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MSFS20 Ground Poly or In-sim materials?

pyreegue

pyreegue

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Judging by the new sceneries that have come out it looks like major developers are not using the old-fashined way of creating aprons/runway etc with a 3d model created in some third party 3d software, instead they use the in-sim tools to create airport layouts, like Aprons (in the scenery editor), Painted Lines etc. The question is, have ground polygons become obsolete in the way that we know them from P3D/FSX, or are they still a thing and scenery developers should still make it the old way instead of opting for the new way of placing each line/apron by hand inside of the simulator using its tools.
 
I'm creating my airport with the MSFS SDK. I have a Prepar 3D version using ground polygons created with 3ds Max.

I will use 3ds max just to make 3d objects.

I use josm to create my airport polygons and then I convert my geojson to apron vertices.

Regards
Alfredo Mendiola
 
mendiola_loyola said:
I'm creating my airport with the MSFS SDK. I have a Prepar 3D version using ground polygons created with 3ds Max.

I will use 3ds max just to make 3d objects.

I use josm to create my airport polygons and then I convert my geojson to apron vertices.

Regards
Alfredo Mendiola
Click to expand...

I’ve never heard about this geojson method, can you please explain it in a little bit more detail or share a link where this topic is covered? Thanks

What’s also interesting is how to get the layers separated in MFS. In P3D we had Z-Bias, what’s the alternative here?
 
mendiola_loyola said:
I'm creating my airport with the MSFS SDK. I have a Prepar 3D version using ground polygons created with 3ds Max.

I will use 3ds max just to make 3d objects.

I use josm to create my airport polygons and then I convert my geojson to apron vertices.

Regards
Alfredo Mendiola
Click to expand...
Also interested in hearing more about this GEOjson you speak of,Please enlighten us
 
Yes, I have uploaded the program GeoJsonToXml to convert the geojson files saved from JOSM to an xml file compatible the MSFS SDK.
GeoJsonToXml v. 1.00: https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/resources/geojson-to-xml-v1-00-for-msfs.258/

JOSM: https://josm.openstreetmap.de/

I'm using this tool for creating my Lima, Peru scenery for MSFS.

JosmExample.jpg


Regards
Alfredo Mendiola Loyola
 
This option sounds interesting but i dont understand it at all.

I was thinking about creating an own material with all the apron lines and numbers and import it to MSFS as a texture, then put it in place with a polygon.

Could you explain a bit what can we achieve using JOSM? Do you create a custom polygon with the exact size of the lines and then you put a texture on it? Or how it works?

Thank you Alfredo.
 
Really interested in this method, too. I opened an OSM file for the airport I'm planning to make and it has almost all the needed lines, is it possible to convert them straight into XML? Thank you!
 

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pyreegue said:
Really interested in this method, too. I opened an OSM file for the airport I'm planning to make and it has almost all the needed lines, is it possible to convert them straight into XML? Thank you!
Click to expand...

You must save as the osm file as geojson from JOSM.

It is possible as long as each line has a key "name" with a value.

Regards
Alfredo Mendiola.
 
TheJon182 said:
This option sounds interesting but i dont understand it at all.

I was thinking about creating an own material with all the apron lines and numbers and import it to MSFS as a texture, then put it in place with a polygon.

Could you explain a bit what can we achieve using JOSM? Do you create a custom polygon with the exact size of the lines and then you put a texture on it? Or how it works?

Thank you Alfredo.
Click to expand...
This method allows you to create polygons and lines to use them as aprons, taxilines, etc on an existing airport xml file. See the SDK examples, there is an example to create an airport using a xml file.

Then you can assign materials to the xml aprons for instance.

Regards
Alfredo.
 
pyreegue said:
Judging by the new sceneries that have come out it looks like major developers are not using the old-fashined way of creating aprons/runway etc with a 3d model created in some third party 3d software, instead they use the in-sim tools to create airport layouts, like Aprons (in the scenery editor), Painted Lines etc. The question is, have ground polygons become obsolete in the way that we know them from P3D/FSX, or are they still a thing and scenery developers should still make it the old way instead of opting for the new way of placing each line/apron by hand inside of the simulator using its tools.
Click to expand...
In my case, I am modeling, unwraping and hand painting (substance mainter) my Runways and Aprons. It is varied, filled with cracks, been repainted and retared so many times, the airport has been in active use for a 100years. I could not even get close with the insim tools. This does mean theirs a trade of, no extreme close up, where you can see individual rocks in the tarmac. But at 500mm away, the hand painting realy looks good.
Also, have to find away to make wet textures work.
 
