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Learning the SDK, getting a plane into Aerofly.
- Thread starter lionheart
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I now have the Bullette exporting fully into AF2. Now to figure out how to start a proper TMD file for animations and flight tuning.. and sound...
I have not started bump mapping, specular, and some of the other cool things you can do with the many effects layers of the materials. I use the Robin DR400 plexi for the plexi; imported/copy/pasted. I also need to figure out their prop system. Here, I used the blue Box Template to import into AF2.
Doesnt that look like real sunlight? and real asphalt? and real mountains?
I have not started bump mapping, specular, and some of the other cool things you can do with the many effects layers of the materials. I use the Robin DR400 plexi for the plexi; imported/copy/pasted. I also need to figure out their prop system. Here, I used the blue Box Template to import into AF2.
Doesnt that look like real sunlight? and real asphalt? and real mountains?
- Messages
- 10,158
- Country
I had quite a few issues with getting 'all' parts into the sim. Wrong materials that are not supported by AF2 will crash the 'converter'. I had to completely redo 'all' materials to 'Standard' Max Materials. Even Architectural tiled Materials are crashers of the 'converter'. So if you start getting a plane ready, note, no FSX materials or strange materials. Also, if you are missing a Material, the converter crashes. Use Bitmaps for your materials (when converting from TGI to TMB). (You export from Max as TGI, then convert from TGI to TMB. When you convert a model to AF2 mode, it does all textures, sounds, 'and' model to AF2 format. (yep....).
Animations and Hierarchies are not carried over from Max. You create animations from coordinates and those will go into the TMD file. Same for Hierarchies.
Workflow for moving parts to 'AF2' Materials (Standard Material).
* Open a FSX Material. Copy the Diffuse map (graphics/texture)
* Create new Material, name it like 'Fuselage AF2' where the other was Fuselage, new Material is Fuselage AF2, meaning you have converted it, so that you are organized on your conversion from FSX to AF2. Paste the Texture into the Diffuse slot in the new material.
* Go back to the FSX version, click the 'Select Parts with this Material'
* Click on the 'new' AF2 version of this Material, click Apply
* /// Now all of your parts with the older FSX Material now have the new AF2 texture.
* Repeat this for each Material until the entire plane is converted.
* Probably best to create a new scene, import your plane into it, and save as next one up, so that all 'old FSX Materials' are washed out, left out, gone from the scene, so that no crashes occur.
** Another thing is that your model must be turned to X Axis. Rotate it to the right 90 degrees and adjust the CG to proper location on the grid. Animations will be screwed up, but you do not need to worry about that as the sim engine animates the parts from axis angles and input degrees. This is at animation slider point 'zero'. You export at that animation point.
What I did for the parts to be 'level' and neutral at animation point zero, was to drag their animation points on the animation slider. On an aileron, for instance, I drag the 50 point over to the zero point, and the zero point over to the 50 point, so now the aileron is flat and flush at 'zero' point on the animation scaler. Continue for other parts that animate like that; rudder pedals, yokes and control sticks, elevators, rudder. This way, if needed, you can reverse the issue by dragging the stop points on the Animation scaler back to where they were. Its reverseable back to normal (if something required that).
** Gear down (no gear doors). Ailerons, spoilers, elevators, rudders are straight. Only the gear is put down. Everything else must be at neutral state.
Thats it so far... TM.log is your log file to check what might be causing your plane to crash the converter.
Again, note that your textures must be in the folder with your plane TGI file right before exporting. Bitmaps can be in 24 or 32 bit. Sizes of 4096 and 8K are recommended. The settings in the config for export will export to say 1024, etc. So the TTX (texture) file(s) will come out at the proper size, not 4096 or 8K. Also, if your files (PSD) are maxed out at 1024 (for example, then leave them at that, export a bitmap from the PSD, place that in the folder with the TGI file for when you export).
A cool thing... The Converter 'also' makes a 'preview' which is the Selection Center photo of your plane, a cool PNG file that is a rendering perfectly done of your plane and that texture. If you reexport a plane, delete the PNG Preview so that the converter will create a fresh new one.
That converter is amazing.... Fast, does it all....
EDIT: With gauges that use XML gauge bitmap textures, I recreated new textures called Pan1, Pan2, Pan3, etc, and used the background templates with the gauges as the new Material, getting rid of the FSX material. I will then go back in and place gauge textures without the dials in them and place in 'object' needles for the gauges. Everything is now 3D. No XML gauges.
