• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
    • Questions about aircraft design can be posted in the Aircraft design forum
    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

Blender to FSX Toolset

I discovered that I can add the fresnel textures with ModelconverterX, so this is a workaround for now. I am not very familiar with that program, but as far as I can see, it's preserving all functionality in my VC. Hopefully Capt_x will be able to add fresnel ramp support to his exporter at some point.
 
Indeed, texturing in Blender is straightforward. Diffuse is for diffuse textures, Normal for bump maps, Self Emissive for night and specular for specular.

Nice vid Kris, we really appreciate the effort you put into it!

There seem to be 12 map options (or 'sorts') in Gmax (Ambient, Diffuse, and so on), and there are 4+4+3+3=14 in Blender. I don't know however whether all 12 Gmax maps can be enabled in FSX Materials or not, so consequently I don't know about the 14 Blender ones. Anyway, we can change Diffuse by the (Diffuse) Color influence, Specular by the (Specular) Intensity, and Bump by the Geometry Normals. I believe this is enough for the B2X toolset, since FSX handles things a bit different (read: puts more influences in one map). For example: the spec map you make for you model, will influence Specular intensity AND color AND hardness, while Blender offers the ability to seperate them. The B2X toolset knows where that certain map is applied in the influences so assign it the correct FSX material.

Believe me, you'll be surprised that it works! That was my experience at the first time anyway ;)

Regards!
 
And the Reflectivity can be controlled by certain settings in the FSX Material tab, instead of adding a map to the Shading Mirror influence. So you only need this:

Diffuse Color (for diffuse maps)
Specular Intensity (for specular maps)
Geometry Normals (for bump maps)
Shading Emit (for self-emissive maps)

That's all because, as said before, multiple influences are packed into one map (if one listens to the SDK :)). Alpha in the diffuse map controls the reflectivity and so not a seperate map is needed.
 
Thanks, RonH, and Dutcheeseblen!

I am glad too help when I can.

And I thank you guys very much for helping me when I need help.

Thanks, Krispy1001 :)
 
Hi guys ! I've been using Blender and the Blender2FSX toolkit to model ships and SAM threats for FSX@War to be implemented in the VRS tacpack and I have to say that I love what you've done ! I have never been able to get used to Gmax !

Back to the question, I am wondering how can I put night textures directly in Blender. Right now, I use MCX to do it but it would be easier if it was done directly in Blender. Another question, I tried to create a flight deck by using a plateform but MCX doesn't accept it, I get the following message :

An error occured during importing E:\Divers\Fregate F70\MDL\D640\D640.x

Error:
La balise de début 'Platform' sur la ligne 1 ne correspond pas à la balise de fin de 'FSMakeMdlData'. Ligne 1, position 125.

My work : http://s580.photobucket.com/user/rafalemirage/library/?sort=3&page=1

Cheers ! Seb
 
Hi rafalemirage!

I do not understand your question about putting night textures into Blender. Are the texture in the DXT# format? ("meaning do they have a .dds extension?") If they do, just use the ImageTool that came with the FSX SDK and re-format them too 24-bit and then save them as a Bitmap (.bmp). And then add them to your object material as a texture.

Now for the Question on the error that you are getting when trying to make a flight deck. In Blender under the FSX Attachpoint Tool did you check the Platfrom box? If not that is probable your problem.

I hope this helps. If not let me know!

Thanks, Krispy1001
 
Hi Krispy, thanks for the reply.
My trouble is that I have the two sets of texture, one for the daylight, the other for the night but I don't know what settup to use in Blender. Do the night texture use the Shading Emit property or something else ?

As for the platform, I used the FSX attachpoint tool, intialised the toolkit, checked the platform with different types of ground (concrete, asphalt, steel mats, ...) but the result is always the same error message. Do yoy know if anyone used it successfully somewhere else ?

Seb
 
Hi rafalemirage!

