Quick tutorial on the use of Phoenix RC’s Creator by Coenie vd Merwe – March 2013 Page 1 TUTORIAL 1
CREATING SCENERY WITH THE PHOENIX RC CREATOR PROGRAM
This document is copyrighted to the author and may only be reproduced or copied with the author’s consent. It is free for distribution on any public forum as long as the author is quoted.
I would like to credit the following people for their contribution to some of the information contained in this document:
Harald Bendschneider, http://www.szenerien.de/
His numerous Youtube video’s proved to be indispensable. The tutorial on creating an alpha mask is effectively how Harald taught me to do it.
The “Master” of scenery in Phoenix RC in my mind; whom I had the privilege of being a student off. Danke, Harald!
Detlef Jacobi,
http://phoenix-sim-szenerien.de/
His tutorials are what got me started in designing scenery for Phoenix.
His website has invaluable information on getting started and one of the best descriptions on how to set up the photographic side of a scenery creation.
GIMP is available for free download from http://www.gimp.org/downloads/
PTgui is available as a trial or payware here: http://www.ptgui.com/download.html
Pano2VR is available trial and payware from here:
http://gardengnomesoftware.com/pano2vr_download.php Phoenix RC Creator is available here:
http://www.phoenix-sim.com/downloads.asp Phoenix RC Simulator is available as demo here: http://www.phoenix-sim.com/demo.asp
Quick tutorial on the use of Phoenix RC’s Creator by Coenie vd Merwe – March 2013 Page 2 This tutorial is part one of three. You should have worked through at least tutorial one with the option of using two if required. The tutorials cover the following:
TUTORIAL 1:
Creating scenery with the Phoenix RC Creator program TUTORIAL 2:
Creating a cubemap and cube faces for use in Phoenix RC TUTORIAL 3:
Creating an alpha mask for use in Phoenix RC scenery design
This document should be read in conjunction with the tutorial that comes with Creator. I do not want to repeat everything it contains and this document will hopefully serve to better illustrate what they say and touch on a few points which they missed. So please have that document handy as well.
THE BASICS:
Quick tutorial on the use of Phoenix RC’s Creator by Coenie vd Merwe – March 2013 Page 3 Change “Images” drop box to “+X” (from “-X”)
Click on the “Auto” box and navigate to the folder where you saved your cube faces:
Select the first image and click OK
Quick tutorial on the use of Phoenix RC’s Creator by Coenie vd Merwe – March 2013 Page 4 Zoom out with the mouse wheel to its maximum to get a good view of your area:
Click on “Collision” on the left hand side menu. You will now see a grid appear on the floor of your scenery:
Quick tutorial on the use of Phoenix RC’s Creator by Coenie vd Merwe – March 2013 Page 5 designed. You can only move it in two axis and may need to guess a bit when you move it to an off. Axis object since you will change the values on both as you adjust it.
The other one is “Pano Orientation”. Under no circumstance will I advise you use this. The movement of it can seriously affect orientation. Leave it as is.
In Creator you will have two main controls to direct scale and orientation. You can use “Shift” to bring up the controls that direct scale, or “ctrl” to bring up the orientation tool.
The circles will move the object on the axis indicated and the lines with the block will be dragged to increase or decrease scale of an object.
Shift will bring up size scaling tool Ctrl will bring up orientation tool
Highlight the appropriate axis by placing the mouse over it till it change colour, then left click it and drag the squares or move the circles. When pulling on the squares to change size try to pull equally between red and blue until you can see it. If you place the object off the grid, you may need to also raise it with the green arrow before it will be visible.
To begin we need to first define a crash plane.
Quick tutorial on the use of Phoenix RC’s Creator by Coenie vd Merwe – March 2013 Page 6 You will now also see a third icon that is called “New plane”. I suggest that you give each item you will place a unique name to ensure that you can always get back to it without a problem.
Quick tutorial on the use of Phoenix RC’s Creator by Coenie vd Merwe – March 2013 Page 7 Note that due to my less than accurate pano image I do not have a straight horizon. If I want to correct this I will need to add additional planes that each touch the horizon until it is covered all around.
