Intro

Welcome to Basic Tutorial of PhoenixCreator

Purpose of this tutorial is to get a basic understanding of the functions of PhoenixCreator. It is not the intent of this tutorial to replace the manual.
It only tries to convey the content of the manual in a practical example.

In this course I will not address all possibilities of the Creator. Therefore I would recommend to al users that are interested in modifying the original
model to also refer to the User Manual (right click on “Help”)

This tutorial is based on version 1.01.a (beta). Some procedures might be different in newer versions. If you find any errors, try to solve it by yourself or send me an email.

Requirements:

- PhoenixCreator version 1.01.a
- PhoenixRC
- Any picture processing software (optional)

Importing a model:

After you have started Creator you must open a new project at first.

Go to File -> New

Here you select your desired original model (in our case T-Rex 450 SE)

After a click on “select” your model will be imported. Depending on your PC this can take some time.

It shoul look like this:

Basic handling of 2D vs. 3D Mode

With the space bar you can toggle between the 2D and 3D mode. I prefer the 3D mode, because the changes can be seen directly.
If you like to modify the texture itself it would be the best to do this in a separate graphics program (more information later).

Camera in 3D mode:

* Zoom with the mouse wheel
* Move the camera around the centre by holding the right mouse button.
* Move the camera to another place by holding the middle mouse button.
* A pre-defined angle of view can be selected in the menu View -> Camera

Brush Tool

The Brush-Tool complies with a spray can. In the 3D mode you can spray any colour to any part of the heli in different angles and strengths.
You can adjust the values directly in the bar above.

With Shift + mouse wheel you can change the size and with ctrl. + Mouse wheel the angle of the dispense.

Ok, now let’s make the fly bar paddles green:

Therefore we go to View -> Camera -> Top to change to the top-view. Then we choose a nice green, make the brush a little bigger and spray over the paddles.

The result should be something like this:

You might have noticed that it is enough to colour one paddle, the other is coloured automatically. From above as well as from the downside.
But this depends on the model. On the T-Rex 450 there is only one texture for both paddles and both sides. Where a texture is applied on the model is defined in the UV-Maps.
But this would fill another tutorial. Therefore just keep it as it is.

Another useful function of the Brush-Tool is to use it as a stamp. You can directly stamp some of the included symbols onto the model.

Just change the “brush shape” to do this.

We use this function to bring a white star onto the paddles.

* choose a star

* Set colour to “white”
* Stamp

Restore Points:

At this point I like to mention another important function. If you like your previous work or if you just like to try something you should set a Restore Point. This is done by the tool “create restore point”

Then the actual status of your work is stored in the memory and if something goes wrong you can recall you latest version with the tool “Revert to restore point”.
A normal “Undo” function doesn’t exist.

Apart from this it is recommended to save your project regularly.

Shape Tool

With the shape tool you can colour your model with own forms. To this the corner points and the colour of the form has to be defined by you.

With a click you can add a point. With the “cancel” key you can remove a point (the latest one or the marked one). After you have marked a point you can also move it. If you like to change the line again you can also add points onto an existing line.

We use this function to bring a blue stripe across the writing on the canopy of our T-rex.

Therefore we change to a view from the left (View->Camera->Left) and remove all checks in the objects window. Only mark “Canopy”. The canopy will be displayed and coloured in 3D mode.

Then we set the points:

It is also possible to create a curve instead of a straight line. Click on “create curve” and choose a line that you like to bend.
After that you can adjust the bending with the two end-points.

As a demonstration do this to bend the blue stripe around the canopy:

If you don’t like the curve you can easily remove it with the “Clear curve” command.
If you like your creation you can click on “Project – Shape” and it will be transferred to you model.
With a click on “Clear shape” you can remove it.

Flood Tool

With the flood tool a complete object can be filled with colour.

I also like to mention the possibility of colour gradients. A gradient always goes from the foreground- to the background colour. The direction must also be set (X, Y or Z). Unfortunately I couldn’t find any possibility to influence the gradient, which makes this tool some kind of needless.

Anyway, we use this tool to colour our stabilizer:

Image Tool

The image tool is one of the most powerful of the Creator. With this you can project any picture onto you model. Important are the direction (+-X, +-Y, +-Z) and if the picture shell be used once (Clamp) or repeating (Wrap). “Threshold” sets the distance.

The picture can be easily moved by dragging. If you hold the Shift key it can be zoomed and with the Control key it can be turned. Mirroring is as far as I know not possible; this must be done in advance with a graphics program.

As an example we “spray” a Logo onto the canopy:

* Choose picture

re

Move, turn or zoom it until it fits

Click on “Perform Projection”

UV-Mapping

Here it can be set how the texture will be mapped to the model. Until now I haven’t completely understood how it works. Therefore we skip it for the moment.

Text Tool

I think this is self explaining. You can write text onto you model. Like with the Image Tool the text can be zoomed with the Shift key and turned with the Control key.

Unfortunately the tool doesn’t work like expected. Everything outside of the textbox is black and at the moment I don’t know why. Maybe this can be cleared sometimes.

Mirror Tool

With the Mirror Tool the textures can be mirrored.

Maybe you have noticed that until now we only have coloured only one side of the model. We will copy this to the other side of the model now.

Choose the mirror tool and “mirror” from +X to –X:

The problem is obvious; our text is mirror-inverted.

To solve this we must paint over the logo, mirror it in an external program and project it again onto the model.

Export

If you like your new model you can export it back to PhoenixRC. Just go to File ->Export and give it a name.

In Phoenix now just select your basic model and change the scheme to the new one.

Finally I like to advice again the Beta status. Sometimes the tool doesn’t work like expected (wrong parts are coloured). Therefore save your work regularly (also into new files).

New in 1.01.b

In version 1.01.b the basic handling hasn’t changes therefore I will only go through the alternations in this chapter:

UV-Mapping Tool

As mentioned before the UV-Mapping tool didn’t work fine in version 1.01.a. It seems that there was no improvement possible and it has been deactivated.

Options

It is now possible to activate Antialiasing and to choose the background colour (File -> Options)

Transparency

With almost all tools (unfortunately not the image tool) it can be worked with less than 100% opacity. For this purpose a fourth column has been added to the colour picker.
With this the opacity can be set from 0 (not visible) to 255 (100% opacity).

Saving of shapes:

To reuse a shape later there is now a Shape Manager. Any shape can be saved and loaded again later.

Realistic lighting

To get a better idea about the look of a model there are now 2 lighting modes. They can be toggled in the “View” menu.
Example:

Visible rotor disc:

The rotor disc can also be displayed. Unfortunately it can not be modified. This means, also with the green paddles the rotor disc looks like the original one.

Undo

Happily there is now an “undo” function implemented (also for shapes).

Bugfixes