Modeling Log: GAUI X7 for HELI-X

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JS1
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Re: Modeling Log: GAUI X7 for HELI-X

Post by JS1 »

10th entry: Main rotor head

- Rotor head: Extruded cylinder with heavy vertices editing and mirror. For convenience boolean subtraction of cut sections:
Image

- Rotor head texture: UV texture made in Photoshop added from side view unwraps:
Image
(UV image texture of course is not necessary. You can also just use a plain metal material without image texture instead)
Last edited by JS1 on 23 Jul 2013 12:07, edited 1 time in total.
Modelling helis for Heli-X! See model build log here.
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JS1
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Re: Modeling Log: GAUI X7 for HELI-X

Post by JS1 »

11th entry: Full rotor head assembly

- Swash plates from cylinder with edited vertices and 120°/180° rotations.
- Other parts very simple modeling.
Image
(note: colors are only a preview and will look better in Heli-X, esp. white part on rotor head will be black metal.)
Modelling helis for Heli-X! See model build log here.
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JS1
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Re: Modeling Log: GAUI X7 for HELI-X

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12th entry: Tail rotor head

- Swash/mechanics: Mostly simple cylinders, some vertices edited. Was a bit tricky to figure out all parts just from the manual.(*)
- Rotor head: Extruded cylinder with mirror. Edited vertives on both sides to shape ends and flat parts. Different materials assigned to silver faces.

Image

(*) Blender hint at this point:
Working with object origin and 3D cursor is very helpful, e.g. here for centering on rotor axis with side offset.
- Object center: Object > Transform > Origin to Geometry/Origin to 3D cursor/... (see "Object Centers" in Blender Wiki)
- Snap Menu: Shift-S > Snap Cursor to Selected / Snap Selection to Cursor
Modelling helis for Heli-X! See model build log here.
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JS1
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Re: Modeling Log: GAUI X7 for HELI-X

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13th entry: Rotor blades

- Reduced a cube to single vertex, then extruded to draw along outside of blade pictures (see image)
- Then extruded whole outline to both sides and scaled down to get proper blade shapes.
- Finally added UV textures and duplicated

Image
Last edited by JS1 on 22 Jul 2013 19:28, edited 1 time in total.
Modelling helis for Heli-X! See model build log here.
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JS1
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Re: Modeling Log: GAUI X7 for HELI-X

Post by JS1 »

.
14th entry: MODEL FINISHED !! 8-) :P

Blender model is finished...
Image

...well, almost. To work in HELI-X, all rotating parts of Mainrotor and Tailrotor must be grouped into one object (Ctrl-J) and the model must be exported correctly to Wavefront OBJ. Then the work in Blender is completed.
After that, there must be all other files created (or copied) which HELI-X needs to use this model. And finally in those files all parameters have to be set (physical parameters, flying characteristics of the heli, graphical options etc.)

All this I will show in the following entries... Stay tuned! :geek:
Modelling helis for Heli-X! See model build log here.
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JS1
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Re: Modeling Log: GAUI X7 for HELI-X

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15th entry: OBJ export

:idea: This all looks very complicated, but in fact is very straight forward and quickly done once you understand why...

First group all rotating parts of mainrotor into one object (use Ctrl+J). This object must be named Mainrotor! This object will later be replaced with a disc for the spinning rotor.
Do the same for the Tailrotor object.

Then export whole model as Wavefront OBJ file and name it exactly as your heli (here: Gaui_X7):
--> export to same folder as you keep all the texture images for this model.

I used these export options (ON = selected):

- Selected Objects ................OFF (all objects in scene will be exported)
- Animation ........................OFF
- Apply Modifiers ..................ON (just in case I have missed to apply one)
- Edges .............................OFF (Do not export loose edges)
- Normals ..........................ON (must be exported to show surfaces correctly)
- UVs ...............................ON (to export image textures on materials)
- Write Materials .................ON (Write out the MTL file along with the OBJ)
- Triangulate ......................ON (to automatically make triangle faces of all faces)
- Polygroups .......................OFF
- Nurbs .............................OFF
- Objects as OBJ Groups .........ON
- Material Groups .................ON (export correctly parts with multiple materials assigned)
- Keep Vertex Order ..............OFF

After export check correct naming of relevant groups in OBJ file (open in text editor such as Wordpad) and adjust there if necessary - Blender renames groups on export to long names such as (Mainrotor_Cube.001_metaltexture):
o Mainrotor must be named exactly like this. ("o " being the designator for object)
o Tailrotor must be named exactly like this.
o Canopy I want to use later as TextureShape to change texture, so I need to set this name correctly too.

