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Creating high resolution taxiways with 3ds Max and Photoshop

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pockocmoc

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unitedstates
Hello again,

I have been trying to create my ground poly but I am stuck because I cannot follow the tutorial on the wiki. I am getting frustrated because I find it to be poorly-made and mainly for someone using gmax and gimp. Can someone point me in the right direction for a tutorial on how to create the taxiways/runways?

I am using 3ds Max 2012x64 with the P3D SDK.

Another quick question: Are the runways, taxiways, and aprons all the same poly or are they different? How would I make sure that they meet/connect to each other correctly without any blank spaces?

Thanks a lot in advance! :)
 
Hi,

You cannot use the P3D SDK for the final results because it cannot make proper ground polys. They use the old FS2002 format. You need the .asm files for the conversion, and I don't think your SDK will create those?

Either load your P3D compiled MDL file into ModelConverterX and use the Ground Poly Wizard, or use your textures and create the polys in ADE 1.60 beta. Sounds like MCX would be the better way for you to go.

Hope this helps,
 
Thankyou for your reply. Yes I do currently know how I am going to get them in the sim (I use MCX, like you said), but I am trying to learn the actual process of designing them and making the poly's come together so I have have a solid-looking ground to start building the 3d models off of. Do you know of any tutorials that would help me with my specific (or close to) software?

Thanks! :)
 
I guess you could answer this question though: Is the entire ground made as 1 poly (normally - like for small GA airports)? Would the runway be the same poly as the taxiways or are they separate? How do you have difference texture on each of the different surfaces?

Thanks!
 
pockocmoc said:
I guess you could answer this question though: Is the entire ground made as 1 poly (normally - like for small GA airports)? Would the runway be the same poly as the taxiways or are they separate? How do you have difference texture on each of the different surfaces?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Either way would work, whatever you find better. Generally, though, it's going to be a combination of both. Each layer needs to be separate polys, some layers will benefit from being just one poly, others can be separate polys.

Keeping them separate makes mapping easier. A runway could be just a 'plane' object, with one width segment and as many length segments as required to make it easy to texture -- dividing it into square chunks can prevent textures stretching, which might make things easier.

However it could also be a complex drawn shape converted to a poly, with taxiways etc.

The FS2002 technique doesn't care how whether you use one poly or a hundred.

I normally work on the runway separately from the rest, in its own file, but there is not a lot of technical reasons why I do this -- it just suits me. (The same reason why I model buildings separately -- I don't like to be scrolling around a huge GMAX file looking for things.)

However I do rely on the MCX wizard to slice the results, which prevents display issues over a large area, and helps minimise autogen suppression. In the end, MCX will cut your work into slices if you allow it, anyway.
 
So I just used the spline tool to trace one of the taxiways at this small GA airport i'm trying to make and I converted it into an editable mesh. It is an odd shape (rounded corners, etc) and I can't texture it correctly. I have my texture that I will be using for the taxiways. It is in psd format and 1024x1024px in size. I dragged the .psd into one of the slots in the material editor and tried to apply it to my selected poly that I traced, but nothing happened. Am I supposed to select unwrap UVW/UVW map? How would I get the texture to repeat the entire length and then have taxiway markings, etc? I can find some tutorials for Gmax but they are poorly made for the most part and aren't clear on what to do. I am using 3ds max. As you can tell I am not clicking with the entire UVW process! :o
 
In gmax you would apply a UVW map modifier, planar, with a size of however many feet/meters of ground your 1024 px texture was intended to cover. Make it square, because your texture is square. A planar map of 100ft x 100ft would mean your texture would repeat itself every 100ft in both directions for example. There's no need to unwrap anything with repeating textures.

Jim
 
First, it sounds like you might need to look a little further for useful tutorials -- most scenery tutorials concentrate on one aspect only, so they won't show you how to use 3DS Max or GMAX. To learn that you need some very basic resources. I don't know about Max, but GMAX comes with a reasonable manual (downloaded separately), and I use the 'GMAX Bible' as a reference for when things get tricky.

(When I go to this link on Amazon, it says 'You purchased this item on February 22, 2003'. So I've been using it for 10 years. I think I got my money's worth out of it.)

I would hope that the amount of money you pay for 3DS Max would give you access to all the help you'd need -- or at least a good manual.

There are a lot of different ways to do the same thing in 3D modelling, and you really need to know a few techniques to be able to choose the right one for the job. Not everyone does things the same way -- I'm not sure which tutorial you are working from, so I don't know where you are getting stuck. Just a heads-up that calling a tutorial 'poorly made' isn't going to have people rushing to help you.

There are tutorials which teach you how to map, and tutorials which teach you how to make FS ground polys, but I've never seen a tutorial which teaches you both at once. It sounds like you need to spend some time looking at the mapping options in 3DS Max. Some objects you just plop a texture on, some you tile, others you fine-tune a bit more. Some use more than one method. For instance, a runway base might be the same square texture repeated along the length, with a different texture on each end.

However I think that asking specific questions as you come across them is a better way to ask for help. Deal with one thing at a time, that way you won't have to take on too much information at once.
 
Basic use of Max is no different to Gmax: read the Gmax tutorials as they are and do the same thing in Max. Or get Gmax and use that - it's free after all, unlike Max, ouch. (I have both)
 
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