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MSFS20 MSFS Asobo Official Blender exporter

Maybe this helps

We already found out that it is a little bit complicated to export lods. It is looking like the exporter is not generating the xml in the correct way.
It definitely takes that LOD value and puts into the MinSize data. I typed in 200, and that went into the MinSize. The file name that used to have an _LOD001 or such appended is merely the original file name.
Currently getting a .gltf, a .xml but no .bin. Looking into the .gltf file, there is no link to the texture image, UV, etc. file.
Collection scheme will indeed take some careful revision of existing Blender objects.
But, It's Here!
Thanks, Asobo.
 
Hello, in the video you show 3 textures, albedo, normal and Comp: What is Comp ? Compilation? how to do ? thanks.
That's a texture file that uses the red, green and blue channels to hold three more pbr texture components: ambient occlusion, roughness and metallic respectively. It's too complex to explain here. Anyone have a reference to an understandable video? I could use some help there too. I'm trying to use Krita, but it looks like Gimp is my best bet.
 
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That's a texture file that uses the red, green and blue channels to hold three more pbr texture components: ambient occlusion, roughness and metallic respectively. It's too complex to explain here. Anyone have a reference to an understandable video? I could use some help there too. I'm trying to use Krita, but it looks like Gimp is my best bet.
I think i have answerd the user elsewhere, but anyways
here Is my pbr explanation with Gimp, 30 minutes in


Inviato dal mio Mi 9 Lite utilizzando Tapatalk
 
I think i have answerd the user elsewhere, but anyways
here Is my pbr explanation with Gimp, 30 minutes in


Inviato dal mio Mi 9 Lite utilizzando Tapatalka
Yes, thank you. It is a very good video. I'm working on procedural textures for the surfaces of some of my bridges that, while viewed from afar, give them more life - sort of a close-up texture you can appreciate from afar. I have successfully made a composed texture with Gimp following your lead. I'm pretty sure it's not possible with Krita, although I prefer Krita - not sure why. Magnetic333 should watch your video and concentrate on the part from 15 minutes up to about 30.
Thanks for the help.
 
@PhysicsTeacher i forked the repo and added some description about the LOD stuff in the readme. https://github.com/Mikeaat/glTF-Blender-IO-MSFS/tree/add-readme-description-help

Sadly the pull request got declined because there will be a official doc "soon"
Thanks, Mikea.at. That grouping will save me in my next phase. However, have you or anyone else found that the export of LODs does fine with the gltf files, but the .xml names all the LOD tags to the last object exported? I set up some controlled tests and came up with the results in the attached. The upper left is obviously the export setup. The upper right is the .xml from the export; the FileName is always set to the last object exported. I edited the .xml to the shot below that and got the four LODs along the bottom. If this is news to anyone, to whom should I forward it? I certainly hope it's not something stupid I'm doing. The exporter you have been managing has worked flawlessly for a long time now. Exporting LODs was logical and maintainable. I have a growing list of minor nits in the new one, but that can wait a while.
Asobo Exporter LOD Observations.jpg
 
Download the main branch the fix for this bug is already implemented. @PhysicsTeacher
If you mean 1.1.2, that's the one I'm using. It's listed as released "4 days ago". I'll download it again, but it's what I downloaded two days ago; I just verified. Maybe I don't know what you mean by "main branch". Have you tried to export an LOD group yet? I can work around by editing the .xml file, but maybe I am doing something wrong in the setup. If you have time, could you look at the settings in the upper left of my picture? I may be doing something wrong, but I don't think so.
Thanks.
 
"occlusionTexture and metallicRoughnessTexture must both exist (or both not exist) and be packed together"

What does this mean?

PhysicsTeacher's screenshot gave me an idea on how to export my interior and exterior models by faking them as LODs (I may post the details later) but for not the fspackagetool is throwing up this error for every material that has an Occlusion, Roughness, Metallic texture. It does not process this texture (it's fine with the base color adn the normal texture but the metallic isn't processed).

Is this happening to anyone else or just me?

EDIT: I seem to have narrowed down the problem. In the shadings tab, under glTF Settings I am getting duplicate entries so they end up with .001 or .002 etc suffixes. I will have to go through them all and change them to glTF Settings. I was able to replicate this issue by copying one part to clean project and switching to the glTF Setting has brough back the metallic textures.

EDIT 29 minutes later: Yes, the glTF Settings was the problem. I went through all the textures and set them back to "glTF Settings" and not the duplicates. I also had to unlink the metallic and roughness for those textures not using a metallic texture and link the occlusion back up for those textures that did have a metallic. See attached screenshots for samples of the correctly linked textures.
 

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As I said in my previous post Physicsteacher's screenshot of his LOD models gave me a thought on how to export my aircraft interior and exterior models while using Collections which I was having problems with earlier.

The attached screenshot shows the layout I am using now.

atm_LOD0 is my interior Collection and atm_LOD1 is my exterior Collection. Because these are named as LODx the exporter is able to group them. I set the folder to the model folder and I rename the atm_LOD0 and atm_LOD1 to my interior and exterior model names. The actual LOD values are irrelevant (I will manually code these at a later date, in development all I care about at the moment are the main models).