Bear in mind that the tilt you give the crash plane on any axis will affect the scale of the plane in Phoenix RC. With the plane tilted way up (i.e. above the horizon) you will have a model that appears to be driving uphill into your scenery. With it tilted down, the model will appear to be going downhill and reduce in size way too soon.
Once of the first tests to do is to run a plane on the ground in your scenery and see if it reduce in size realistically as you drive away from yourself. Keep it on the ground since the slope of the crash plane will have no effect on any plane in the sky.
In order to export this to Phoenix you will have to do the following as a bare minimum:
Create start positions: You do this by clicking on the left strip menu on “Positions”, then “New” button on the top menu. Now click in your scenery where you want to have the plane start.
Quick tutorial on the use of Phoenix RC’s Creator by Coenie vd Merwe – March 2013 Page 8 It is important to name these positions “default 1” etc. Note the space after default as the scenery will not compile without it. You can add more positions by calling them default 2 etc. For you other positions you can select “Helicopter” etc., retaining the naming format described.
Add lighting by clicking on “Lighting” on the left menu. If you look down in your scenery (drag down with mouse), you will see a silver ball. This ball does not affect any of the lighting settings. It is used purely to show the effect of the position of the sun and the hue that you select it to cast.
You can drag it to where the plane will be in the start position if you want.
Now drag upward in the pano view and you will find the “sun” icon. You move this by pushing on the blue and red arrows. You will also see that in moving these you can cause the sun to appear to move away or closer. Play around with this for effect. The most important thing is to place the sun position where the sun is in your photograph. This will ensure that the shadows appear realistic.
You are ready to start testing your crash plane. Select “File” and Save and call it a unique name.
Quick tutorial on the use of Phoenix RC’s Creator by Coenie vd Merwe – March 2013 Page 9 Press export. If everything to this point were done correctly, it should export scenery and come back to the top screen of Creator.
You can now open Phoenix RC and select your scenery from the “Flying Site” menu. Your cubemap will still cause the display window of the scenery to be just white or black as we still need to adjust the cubemap once we are all done.
Test the distance of the aircraft on the ground driving away in all directions. Once satisfied you can proceed to the adding of scenery, if not, you need to go back to Creator and adjust the plane or add more until the display in Phoenix RC is realistic.
ADDING CRASH OBJECTS:
In Creator you can add various crash objects:
Quick tutorial on the use of Phoenix RC’s Creator by Coenie vd Merwe – March 2013 Page 10 Sphere: this is a round (sphere) object that you can use to place against objects casting a roundish silhouette, like a tree against the horizon:
Quick tutorial on the use of Phoenix RC’s Creator by Coenie vd Merwe – March 2013 Page 11 To place a sphere, click on the sphere button at the top and then click within your grid on the
ground. I find it much easier to create my objects in the grid and then move them out as you can easily place an object miles away in Creator if you aim outside the grid.
Once the object is placed, rename it.
Now hold down “shift” and move you mouse to highlight the blue or red leg with the block on it:
As you start to pull on the red or blue block the object will start to increase in size. Since a sphere will be equal in size on the X and Z axis, you can use either. On something like a cube, you will see that the object can be shaped to show depth or not by alternating between the two axis.
Once you have some size on it, release “shift” and pull it up by the green arrow, making sure that your mouse highlight the green line before clicking it. This is an important habit to get into since you will need it when you work on multiple items all overlapping each other and you need to be sure you change the correct item.
Quick tutorial on the use of Phoenix RC’s Creator by Coenie vd Merwe – March 2013 Page 12 SECOND IMPORTANT ISSUE: Do not start to place any crash objects until you are 100% satisfied that your “plane” crash field is done. Any item placed at the desired distance will be moved the moment you tilt your “plane” in any way. So make sure the plane is set and realistic in Phoenix RC before you proceed with adding items.
