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Creating planes for Micro Flight
Micro Flight supports several types of vehicles, the following sections show the detailes of the various formats of these vehicles and gives instructions for creating them.

All of these vehicles have intrument panels which share the same format and are documented in the following sections.

  Plane Tutorial Main Page   Airplanes   Hang gliders
  Gyroplanes   Balloons   Helicopters
  Land vehicles   Instrument panels Weapons

The weapons in Micro Flight are located in the Micro Flight\weapons directory, each weapon is placed in a seperate directory and must be called weapon_## where ## is the number of this weapon, inside this directory all the weapon related files are found.

The weapons are assigned to a plane by a file called stores.cfg which is located in the plane directory.

The structure of the stores.cfg file is as follows:

2 [weapons_num]
Missile [weapon_name]
3.0 [weapon_x]
0.4 [weapon_y]
0.0 [weapon_z]
Missile [weapon_name]
-3.0 [weapon_x]
0.4 [weapon_y]
0.0 [weapon_z]

Explanation:


This file has a fixed format, all parameters must be specified in this order.
weapons_num - number of weapons carried.
weapon_name - name of weapon.
weapon_x - the x position of weapon relative to plane.
weapon_y - the y position of weapon relative to plane.
weapon_z - the z position of weapon relative to plane.

The weapon configuration file weapon.cfg allows two types of weapons:

  • Ballistic weapons such as guns and rockets.
  • Guided missiles, where guidance method is self guidance.

Inside each weapon directory are the following files:

Weapon.cfg
This file defines the type and characterisitcs of the weapon.

The structure of the weapon.cfg file is as follows:

1 [explodes_in_water]
1 [fixed_rotation]
1 [fixed_elevation]
1 [weapon_guided]
15 [mass]
0.01 [cross_section]
5.0 [cd0]
1000.0 [thrust]
10.0 [burn_time]
10.0 [time_max]
25.0 [launch_vel]
0.0 [launch_x]
0.0 [launch_y]
0.0 [launch_z]
0.0 [beta_base]
0.0 [gama_base]

Explanation:


This file has a fixed format, all parameters must be specified in this order.
explodes_in_water - 1 if weapon is shell, rocket or missile, 0 for torpedo.
fixed_rotation - 1 if weapon can be aimed in rotation, 0 if rotation is fixed.
fixed_elevation - 1 if can be aimed in elevation, 0 if elevation is fixed.
weapon_guided - 1 if weapon is guided, 0 if it is not.
mass - mass of shell itself in kg.
cross_section - cross section of shell in square meters.
cd0 - drag coefficient of shell.
thrust - thrust of rocket or torpedo propeller in newtons.
burn_time - the time of burnout or end of motor activation in seconds.
time_max - the maximal time the shell is allowed to fly in seconds.
lauch_velocity - muzzle velocity of shell in m/sec.
lauch_x - the initial x position of shell relative to weapon's base.
lauch_y - the initial y position of shell relative to weapon's base.
lauch_z - the initial z position of shell relative to weapon's base.
beta_base- the initial direction of turret in radians.
gama_base - the initial elevation of barrel in radians.


Base.x, Turret.x, File.x, Tail.x, Shell.x
These are the model files which compose the weapon's base, turret, barrel, shell and fire effects.
All of these files are optional and may be ommited for weapons without a barrel, turret or base.

The functions of these files are:

Base - This part defines the fixed part of the weapon, for example the base of a cannon.

Turret - This part is part which is attached to base and rotates to allow aiming of weapon in azimuth, this part is positioned at (0,0) coordinate the base part.

Barrel - This part is the part which is attached to the turret and allows aiming the weapon in elevation, this part is positioned at (0,0) coordinate of the turret part.

Fire - This part is the flame or smoke ejected from the weapon at the moment of launch, it is seen for a fraction of a second and is scaled in the process to simulate the effect of fire, this part is positioned at (0,0) coordinate of the barrel.

Tail - This part is the flame or smoke ejected from the shell in flight, it is seen only when the shell is in flight, and is attached to the shell, it is positioned at the (0,0) coordinate of the shell.

This figure illustrates the various parts shortly after the shell has been fired.

All of these files are simple one frame hirarchy mesh files, they can be created by converting a 3DS file into an X file by using the command "conv3ds -m [filename.3ds]" , conv3ds.exe is a small freeware converter written by Microsoft.

Download source files and conv3ds


Fire.wav, Flight.wav, Explode.wav
These are the sounds which accompany the weapon during firing, flight and explosion.
They are optional and may be used to override the default sounds which are at the Micro Flight\sounds directory.
These wav files should be 8 bit mono files, preferably 11 or 22 khz.

Bmp Files

All texture files are simple bmp files that define the textures of the weapon, they must be 256x256 or 128x128 or 64x64 or 32x32 bmp images.