Blender 2.70, Blender2FSX Tools (Video Tutorials)

[krispy1001]

Hi Everyone!

Here is the link to Video 10 :

Krispy1001

 

[krispy1001]

Hi Everyone!

Here is the link to video 11:

Krispy1001

 

[capt_x]

Hi Krispy, as always, nice video. One question arises to me concerning your use of materials... Usually, I create one material per texture sheet and assign whatever part is mapped to that sheet to the corresponding material. You create a new material for every part. Did you check in MCX if that has an impact on drawcalls? I suspect that every material is a different drawcall, thereby increasing the drawcall count tremendously if you have a new material for each part. Is that the case?

 

[Dutcheeseblend]

The number of materials and the number of 'loose' objects make up how many drawcalls the model has. You can simply apply a material to an object, unwrap it and while you select the unwrap, select in the UV/Image window the appropriate texture map.

 

[krispy1001]

Hi Capt_X!

I am not for sure that FSX uses buffered draws or not. So, Yes you are correct; the more materials you have for your project will require more draw calls.

Because the aircraft is still being modeled and that the model is so simple, I am not taking a lot of time to texture the plane yet. I am having the viewer apply simple materials in the most simplest way possible for testing purposes in FSX. Once the modeling of the aircraft is complete, I will then show the viewers how to go back and join the objects into one object and re-UVunwrap and texture the plane correctly for FSX performance.

I thank you very much Capt_X bringing that to my attention!

Remember guys anything that you guys see that I am doing wrong or you have a better way of doing something please let me know.

Dutcheeseblend has shown me several things that I have done wrong, and I think him for that.

Krispy1001

 

[krispy1001]

Hi Everyone!

Thank you Capt_X and Dutcheeseblend for letting me know that I was applying materials wrong in my video's. So I have made changes and I hope that I am doing it correctly in Video 12.

Please let me know, if I am applying materials to the model correctly this time.

Here is the link to video 12:

Thank you, Krispy1001

 

[Dutcheeseblend]

Tricks for duplicating and mirrorring objects.

Approach 1: If the origin is at the center of the object
- Shift D to duplicate, press Enter
- Press Ctrl M to mirror and hit X, Y or Z, just what you want
- Go to the X, Y, or Z location in the Transform tab and add or remove the minus

Approach 2: If the origin is at the scene's center
- Shift D to duplicate, press Enter
- Press Ctrl M to mirror on X, Y or Z

Approach 3: If the origin is at the scene's center and you might still change the geometry
- Go to Modifiers and select Mirror, select the appropriate axis
- If vertices are in the center, you might consider to check Merge and Clipping.
- When you're sure this geo is perfect (and maybe even unwrapped!), hit Apply

Regards

 

[capt_x]

Hi Krispy,
Good video. That is basically how materials should be assigned, 1 Texture sheet = 1 material. And that's why the workflow should be: Modeling > Unwrapping > Animating. That way, you can easily map joined parts on the same sheet, then separate them and animate. Of course, you can model separate objects, assign them to the same material and map them to the same sheet one by one. This may help if you want to remap an already animated object:

In Blender, for objects that share the same texture (see my remark below), you can display the UV-Maps of all of them at the same time in the UV/Image editor: Just select all the objects (that share the sheet/material) with your active object last, tab into Edit mode and you should see the UV-Maps of the other objects outlined in grey on top of the texture. That way, you know where to place the UVs of the object you are working on without the need to create a separate UV-layout texture (export UV-layouts, merge them in GIMP, etc). If you already know this feature, simply disregard the following...

Caution! There is an oddity in Blender to be aware of. There are basically two ways of assigning textures to a face: by material or by "TextureFace" (that's what it was called in pre-2.5 versions of Blender). In the properties/display side panel of the 3D-viewport (N-key), under "Shading", you can choose between Singletexture, Multitexture and GLSL (the options are different when using Cycles). When you select GLSL, the material assigned textures are displayed on the objects in the viewport. When you select Singletexture or Multitexture, the "TextureFace" assigned textures are displayed on the objects. If they are both the same (i.e. you gave the material the texture you already had in the UV/Image editor), you won't see any difference. The UV/Image editor can only superimpose UVMaps of objects that share the same texture based on "TextureFace" assignment, not material assignment. So what can happen is this: you are in GLSL mode, you can see all objects in the viewport are mapped to one texture and wonder why their UV-maps (or parts of them) are missing from the UV/Image editor. That's because they share the same material and thus the same material textures, but not the same "TextureFace" texture. The correct procedure when unwrapping an object is thus the following :

• Unwrap the object using any options you like, rearrange your islands as you see fit
• Then select ALL faces of the object in the 3D-viewport (the whole UVMap of the object is now displayed in the UV/Image editor)
• Only now choose or create a texture to be displayed in the UV/Image editor (this step is where the "TextureFace" assignment happens: all faces whose UVs are currently displayed in the UV/Image editor are assigned the chosen texture. Whenever you choose another texture to be displayed in the UV/Image editor (i.e. for baking), the assignment happens anew for all the faces present in the UV/Image editor at that time.)