Drag the green arrow up to raise the sphere:
You are now ready to place it at the distance it is required. You can use Google Earth to measure the distance from viewer to the objects. In my image it translates to roughly 120m. By moving the distance helper to the position and looking at the axis, I have moved it to a point roughly 120m away.
Now we need to exit this view since it is the most misleading view when it comes to distance. You can switch views by pressing space bar. Always switch your view to the overview view when you need to place something at distance. A good habit would be to zoom into the area where the item need to go as you will be able to see the pano view in the small window at the top. Orientate yourself then in the overview view and making adjustments to have the item covering the picture part in the pano as well.
Quick tutorial on the use of Phoenix RC’s Creator by Coenie vd Merwe – March 2013 Page 14 In the sphere menu at the right, you can select if the object need to be Drawn or Visible. “Draw” will draw it as an object in Phoenix RC that will block out the model and it will cast the objects flying over its shadow onto it. Unchecking it will remove the shadow effect and it will be see through. It will remain crashable if flown into. Visible will remove the red sphere in the design screen if it is maybe in the way of something you design behind or in front of it and the colour is obstructive.
You can also change the “Material”. I still need to explore this but it would appear that all of these crash to pieces. You cannot have a model just sticking into an object without going to shreds. There do appear to be a difference between concrete and foliage though as you crash more sever against concrete than foliage.
Once the object is in place, save your work and export again. Test fly it in Phoenix seeking to have the plane crash into the object realistically. You need to check for scale in distance and in where the debris fall. Once you crash into it, check if your debris actually ends UP on the ground directly underneath the object. Remember that the “plane” object would influence this as well. Once
crashing realistically you can proceed to place additional objects on that tree at the same distance to cover all crash areas. Once done it looks like above.
Quick tutorial on the use of Phoenix RC’s Creator by Coenie vd Merwe – March 2013 Page 15 Note that on the pole and cube you can also use the green block with “shift” depressed. This will increase its height.
A habit to get into is to always switch to the overview look to check distance. You do this by pressing “spacebar”. This puts you directly over the area like this:
Quick tutorial on the use of Phoenix RC’s Creator by Coenie vd Merwe – March 2013 Page 16 Also note how you can retain normal view in the small window at the top left. When working on an area it is good practice to first move to the are you are going to work on in the normal pano view, and then to switch to the overview view with spacebar. This way you can also look at the real time placement of the object. Most of the time, because we create the items close by, the item will decrease in size as we move it away. Sometimes even requiring that you increase its elevation again with the green arrow. So always try and work in the two windows to ensure you can save some time by not having to go back and correct after you switch views again.
A common problem you will have later on is to work with lots of objects together. This can
sometimes be a challenge to try and pick the exact object you need to work on. Here is a sample of what it can look like:
Quick tutorial on the use of Phoenix RC’s Creator by Coenie vd Merwe – March 2013 Page 17 Notice the light circle that I outlined with the green dots above. That tells me that if I now left click, the object selected will be that one. As you click it you can check to the right in the object
description box to see if the name matches the object you are looking for. Another reason to start naming the objects uniquely from the start to ensure easy identification later on. If you lost track here for instance you can create a lot of problems for yourself:
Quick tutorial on the use of Phoenix RC’s Creator by Coenie vd Merwe – March 2013 Page 19 Skyline objects as described earlier are used to usually outline far off horizon silhouettes:
Quick tutorial on the use of Phoenix RC’s Creator by Coenie vd Merwe – March 2013 Page 20 You can only apply a skyline to an object like the one above by cover the main part of it, thus
extending past the slim part of it, or covering the slim part and having the main part not covered. Since the planes are fixed to the bottom not even twisting them will work. So the best is to build a tree like this from spheres and cylinders and then put a skyline over it if you want to add alpha mask. Here is what you can do to make it reasonably realistic without alpha mask:
To start a skyline, move the view to the area where you want to add the skyline. Make sure you start at the left end of the area as you will not be able to add to or move the starting point without affecting all the other points. If you want to start the skyline to the left of the left most tree, do not start tracing to the right of the tree thinking that you will come back and just move it.
