V10 scenery creation call to developers....you want to develop for V10?

[Simmo W]

Yes Ben, there are a few videos, the best are available from the Sketchup site (funny about that). But I found decent texturing tutes to be almost non-existent, just one quick french one from what I recall.

Kaphias - you didn't just do that in the last hr?! I bet Tom will say the door is too detailed though..

I always had to be brutal with Chip's designs, the eraser tool was my friend

[Kaphias]

Kaphias - you didn't just do that in the last hr?! I bet Tom will say the door is too detailed though..

No no, I did it a couple months ago. It did only take just over an hour to do though, I promise...

Detailed doors and whatnot could be used with that new hiding at different distances technology or whatever it's called.

[Sethesus]

I second that SU is very easy to learn.

Here's something I made as a request for someone. It's for Stafford Regional Airport in VA. I also have a version with closed doors.

Edited October 11, 2011 by Sethesus

[flyinhawaiian]

Sketchup is easy to learn, moderate to become proficient. Try my 2 tutorials, if u can understand my accent..

http://xplane10.word...up-is-too-easy/

Thanks Simon, I'd really like to work on my 'current' home airport of KVRB - Vero Beach - where the primary Piper Aircraft plant is located as well as the FlightSafety Academy (which I am attending). Interesting airport for sure!

[benny]

Last time i tried sketchup, i couldn't export to xplane, seems that marginal plugin doesn't works with latest sketchup version.

Can someone confirm that?

[Sethesus]

I works with SU 8.

[OlaHaldor]

Back on topic;

Tom, how would you spread these workflows? A wiki? Video tutorial series? A PDF manual?

[AgreMeister]

Last time i tried sketchup, i couldn't export to xplane, seems that marginal plugin doesn't works with latest sketchup version.

Can someone confirm that?

It works, Make sure you installed it correctly?

And yes, I would love to know what this workflow is, Ive been using blender 2.49 for UV Mapping and 2.5 for the render baking. A pain in the ass but I cant stand 2.49 texturing.

Edited October 14, 2011 by johny23

[ilias.tselios]

Well, i've done a couple things myself (here my new airport: http://forums.x-pilo...s-airport-lg02/). I'm "playing" with blender last couple of months, and I find it not toooooo difficult, but very powerful. Watching tons of tutorials helped me a lot. I cannot judge myself if I can give something here, but I would like to try. Here is something I made in about an hour.

 

This is the control tower of Eleftherios Venizelos International at Athens, Greece, with it's support building.

Lighting is not that good, i put a couple of them just to take a picture!

Edited April 17 by airfighter

[Redfisher]

Well, i've done a couple things myself (here my new airport: http://forums.x-pilo...s-airport-lg02/). I'm "playing" with blender last couple of months, and I find it not toooooo difficult, but very powerful. Watching tons of tutorials helped me a lot. I cannot judge myself if I can give something here, but I would like to try. Here is something I made in about an hour.

This is the control tower of Eleftherios Venizelos International at Athens, Greece, with it's support building.

Lighting is not that good, i put a couple of them just to take a picture!

Looks great!!!

[tkyler]

Hey Ola, sorry for the slow reply. I've thought about it a lot and there are indeed several challenges coordinating work while trying to maintain a specific standard...there are just too many diverse ways of working amongst artists I think. Therefore, what I have in mind now are video tutorials showing the workflow and process along with some blender templates and PDF references. All the important information will be on Laminars wiki, but I can assure you making sense of it and connecting all the dots is a real chore. Being a volunteer effort, the best we can do, hopefully, is agree on a common goal and work towards that. The integration between modeling, UV and texture is so intertwined that I have no idea just how realistic it is to get some people modeling and others UV and texturing. As I said, I think I'll pour my experience out in videos and see how that flies.

Edited October 16, 2011 by tkyler

[OlaHaldor]

Sounds good to me!

