Bring on the wood and sheet metal! Break out your saw! Cut the pieces to size, assemble them, paint them and… voila! You’ve built your own airplane. Now it’s time to get it off the ground… will it fly…?

As of today, Less Rain’s new 3-D model application with integrated flight simulator, the Red Bull Flugtag Flight Lab, will be online, a 3-part game based on Red Bull’s Flugtag event.

Step One: The fuselage, wings and pitch elevator are cut out of Styrofoam, cardboard, wood or scrap metal. The pieces are then automatically assembled into a 3-D airplane. Material and shape will later play an important role in the machine’s flying properties.

Step Two: Customizing the parts. This can be done by uploading your own photos, designs and patterns or, alternatively, using brushes to paint the machine ‘by hand’. The results might be anything from a realistic looking airplane to an abstract flying artwork.

Step Three: The prospective pilot can test the quality of his custom-designed aircraft and its flying capabilities amidst stunning natural scenery in the 3-D flight simulator. The machine is launched from a floating launch pad using the arrow keys. First the wings beat softly then the plane takes off energetically into the big blue sky.

The goal now is to cover as much distance as possible. To achieve this, users may experiment with acrobatic maneuvers, collect cans of Red Bull to refuel and employ the thermal updrafts – but they must beware of the bumpy crosswinds!

Points are given after each flight for distance covered and piloting style. Loops, drifts, rolls, low-level flight and other maneuvers are rewarded. In addition, the other users rate the plane’s design. A total score is calculated which, if it’s good enough, may be included on a high score table.

Pilots can store their planes in a hangar where they can develop them further or try out new designs anytime. Another unique aspect of the game is that any user can take-off with any airplane and, what’s more, can change and improve it to their own tastes.

The back-end and user administration part of Flight Lab has been developed by Signal7, our partner of choice when it comes to enterprise level, tailor-made database solutions.

Related Links:
Red Bull Flugtag Flight Lab
Pilot avatar motion capture demo and the original Paperdude post
Signal7

Update:
We’re Site of the Day at the FWA! Cheers, Rob!

Update II:
We made it Site of the Month at the FWA! That’s just fantastic, thanks everybody at the FWA!

Update III:
Thank you UltraShock, for the BombShock Award! And we are Adobe Site of the Day for March 4th!

Continue reading: Developing Flight Lab

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 20th, 2008 at 9:30 am and is filed under General, 3D, AS3, Flash, General, Papervision 3D. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.