• 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.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
    • Questions about aircraft design can be posted in the Aircraft design forum
    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    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.

Plane Maker Background Bitmaps

lionheart

lionheart

Messages
10,158
Country
us-arizona
Hey all,

The Plane Maker is a very basic program when it comes to making parts in it. Terribly vague in instruction on how to do the background bitmaps. For the fuselage, I was lost. I found out some things tonight, through trial and error, how things are done. This is about how to put in background bitmaps, how they are done. Thats it. And its only for the Fuselage. I havent gone past this point yet.

You must find a good 3 view. In your graphics program, you need to chop it up into other views via copy/pasting into other views, like top, side, front. Your top view will be your bottom also. With the fuselage, you will need the bitmaps to be the same length, width, and height (in pixels). These will also start from the very edges of the front and rear of the bitmaps. If your side view is a different 'height' then your top view, then they will be different lengths in the Plane Maker backgrounds. You cant align the ribbings then, and so you need to go back in and make the side and top views the same dimensions.

In Photoshop, I kept my rectangle selection the same for cutting out the top and side, just moving it with arrow keys to hover over the areas I was going to copy out to a 'new' sheet. The new sheet (in photoshop) will be the same size as your selection.

When you are in Plane Maker, select on Standard, Fuselage, Top/Bottom (which includes sides, but doesnt mention that). On the bottom left are your points for Bitmap selections.

Tip; you can drag the top and bottom vertices of a 'half rib' area to a point you want a cross section at, and hit the 'Reset This Section to Vertical' and all the vertices then jump over there to be with the top/bottom vertices. Easier then measuring things out. Clicking on 'Ellipse' button on 'Sections' (in the Standard/Fuselage/Section center) will round out your cross section nicely. Then you can adjust it.

This is a brilliant tutorial on how its done, but he leaves out a few things that leave you hanging, such as your view bitmaps being equal sizes for the sides/top/bottom.


gow3gw24e.JPG
 
Side note. The Plane Maker does two things. It creates the coded 'config file' (ASI or ACI file?) that tells the computer about your fuel tanks location, CG location, weights and balances, wing area's, etc, etc. And... It makes the 'aerodynamics' model, which people usually hide and either make a 'show' model (visible) with Blender or Max, etc, and you export those planes (in sections) and integrate them (import?) into your Plane Maker project.

I hope that make sense. Plane Maker is like the setup center for your plane and the aerodynamics model build center as well. You will hide it later and put in your own high detail model.

I never agreed with this part of the program as aerodynamics should reflect the polygon surfaces. This is a very rough plane shape, but the computer (imagines?) it as being very smooth and fluid.

But... Thats what it does and how it works and so it goes. :) Show me how to do it and lets get a plane in this simulator to see how its done.
 
Well, the aero model is a rough approximation to the physical surface and allows a lot more surface calculations than any current Sim (ESP uses a single point as I understand it). Looks like MSFS is going to blow that away, but that's another thread
There's a new series on YouTube which is a tribute update to Dan's original series. I'll see if I can find a link.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top