The Plane Maker Interface

Remember that definitions for any unfamiliar terms may be found in the Plane Maker Glossary of Terms.

Launching Plane Maker
Plane Maker is found in the main X-Plane folder, located by default on the Desktop. Simply double click Plane-Maker.exe to start the program.

Note that in Windows 7 and Vista, there is a known issue with both X-Plane and Plane Maker relating to the “Aero” desktop effects. With Aero enabled, boxes and text may appear slightly shifted from where it should be. This problem does occur on all Windows 7 installations. To correct it if it occurs, right click on the X-Plane icon and click Properties. In the window that appears, go to the Compatibility tab and check the box labeled “Disable desktop composition,” as in Figure 2.1. Repeat this for the Plane Maker icon.


 * [[Image:Disable desktop composition.gif|250px|thumb|right|Figure 2.1: Checking the “Disable desktop composition” box in the Compatibility tab]]

Opening and Saving an Aircraft
To open an aircraft in Plane Maker, click on the File menu and click Open, per Figure 2.2. There, navigate to the folder containing the .acf file you want to modify, just like you would if you wanted to open the aircraft to fly in X-Plane. There, double click on the ACF, or click once and click the Open button.


 * [[Image:Plane Maker File-open.jpg|thumb|right|Figure 2.2: Clicking File --> Open]]

To save any changes you have made to the aircraft, open the File menu and click Save. Any changes you made to the aircraft will be reflected the next time you load the aircraft in X-Plane.

Opening a Livery
To load a specific paint job for an aircraft (known as a livery), first open the aircraft in Plane Maker. Then, open the File menu and click Open Livery. Click the radio button next to the livery you would like to load, then close out of the Livery window (either by clicking one of the Xs in the corner or by hitting the Enter key). Plane Maker will then load the selected livery.

If you save the aircraft file after loading a certain livery, that livery will automatically be applied when you open the aircraft in X-Plane in the future.

Creating an Aircraft File
To create a new aircraft project, open the File menu and click New. Plane Maker will create a new aircraft with nothing but a cylindrical fuselage. If you click File --> Save As from here, you can choose which folder to save the new aircraft in. Be sure to create the folder first in Windows Explorer, Mac Finder, etc.

The standard place to save aircraft is in the Aircraft directory, located within the main X-Plane folder. For instance, a VTOL craft created for X-Plane 9 might be found in the following location:
 * X-Plane 9\Aircraft\My Custom Planes\VTOL\myVTOL.acf

However, X-Plane doesn’t care where the aircraft is located—you could just as easily save the project in the Scenery folder.

Working with the Views
In the main Plane Maker window sits a 3-D model of the aircraft you’re working on.


 * [[Image:Plane Maker 3-d model.jpg|400px|thumb|right|Figure 2.3: The 3-D aircraft model in the main Plane Maker window]]

You can move the whole aircraft model left, right, up, or down by using the arrow keys. Note that the axes are inverted; press the left arrow to move the model right, press the down arrow to move it up, and so on.

You can use the W, A, S, and D keys to spin and roll the 3-D model around its center.

You can use the - and = keys to zoom out and in, respectively.

Note that you can zoom or move the model faster by holding down the Shift key while pressing the up, down, left, right, -, or = keys.

Additionally, in most of the settings windows, a 3-D model of the aircraft is visible on the right side of the screen when the Plane Maker window itself is wide enough. For example, compare Figures 2.4 and 2.5.


 * [[Image:No aircraft on right.gif|250px|thumb|right|Figure 2.4: This window is not wide enough to see the 3-D model]]


 * [[Image:Aircraft on right.gif|250px|thumb|right|Figure 2.5: This window is wide enough to see the 3-D model]]

Plane Maker can display either the regular, “skinned” view of the aircraft model (where the model looks as it would in X-Plane), or it can display a wireframe view showing the actual structure of the aircraft. To swap between these two views, press the spacebar. Figure 2.6 shows these two views side-by-side.


 * [[Image:Plane Maker Wireframe versus non-wireframe.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Figure 2.6: The skinned view of the 777, side-by-side with the wireframe view]]

Special Views
The Background menu has a number of special viewing angles that are useful for many designers. These are the Top, Bottom, Side, Front, and Back views, as seen in Figure 2.7.


 * [[Image:Plane Maker 5 special views.jpg|thumb|right|Figure 2.7: The five special viewing angles]]

Clicking one of these options in the menu will shift the 3-D model to the indicated perspective. For instance, the Top view gives a top-down view of the aircraft, the Side view gives a straight-on view of the craft’s port (left) side, and so on. These views are useful for comparing the aircraft to an image of the real thing, among other things. Click the Background Bitmap button in the bottom left corner of the window to load an image to compare your model against.

For instance, if you had a top-down photo of the aircraft you were modeling and you wanted to see how close your design looked, you could click the Background Bitmap button, load that photo, and then select the Top view from the Background menu. This will display your Plane Maker model on top of the real-aircraft’s photo, centered on the screen.

Altering a Simple Aircraft
To familiarize yourself with the workings of Plane Maker, it may be helpful to begin by tweaking a simple aircraft. The Boeing 777 in X-Plane 9 is a good option. The “triple seven” is found in the following folder:
 * X-Plane 9\Aircraft\Heavy Metal\B777-200 British Airways

This is the aircraft we’ll show in the following examples. Another good option is the basic example aircraft, found in the folder
 * X-Plane 9\Instructions\Example Plane-Basic.

Open the basic aircraft of your choice, then open the Standard menu and click Wings, as in Figure 2.8.


 * [[Image:Plane Maker Standard-wings.jpg|245px|thumb|right|Figure 2.8: Clicking Standard --> Wings]]

When the window opens, click through the tabs labeled Wings 1-4 at the top of the window. Different sections of the aircraft’s wings will go black and flash subtly (this will be easier to see if your window is wide enough to display a secondary aircraft model off to the right). The section of wing that is black is the section that the current tab controls. In the case of the 777, wing sections 1, 2, and 3 define the wing itself.

Try selecting the Wing 3 tab. This selects the farthest wing section out. Now, there are a large number of ways to modify the wing here. We’ll discuss each of them in Chapter 3, Shaping the Body of an Aircraft, but for now, find the semi-length control, found in the box labeled Foil Specs. Try clicking above and below the digits here to lengthen and shorten the wing segment. For instance, in Figure 2.9, we’ve lengthened the wing segment by about 20 feet.


 * [[Image:Plane Maker Lengthen 777 wing.jpg|600px|thumb|right|Figure 2.9: Lengthening the wings of the 777]]

If we were to save this file (as a copy, of course, so that we didn’t modify the original 777 file) and fly it in X-Plane, we would find that the wings generate significantly more lift, but they also make the aircraft much less maneuverable (functions of having a high aspect ratio).

Taking a step back, this example is useful because it demonstrates a very common interface in Plane Maker. In the Foil Specs portion of the window, we have a number of properties of any given wing, each of which can be set individually and which combine to give a complete wing.

Note also that you can move the mouse over almost every input field in this window and get a description of what it controls. Don’t know what the sweep field controls? Mousing over the numbers in the input field reveals the following description:
 * The sweep is the angle that the wings are swept back from sticking straight out the side of the airplane. Wing sweep is used to allow high-speed travel (above Mach 0.7 or so), because the wing does not have to attack the air head-on.

Pretty informative, right? If you’re ever unsure of what a parameter controls, mousing over it is a good way to find out.