P3D v5 Blender2P3D/FSX

[SirComand]

perhaps there is a confusion that is not necessary. The thing is, the image flip can be changed from the node flip image, where ZERO is disabled and ONE is flipped. You can always deactivate and activate as you wish and as many times as you want

 

[SirComand]

if you don't want to use the flip the textures just leave it as this by default and won't change anything

 

[Vitus]

I updated the Addon, it is currently in review by the mods. The new version is 0.97.10

I fixed an issue with the initialization of the SDK, added @SirComand's texture flip and added a data-saving option for the scenery tab (suggestion by @MANOCHVARMA RAMAN ).

 

[JP "Penz" Pedersen]

First of all, thank you all for working on this!

I'm excited to see if the update fixes my trouble initializing too.

I have FSX Acc. and P3DV4 SDK's installed, and the "old" Blender toolkit never had (and still doesn't have) any issues detecting the SDK, locating "modeldef.xml", and populating stuff like the list of animations.

The new toolkit (0.97) does seem to have a bit of trouble doing that, for both SDK versions.

 

[JP "Penz" Pedersen]

Just tested the update, and initialization works flawlessly here now with the new version 0.97.10, both for FSX and P3D SDK's, excellent!

 

[Robert Richardson]

Thank you very much, the update did it for me, I can now see the animations and mouse-over drop-downs.
Beautiful work!

 

[Steffsim]

Thanks a lot - Vielen Dank Otmar!

 

[Vitus]

Thanks @all. I'm happy you're happy!

FYI: I added a short section to the wiki about the new quick-save feature of the scenery tools.

 

[Adel Haiba]

Hi folks,
I just uploaded a first test-version of the new Blender2P3D/FSX toolset. You can find it in the Resources, currently listed under Scenery/Tools - but I'd like to stress that it works for aircraft, too.

Here's the Link:

Blender2P3D/FSX toolset

Blender2P3D/FSX is an addon for the latest version of Blender: 2.8x. It is a continuation of the work performed by various members of the fsdeveloper community to bring you Blender2FSX. This new toolset features a new UI, incorporation of...

www.fsdeveloper.com

I started writing a wiki entry for this tool to explain some of it's part better. Many things are the same as in the original Blender2FSX tool, but there are also some major changes to how certain things are done, so please stay tuned for more information!

Blender2P3D/FSX - FSDeveloper Wiki

www.fsdeveloper.com

This is considered a test-build, so please make sure to make backups of your original scenes before starting to use this toolset - I make no guarantees for your files if you use the addon.

All elements of the addon should be functional, but I don't have the capacity to test everything. In particular, anything to do with scenery creation is outside of my scope, so please let me know if something doesn't work for you, or if some important feature is missing so we can work together to fill the gaps.

Please note that you will have to re-assign all your texture maps when changing the P3D/FSX material mode to specular or PBR! I haven't found a way to retain that information while switching the material nodes around. If you're importing an older project, make sure to switch the material mode at least once for EVERY material to ensure that the shader graph nodes are set up correctly. Afterwards, you can modify the shader to your liking - as long as you don't change the main node (either BSDF Principled or Eevee Specular), the exporter should pick up the right textures.

When switching materials, the addon will replace the shader graph and set it up in a way that represents the shader of P3D/FSX. That means you can use a FSX normal map (with red/alpha swapped, green inverted, etc) and it will show up - more or less - how it shows up in FSX. The only exception to this is that the texture shouldn't be flipped vertically!

The exporter will setup different templates in the .X-file, depending on what SDK you're using. If you want to export to PBR, make sure that you initialized the P3D v4.x SDK. The exporter currently doesn't give back any feedback on the UI of Blender. If you want to make sure that it's doing what it's suppose to be doing, open the Blender console before exporting your scene.

I think those are the main issues for now, let me know what you think and if it works for you. We have a few more items on the to-do-list that hopefully will be integrated as we move forward and I'll be listening to what you're saying and do my best to accommodate your suggestions.

Cheers,
Vitus

Thank you for the huge effort, wonderful job

 

[Robert Richardson]

hello, love the new FSX/P3D tool-set and Blender 2.8 but try as I might just can't get vc panel to show, having compiled with both Eevee and cycles, the usual $pan that is.
A black rectangle yes, but nothing projected onto it in the model VC.
using PBR have tried masked, translucent and opaque, the vcpaneltex. box is ticked, i'm using the ready made node settings.
I have also tried the specular material option, no luck.
I know someone here will have the answer, thank you in advance.