All the other collections within the two main collections still appear but by default they will not export (not ticked). I have minimized them but unfortunately I still have to scroll down as the Export button is off the bottom of the screen.

Making any changes to Collections (such as hiding them) seems to be a bit sketchy. I had big problems when I hid the passenger and pilot collections and unhiding them still wouldn't include them in the export. I have no idea how I fixed that. Just random button smashing seemed to do the trick.
 

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@Lagaffe i forked the original repo from asobo. its not a good idea to download anything from my fork :D i just did that so i can edit the readme file.

The original is here: https://github.com/AsoboStudio/glTF-Blender-IO-MSFS

@PhysicsTeacher download the main branch means:
Go to "main"
click on "Code"
Download as ZIP.
1647972056659.png


then you get all new fixes since the latest "official" release.
You want to know what is fixed? just read the "Commits":

 
@PhysicsTeacher your LOD grouping is correct! if you download the "main branch" as a zip the .xml will be correct.

a LOD value of 100 is a little bit crazy, as far as i know this means % of screen space so the object has to fill the whole screen that it gets displayed :)
 
@PhysicsTeacher your LOD grouping is correct! if you download the "main branch" as a zip the .xml will be correct.

a LOD value of 100 is a little bit crazy, as far as i know this means % of screen space so the object has to fill the whole screen that it gets displayed :)
I thought so too at first. Under the Options Menu, look way down and choose the Debug LODs option. You will get two sets of numbers by default: the first is which LOD you're looking at now followed by the total number of LODs for that object (0-based), and the second is the value in some units, not percent, of a sphere bounding your object. If you want to see the sphere, there's a box to tick that will show it as a ghastly glowing globe of lines. Play with this a while. There's another box to tick that will give you the face count (triangles, not polygons as in Blender) of your object. I had to learn this the hard way, since I make bridges which are long and narrow. I use numbers as high as 200 at times to get the hi-poly model chopped down early to the next LOD as other objects come into view. Somebody did a lot of good planning in setting up this SDK. I use the New Project Wizard all the time; no more editing files. I'm working on a scenery template also, but that has to wait for a while.
I'm learning a lot about the new exporter every minute now. It won't take Blender point lights or spot lights while your version had no trouble. As a bridge builder I depend on arrays of point lights to make it look like by street lamps are doing something. To use the sim's two available lights is crazy. In Blender I can make an array of vertices, parent a single point light to a Vertex of that array of vertices and then set the instancing of the vertex array to Vertex. I can check the placement and other things in Blender first and then export them all at once. In the old exporter, you have to Object->Apply->Make Instances Realfor them to show up in the sim. Otherwise it's only one point on export. Take a look at my Robert Moses Causeway near KISP in Flightsim.to. Check out Jamrom2's description of how to get there from KISP Rwy 24.
I'm sticking with the old one for now, but I am really happy that the bunch of you are doing something about the new one. If you'd written it in Fortran, I might be able to help more. There will eventually, I'm certain, be many more things we can do. I tackled the LOD testing first since I'm an LOD freak. If you look at those bridges with LOD debug on, you'll see drastic face reduction from a distance, but it still looks like a bridge. I don't use Decimate ever. It's all in the design.
Thanks again for those fixes on the original.
EDIT: Version 1.1.3 was just released two hours ago. It's now 0651 EDT 22-3-23. That's why I couldn't see a change. Also, the point lights problem is reported to have been fixed. I need to verify that later, and I'm going to try some of my more complex creations - specifically sub-collections, which I use to great advantage. My thanks to you and Asobo!
 
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Hey guys, been using this now for a few days and i am very much enjoying the easier working LOD exporting.
There is however clear issues still lingering and been having some problems with exporting animations etc but overall i look forward to the coming updates.
 
@Anthony,
If I remenber, this occlusion problem was already find by you (Vitus 's plugin v0.40 - Dec 2020) and you have find also the solution here:
=> https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/t...g-metallic-texture-output.450603/#post-867999

One detail though, on my current Canso I had a lot of messages (about ten) about occlusion textures but apparently the textures were well created (PNG=> DDS) and they appeared in the Packages directory after compilation via fspackagestools.exe.
I just went through my Canso Blender file and tried to change all these gltf settings.xxx to gltf settings and I still have some messages from my last build.

I'm going to do one more pass to check for possible omissions ;)
 
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please all of you if you find a bug go to github register an account, if you dont have one, and create a issue. that way the exporter will faster be bug free :) (if that is possible in a programm) :D
 
please all of you if you find a bug go to github register an account, if you dont have one, and create a issue. that way the exporter will faster be bug free :) (if that is possible in a programm) :D
I had just finished opening a GitHub account and adding some material to your Issue on the order of the LOD statements in the xml. Must have been some kind of mysterious waves. I added one question about the last LOD entry having no MinSize.
When I was in the robotics business we defined 'software' as: A set of instructions controlling the processing of data by a computer that is 95% finished at all times.
 
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