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Howto:Make an aircraft: Difference between revisions
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{{forum|4|aircraft development}} | {{forum|4|aircraft development}} | ||
There are many things required to '''develop an [[aircraft]] for [[FlightGear]]'''. We encourage new [[Portal:Developer/Aircraft|aircraft developers]] to start their 'career' by modifying and enhancing existing aircraft. It is much easier to do and gives you a giant advantage by the time you create an aircraft completely by yourself. | There are many things required to '''develop an [[aircraft]] for [[FlightGear]]'''. | ||
Some suggestions for those relatively new to modeling wanting to contribute models to Flightgear: | |||
* If fidelity is a factor, avoid anything where you cannot find clear high-resolution 3-views or engineering schematics. Don't rely on the cheesy little 3-views found all over the Internet-- the resolution is too low to be useful and they are often not accurate. | |||
* Avoid obscure aircraft where information is scarce. | |||
* Avoid anything with lots of external detail. | |||
* Avoid anything with lots of compound curves. | |||
* Do not start with cockpit modeling, at least not anything more elaborate than very simple GA aircraft. Cockpit modeling is complex and poses some of the most difficult and frustrating challenges in aircraft modeling. | |||
* Excessive 3D modeling is often unnecessary. Much can be done (and in my opinion should be done) through smart use of textures and normal maps. | |||
The advice to start with modeling ground objects like buildings is sound. It's a good way to learn and quickly benefit the community. Another alternative is to try modeling some cockpit instruments. Whatever you do, keep your initial project limited in scope and within your capabilities. | |||
We encourage new [[Portal:Developer/Aircraft|aircraft developers]] to start their 'career' by modifying and enhancing existing aircraft. It is much easier to do and gives you a giant advantage by the time you create an aircraft completely by yourself. | |||
This approach has a number of things going for it that benefit the FlightGear community as well as someone new trying to become an active member of the community. There are currently way too many aircraft in a very incomplete state that need tons of work. By working on these less complete aircraft you help move the ball forward on that aircraft. For someone new to one of the best places to start is doing cockpit work. Since the learning curve is fairly steep (you need to learn a 3D modeling tool plus a lot of other stuff that has been mentioned in this thread) it is best to start with something very simple. | |||
Things like placards, stream gauges or switches should be where you start. Adding placards is by far the simplest thing you can do for a cockpit and almost any aircraft you pick in FG git, even some very advanced models, will need at least one or more placards. Placards also add a lot of cockpit detail for very little effort although for a rank beginner it will still take a significant amount of effort to get a placard modeled and textured and into a cockpit. These do not need animation or any interface to the property tree or any nasal code and only minimal XML. This helps reduce the steepness of the initial learning curve. After doing a few placards you can step up to steam gauges. These will require more extensive XML and also animation and interfaces to the property tree and perhaps even some nasal code and the 3D models will be more complex than that needed for placards. But the 3D models will not be very complex relatively speaking and you will be able to use existing models as a starting place since gauges are build to a set of standard sizes and external configurations at least in modern (IE. WWII and later) aircraft. | |||
Almost any aircraft maintainer should be willing to mentor someone new to add things like placards and gauges to an exiting model. Some will insist on very high standards for anything you do so please try to do quality work. But keep in mind that as a new contributor that the aircraft maintainer will likely spend more time helping you get up the learning curve than the amount of effort it would have taken them to do the same work themselves. So please do enough work on that aircraft to reach at least the break even point for the mentoring effort. Also keep in mind that an aircraft maintainer would prefer that new contributors coordinate with them to prevent duplication of effort and to make integrating the contribution into the aircraft easier. | |||
I also think it is important to work on an aircraft that you have some passion for. This is tedious, detailed, time consuming work that requires a level of dedication to overcome the hurdles involved. If you don't have a certain level of passion for what you are doing you will not persevere. On the other hand doing this work will result in learning a lot about a wide range of things (3D modeling, how to research things, animation, 2D graphics, FlightGear, nasal...) and if you persevere you will find this very rewarding. | |||
One thing that is coming is a better aircraft manager, which will allow aircraft to state their compatibility, so the GUI won't (by default of course) show you aircraft that don't work with your FG version. The problem then is getting more people to maintain aircraft and at least test them + tag them when a new version is being tested. Usually fixing an aircraft is < 1 hour work, with some help, but people are very reluctant to do it. Maybe we need an 'adopt an aircraft' for the unmaintained ones. | |||
The content in this article gives a summary of codes and can be found on most planes. So, for examples on how it's used, you can take a look at some random planes. | The content in this article gives a summary of codes and can be found on most planes. So, for examples on how it's used, you can take a look at some random planes. | ||
Probably the easiest way to get a new aircraft going is to find another (similar) JSBSim/YaSim aircraft that is similar to yours and look at how it is setup. Even easier would be to copy that models configuration and then start making modifications to suit your aircraft. JSBSim can be complex depending on how advanced your aircraft is but using the copy and modify approach will allow you to get started and give you a platform to learn new stuff as you make modifications to the configuration. | |||
Additional information is available in a [http://www.flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6030 special forum topic]. | Additional information is available in a [http://www.flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6030 special forum topic]. | ||