 

[spotlope]

Otmar, I'm having an odd problem. I could have sworn that the z-bias/decal input field was available in previous builds of the toolset but I can't find it now. Am I just blind or did something happen to it?

 

[Vitus]

For PBR materials, it should now be under "Enhanced Parameters". There's a slider that let's you select a value between 0 (default) and 50. Specular material doesn't have this value - should it be there?

 

[Walter Almaraz]

I think this part is missing in Specular Material

 

[spotlope]

For PBR materials, it should now be under "Enhanced Parameters". There's a slider that let's you select a value between 0 (default) and 50. Specular material doesn't have this value - should it be there?

Yes, it applies to all materials, whether specular or PBR.

 

[spotlope]

I think it's been mentioned before, but another nice-to-have feature would be some sort of dialog box or indication that the export process was happening. It doesn't need to be a progress bar necessarily, just a notification that export was happening that goes away once it's complete.

 

[dave hoeffgen]

A convenient feature I thought of might be having the export options available as presets in the file properites panel and also saved with the blend file.
Especially options like "skinned mesh", "animations" and "scenery placement file" are likely to remain the same each time while they vary from model to model.

 

[MANOCHVARMA RAMAN]

For PBR materials, it should now be under "Enhanced Parameters". There's a slider that let's you select a value between 0 (default) and 50. Specular material doesn't have this value - should it be there?

Yes, this feature was in previous version toolset (v.0.95).

For your information, the Z-Bias was implemented from P3D v2 to P3D v4.3 for specular materials. The value should be NEGATIVE and this only works when No Z write and No Shadow is selected.

Material Functionality: Z-Bias Level
In order to improve layering materials on the ground for airport ground polygons, Prepar3D has implemented a Z-Bias level material setting.
This functionality only works with "No Z Write" checked on the material. Using values between -1 and -50, you can set and order the layering of the ground polygon textures above the default airport aprons, taxiways and runways. The more negative the Z-bias, the higher layer the material will be. For example, the runway ground polygon could be -1 making it the lower layer, the white runway markings could be the middle layer at -2, the yellow runway markings could be -3 ending as the highest layer. This process can be repeated for up to fifty layers, supporting standard and alpha blended materials.

Source: http://www.prepar3d.com/SDKv3/LearningCenter/modeling/modeling_materials.html

For PBR materials, it is called as Decal Order and should be POSITIVE values only.

 

[Vitus]

I am coding on the next update right now. I put the specular zbias in:

@MANOCHVARMA RAMAN suggested to link it with the no-shadow and no-zwrite bools, and I did that as well. When you select a value <0 for the Z-bias, no shadow and no z-write will be ticked.

I think it's been mentioned before, but another nice-to-have feature would be some sort of dialog box or indication that the export process was happening. It doesn't need to be a progress bar necessarily, just a notification that export was happening that goes away once it's complete.

I agree and I am trying to find a way to do that, but it's more difficult than you would think. Blender's API doesn't lend itself to custom dialog boxes for some reason. If someone can find me a code snippet of a custom, MODAL, dialog box for Blender's python, I'm happy to give it another try. I already spent around two days with this with zero results. In the meantime, I'd suggest to open the system console to get some feedback on the export process.

 

[Vitus]

hello, love the new FSX/P3D tool-set and Blender 2.8 but try as I might just can't get vc panel to show, having compiled with both Eevee and cycles, the usual $pan that is.
A black rectangle yes, but nothing projected onto it in the model VC.
using PBR have tried masked, translucent and opaque, the vcpaneltex. box is ticked, i'm using the ready made node settings.
I have also tried the specular material option, no luck.
I know someone here will have the answer, thank you in advance.

Oh gosh, I almost missed this!

First off, the Render engine has no effect on the export, because the addon is just looking at the raw data.

I currently don't have anything setup to make test with that, so it's difficult for me to reproduce your issue. I'll send you PM and I hope we can figure this one out together before I release the next update.

 

[Pyscen]

Hello

Speaking of updates... don't forget the log file change I suggested earlier