FS2004 GMAX Texturing

[JRobinson]

Your skid marks look good, man ! You probably posted this already and I missed it but what airport are you building?

Jim

 

[wideloadwhitford]

With permission I used Ian and Shez's marks. And its a very desolate and secret location, one of Allegiant Airs bases. Can you guess?

 

[tgibson]

Hi,

You can combine all of your library objects into a single BGL file, and then use EZ-Scenery to place them all, again all into a single (different) BGL file. So you should end up with two BGL files - the library objects, and the placement information.

Hope this helps,

 

[wideloadwhitford]

Hi,

You can combine all of your library objects into a single BGL file, and then use EZ-Scenery to place them all, again all into a single (different) BGL file. So you should end up with two BGL files - the library objects, and the placement information.

Hope this helps,

So all in all I will have two BGLs?

 

[n4gix]

So all in all I will have two BGLs?

Well, yes you will...
...at a minimum.

1.BGL (scenery object library: contains objects "a", "b", and "c")

2.BGL (placement of object "a" at position "x" from 1.BGL)
3.BGL (placement of object "b" at position "y" from 1.BGL)
4.BGL (placement of object "c" at position "z" from 1.BGL)

You can continue adding new objects to the scenery object library (1.BGL above) as you wish.

You can also place any object contained in that SOL as many times as you like, anywhere you like, by simply creating a new placement .BGL file!

 

[tgibson]

Hi,

Not quite Bill. All placements from BGL 1 should all be placed into BGL 2. There is no reason to have separate BGL files for each placement. Rwy12, EZ-Scenery and Instant Scenery can place dozens of objects using a single BGL file - there is no reason to do it otherwise.

Hope this helps,

 

[wideloadwhitford]

Alright guys thanks, I'll give it a try with EZ scenery tonight.

 

[n4gix]

Hi,

Not quite Bill. All placements from BGL 1 should all be placed into BGL 2. There is no reason to have separate BGL files for each placement. Rwy12, EZ-Scenery and Instant Scenery can place dozens of objects using a single BGL file - there is no reason to do it otherwise.

Hope this helps,

Thanks for the correction, Tom. I'm by no means any kind of "spurt" ex or otherwise when it comes to scenery!

Although depending on the tools one uses, it is certainly possible to have more than one placement BGL...

 

[wideloadwhitford]

I am getting the hang of this gmax placing and texturing but I am trying my best placing these lines down with the Rectangle method and making it an edible spline. However since the texture curves it doesn't come out right. Has anyone been able to figure this out?

What's your idea of good music, and I'll tell you if you did it right or not.

Seriously, congrats. It is a bit of a handfull to get your head around when you're doing it for the first time.

Jim

I just saw this lol, I listen to Trance and Dance, and also some Alternative Rock. I'm a huge fan and love music. Thanks Jim!

Ryan

 

[n4gix]

Progress, yes but...

You really need to tune your Loft's so that you don't generate so many useless polygons!

Open the +Loft submenu and adjust the Skin Parameters to limit the Shape Steps and/or Path Steps as needed to reduce the complexity of the Skinned Spline to it's most basic...

...all of those "inner edges" are completely useless.

 

[JRobinson]

I don't think there's any way to texture around corners unless possibly you could texture a plane while it's straight, collapse the stack, and then "bend" the plane after it was textured, but I think you'll find the results unsatisfactory. I think I'd do something like this instead:

Individual gmax planes are outlined in red. Black on the two corner pieces indicate alpha transparency. This requires only a few triangles as opposed to a million in your loft. You could probably lay out all the straight sections on a single texture sheet. You could do 4 corners on a single 1024 x 1024 sheet if you can live with 256px resolution, it'll probably look bad though, you'd probably want at least a 512x512 sheet for each corner.

Jim

 

[tgibson]

4 512 x 512 corners *will* fit on a 1024 x 1024 texture, right?

 

[wideloadwhitford]

I don't think there's any way to texture around corners unless possibly you could texture a plane while it's straight, collapse the stack, and then "bend" the plane after it was textured, but I think you'll find the results unsatisfactory. I think I'd do something like this instead:

Individual gmax planes are outlined in red. Black on the two corner pieces indicate alpha transparency. This requires only a few triangles as opposed to a million in your loft. You could probably lay out all the straight sections on a single texture sheet. You could do 4 corners on a single 1024 x 1024 sheet if you can live with 256px resolution, it'll probably look bad though, you'd probably want at least a 512x512 sheet for each corner.

Jim

Im using your idea now thanks Jim!

Bill, I tried an tried but have failed with getting the lowest polygon count but its not working, don't worry its not the end of the world for me

 

[n4gix]

Im using your idea now thanks Jim!

Bill, I tried an tried but have failed with getting the lowest polygon count but its not working, don't worry its not the end of the world for me

One of the chief advantages of the Loft method is that as long as you don't collapse the stack, you can go back and modify everything as much as you like to achieve your goal.

All you need(ed) to do is go back to the Loft, and set the Path Shape to zero (0) and the Path Steps to zero (0). The default is 5 for both, and that's too much!

