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Aircraft Design

johndetrick

johndetrick

Charter Member
What is everyone's favorite program for making fsx aircraft. I'm thinking of jumping into the developers world.
 
And if like me you cannot the multi thousand $$$ being asked for that programme then there is a free version of gMax that comes with FSX. You will find it on Disc 1 along with the SDK.

Abacus also have a programme Flightsim Design Studio.
 
3ds max for me.

I'd suggest starting with Gmax, FSDS was good when it first apeared, but its long in the tooth now and is a bit of a hassle to work with going by what i've heard.
 
Currently working in Gmax and Photoshop CS6. Working towards 3DS Max 9. That will be the dynamic duo.
 
If you have the money, go for 3DS Max 2014 and get the P3D V1 and V2 SDK kits. Also Photoshop CS6.

I believe you can now rent these monthly.



You can get your hands dirty with trying this out by using Gmax, which is an ancient, very basic version of 3DS Max.


Roaming through YouTube will also show you some things about how to make parts and map them in the various programs, like Max, Gmax, FSDS, Blender, etc.


By the way.... It takes quite a long time to really make headway on how to make all the parts; animation, gauge code, part code for object animations, creation of artwork for things like panels and seats and things, airfiles tuning, etc, etc. You don't just hop in and start kicking out planes. Its a lot of learning that you will have to do. If you were a team member, then you could reduce your work load to just one thing, let the other team mates handle other aspects.



EDIT: But man is it addictive... :D
 
I use AutoCAD for creating my basic 3 views on which I can superimpose reasonable photos (usually only side views) to check profiles. Most 3 views of aircraft (at least the ones I create) seem to have quite a bit of artistic licence. Dimensions can then be checked against published data if one does not have access to the particular aircraft.
Once one has the dimensions one can then in Gmax create the basic blocks by defining them using those values, rather than poly pushing to get the profiles to match the 3 view used as a background. Maybe that suits my background as an aircraft design draughtsman?

As Lionheart says, once into the programme - its terribly addictive.

Have fun.
HTH
Keith
 
Then you have to make it fly, unless it is static scenery. Some of the body works also do flight dynamics, most FDE guys don't do graphical work. I am one of the latter.

Good luck and much persistence!

cheers. Tom
 
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