Beginners Guide to DCS World Aircraft Mods

[joey45]

Could of ask a mod to change it.

[NineLine]

I just merged them, if you want to update your first post now with new PDF links, there you go. :)

[RedBeard2]

LOL! Thanks. I'll make the updates.

[RagnarDa]

Great work! I appreciate this very very much!

[zj_561]

Thank you,RedBeard2

[Milli]

Thanks. Only just seen this. Been thinking of dabbling in this sort of stuff.

 

Regards,

Milli

[HJPuhlmann]

great work, thanks

[Jediteo]

Fantastic! Already gone through the whole thing! Really helps with outlining and refining some of the things I've been working on.

 

Now to figure out how to set up 6DOF views in the cockpit...

 

Looking forward to the later versions.

[Ninja1959]

Great job, congratulations and thanks for sharing.

[RedBeard2]

Thought I'd post an update. I had been working on animations and had nearly completed them just prior to releasing the SFM update. However, with the last few animations, it was clear that I was going to need a higher fidelity model and it didn't make sense to just do a part or two in higher fidelity, so I made a choice to throw the block model and animations out and pretty much start over.

 

At this point, the model is getting close to completion, or at least far enough along to start some animation work. It's not going to be a high poly model of the current DCS standards we see, but it will be close enough to serve as both an illustrated example of the development process and something people wouldn't mind flying occasionally. At best, I'm guessing the poly count may get as high as 15k.

 

Anyway, here's the model as it currently stands. Texture work won't be done until the animations, damage model, and LODs are done, so that's a ways off.

 

[trietnguyen]

thanks a lot, I have chosen for the new model cockpit.:)

my example:

Su-27mk.rar

[KillarZ]

Thank you for taking the time and effort into creating this document. As a current aerospace engineer student I will hopefully require a decent knowledge and skill over the years to create decent mods for DCS. I'm just now closing my first semester of college so I haven't had any hardcore aerospace classes yet but I already started playing around with 3d max and plan on taking a C++ and calculus course over next summer. (I want to get the credits out of the way) So hopefully in the summer if I have the time, patience and interest I will be able to sit down and play around with modding into DCS.

[SilentEagle]

Thank you for taking the time and effort into creating this document. As a current aerospace engineer student I will hopefully require a decent knowledge and skill over the years to create decent mods for DCS. I'm just now closing my first semester of college so I haven't had any hardcore aerospace classes yet but I already started playing around with 3d max and plan on taking a C++ and calculus course over next summer. (I want to get the credits out of the way) So hopefully in the summer if I have the time, patience and interest I will be able to sit down and play around with modding into DCS.

 

Glad to hear there are average community members out there taking steps to learn the skills needed to enter the third party development scene for DCS! It is a steep learning curve, but anyone with aerospace engineering knowledge can make it happen. Good luck with your studies!

[Evil.Bonsai]

Very interesting. Will attempt to spend some time reading over this stuff. I have an idea I'd like to try out.

[Midnight]

Thank you for sharing this to the community, this will help me and others a great deal.

[Midnight]

Need some help adding a cockpit to a flyable MOD I made of the Reaper, currently I use the SU25 pit but it is surely not scripted correctly since none of the keyboard keys work when the aircraft is loaded.

 

I'm thinking it must be an entry in my "Entry.lua" or the input folder is not configured correctly.

 

declare_plugin("Mq-9_Reaper by Midnite",
{
installed      = true, -- if false that will be place holder , or advertising
dirName           = current_mod_path,
version         = "1.2.7",         
state         = "installed",
info         = _("Mq-9_Reaper"),

Skins    =
   {
       {
           name    = _("Mq-9_Reaper"),
           dir        = "Theme"
       },
   },
Missions =
   {
       {
           name            = _("Mq-9_Reaper"),
           dir                = "Missions",
           CLSID        = "{CLSID5456456346CLSID}",
         },
   },
LogBook =
   {
       {
           name        = _("Mq-9_Reaper"),
           type        = "Mq-9_Reaper",
       },
   },    
InputProfiles =
   {
       ["Mq-9_Reaper"] = current_mod_path .. '/Input/Mq-9_Reaper',
   },
})
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


mount_vfs_texture_path("Bazar/World/textures/Cockpit-SU25T-TexturesBMP")
mount_vfs_texture_path("Bazar/World/textures/Cockpit-SU25T-TexturesTGA")
mount_vfs_texture_path("Bazar/World/textures/CockpitsPlatinumBMP")
mount_vfs_texture_path("Bazar/World/textures/CockpitsTexturesBMP")
mount_vfs_texture_path("Bazar/World/textures/CockpitsTexturesTGA")
make_flyable('Mq-9_Reaper', support_cockpit, nil, current_mod_path..'/Cockpit/KneeboardLeft/', {self_ID,'Mq-9_Reaper',old = 2}, current_mod_path..'/Comm/SU25.lua')
dofile(current_mod_path..'/Mq-9_Reaper.lua')

plugin_done()-- finish declaration , clear temporal data

Any ideas of what I am doing wrong here?

 

My ultimate goal is to have a modded A10C pit.

[Ells228]

Take out the dash and underscore and try again "MQ9reaper"

 

Have had issues on the past with the - and _ in a mod name.

[RedBeard2]

The - should not make a difference if they are in strings such as "Mq-9_Reaper" or filenames such as '/Input/Mq-9_reaper', but if you use them in LUA variable names, then the - is treated as a subtraction in an equation.

 

Take a look at Mq-9_reaper.lua. If you have something that looks like the following:

 

--mounting 3d model paths and texture paths

 

mount_vfs_model_path (current_mod_path.."/Shapes")

mount_vfs_liveries_path (current_mod_path.."/Liveries")

mount_vfs_texture_path (current_mod_path.."/Textures/Avionics")

 

 

Mq-9_reaper = {

 

then you are writing an equation that say subtract 9_reaper from Mq. Remove the - from here and use the new variable name at the bottom as well in the add_aircraft function call.

 

See the section called Renaming the Mod in my guide for details.

[Devious]

So here is a question. I have been thinking about this for a while, but have no modeling, C++ experience or anything like that. I flew drones in the military and have seen people talking about adding external models. So how hard would it be to have the pilot in a remote location flying the drone? I have always seen tutorials on how to build a piloted model, but never a remotely piloted model. Any way of doing that? Thinking about trying my hand at this using your guide to build it, but wasn't sure if it was possible.

[Devious]

Oh, I also meant to ask if there was a PFM of a drone that was done, would anyone even be interested in it. Thanks guys.

[RagnarDa]

Sure! I don't think its possible to remotely fly something right now but if you make enough progress maybe you can convince ED to add it in? Meanwhile, piloting it from a on-board pilots perspective could be fun and not so different from the real thing, because we are already in front of computer screens right?

[wingwalker]

RedBeard2 -

I...I...wow. Thank you! Not only for this guide but your work in the F3 community and IHHD. You're a true legend in my book. I'm just getting started in the DCS arena but am damn glad to see you here, sir. I suddenly have much higher hopes for the future of DCS.

[Midnight]

Sorry for the late update guys, got it working with above suggestions. It is also very important to copy the Input files from any AC in FC3 and pasting it in your model's input folder.

 

Thanks everybody

[uboats]

Sorry for the late update guys, got it working with above suggestions. It is also very important to copy the Input files from any AC in FC3 and pasting it in your model's input folder.

 

Thanks everybody

 

Now you make it flyable? Do you want to share your mod?

[SPEKTRE76]

Thank you for this. Maybe now I can finally make the AD-6 Skyraider.