Howto:Place 3D objects with the UFO: Difference between revisions

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'''Placing 3D objects inside Flightgear scenery using the UFO'''
A very useful tool for placing objects within the scenery, created by Melchior Franz, is available with Flightgear 0.9.10 and later. It is an addon to the UFO aircraft which allows a user to place a new (or old) 3D object at any arbitrary location in the scenery with just a few clicks of the mouse.
=Selecting the ufo=
The first thing you need is a 3d model file to place in the scenery; let's say we'll use a catii-iii.xml object. You must save it in a path where this UFO feature can find it. The UFO searches the objects in the Flightgear/data/Models/ directory. In this example, we create a subdirectory called Tabu and save our catii-iii.xml there.
[[Image:Placing_objects_with_UFO_html_m49fbed81.jpg]]
Now start Flightgear, and choose UFO as your aircraft.
=Placing objects=
Once Flightgear has been started, fly with the UFO to the place you want the model to be positioned.
[[Image:Placing_objects_with_UFO_html_5fa8d7b1.jpg]]
Let's say we want to position the catii-iii.xml object at the end of a taxiway. We stop the UFO just above this intersection and press the space key, a Select Model window will open up where the contents of the Flightgear/data/Models/ directory will be shown. Select your model from this list, then close the window. The selected model path/name will be display in green text at the bottom left of the FlightGear screen.
[[Image:Placing_objects_with_UFO_html_m184fb381.jpg]]
Now you may point the mouse on the scenery ground and left-click again, the CAT II/III ground marking model will be positioned there. Of course, it does not have the correct orientation and it's partly covered by the surrounding terrain, but we can adjust that.
[[Image:Placing_objects_with_UFO_html_12ee70a1.jpg]]
=Rotating objects=
Fly closer to the ground with the UFO, so that you can see it better.
Now press TAB (or Ctrl-I), and use the resulting sliders to adjust the latitude/longitude/elevation/heading of the model.
[[Image:Placing_objects_with_UFO_html_439816e9.jpg]]
=Exporting the result=
Now that the model is correctly positioned, press the D key to dump the model position data to the terminal. A few lines will be printed on the console, providing the necessary orientation data. You will save those coordinates into a scenery objects file in the next step. If you don't do that, next time you run Flightgear it will know nothing about the new object.
[[Image:Placing_objects_with_UFO_html_m4cf0cbf7.jpg]]
In the terminal window, you get three sections printed out by the UFO with very detailed information about what's going on, we need the line at the end.
e000n50/e008n50/3089154.stg is the secenery object file where this object's coordinates have to be saved. The default place where to find e000n50 directory is inside Flightgear/data/Scenery/Objects/. You just open the 3089154.stg file with any text editor, add the following line and save it the file:
OBJECT_SHARED Models/Tabu/catii-iii.xml 8.57928135 50.03667992 105.9972 111.1
Now you have your object's position saved, and it will appear inside the scenery every time you start Flightgear.
=Useful keys=
=Useful keys=
* Ufo positioning
* Ufo positioning
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** Home ... Hover Up  (Increase ufo altitude)
** Home ... Hover Up  (Increase ufo altitude)
** End ... Hover down  (Decrease ufo altitude)
** End ... Hover down  (Decrease ufo altitude)
** P ... toggle radar panel
* Object management
* Object management
** mouse click ... Add model to scenery
** mouse click ... Add model to scenery

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