Quick tutorial on the use of Phoenix RC’s Creator by Coenie vd Merwe – March 2013 Page 21 This is the left edge of your skyline. The next move is to click the second position on the ground plane again and at exactly the same distance as the first one. This will draw a red line from top to bottom. Now move the mouse UP again after releasing left button and the first square will appear:
This is the basic movement for creating the plane. Now since the horizon is not a straight line, we will move our tops to follow it like this:
Remember that this is not placed at the right distance yet. As mentioned, it helps when you already placed a crash object that you have confirmed the distance of. If I knew that this skyline was where the crash object was placed, I just need to ensure that this is placed in line with it. To do this you will need to work out what works for you. For me it works well to do the following:
- Start the basic shape with one or two points. - Switch to the overview view
- While watching you actions in the small window at the top left, start to drag the first point back to the point where you think it should be.
- Come back for the second point and do the same
- Now switch back to pano view and select each top point. When highlighted, drag it to the desired height
Quick tutorial on the use of Phoenix RC’s Creator by Coenie vd Merwe – March 2013 Page 22 - If distance is realistic (you can also measure it with the distance helper), continue from the
right to add the other points
Quick tutorial on the use of Phoenix RC’s Creator by Coenie vd Merwe – March 2013 Page 23 Only try to move a point if it is highlighted by moving the mouse over it. If you click anywhere else you will create the next point at the right where you ended and a red line will jump at you. If this happen just click “delete” on the keyboard to delete the last point added.
Quick tutorial on the use of Phoenix RC’s Creator by Coenie vd Merwe – March 2013 Page 24 Corrected is should display not twisted like above but all in one line. This is easily messed UP if you only view in pano view and move skyline objects.
Now test it again in Phoenix to check distance.
You can use other objects like cylinders to create poles and tree trunks. Cubes can be used for walls or crates or the like. I have not yet used “area” or “material” option.
“skyline”, “h-map” and “marker” are used for something else and we will get to them later.
A height map (h-map button) is used to create uneven ground effect with rolling hills or valleys. This is apparently a rather tricky thing to do and I have to date luckily only worked on flat areas where I could get away with planes only. After defining the height map plane, you use the mouse to raise the floor. Pressing shift will move the floor down if you mouse over it. Harald has an excellent video on Youtube demonstrating the use of height maps very well. Just search Youtube for “harald phoenix rc” to reach his excellent video tutorials.
Quick tutorial on the use of Phoenix RC’s Creator by Coenie vd Merwe – March 2013 Page 25 ACCURATELY USING THE DISTANCE HELPER:
The distance helper work in two axis only in terms of movement and reporting distance. The distance scale of the distance helper is given in centimeters.
Here you can see how the Red arrow reports a distance of 23677cm (or 236.77m) and the blue arrow 8711cm (or 87.11m). The plus and minus is not too important as we will use the distance irrespective of a negative or positive value.
Quick tutorial on the use of Phoenix RC’s Creator by Coenie vd Merwe – March 2013 Page 26 I am now going to explain how you can check the distance of any object that you placed. I will use the sphere we placed already. I mentioned that a GE measurement showed the distance to be roughly 120m. For the ease of showing the effect I am leaving the distance helper slightly to the side to show the explanation:
We see here that we have a distance of 8757 and 8133.
If we were to plot these distances on a graph with an X and Y axis we can say that it should look something like this:
So we need to determine if a straight line from the blue point to our position (0,0) covers the distance required (120m).
Quick tutorial on the use of Phoenix RC’s Creator by Coenie vd Merwe – March 2013 Page 27
http://www.mathsisfun.com/pythagoras.html
So we can see that the length of C will give us our answer:
Substituting this into our formula gives us: 87*87 + 81*81 = 7569 + 6561
=14130
Square root of 14130 gives us 119
So we are in a straight line 119m away from it, which mean that if we corrected for the slight off to the side position we have above, it is pretty much 120m away. All fine on this one!