If I understand your question on daylight, and night time texture's. If you are re-modeling one of your models that you made using another 3D modeling program. You will have too make a material for your object and then apply your textures using that material. Here is a video that I made too explain how to apply texture maps. http://www.kp-coolstuff.com/tmp/textures.wmv .

So for an example, the night texture, you would add the diffused base texture, than add all the other texture maps setting the influence for each texture map. So for the diffused texture under influence you would have Color checked and nothing else, and for your light map you would have checked in it's influence emit and nothing else.

If this doe's not help let me know, and I will work on making a video tutorial on how to use texture maps in Blender.

Now for your question on has anyone used Blender to successfully make a platform? I would have to say "Yes" because there are people that use Blender to make scenery for FSX. But For me personally "No" I have not tried. I will see what I can do to answer this question for you. I will make my own platform and see if it works.

I hope this help some.

Thanks, Krispy1001
 
Hi rafalemirage!

Ok, I made a platform with Blender and it worked fine. You need to remember to initialize the tools set before you try too export your model. Also remember to set your object back to default scale before exporting.

If you can not get your platform to work let me know. I will try to make a video tutorial on making scenery items for FSX using Blender sometime this week.

Thanks, Krispy1001
 
Hi krispy, I watched your video and I understand the material properties (diffuse, normal, spec), I finally understood what I was not understanding, that the self emissive property is the nightmapping. I got it now thanks !
 
FSX Attachpoint: "No Crash"
First of all many thanks to Capt_X for the great Toolset and Krispy1001 for his great videos which helped me a lot.

Currently I have a problem with the no crash functionality, when I select an object in object mode say no crash and attach that to the object the crashbox is still there as I can see in MCX.
Did anybody here test this function? I already initialized Toolset and get no error when exporting. The objects are correct but still with crashbox.
Any ideas?

Edited: I also tried a platform and this also doesn´t work. So the Attachpoint Tool doesn´t work for me. I Initilized Toolset, Set Scale to 1.0 again but no luck.

PS: Perhaps we should split this long thread into different ones for each topic?
 
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Hi Mr. Jdberg!

I am very happy that the video's has helped you!

You are the second person that said that they were having this problem. I tested the toolset for the "platform" option and it worked fine. But I have not tested the "no crash" option.

I will try to have a video on using both platform, and no crash for this coming week.

Thanks, Krispy1001:)
 
Hi Krispy1001,
yes I think I make a mistake. I used these features with Gmax for many years now and probably I simply missed one thing.
Hope we find a solution because I really want to use Blender instead of Gmax for my next scenery projects.
Joerg
 
Hi Jdberg!

Yes, you are correct. I can not get the "Platform", or "No Crash" to work correctly. No matter what I tried I could not get the object to allow me to land on it. It causes a crash every time my aircraft touches it.

We will have to ask Mr. Capt_X what he thinks.

Thanks, Krispy1001:)
 
krispy1001 said:
Hi Jdberg!

Yes, you are correct. I can not get the "Platform", or "No Crash" to work correctly. No matter what I tried I could not get the object to allow me to land on it. It causes a crash every time my aircraft touches it.

We will have to ask Mr. Capt_X what he thinks.
Click to expand...
Well, what does he think? :scratchch

Please have a look at the first post. I haven't had the time to test it yet... Report any further issues here. And Thank you all very much for using this toolset. You are invaluable as a base for this project.

Cheers...

Edit: Thank you very much, Krispy1001.:) I've read through this page, you have really been holding the line here...
 
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Thanks Krispy1001 for the confirmation, so I know, that I can stop seaching in my configuration.

@capt_x
Do you need any further information or log-files or something else to fix the error?
It seems to me indeed that the complete function does not work. I tested: effects, platform and no_crash but no result when checking with MCX

If you need any info please let me know.

Jörg
 
Hallo Jörg,

I have posted an update in the first post. Have you tested it? And secondly, you are saying that effects aren't working either. What kind of effect are you trying to attach?

Cheers
 
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