Blender Tool Set for Aerofly FS 2?

[spotlope]

A friend of mine got me to try Aerofly FS 2 on my Oculus rig last week. I was blown away with how well it works already, and it's only in beta at the moment. Apparently, it's not too hard to port FSX/P3D sceneries to it using their SDK, but the catch is that they only have exporter plug-ins for 3DS Max and Cinema 4D.

I'd absolutely love to have a Blender plug-in that exports to their format! This is what the Aerofly team had to say on their forum (http://www.ipacs.de/forum/showthread.php/7371-Aerofly-FS-2-Scenery-SDK-for-evaluation):

"We might consider Blender or Sketchup, but writing an exporter for those programs requires time.

If you do know some people that know how to write plugins for these 3D programs and are willing to share source code, we could speed up the whole process."
​

If the sim continues to progress and lives up to its promise, it'll be a strong contender for a next-gen platform of choice. If the talented devs who've given us these great FSX & P3D tools were interested, I'm sure their team would work with you to help get it done.

thanks,
Bill

 

[spotlope]

It's not that bad an idea. Has anyone checked out Aerofly FS2 yet? Even in beta, it's very nice.

 

[krispy1001]

A friend of mine got me to try Aerofly FS 2 on my Oculus rig last week. I was blown away with how well it works already, and it's only in beta at the moment. Apparently, it's not too hard to port FSX/P3D sceneries to it using their SDK, but the catch is that they only have exporter plug-ins for 3DS Max and Cinema 4D.

I'd absolutely love to have a Blender plug-in that exports to their format! This is what the Aerofly team had to say on their forum (http://www.ipacs.de/forum/showthread.php/7371-Aerofly-FS-2-Scenery-SDK-for-evaluation):

"We might consider Blender or Sketchup, but writing an exporter for those programs requires time.

If you do know some people that know how to write plugins for these 3D programs and are willing to share source code, we could speed up the whole process."
​

If the sim continues to progress and lives up to its promise, it'll be a strong contender for a next-gen platform of choice. If the talented devs who've given us these great FSX & P3D tools were interested, I'm sure their team would work with you to help get it done.

thanks,
Bill

Hi Bill!

The tool-set is open-source code. So it is very easy for their programmers to get the code. All they have to do is download the latest Blender2FSX tool-set that I have released and they have all of the code.

Thanks, Kris

 

[spotlope]

I'll point the Aerofly guys in the direction of the Blender FSX toolset and see if they can nut out how to create a version for their sim. Thanks, Kris!

 

[arno]

Hi Bill,

I'm also in discussion with the AeroFly developers to see if I can add support for their formats to ModelConverterX. So that should allow another conversion option for those that don't have 3DS Max.

 

[spotlope]

That's a good solution too, Arno. Thanks for following up on it!

 

[whitav8]

The Aerofly FS2 SDK does support the AC3D format for both scenery and aircraft.So if the Blender AC import/export works well enough, then maybe you could start there - don't expect that animations would work.

Here is the github for the AC3D plugin - https://github.com/majic79/Blender-AC3D
I have a dialog with the Dev of the plugin going right now for some changes to the plugin (maybe you could help test and improve it)
- https://forum.flightgear.org/viewtop...306475#p306475

 

[spotlope]

Great! Downloading now. I'll give it a go and see if I can make some progress. And yes, I'd be happy to help test and improve it.

 

[whitav8]

@bill,
Make sure you download his updated version that seemed to work well with the FS2 SDK aircraft example for the dr400. I tested it briefly (I'm not a modeler - just like to add objects to scenery) with Blender 2.78a. The author/developer really seemed to want to make improvements. Unfortunately, the AC3D format is not the final format needed - it is called TGI and that is what Arno will be generating for MCX so what we really need is a TGI exporter for Blender. IPACS has provided a TGI exporter for AC3D so it could be used temporarily - Blender->AC3D->TGI or when Arno gets the MCX exporter together, that could be used Blender->MCX->TGI.

https://github.com/NikolaiVChr/Blender-AC3D/tree/importWorldWithMatrix

Thanks

Dave
P.S> What I really want also to be able to do is use a GeoReferenced and scaled BMP from FsEarthTiles or SbuilderX to make an image underlay for airport areas that FS2 doesn't have yet.

 

[spotlope]

Once Arno has gotten the TGI format working, I can go straight from my existing MDLs to TGI, which will really speed up conversions.

 

[arno]

I'm discussing the TGI format with one of the AeroFly developers. They want to provide a library for it. Once I have that I can add support in MCX.

 

[whitav8]

@arno,
Any chance of having a TGI exporter for Blender. I would like to use Blender to assemble a number of objects together to make an airport area since there doesn't exist an object placer for FS2 like Whisplacer, SbuilderX, or Instant Scenery 3 (which is my favorite since I can see the objects in the actual scene). Or maybe you have an alternative.