EDIT2: With Materials, you can have the original Diffuse texture name as the same, but should be something like 'fuselage_color' where color denotes 'diffuse'. Color is the new Diffuse. Other textures (bitmaps) will have the same naming (for the converter) such as _bump, _specular, etc. You do not even need to have those maps in the Map layers stack in Max. You can just add the bitmap into the folder and the converter automatically adds that to the model texture assignment.
Example;
fuselage_color
fuselage_specular (not in Max, but is here in the plane compiler folder)
fuselage_bump (not in Max, but is here in the plane compiler folder)
The naming activates assignment in the converter.
-or-
fuselage // original name of material
fuselage_specular
fuselage_bump
etc...
Bill
LHC
Animations and Hierarchies are not carried over from Max. You create animations from coordinates and those will go into the TMD file. Same for Hierarchies.
Workflow for moving parts to 'AF2' Materials (Standard Material).
* Open a FSX Material. Copy the Diffuse map (graphics/texture)
* Create new Material, name it like 'Fuselage AF2' where the other was Fuselage, new Material is Fuselage AF2, meaning you have converted it, so that you are organized on your conversion from FSX to AF2. Paste the Texture into the Diffuse slot in the new material.
* Go back to the FSX version, click the 'Select Parts with this Material'
* Click on the 'new' AF2 version of this Material, click Apply
* /// Now all of your parts with the older FSX Material now have the new AF2 texture.
* Repeat this for each Material until the entire plane is converted.
* Probably best to create a new scene, import your plane into it, and save as next one up, so that all 'old FSX Materials' are washed out, left out, gone from the scene, so that no crashes occur.
** Another thing is that your model must be turned to X Axis. Rotate it to the right 90 degrees and adjust the CG to proper location on the grid. Animations will be screwed up, but you do not need to worry about that as the sim engine animates the parts from axis angles and input degrees. This is at animation slider point 'zero'. You export at that animation point.
What I did for the parts to be 'level' and neutral at animation point zero, was to drag their animation points on the animation slider. On an aileron, for instance, I drag the 50 point over to the zero point, and the zero point over to the 50 point, so now the aileron is flat and flush at 'zero' point on the animation scaler. Continue for other parts that animate like that; rudder pedals, yokes and control sticks, elevators, rudder. This way, if needed, you can reverse the issue by dragging the stop points on the Animation scaler back to where they were. Its reverseable back to normal (if something required that).
** Gear down (no gear doors). Ailerons, spoilers, elevators, rudders are straight. Only the gear is put down. Everything else must be at neutral state.
Thats it so far... TM.log is your log file to check what might be causing your plane to crash the converter.
Again, note that your textures must be in the folder with your plane TGI file right before exporting. Bitmaps can be in 24 or 32 bit. Sizes of 4096 and 8K are recommended. The settings in the config for export will export to say 1024, etc. So the TTX (texture) file(s) will come out at the proper size, not 4096 or 8K. Also, if your files (PSD) are maxed out at 1024 (for example, then leave them at that, export a bitmap from the PSD, place that in the folder with the TGI file for when you export).
A cool thing... The Converter 'also' makes a 'preview' which is the Selection Center photo of your plane, a cool PNG file that is a rendering perfectly done of your plane and that texture. If you reexport a plane, delete the PNG Preview so that the converter will create a fresh new one.
That converter is amazing.... Fast, does it all....
EDIT: With gauges that use XML gauge bitmap textures, I recreated new textures called Pan1, Pan2, Pan3, etc, and used the background templates with the gauges as the new Material, getting rid of the FSX material. I will then go back in and place gauge textures without the dials in them and place in 'object' needles for the gauges. Everything is now 3D. No XML gauges.
EDIT2: With Materials, you can have the original Diffuse texture name as the same, but should be something like 'fuselage_color' where color denotes 'diffuse'. Color is the new Diffuse. Other textures (bitmaps) will have the same naming (for the converter) such as _bump, _specular, etc. You do not even need to have those maps in the Map layers stack in Max. You can just add the bitmap into the folder and the converter automatically adds that to the model texture assignment.
Example;
fuselage_color
fuselage_specular (not in Max, but is here in the plane compiler folder)
fuselage_bump (not in Max, but is here in the plane compiler folder)
The naming activates assignment in the converter.
-or-
fuselage // original name of material
fuselage_specular
fuselage_bump
etc...
Bill
LHC
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