• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
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    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

Blender 2.70, Blender2FSX Tools (Video Tutorials)

Here's a question for any of the experts.

As I stated earlier I am brand new to computer modeling and animation. I selected a plane to start with that I thought would be simple to model. I have since found out that's that not so true. With a V-tail I ran into rigging problems because of the odd angles. Kris made an excellent video for me explaining the procedure to rig them.

The second problem was a fuselage with square sides and a rounded nose and turtle deck. Kris re-did a beautiful fuselage for me but he did not have anything to go by so he created a more traditional rounded one. I have attached a picture of the plane I am trying to model. How would you guys go about modeling something like this? With the mixture of curves and squares it's not so easy.
 

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Hi Hal!

In fact, as far as I can see on the picture, the cross-section of the fuselage remains square/rectangular along the entire fuselage. At the back, there's a circular top on it, and at the nose, there's an increasing bevel. I might show you something, so stay tuned ;)

Cheers!
 
Dutcheeseblend said:
Hi Hal!

In fact, as far as I can see on the picture, the cross-section of the fuselage remains square/rectangular along the entire fuselage. At the back, there's a circular top on it, and at the nose, there's an increasing bevel. I might show you something, so stay tuned ;)

Cheers!
Click to expand...

Thanks Dutchcheesblend. My file is posted above. Chris re-did it below and posted his file. Much better looking than mine.
 
Hal Dale said:
That is really neat! Now all I need to do is figure out how in the world you did it.

I don't know how long you have been at this but I can see I have a long way to go. I was going to try an make an instrument panel, retracting gear and a canopy that opens but I'm wondering if that is biting off more than I can chew. I bought John Blain's book "The Complete Guide to Blender Graphics" and have been reading it. Are there other books you would recommend for a beginner?

Thanks again for all you have done.

Hal
Click to expand...


Hi Hal!

Sorry! I did not answer this question sooner, but I missed it some how. I will make you a short video showing how to move the aircraft.

Thanks, Kris:)
 
Hal Dale said:
Here's a question for any of the experts.

As I stated earlier I am brand new to computer modeling and animation. I selected a plane to start with that I thought would be simple to model. I have since found out that's that not so true. With a V-tail I ran into rigging problems because of the odd angles. Kris made an excellent video for me explaining the procedure to rig them.

The second problem was a fuselage with square sides and a rounded nose and turtle deck. Kris re-did a beautiful fuselage for me but he did not have anything to go by so he created a more traditional rounded one. I have attached a picture of the plane I am trying to model. How would you guys go about modeling something like this? With the mixture of curves and squares it's not so easy.
Click to expand...

Hi Hal!

I will wait and see if Mr. Daan has time to make a tutorial for you, before I make one. Mr. Daan has much more experience than I do modeling.

Thanks, Kris
 
krispy1001 said:
Hi Hal!

I will wait and see if Mr. Daan has time to make a tutorial for you, before I make one. Mr. Daan has much more experience than I do modeling.

Thanks, Kris
Click to expand...

I have been studying your fuselage. I didn't realize you modified what I had until I looked closer. My question is what tools are you guys using to get the smooth look you did and add curved surfaces to square surfaces? I think Mr. Daan's tutorial will be a huge help to beginners like your rigging tutorials.
 
krispy1001 said:
Hi Hal!

I will wait and see if Mr. Daan has time to make a tutorial for you, before I make one. Mr. Daan has much more experience than I do modeling.

Thanks, Kris
Click to expand...

Kris

I started over on my fuselage after looking at the changes you made to mine and using Mr. Daan's example for beginning the basic design. Starting with a cube and the spin move made it much easier and more accurate. Your re-do of my fuselage gave me a good example of how to do the canopy and nose. I animated the canopy so it will open so, I am making good progress. I plan on creating and animating the gear next and then try my hand at texturing. I am down to your video on creating the windows for your plane. If I make a clear canopy how will I hide the vertices and edges we used to create the form for the canopy?

Hal
 
Hi Hal!

I do not completely understand what you are asking! If you are asking, how do you make the canopy see through? You need to setup your texture for the canopy with an alpha channel. Then you apply the texture to your canopy in Blender and set the correct FSX material parameters for a transparent texture.

Let me know if that is what you are talking about?

Thanks, Kris:)
 
krispy1001 said:
Hi Hal!

I do not completely understand what you are asking! If you are asking, how do you make the canopy see through? You need to setup your texture for the canopy with an alpha channel. Then you apply the texture to your canopy in Blender and set the correct FSX material parameters for a transparent texture.

