Reletive path issue with *.obj file

[sparker256]

I am trying to use my own objects made in blender with the new textures in X-Plane 10. I am having a pathing issue and wondered if someone had a solution as I do not see a ovious reasion why this should not work. I am using blender 2.62 with the 3.2 scripts.

This does not work.

/home/bill/X-Plane_10.05r1/Custom Scenery/KERI Erie International Airport Tom Ridge Field/objects/Hangar6.obj
/home/bill/X-Plane_10.05r1/Resources/default scenery/airport scenery/textures/Common_Airport_Elements.png
TEXTURE ../../../Resources/default scenery/airport scenery/textures/Common_Airport_Elements.png

But when I copy the Common_Airport_Elements.png over into my KERI Erie International Airport Tom Ridge Field/textures folder it works.

/home/bill/X-Plane_10.05r1/Custom Scenery/KERI Erie International Airport Tom Ridge Field/objects/Hangar6.obj
/home/bill/X-Plane_10.05r1/Custom Scenery/KERI Erie International Airport Tom Ridge Field/textures/Common_Airport_Elements.png
TEXTURE ../textures/Common_Airport_Elements.png

Any thoughts Bill

[tkyler]

Hello Bill. Textures are not usable across scenery packages. There are pretty good reasons for this though I can't recall what they are.....I only recall having a long conversation with Ben Supnik about it long ago. You can't have an object in one scenery package pointing/using a texture in another. "scenery package" in this context, of course, refers to a single folder underneath the "Custom scenery folder". Unfortunately, to use a texture from another location, you do have to copy the texture over as you discovered, but doing so might cause the texture to be loaded twice onto the video card. Whether or not it is loaded twice is dependent upon whether or not you have a library element in your scenery that also uses that texture.

If you are only intersested in "on off" scenery for yourself...and not distributing it, then what you can do is go into the folder, "Resources > default scenery > airport scenery....and then create your own folder, "bill" and put all your objects in there. The "airport scenery" folder is basically it's own custom scenery folder and therefore any objects in there can use the textures in the texture folder.

Now there's a caveat...if you create objects and put them somewhere under the airport scenery folder, then you must create library entries for each object as described earlier and put it in the 'library.txt' file in the airport scenery folder. This will make the object available in the WED resource browser...but of course this library.txt file will get altered at each x-plane update so you have to take precautions against this. This is why it really isn't suitable for distribution because you really can't expect folks to keep track of their own library.txt and cut and paste your entries after every update to make your scenery work.

My suggestion Bill would be to create the aforementioned folder for yourself within 'aircraft scenery'...create your objects, refer to the textures in the 'textures' folder and then add library entries at the bottom of the library.txt file for each of these objects....and finally, after editing your library.txt file, duplicate it and call it something like, "bill_library.txt" so it won't get overwritten during updates......at which point you'd have to copy your entries from your backup to the new library.txt after the update. The library.txt file is growing constantly as I add new stuff to it, hence my suggestion to create a text file with only your library entries in it and copy it over to whatever the most current library.txt file is in the airport scenery folder.

-Tom

Edited August 1, 2012 by tkyler

[sparker256]

Hi Tom,

Thank you for the through explanation of why I am seeing this behaviour. This would be a airport that I would want to distribute so need a better solution and creating my own texture would be the correct choice for what I want to do.

I have been looking at some of your hangar textures and techniques and it looks like I was not using enough triangles in my objects to get the textures to look more life like. Is there any rules on how subdivided a object should be to allow the textures to look that way or is more art?

As always thanks for your time and incite Bill