This is the procedure you followed, Krispy, so this is entirely only a remark as to why it is a good method. The procedure ensures that all faces of the object are assigned the same texture sheet based on "TextureFace". If you process all objects that share the same material in this way (always choosing the same texture in the UV/Image editor), the UV/Image editor will be able to superimpose the UVMaps of all selected objects on the texture while you are unwrapping/arranging the UVs of the active object.

When you are going to unwrap your animated control surfaces, select the object you want to unwrap (i.e. aileron), hit A twice (everything selected with you object as active), tab into edit mode, unwrap all faces and choose your aircraft texture. You should now see the UVs of your fuselage in grey and you can gently move the aileron's UVs to where there is space left. Repeat for the next object etc. You will always know where there is still space left on the sheet without even having to bake or export UV-layout, etc.

This was kind of long but I hope my point came across. If there are questions, feel free to ask.

So long,

edit: Make sure "Draw Other Objects" is ticked in the "View" menu of the UV/Image editor's header (bottom of area).

 

[capt_x]

Remark about baking: The texture you chose in the UV/Image editor ("TextureFace") is also the texture where the baking happens. You don't need to bake every object separately and merge the produced textures in GIMP. You can either select all objects at once and hit "bake" (prone to errors if not correctly mapped) OR, untick the "Clear" option in the Baking panel and bake the objects one at a time on the same texture (the previous baking won't get erased).

 

[krispy1001]

Hi Capt_x and Dutcheeseblend!

Thank you very much for the information!

Capt_X, No I did not know that I could select all objects and then click the main object last for UV-unwrapping and that all of the UV-unwrapped islands for the objects would show up on the UV editor window. I always did it manually in Gimp.

Thank you very much for this information!!!!!!

 

[Dutcheeseblend]

In Blender, for objects that share the same texture (see my remark below), you can display the UV-Maps of all of them at the same time in the UV/Image editor: Just select all the objects (that share the sheet/material) with your active object last, tab into Edit mode and you should see the UV-Maps of the other objects outlined in grey on top of the texture.

That is, if you check Draw Other Objects in the View menu of the UV/Image editor.

 

[capt_x]

Thanks, Dutchie. I completely missed the obvious there. Occured to me when I had already posted.

 

[krispy1001]

Hi Everyone!

Here is the link for Video 13:

Krispy1001

 

[krispy1001]

Hi Everyone!

Here is a link to Video 14 :

Thank you, Krispy1001

 

[krispy1001]

Hi Everyone!

Here is a link to Video 15:

and Video 16:

Krispy1001

 

[capt_x]

Hi Krispy,

On a side note: is there a particular reason why you are using control cubes as parents to the animated parts? I understand it's a means of setting the pivot point for the animation, ok. But that you can also achieve by moving the object's origin to the same position: place the 3D cursor in the desired spot and in the Toolshelf (under Transform), hit the "Origin" button (or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+C) and choose "Origin to 3D cursor". Then animate the object directly in the same way you would animate the control cube. This saves you some vertices on final export and helps declutter your scene a little. There are, however, animations that require parenting to a control node, like the yoke animation that moves in two axes. In that case, I recommend using an empty as the parent control node, since there is no geometry or material information created with it on export. Empties can be parented, animated and tagged same as regular mesh objects.

Actually, since you didn't assign any materials to your control cubes (FSX doesn't display objects with no material), they already act as empties, but with supplemental hidden vertices. So you might as well use regular empties where needed.

And oh... Shift+S, don't forget Shift+S... It's your best friend for precision modeling. That, and the snap tool.

Keep up the good work.
Cheers,

 

[krispy1001]

Hi Capt_X!

It is an old habit! I am use to using some type of bones for all of my animations. I did not think about the extra Verts.

Thank you!

And Yes, I keep mixing up the Shift S short cut with the Alt S short cut.

Krispy1001

 

[capt_x]

Hi Capt_X!

It is an old habit! I am use to using some type of bones for all of my animations. I did not think about the extra Verts

I don't think it matters that much, It's max 36 extra texture vertices per control cube, if unwrapped. And I'm not even sure they count, since they are not rendered by the GPU. So don't worry...

 

[krispy1001]

Thanks Capt_X!

I am happy to hear I do not need to remake all of the animations.

Thank you, Krispy1001

 

[krispy1001]

Hi Everyone!

Here is a link to Video 17

Krispy1001