 

[arno]

Hi,

I have no clue how to make a Blender exporter, never looked at that before. My first priority is support in MCX, but once that works I'm willing to check if and how it could be done in Blender as well.

 

[whitav8]

@arno,
I'm not saying that it is trivial at all, but from looking at the python source for the AC3D exporter for Blender that I mentioned in this thread above to Bill

https://github.com/NikolaiVChr/Blender-AC3D/tree/importWorldWithMatrix

if you have the source from IPACS/Aerofly for the TGI exporter for MCX, the change from dealing with AC3D objects might not be too much. If IPACS just gives you a DLL, then it might be tough.

 

[arno]

I'll get a library from them to handle the TGI format. And the TGI format is also a binary format, whereas AC3D is a text format (I have implemented AC3D in MCX before). So I guess it will not be that easy. But like I said, once it is working in MCX I can have a look what is possible.

 

[whitav8]

@arno and fsdeveloper team,
I just wanted to say how much I appreciate the talent, expertise, and hard work that you all have and expend so that those of us who like to improve an airport/scene of interest can do so. We are always asking for changes and new ideas that will cause you to spend your precious time. Thanks so much for your willingness!
Like many of us, I have utilized the Microsoft Flight Sim ever since it started and it has really improved in scene quality over the years - a real workhorse of a flight sim! My flight sim career for the US Navy and Boeing Commercial generated much of the same type of results at a much higher expense but at home, I just looked at a monitor and enjoyed what could be done for so much less money - and then with Nvidia and AMD CPUs and GPUs, I could afford the same hardware that is being utilized at work. But as the years went by, I didn't enjoy flying by the monitor much. I considered large TVs and building a cockpit but then the Oculus Rift came along and changed my focus - flight sim flying became so much fun again because of the ability to look around and have the scene appear fullsize. However, FSX/P3D are typically running at about 30-45 fps at best in a world where 90fps is required for total smoothness. I was hoping that DCS World or Xplane might be the ticket at 64 bits but they just aren't smooth. War Thunder of all things was the first to show the smoothness for 90fps VR but the imagery isn't quite what I wanted - so when Aerofly FS2 came along and presented quite good airport sceneries over photoreal imagery - at least for a decent size beginning gaming area - and was easily able to provide 90 fps in VR, I was hooked again on the beauty of flying doing aerobatics in an F15 or a Pitts over realistic scenery. It might never have the support that FSX/P3D has, but it as rekindled my personal interest in flying. Thanks for supporting it! There are many airports in the Southwest in the FS2 world that have the photoreal underneath but no runways, buildings, or static aircraft.

Dave

 

[whitav8]

@arno,
I am wondering if there is any progress on your MCX to TGI capability? I will need to pay for AC3D otherwise so I can make a little scenery for FS2. Also, I am somewhat baffled by the MCX conversion to AC3D format (AC). I tried a few test objects from FSX and exported to AC and then imported back in from that AC file and it looked just fine except that upon importing back into MCX that the smooth shading was gone and all surfaces were flat shaded (normals??). When I imported in to AC3D (latest version 8.0.50a), the texture coordinates looked quite incorrect on some complex objects - not just flipped (I tried that with DXTBMP). I will try to experiment a little further to get details for you - and maybe pick an object to test with.

 

[arno]

Hi,

I'm making progress slowly only. Mainly because I have been very busy with my work and other things recently. And also because I need to figure out how to wrap the C++ library for C#, I haven't done that before. I can't tell you how long it will take to get something working. It might be a few days or a few weeks (probably closer to the last).

About the AC format. Please let me know if you find issues. I have added it to MCX a few years ago, but I don't think it is used very often by users. So it might be there are some bugs left. I have tested with some FlightGear objects in the past.

 

[whitav8]

Arno,
I am making progress in moving objects to Aerofly FS2 using AC3D to convert to the TGI format. I am using Javier Fernandez's USS Nimitz as a test case to go from MDL to AC to TGI. There are some mistextured(bad UV coords or ??) items, objects moved(translated), invisible (wrong sided) objects but in general it works very well as you can see by the photo enclosed. If you have any desire to check your AC converter, I could supply the test case - but it is complicated. I am afraid that some of the above issues might be happening with AC3D itself and maybe the IPACS AC-to-TGI converter plugin.
Thanks so much for MCX - what a wonderful tool!

 

[whitav8]

@arno,
I am still using the USS Nimitz model to check the AC importer/exporter for MCX. I seem to get a few objects translated when I save to AC and then read it back in as AC. I don't see the translated pieces in the AC3D import of the AC file, so maybe it is just in the import of AC. Another issue is that I have to reload the model in AC3D and apply the Gouraud lighting smoothing - it doesn't seem to be in the AC file.