thought I would try moving the console back and labeling the switches and maybe after that I'd know enough to figure out what is needed to make it go. Of course I'll download the "source" for a working aircraft too, so I can see what might be missing.

So, I'd like to have the source or whatever is needed to make modifications to the aircraft, eventually turning it into an RV-7.

That said, I have not found anything very useful that explains how to do that. Other than in generalities that is. And someone coming from a Microsoft background doesn't even recognize all the Linix words. Which I'm sure will cause some to say/think "well, this isn't a Unix/Linix training project, it's a flight simulator development project."

Fair enough. But I operate quite well by following examples and learning by doing. Is there someplace that would lead one through the steps required to download an aircraft's source, add a placard on the panel and run it in FlightGear on one's own computer? The examples I've seen here and there look like command line instructions, but doing that is way down-stream from sitting at my Window's 8 notebook looking at a pile of XML files and obviously generated geometries. Typing that into a DOS prompt I suspect would be futile.

Thanks to anyone who can get me started. I could contribute a fair amount of stuff, and I've programmed lots of different things since my first program in 1969! Just never got into UNIX/LINIX (yet.)

Best,

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Re: RV-6A

Postby Johan G » Sun Feb 02, 2014 3:03 pm

A starting point could be the aircraft developer portal at the wiki. It is sometimes difficult to find what you look for, so instead of looking for something specific, not knowing specifically what to search for, look around in those articles and ones that you feel might be related.

Take yourself some time for this. Also a lot of these things are not at all obvious at first (I would use the word "confusing" ;) ) but in time reading wiki articles and the readme files in the ../data/Docs folder of your FlightGear installation, not to mention looking at existing aircraft while reading in on how to create or modify aircraft will help a lot. :)
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Re: RV-6A

Postby CareyParks » Sun Feb 02, 2014 10:28 pm

Thanks Johan,

I have looked thru a lot of the developer portal, and the stuff there makes sense, but where I'm stuck is on little tiny details that I can't find the answers to:

1) How to I talk to gitorius? Do I need some kind of terminal emulator? Can I telnet into it?

2) Do I have to clone/download my own git for my computer? I'm just me and I'm only working on a new aircraft so concurrent update isn't a problem. Can I just work on the files in a folder?

I think there is better documentation on how to use the specific tools for 3D modeling. But I am pretty good at Google Sketchup. I bet that won't fly with FlightGear tho will it?

Sigh.

I don't have all that much time to spend in this direction, and I'm trying to not spend it figuring out non-productive puzzles. If someone who has made an aircraft on Windows could just post exactly how they got to the point they could edit their aircraft I would be most grateful. I'm sure I'll have no problem with the modeling or even the coding - I've written a lot of software in different languages over the years. But it's pretty much an opaque wall at this point.

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Re: RV-6A

Postby Philosopher » Sun Feb 02, 2014 10:43 pm

You don't need to start using Gitorious - just stick with whatever you're comfortable with - most people find Git challenging and not worth it. It's only when you want to start collaborating with several other people that it becomes important...

From what I've seen, there are other people who use Google Sketchup for FlightGear, particularly when designing buildings. The best/most common format for FlightGear is .ac (aka AC3D) but I do not know if Sketchup can export to that. The other common option is Blender (open-source/free), which can export to .ac with an addon maintained by some members of this community, but most people find that even harder than Git :D.

The other part of making aircraft are just going to be XML editing and such (maybe a little scripting with Nasal), so don't need fancy software per se, although a good editor with syntax highlighting doesn't hurt (e.g. gedit). This is often the least documented part of making aircraft, but you can always look at other aircraft to see what you need. In fact, it usually doesn't hurt much to start out by copying an existing aircraft :).

Good luck! Ask lots of questions.

EDIT: haha, found this: http://wiki.flightgear.org/index.php/Sk ... D_exporter. Another FG-community addon.
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