Finally open the MTL file in editor and adjust the "Ka" (ambient) values. Blender somehow sets all to 0 0 0 - at least for me... I usually change all to Ka 0.6 0.6 0.6
(RGB values each 0.6 for neutral color. For other color use according value, e.g. 0.1 each for a dark black shade etc.)
...while you have MTL open, also check correct location of all image textures in the same folder (only filenames like canopy.jpg with out path in front).
Last edited by JS1 on 23 Jul 2013 12:06, edited 1 time in total.
Modelling helis for Heli-X! See model build log here.
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Michael
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Re: Modeling Log: GAUI X7 for HELI-X

Post by Michael »

Great! and the blender settings really help.

Michael
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JS1
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Re: Modeling Log: GAUI X7 for HELI-X

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16th entry: Folder structure & files

This is how I did it:

1) Create a new folder in your /helicopters directory. The folder name is the heli name (here Gaui_X7). Mind letter case to be compatible with Linux.

2) Put your files there - all in the same folder without sub-folders:
..... your OBJ (must have the same name as your folder: here Gaui_X7.obj)
..... your MTL (must have the same name as your folder: here Gaui_X7.mtl) - if renaming, also change reference in OBJ
..... all your material texture files

3) I copied some files from a similar existing heli to start with and editing them from there:
..... XML (rename to the same name as your folder: here Gaui_X7.xml)
..... WAVs (heli specific file must have same name as your folder: Gaui_X7.wav, keep names of blade.wav and tail.wav)
..... Mainrotor.obj & Mainrotor.mtl (do not rename. Will be replaced later but help to get the heli working)
..... Tailrotor.mtl & Tailrotor.mtl (do not rename. Will be replaced later but help to get the heli working)
..... all rotor texture images as referenced in the Mainrotor/Tailrotor.mtl

Next entry will be about basic adjustments in your XML file to get the heli flying in HELI-X.
Modelling helis for Heli-X! See model build log here.
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JS1
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Re: Modeling Log: GAUI X7 for HELI-X

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17th entry: XML basic edit

In the XML top section there are several information parameters to adjust: heli name, heli version date, HELI-X version, author, comment, etc., further down also heli type (scale/trainer/...) and so on. These are simple text adjustments easily found and adjsuted - mostly related to the info later displayed in the heli selection window. (do not change the PhysicalModelName)

After that, there are some more important parameters to be adjusted to make the model work:

- SizeDeterminantPart : Name of the object that defines the heli size. Usually Mainrotor, written exactly like this.
- Also set the according size if not yet correctly taken from the copied heli.

- TextureShape : Name of the object for which you want to change textures. Must ofc have a image texture. (for plain colors use ColorShape). If you have several such shapes you can give a number for each texture group.
- Texture: Add one texture parameter for each texture. Example
<TextureShape edit="no" texture="0" group="1">Canopy</TextureShape>
<Texture edit="no" group="1">Green,greencanopy.jpg</Texture>
<Texture edit="no" group="1">Red,redcanopy.jpg</Texture>


- MainrotorPosition & TailrotorPosition: Rotation center point for the rotors as can be read from Blender (e.g. by snap 3D cursor to center of rotor).
- Note that positions are to be entered as forward/up/right with Blender coordinates by default correlating as X/Z/Y.

These I think are the minimum adjustments necessary to allow the model to be seen and used in HELI-X for first test flights. Later on you need of course to adjust many other parameters to define the physical and flight characteristics of a heli. However in this log I will skip that part as I don't have this heli in reality and can not compare. I will leave the flight tests to the experts then.

Many thanks already to any test pilot!! Only with your thorough tests this heli can be a high quality model, not only looking nice but also flying realistic. :!:
Modelling helis for Heli-X! See model build log here.
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JS1
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Re: Modeling Log: GAUI X7 for HELI-X

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18th entry: COMPLETED !!

The GAUI X7 is working in HELI-X v5 and awaiting test pilots to tweak the physical characteristics.

Thanks to the fantastic support from Michael! He not only provided the spinning rotors but also thanks to him this model now has two special features!

1. Improved animation of spinning main gear, especially implemented with the latest release of HELI-X5 !! How cool is that!
2. Not only different colors selectable for canopies, but also different forms!! (long formula canopy, short version, even without any canopy!)
Image
(in addition to these 3 looks, also several other canopies will be included!)

The final model OBJ file has only 687 KB, a super small size especially given the many details included!
Building it took about 2 weeks with 2-3h per day average, about 30h in total. This was only possible because I sacrificed much of my spare time. Normally though the total amount is higher (searching good images would be very time consuming) and spread over a much longer period. Also this is still without flight testing and physical parameters...

This GAUI X7 is built for HELI-X version 5 soon to be released - with this and many more new helicopters!

This was the final entry of this log series. Now feel free to discuss, comment, add etc. :arrow:
Modelling helis for Heli-X! See model build log here.
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