Help me to create planes in Real flight 3.5

[TSnake]

I don't think I'm asking too much.
I just want to create a few planes that I actually own and like for RF 3.5, as it seems nobody else with the required skills is interested in making models like:
- a Superfly (that flys like the real thing),
- a Swift II or a Swift Maxi
- an Alula,
- any half serious slope soaring wing (Wowings Booby / Skua or a Windrider Bat)

I've spent hours in the Knife edge site, but I can't find any straight forward answers, and that place just gives me a head ache now.

I'm actually pretty good at 3D graphics, so actually making them wont be hard.

I'll skip all the problems I went through, and just tell you where I'm at now, and why I need help.

I've created a 3ds file of a plane, but need to import it into RF 3.5 via a Knife Edge program called KEmax (3ds - kex converter).

BUT KEmax WONT LOAD ONTO MY COMPUTER.
When I try to run setup, a dialog box flashes up then disapears before I can read it...and that's it, nothing actually gets installed.

Sorry for rambling on and sounding like a loony, I'm frustrated, and I just hope someone will read this and say...Ah yes, that same thing happened to me, and this is how I fixed it.

[nemo_uk]

Hi TSnake,

1. What 3d software do you use ?
2. What operating system are you running ?

When you downloaded KEmax 3ds->kex Converter there should be zip file called 3ds2kexbeta.zip extract the contents of the zip. You should now have a folder called 3ds2kexbeta and inside that folder is a file called 3ds2kex.exe move this to the root of C: drive. This is also where you need to place your 3ds model.

Double clicking on 3ds2kex.exe will not work (As I think you have discovered!) to get it run you need to use the command prompt ... this should help a bit ...

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial76.html

Once you have the comand prompt open naviagte to your c: drive, type cd C:\ and hit return then type 3ds2kex whatever_your_model_is_called.3ds and hit return. This "should" create a .KEX file (it will be in the same location as your .3ds file) you can then import the KEX into Realflight !

[TSnake]

Thank you nemo_uk, I'll follow your directions and see how I go.

I have Lightwave, Maya, 3d max 4 and Wings 3d, but Wings 3d is the only app, I have, that's compatible with KEmax (I may download Blender).
Operating system is XP.

Thanks.

[TSnake]

I'm still having some trouble.
As can be seen on the screen shot....
I put the unzipped 3ds2kex.exe in the C directory.
I moved my 3ds file (called wiggywiggy) to the C directory.

But I can't get the correct command prompt, I've tried all those listed on the screen shot, and I can't think of any more variations.
Can anyone see what I'm doing wrong ?

[TSnake]

I figured it out, I'll tell you what I was doing wrong shortly.

Edit;
Simple really..

I "cut and pasted" the command line directly from the 3DS2KEX readme file, and the first few characters didn't belong.
So when I got rid of them and typed the command as:

3ds2kex wiggywiggy.3DS

...it worked (sort of)

Now I just have to figure out why it throws up an error message saying "the file must have 1 bitmap"
Probably fails because my test 3ds file, was nothing more than an unskined basic shape.

2nd Edit;
Holy Cow, I just downloaded Blender.
Very cool 3D modelling program, and it's freeware !!!