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Is it feasible to work with all textures in 4k? I'm building my first ariport and im using all the textures in my 3d models in 4k as well as a bunch of own materials on 4k. But I am afraid that when I have it all done and together, it will be impossible to maintain good fps. So I would like to inform me now of the resolution to use before investing too much time and it is too late.
 
TheJon182 said:
Is it feasible to work with all textures in 4k? I'm building my first ariport and im using all the textures in my 3d models in 4k as well as a bunch of own materials on 4k. But I am afraid that when I have it all done and together, it will be impossible to maintain good fps. So I would like to inform me now of the resolution to use before investing too much time and it is too late.
Click to expand...

To the best of my understanding, it makes a small performance difrence, but not a big one. Because a 2k texture and a 4k tecture both have one drawcall. I hope so at least, otherwise my airport is going to hit those frame rates hard, becaue to me, qauility over performance... I am also trying to use LOD as best I can to try and make up the performance hit.
I know that the wrong way round, but thats just me.
 
And just saw this in the sdk... The simm will adjust te textures based on the users setings.
 

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Nagmaal said:
In my case, I am modeling, unwraping and hand painting (substance mainter) my Runways and Aprons. It is varied, filled with cracks, been repainted and retared so many times, the airport has been in active use for a 100years. I could not even get close with the insim tools. This does mean theirs a trade of, no extreme close up, where you can see individual rocks in the tarmac. But at 500mm away, the hand painting realy looks good.
Also, have to find away to make wet textures work.
Click to expand...

How do you create your runways with 3Ds Max or Blender ?
Do do you set the layers or priority when you have one polygon over another one. ?

Regards
 
I will let you know as soon as I get it to work. :rotfl:

In theory there could be 2 posabalities.
1. Project to mesh (not yet in the sdk)
2. Set the in sim runway to invisible, then place the modeld runway on top, crash setongs of, and adjust the ground underneath to match the runway. It efectivly becomes hologram of a rinway. I manged to get this to work in P3D, no such luck far in FS2020. But I will report back if i get it right.
 
@mendiola_loyola Could you be more especific on how to import those lines and polygons to the SDK?

I have managed to create the lines into OpenStreetMap and i have sucessfully created the generated XML file.

When I copy that information into my aiport .XML, i can see the Paintedline tag in my Scenery Editor, but no lines are shown in the scenery.

I have copied the same structure as the Paintedlines i already created inside the SDK.
Captura.PNG

Captura1.PNG
 
TheJon182 said:
@mendiola_loyola Could you be more especific on how to import those lines and polygons to the SDK?

I have managed to create the lines into OpenStreetMap and i have sucessfully created the generated XML file.

When I copy that information into my aiport .XML, i can see the Paintedline tag in my Scenery Editor, but no lines are shown in the scenery.

I have copied the same structure as the Paintedlines i already created inside the SDK.
View attachment 62245
View attachment 62246
Click to expand...
The Xml is Ok.

Some times I have to Reload the scenery on the FS2020 editor Or select the aiport node on the scene panel to see the changes I make on the editor.

Try a simple line above a runway.

Code: 
<PaintedElements>
    <PaintedLine type="EDGE_SERVICE_SOLID" trueAngle="NONE">
        <Vertex lat="-12.02995234839" lon="-77.11032776192"/>
        <Vertex lat="-12.02991869354" lon="-77.11025714912"/>
    </PaintedLine>      
</PaintedElements>

Regards
Alfredo
 
I get it to work change the , for a . in the coodinates.

Working on this i have thought about something... Could be possibel to create a Flag like EDGE_SERVICE_SOLID and assign to it a custom painted line?
At the moment im adding own lines usnig aprons, but would be a lot better to do it just using PaintedLines, but i doesnt like the lines by default.

I bet te way to do it is using code it the XML, anyone knows?
 
I understand that you want to add another key/value like type=EDGE_SERVICE_SOLID on the JOSM to add it on the generated xml tag using the GeoJsonToXml ?

I will include on the next version more key/values to assign for example a tag name on the JOSM to be able to generate xml Aprons or
PaintedLine tags.

Regards
Alfredo Mendiola
 
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