How Can I Create an Aerofly FS 4 Aircraft Model?

  • Since the discussion branched off into two separate topics I moved out the Carbon Cub development. For new users it would have been really irritating to see screenshots of an airplane in a thread called helicopter development whilst most the discussion is about Garmin devices. As a moderator I sometimes have to step in to avoid off-topic discussions.

  • Well since most of the posts I made are not about helicopter development, in fact only the first few posts in this thread seem to have been that, I wonder if it would have been better to just change the thread title to something more along the lines of "How Can I Create an Aerofly FS 4 Aircraft Model?"

  • aenbacka February 11, 2023 at 6:35 PM

    Changed the title of the thread from “Helicopter model development” to “How Can I Create an Aerofly FS 4 Aircraft Model?”.
  • A handy freeware/shareware utility to use when you want to get angles and dimensions/position data for use in your aircraft model from line drawings or pictures that you have is a program called MB-Ruler "MB-Ruler helps you to measure distances and angles on the screen and distances on a map."

    For Aerofly FS 2/4 aircraft model creation this is somewhat more critical than for X-Plane 11 because while in X-Plane you can simply define a wing dimensions, chord, and dihedral for the wings, in Aerofly FS you must specify each specific x,y,z "Station" coordinates to define the wings geometric form from which it derives the chord, dihedral, span, etc.

    MB-Ruler is available here:

    MB-Ruler - the triangular screen ruler

  • When working on updating the tmd file of the Carbon Cub according to the instructions for porting aircraft from FS2 to FS4 (https://www.aerofly.com/developers/air…o-aerofly-fs-4/), I found some steps that seems to be slightly confusing in the instructions.

    • fuel_tank, fuel_line, fuel_valve, etc. are renamed to fuel_deprecated_… and should be avoided - I got an error that fuel_deprecated_tank has no property "MaximumQuantity", should this be expressed differently in FS4?
    • hingedbodygraphics InputAngle renamed to Input - Should this be InputID as I got errors using Input?
  • When working on updating the tmd file of the Carbon Cub according to the instructions for porting aircraft from FS2 to FS4 (https://www.aerofly.com/developers/air…o-aerofly-fs-4/), I found some steps that seems to be slightly confusing in the instructions.

    • fuel_tank, fuel_line, fuel_valve, etc. are renamed to fuel_deprecated_… and should be avoided - I got an error that fuel_deprecated_tank has no property "MaximumQuantity", should this be expressed differently in FS4?
    • hingedbodygraphics InputAngle renamed to Input - Should this be InputID as I got errors using Input?

    - MaximumQuantity is now MassFull

    - InputAngle changes to Input, AngleID changes to InputID.

    If you don't need to change the angle in the graphics, we prefer using InputID which grabs the value from the physics output directly. This reduces the necessary code. For some hingedbodygraphics, such as a rotary selector or flaps lever a graphics_linear_interpolation is often needed to get the angle just right. Then Input is needed, not InputID

  • Working with the TMD file requires quite some effort, especially as the information on the Aerofly does not seem to be completely up to date, or missing (some sections do not exist at all, for instance part of the engine section).

    Also the porting instructions from Aerofly FS2 mentions that messages Controls.Starter etc should be renamed to Starter1.., however it is slightly unclear if this concerns all Controls messages (such as Controls.EngineStarter).

    Also is there any more detailed debug output so you could see the different Inputs and Outputs in realtime during development, as that would be extremely helpful?

  • The easiest way to get something to work is by copying it from another aircraft. A lot of messages were added for Aerofly FS 4 which could not be assigned in Aerofly FS 2.

    We do have a 3D editor to visualize parts of the TMD. I can send you a copy, though the tool itself isn't documented. But I'm keeping it up to date because that's what we're working with as well.

  • The easiest way to get something to work is by copying it from another aircraft. A lot of messages were added for Aerofly FS 4 which could not be assigned in Aerofly FS 2.

    We do have a 3D editor to visualize parts of the TMD. I can send you a copy, though the tool itself isn't documented. But I'm keeping it up to date because that's what we're working with as well.