[tkyler]

There are some things though that won't change no matter what.....so focusing on control towers is still viable. If I had to give any temporary recommendations, it'd be to get the UV map in to a rectangular form...with the idea of being able to cut and paste it into a master texture with contributions from other authors. Any polygon that can share the same texture space...DO share texture space and get your UV maps smaller. The new lighting engine in xplane will handle the night lighting and you don't need much in the way of LIT textures...generally just the "inside" of windows. Now in the context of dirt and grunge...this means that sometimes one polygon that is the same as another....say two identical doors except that one door is dirty. In that case, you need two doors in your texture, one clean and one dirty, BUT if both doors can look identical, then only put one door in your texture and make your model such that you can use the same texture space to UV map both doors. It takes a fair amount of practice to see how to construct your model to 1.) be UV friendly and 2.) be friendly to tiling. Here's one of the default textures....2048 x 1024. It makes heavy use of shared UV space and lets the new lighting make it look stellar at night.

[gthomas]

Last time i tried sketchup, i couldn't export to xplane, seems that marginal plugin doesn't works with latest sketchup version.

Can someone confirm that?

works, but there can be a lot of z buffer issues with complex objects.

[chris k]

Hi Tom,

Just wanted to say I'd like to throw my hat in the ring to help out with the XP10 Airport Development using the new Lego bricks.

I'm sure once the new WED is released and a quick HOWTO.txt, We'll be able to start whipping up some plausible airport sceneries. (I'm looking to tackle YSSY Sydney myself, after I finish up with NZCH Christchurch).

- CK.

[Xflyboy]

I'm interested, I would like to start with my home airport.

[olexia]

Yes, have done a bit of work with meshtool and lighting scripts; am currently creating new .dsf tiles for the Inside Passage scenery area. I am creating the .dsf's from very high resolution digital elevation models and shoreline vector files, and then adding photoscenery.

[3TB]

Tom,

I'm a latecomer to this, but is this collaboration effort still in the works? Would love to contribute. I'm curious how to combine UV maps in blender for separate objects. I'm starting to optimize and finalize objects and textures for my first airport project.

[Redfisher]

While I won't speak for Tom regarding the collaboration...I'm assuming your referring to multiple objects using the same texture?

[3TB]

While I won't speak for Tom regarding the collaboration...I'm assuming your referring to multiple objects using the same texture?

Yes. Since discovering how Tom organized his scenery files, I started texturing my models using the same 2048x1024 PNG. However, I now want to go back and do this for the (..complex) models I have already built and textured with their own individual PNG files. I am frightened by having to re-map them again for collaborations sake.

[Redfisher]

Remapping isn't fun but the more you can get on 1 .png the better.

How many objects do you have?

[3TB]

completed 8 objects and have 15 more hangars/buildings with moderate variations in texture and complexity. I'm also attaching global lighting to each object. I'm brainstorming best way to build inexpensive vegitation in blender as v10 library is lacking. Problem is I'm learning as I go, and when I do, I have to go back and "make changes" on object commands, etc. I'd love a "standard."

As for my "FBO" obj, I designed large (low point count) meshes with whole faces drawn on its own UV map. However, im thinking with a more complex mesh, isolating windows and doors etc, will enable me to cut texture space in half. I guess this would necessitate remapping anyway. Oh well.

[Redfisher]

What airport are you working on?

Back in April, I merged several textures into (2) 4K textures. It took all day and was frustrating as hell. What sucked even more, we didn't have support for it XP10 when ILM was released. Don't be afraid to model detail.

Edited September 21, 2012 by Redfisher

[3TB]

KFMY (Page Field, Fort Myers, FL). And thanks, I think I'm going to err on the side of detail.

[Sgt R Lee Ermey]

Sketchup i c gs easy to learn, moderate to become proficient. Try my 2 tutorials, if u can understand my accent..

http://xplane10.wordpress.com/2011/02/14/scenery-tutorial-sketchup-is-too-easy/

 

Hah you are the crapware video guy?  Heh ive watched the vids thru a couple times, goodjob on them they were a great help.