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Make a vc

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39
Country
finland
Hello!:)
How shall i do to make a vc in a model in gmax? and how shall i do to insert gauges in the vc?
 
I'll ansere the easy one. :D

Basically, when you have your fuselage done and the windows and doors are cut out, just clone a copy of the fuselage, then select all polygons, and select 'flip' to flip the entire structure inside out.

Then, to give the walls 'thickness' so they dont appear paper thin, go to Extrude mode (with all polygons selected), and click the 'LOCAL' ticker under the Extrude button, and gently extrude all the polygons out a tad.

Do the same with the doors, making inner door panels.

When making a front or rear bulkhead, just go to Vertice mode and delete the section that wont be in the VC, such as the tail area. Then, save as Editable Poly. Then go to Border mode and select the back (or forward) edge/opening and click the CAP button to form a bulkhead.

With glass/plexi, just clone/flip and youre done.
 
What I do is;

* Create a small cube, call it 'exterior', Reset Scale on it, Reset X-Form on it, so its Gizmo is heading in the correct direction
* Click on Hierarchy/Effect Gizmo only/Center to Object (so the Gizmo is at dead center)
* Right click on MOVE icon at top tool bar and enter 0, 0, 0 (this will put the cube in direct center of the scene, which is required)
* Create an invisible material and Apply to the small cube so its invisible in FS
* Assign all parent parts to Exterior
* Click Selection List icon
* Tick on Show Trees Hierarchy
* Select All parts
* Go to Edit/Clone and clone all
* In the small popup window, change 'exterior01' to 'interior'
NOTE: You have just created the VC model.
* Delete the pilot in the 'interior' model, plus all other parts you do not wish in the VC model.

Export and check in FS.


:D


Bill
 
Last edited:
Easy..

See the top tool bar, top left side, two blocks with a red chain between them? That is the 'link' button. Press that to 'link' a part to another part.

When you link a part to another, you are making it a 'child' of the part you linked it too. Thus, the part that other parts are linked too become the 'parent'.

What you want to do is attach all parent parts to 'exterior' using the 'link' button.

Now, if you have an animated door, you have the inner door, door windows, etc. So that these parts move 'with' your door, you 'link' them to the door. Then they will animate 'with' the parent door. Now, link the door to the exterior. Done. When you look at the parts list with all the trees visible (parents and children branches), you should have all parts inevitably linked to exterior so that the main 'exterior' parent is on the far left side of the parts list, and no other parts are on the far left except that one, (exterior).

Next, when you clone the aircraft for the VC, you change the name of the 'other' exterior part to 'interior' and make sure that 'exterior' and 'interior' are the 'only' parts on the far left side. "Only" those.....

You are good to go then...

If you have a part that isnt linked (for FS2004 exports only) and you have say your inteior, exterior, and one or more parts 'also' on the far left, then your craft 'shouldnt' export. (Export failure).

I hope that helps. Youve now been told about the Birds and the Bees in the Gmax world, and how 'children' come about. :D


Bill
 
Last edited:
One more question, how shall i make clickable 3d-switches like
light switches, landing gear switches e.g. in the vc?
 
Hey C152,

Simple. Make the switches. Animate them. Reset their scale, etc, so they will animate properly. Then open up the XML parts list (with Notepad program) to locate the names of switches and levers and other such parts.

The 'actual' location for parts names, which also includes 'stock' hard-wired names of parts (such as l_aileron, etc), is in the FS2004 SDK, located in Program Files folder. It should be in the DOC's in the MakeMDL if my old memory serves me correctly.

Then just name the parts per their 'tag names', and always (always) and a _01 to the back of them, so that when you create a VC model, the cloned parts will 'auto-name' properly. There must be a 'dash' then a zero, number, behind each tag name. You can have it without a number, but if you have two parts with tag names, identicle, such as l_aileron and l_aileron, then one will work and the other is cancelled out. If you have l_aileron_01 or l_aileron_37, those will work. If you have l_aileron01, that will not, as there is no 'underscore' seperating it.

Also, when I am making models earlier in the model stage, I delete the VC model, work on the exterior model, then when I am ready, I burn a quick VC model (clone) and burn a test MDL model to see how its turning out. This way, you arent adding switches and parts to 'two' aircraft, but instead to one aircraft.

Later, you can go back to having 2 models, one with certain parts deleted for what ever reasons needed.


Hope that helps.

PS; I made a copy/pasted list of all the parts in one TXT file. really helps in looking them up and tagging parts, using copy/paste.

Also, in the future when you start to learn all this, note that you can create your own parts codes, add them to the XML list, and have some cool things going on with your aircraft models. Parts code is basically like gauge code, and controls animations and visibilities.


Cheers,

Bill
 
So if I want to create a rotaring beacon light switch I only make the switch, name it "Switch_Beacon_Light_01" and animate it.
Is that correct?
 
So if I want to create a rotaring beacon light switch I only make the switch, name it "Switch_Beacon_Light_01" and animate it.
Is that correct?


Eeeks.. Thats a different department all together.

First, there is no 'effect' that has the rotating Beacon that I know of, so you would have to make the structure/object totally seperately per the info in the SDK or by looking up a tutorial that someone has done on a rotating beacon. (I have no idea how to make one). What I do with beacons is assign an Effects light over that area/part (on the exterior) via the grid location of the Effect in the Aircraft.cfg file, (same way you do nav lights). But none are rotating...

The switch only turns that feature on, (beacon related lighting).


Bill
 
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