I whipped up the following quickly to illustrate what I mean. Note that there aren't too many polys! In fact, there are only seven!

 

[JRobinson]

4 512 x 512 corners *will* fit on a 1024 x 1024 texture, right?

Ermmm... as a matter of fact they will

 

[wideloadwhitford]

Grass is never greener on the other side for me haha

 

[n4gix]

Grass is never greener on the other side for me haha

Where's your Skin modifier?

When creating your Spline(s), make sure you are in the Top Viewport. Creating a well-formed Loft isn't particularly difficult, but it does take a bit of practice.

It's very well described in the Max/GMax Help Reference under the topic "loft object."

 

[wideloadwhitford]

What do you think is the best way to lower it without it messing up the scenery below it. I tried earlier and it just lowered my scenery and had to start over. And I am getting the hang of it now with the loft. Thanks!

Ryan.

Edit, I'm doing the old fashioned way.

 

[wideloadwhitford]

I'm almost done with my taxiway edges and bends, thanks for all the help.

On another note I was trying to export the model of my fuel tanks located on the field; however it gives me this error, and fails to export.

Running model

Start! (C:\Program Files\gmax\gamepacks\fs2004\KIWA\Mesa Project\Buildings\Fuel Tanks\Fuel Tanks)
Loading X C:\Program Files\gmax\gamepacks\fs2004\KIWA\Mesa Project\Buildings\Fuel Tanks\Fuel Tanks...
Processing...
Model units are 1.00 units/meter
Sorting by Material...
Optimize Parts...
Welding...
Generate BGL...
Done!
Generate crash tree 1 (1664 bytes)
 Assembling: C:\Program Files\gmax\gamepacks\fs2004\KIWA\Mesa Project\Buildings\Fuel Tanks\Fuel Tanks.azm
C:\Program Files\gmax\gamepacks\fs2004\KIWA\Mesa Project\Buildings\Fuel Tanks\Fuel Tanks_0.asm(29) : error A2008: syntax error : Tanks_top
C:\Program Files\gmax\gamepacks\fs2004\KIWA\Mesa Project\Buildings\Fuel Tanks\Fuel Tanks_0.asm(30) : error A2008: syntax error : Tanks
C:\Program Files\gmax\gamepacks\fs2004\KIWA\Mesa Project\Buildings\Fuel Tanks\Fuel Tanks_0.asm(39) : error A2008: syntax error : Tanks
C:\Program Files\gmax\gamepacks\fs2004\KIWA\Mesa Project\Buildings\Fuel Tanks\Fuel Tanks_0.asm(42) : error A2008: syntax error : Tanks
C:\Program Files\gmax\gamepacks\fs2004\KIWA\Mesa Project\Buildings\Fuel Tanks\Fuel Tanks_0.asm(319) : error A2008: syntax error : Tanks
C:\Program Files\gmax\gamepacks\fs2004\KIWA\Mesa Project\Buildings\Fuel Tanks\Fuel Tanks_0.asm(322) : error A2008: syntax error : Tanks
C:\Program Files\gmax\gamepacks\fs2004\KIWA\Mesa Project\Buildings\Fuel Tanks\Fuel Tanks_0.asm(325) : error A2008: syntax error : Tanks
C:\Program Files\gmax\gamepacks\fs2004\KIWA\Mesa Project\Buildings\Fuel Tanks\Fuel Tanks_0.asm(328) : error A2008: syntax error : Tanks_NonAlpha
C:\Program Files\gmax\gamepacks\fs2004\KIWA\Mesa Project\Buildings\Fuel Tanks\Fuel Tanks_0.asm(334) : error A2008: syntax error : Tanks_MasterScale_1
C:\Program Files\gmax\gamepacks\fs2004\KIWA\Mesa Project\Buildings\Fuel Tanks\Fuel Tanks_0.asm(607) : error A2008: syntax error : Tanks
C:\Program Files\gmax\gamepacks\fs2004\KIWA\Mesa Project\Buildings\Fuel Tanks\Fuel Tanks_0.asm(32) : error A2206: missing operator in expression
C:\Program Files\gmax\gamepacks\fs2004\KIWA\Mesa Project\Buildings\Fuel Tanks\Fuel Tanks_0.asm(44) : error A2206: missing operator in expression
C:\Program Files\gmax\gamepacks\fs2004\KIWA\Mesa Project\Buildings\Fuel Tanks\Fuel Tanks_0.asm(324) : error A2206: missing operator in expression
C:\Program Files\gmax\gamepacks\fs2004\KIWA\Mesa Project\Buildings\Fuel Tanks\Fuel Tanks_0.asm(329) : error A2206: missing operator in expression
 BGL_CALL_32(4): Macro Called From
  C:\Program Files\gmax\gamepacks\fs2004\KIWA\Mesa Project\Buildings\Fuel Tanks\Fuel Tanks_0.asm(329): Include File
Error!

Is there an easy button for this situation? I must be doing something wrong.

Thanks, Ryan

 

[n4gix]

Just a wild guess, but I do believe that the word "tanks" is reserved. Try renaming all them to something else such as MyTanks or something.