• Hi All

    I'm not a Software Developer but how difficult will it be to create a larger version of a Christen Eagle for RC7 as the model in the Professional Deluxe Version?
    Is there any way to migrate the AFPD Christen Eagle to RC7?

  • Hello,

    the aerofly pro deluxe and the aerofly5, rc7 and fs use an encrypted 3D model. And only the af5, rc7 and fs are compatible for the most part. Its not possible to get the original model back from the afpd aircraft and convert it into the rc7 format. Therefor a new Christen Eagle 3D model is needed. Creating a 3D model takes a lot of time if you want it to look O.K.

    If you had a 3D model its not too too complicated to convert an afpd aircraft to the newer aeroflys.

    Have a great day,
    Jan

  • Thank you for the info =]

    So...as far as I could barelly understand, I model each component individually (wings, rudder, fuselage, etc...), Name the objects properly, save as MQO and use the conversion tools? No rigging or animation required?
    It seems pretty straight forward.

  • You can use Metasequoia, you don't have to. There are converter tools for AutoCAD3D, 3Ds Max and a few more. Only meta and ac3d are published I think. So if you use other tools than its best to kindly ask the ipacs support for help.

    The "animation" is done in the aircraft configuration/definition file .tmd.
    Physics and graphics are seperated in that file. Rigidbodies, aerodynamicsl wings, etc. are defined in the dynamics section of the .tmd file and linked to the 3D model objects (LeftWing, Fuselage, and so on) in the graphics section. And there is also a sound section.

    All parts that shall rotate independent or brake lose have to be a seperate object in the 3D model. Each object can only have one texture file attached to it. You can put multiple objects on one texture but not the other way around. Its better to have one huge texture than one texture for each part. The aerofly is optimized to join objects that share the same texture and increase the performance by doing so.
    Also 3D parts should be water-prove, which, I think, makes the shadow calculation better or faster. At least the converter for mqo files throws errors at you, which you can ignore, but you don't have to :D

    The animation is most likely a hinged body, like flaps and so on. They define an axis and a pivot and take an input as the deflection control, in most cases that is the same actuator that also controlls the flaps on the wings, but it does not have to be. A landing gear is animated in the physics section, because we want the landing gear to brake off at a certain point :D
    A clock for example has no real physics to it. Most of its code would be in the graphics section and each pointer would need an independant 3d object.

    Creating aircraft is actually not really that complicated, it just takes time.
    A huge time component is creating a good looking 3D model with color, bump/normal, gloss/reflection, alpha, ambient,... mappings, which you already have a lot of experience in, I figure, and secondly adjusting the parameters so that the aircraft flies like the original. The more information you can get about the aircraft, the easier this process becomes.

    Have an awesome week,
    Jan

  • Hi RockNBurn,
    it would be great if you could enter the small developers community.


    ...Also 3D parts should be water-prove, which, I think, makes the shadow calculation better or faster. ...
    Jan

    While creating a 3D model, this is an important point: Verify that all objects are closed 3D bodies. In blender a tool may exist which checks for gaps or holes.

    Regards
    Karl-Heinz

  • Hi Rodeo,

    I noticed that it works fine even when they are not closed.
    How do you create a canopy with a water prove 3d object? The aerofly renders the inside like a very shiny surface that is not transparent in all directions (its dependent on the viewing angle). Untill now I just removed all triangles facing to the inside. I know professional models do some shader trick, but I don't know how that is done. Maybe someone can tell me? :D

    Regards,
    Jan

  • Well, usually you need a closed object to calculate light diffraction, but usually on rendered images or movies.

    I still haven't experienced on modeling an airplane for Aerofly, so I don't know how it behaves with open surfaces. It will probably only render surfaces which the normals are facing the camera.

    Maybe you don't need closed objects on windows and stuff, of maybe you have some normals facing the wrong direction. Or maybe you have a z-sorting problem. When it comes to real time rendering, like games ans simulators, the VGA have a hard time figuring out which transparent object (or faces) is nearest to the camera, and that causes some issues.

  • Hi all,

    I can only attest this and I strongly recommend to pay attention to this!
    Here an example of a model in which each object consisted of a couple of single objects that were not joined together:

    After the elimination of several open faces it looked much better:

    Regards
    Arthur