Realflight G3.5 Aircraft Modding?

[DR_G]

Guys,

I think I misunderstood G3's capabilities a bit: After inputting all the data on the Middle Phase 2 as a modification to one of the slopers on Realflight G3, the preview plane looked, well, exactly like a Middle Phase 2 as you would expect. When I came to fly however, it looked exactly like the unmodded aircraft, but flew like the Middle Phase. I expected the modifications to actually be reflected in the model. Unless I'm missing something it was a bit of a waste of time.

I will have to 3-D model the whole thing and somehow import it. I can't understand why the mods dont show up - you get a 3-d preview of your mods superimposed upon the original, so clearly all the geometrical model data is in there. I assumed it worked on a parametric basis, where you are modding an existing solid model, and the model would actually change.

I am a design engineer, and use ProE Wildfire and Unigraphics NX3 (solid modelling packages) every day. Can these be used to build and import models? I would love to know how to model my own aircraft this way.

Any ideas?

Thanks again,

Garth.

[nemo_uk]

Hi Garth,

There are two elements to aircraft within G3 the visual bit and the flight characteristics bit. The bit you can modify in the G3 editor is the flight characteristics. You can not change the visual appearance of an aircraft other than its color scheme and overall scale within G3.

You can create a completly new aircraft using some 3d software like 3ds max, export it using KEMAX (http://www.knifeedge.com/KEmax/) and then import that into G3 and add some flight characteristics.

I hope that makes sense.

You could go from Unigraphics NX3 --> Deep Exploration --> 3dstokex --> g3
(when Knifeedge fix 3dstokex)

regards,

Tony

[DR_G]

Thanks Tony, understood.

I will read through the procedures in your link and give it a whirl.

Garth.

[DR_G]

Tony,

Read through the link - clear as mud I'm afraid. there are no references to 3-d modelling packages, or exactly what file type you need to export etc.

Do you know of a simple tutorial on what exactly needs modelling in the 3-d package (for example do you need to model the ailerons seperately, or are these added later parametrically)?

Regards,

Garth.

[nemo_uk]

Hi Garth,

There is a tutorial here ...

http://www.knifeedge.com/KEmax/tutorials.php

Knife Edge have created two tools ...

1. an expoter for Autodesk 3DS Max.
2. a convertion tool which converts a .3DS to their file format .KEX (this is currently broken, and not avaliable for download)

So at the moment the only way to create a completly new aircraft is to use 3DS max and their exporter.

regards,

Tony

[DR_G]

Tony,

Thanks - I was just looking at a forum thread on this subject on the KE site that I believe you contributed to.

The basics are begining to make sense now, but unfortunatley I'm stuffed since I dont have access to 3D studio. Shame because it is something I would find quite therapeutic I think!

Regards,

Garth.