Let me know if that is what you are talking about?

Thanks, Kris:)
Click to expand...

That's what I'm not clear about. How to make a canopy you can see through. Where can I find more information on an alpha channel? I don't quite understand that.

Hal
 
You don't exactly need an alpha channel for a transparent material. That is, if you don't have a texture. I set the standard Blender material properties of the material to Transparent and in Blender, this transparency can be shown by switching on Transparency in the Display section of the Object tab.
 
Hal Dale said:
That's what I'm not clear about. How to make a canopy you can see through. Where can I find more information on an alpha channel? I don't quite understand that.

Hal
Click to expand...

Hi Hal!

Mr. Daan is correct if you are just going to add test materials for testing your aircraft in FSX. Then you can just setup your Blender material for transparent and also set the FSX material parameters for transparent. Below is an example.

Blender Material Parameters
upload_2015-8-5_16-50-32.png


FSX Material Parameters
upload_2015-8-5_16-51-24.png


Let me know if this helps.

Thanks, Kris
 
krispy1001 said:
Hi Hal!

Mr. Daan is correct if you are just going to add test materials for testing your aircraft in FSX. Then you can just setup your Blender material for transparent and also set the FSX material parameters for transparent. Below is an example.

Blender Material Parameters
View attachment 23839

FSX Material Parameters
View attachment 23840

Let me know if this helps.

Thanks, Kris
Click to expand...

Thanks Kris that helps a lot.

I was watching a video last night about the future of FS. A lot of the people on the panel were pretty negative about the future of FSX since Microsoft stop supporting it. They seemed to think X-Plane which is designed to run on 64 bit computers is where everything is headed. What do you guys think?
 
Hi Hal!

I do not know! I can give my opinion; I think that FSX will be around for awhile. There are a lot of people that like FSX.

Thanks, Kris:)
 
X-Plane doesn't stand a chance against the latest developments in FSX, and P3D 2.+ moving forward.

- Joseph
 
fsxar177 said:
X-Plane doesn't stand a chance against the latest developments in FSX, and P3D 2.+ moving forward.

- Joseph
Click to expand...

Will FSX and P3D be able to access all of the memory? They way I understand it FSX is limited by the amount of memory it can use, on the other hand X-Plane can access all of it. That will really improve the realism.

If we develop a plane for FSX and decide later to export it to another platform how do you go about doing it?
 
LM will have to go with a 64-bit Sim at some point. Until then, FSX/FSX:SE/P3D 2.+ is the best thing going. And quite frankly, we're still tapping into what's possible.

There's too many differences to list here. There won't ever be a simple means of just exporting from FSX/P3D to XP. Far too many differences.

- Joseph
 
Kris

I have made pretty good progress on the cockpit and instrument panel. A quick question. I have a drawing of the nose gear. It is not aligned like I like but I think I can use it. If I want it detailed like the picture should I make each part separately and then join them? Some of the parts are fairly complex curves and angles.

Hal
 

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Hi Hal!

I would model all of the moving parts as separate objects. Then I would setup parents and path constraints for the moving parts.

I have been asked to make a video tutorial on how to animate a landing gear for a larder aircraft. I am working on it and I should have it out by next week sometime if GOD willing.

Thanks, Kris:)
 
krispy1001 said:
Hi Hal!

I would model all of the moving parts as separate objects. Then I would setup parents and path constraints for the moving parts.

I have been asked to make a video tutorial on how to animate a landing gear for a larder aircraft. I am working on it and I should have it out by next week sometime if GOD willing.

Thanks, Kris:)
Click to expand...

That would be really helpful, especially for the beginners. Your videos are excellent because you go through them slowly step by step. I have watched a lot of videos but most of them are done by guys that blow through them so fast you can't follow what they are doing. They assume you already know a lot about Blender and all of the tools and shortcuts.

I am able to get things done but I feel like I am going about it the hard way. I was making the attachment plate above with holes in the four corners. That seems like a simple operation but just getting the holes in the same place was a challenge and I haven't even done the curve on top of the tabs yet.

Hal
 
Hal...

I have watched Krispy's tutorials a number of times... over and over. I also have watched other's tutorials on the basics and technics used.

I'm having to convert objects from SketchUp to Blender, which, by the way, is helping since I'm having to use certain commands over and over along with getting use to the UI within Blender.

So... there is a learning curve, but its not bad considering GMax, to me, is alot worse.
 
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