    Yes I have now tried to do some comparisons with e.g., the DR400, but for the throttle I have not spotted any differences. It would be great if you could send me the tool, very much appreciated😀

  • Isn't Autodesk Maya like a $5000/seat commercial software like 3DS Max? Man, I would just stick to using Blender unless you are thinking to become a payware aircraft model developer but I doubt you would make your investment back in sales. I too would be interested in hearing what @Jet-Pack has to say about this. I know at one time long ago both Laminar Research and IPACS used to have converter plugins for other 3D CAD programs but I think they eventually switched over to only supporting Blender. I am guessing because it is free and very full featured (actually more than you need probably for just flight simulator models), and in the case of X-Plane encourages hobbyists to try making their own airplanes for their favorite flight simulator. That was a very smart move on Laminar Research's part. That and having a GUI based aircraft file editor called Plane Maker is why X-Plane 11 has literally hundreds of freeware aircraft available for it including helicopters. In fact, from what I have read in the forums, if you just want to test out an idea for your own custom aircraft design, you don't even need a 3D CAD program with Plane Maker because it can create a very basic 3D aircraft shape which you can then fly in the X-Plane simulator.

  • Isn't Autodesk Maya like a $5000/seat commercial software like 3DS Max? Man, I would just stick to using Blender unless you are thinking to become a payware aircraft model developer but I doubt you would make your investment back in sales. I too would be interested in hearing what @Jet-Pack has to say about this. I know at one time long ago both Laminar Research and IPACS used to have converter plugins for other 3D CAD programs but I think they eventually switched over to only supporting Blender. I am guessing because it is free and very full featured (actually more than you need probably for just flight simulator models), and in the case of X-Plane encourages hobbyists to try making their own airplanes for their favorite flight simulator. That was a very smart move on Laminar Research's part. That and having a GUI based aircraft file editor called Plane Maker is why X-Plane 11 has literally hundreds of freeware aircraft available for it including helicopters. In fact, from what I have read in the forums, if you just want to test out an idea for your own custom aircraft design, you don't even need a 3D CAD program with Plane Maker because it can create a very basic 3D aircraft shape which you can then fly in the X-Plane simulator.

    Yes, Maya is commercial. I am using Blender but I have people helping out that uses Maya/3ds max. The exporter should work with 3ds max and Blender, so if we can get the models into one of those (including animations and rigging) it should be able to export to tgi. I tried to export the Carbon Cub model using the Blender plugin (using Blender 3.3 lts) but I got lots or error messages and exporting failed.

  • You should check with Jet-Pack (IPACS) but my impression is that IPACS is only updating the Blender plugin going forwards, it's certainly the only one that they make available publicly on their developers website. Also maybe I am wrong, but I was looking into Aerofly FS's method of animating moving parts which I originally thought was done via their plugin in the 3D CAD program assuming it to be like hoow X-Plane's Blender plugin works. But it turns out that the X-Plane OBJ8 format which is generated by the it's plugin contains both the vertices data and the animation data. X-Plane's plugin does not use the native key frame animation system of Blender, it provides its one interface for this in the plugin. However, the Aerofly FS 4 blender plugin is just a straight vertices converter. My current understanding is that the aircraft tmd file is where you must manually write in the parts animation code that is tied to a specific graphic object is defined in the tgi file, so the 3D CAD program's native animation system is not used at all.

    Some Examples from Kaniewski's Cub Special tmd file:

  • You should check with Jet-Pack (IPACS) but my impression is that IPACS is only updating the Blender plugin going forwards, it's certainly the only one that they make available publicly on their developers website. Also maybe I am wrong, but I was looking into Aerofly FS's method of animating moving parts which I originally thought was done via their plugin in the 3D CAD program assuming it to be like hoow X-Plane's Blender plugin works. But it turns out that the X-Plane OBJ8 format which is generated by the it's plugin contains both the vertices data and the animation data. X-Plane's plugin does not use the native key frame animation system of Blender, it provides its one interface for this in the plugin. However, the Aerofly FS 4 blender plugin is just a straight vertices converter. My current understanding is that the aircraft tmd file is where you must manually write in the parts animation code that is tied to a specific graphic object is defined in the tgi file, so the 3D CAD program's native animation system is not used at all.

    Some Examples from Kaniewski's Cub Special tmd file:

    Have to admit I am not so familiar yet with the tmd animation handling. Does this mean that all objects should just be created statically in Blender, and all animation stuff is in the tmd?

    All the documentation in the wiki refers to the 3ds max plugin, there is not mention about the Blender plugin.