OSM2XP - A Beginners Scenary Project

[greggerm 312]

(Disregard - I am in a cranky bad mood and my post wasn't in good spirits!)

[Zolitnitsky 0]

(?! ) Well, hope you find your good spirit!

 

I've fixed (or rather replaced) the "runway" with an heliport, changing the elevation to 0. Now, adding some lights and signs to it ^_^ !

 

But is it me or does xplane.forums.org suffer maintenance problems? Cause I can't reach the site. (!?! )

[carrotroot 77]

I tried building a facade but when I started X-Plane it gave me an error and quit.

 

I researched this a bit and found that X-Plane will crash if you use Classic Airport facade 3 with the Sparse Wall option selected. The other facades seem to be ok. Anyways, I submitted this as bug to Laminar, they are pretty good about fixing these things.

 

 

xplane.forums.org

 

http://forums.x-plane.org is the correct address

[carrotroot 77]

If you are looking for a good resource for OSM2XP I would suggest http://metro.teczno.com/ this site has almost 200 Cities extracts (Updated daily). Geofabrik's site http://download.geofabrik.de/osm/ is also a good resource if you are looking to populate a state, province, or country.

[Alec 370]

It seems to be a bug with WED since I tried creating a simple facade, and latter even when deleting the object I couldn't make it work again, had to delete the entire scenery and start again. Not something you want to do on your well developed project. Luckly I made only adjustments to the runway.

[Zolitnitsky 0]

..I would suggest http://metro.teczno.com/ this site ..Geofabrik's site http://download.geofabrik.de/osm/ is also a good resource...

 

Goefabrik I seen before but metro was new. Still I don't think I want the whole city ( !) only sections of it - for helipad/heliport locations (mostly). Not sure what that amount would do to load time or so. Besides, it's osm-files just like the ones I've already tested and my experience of osm2xp so far is that the larger the area the worse! Now, for the areas I do convert I'd at least expect some resemblence! :lol: ! Thanks anyway! NoniMapView should do more than a lot in this case!

 

And http://forums.x-plane.org - yes, sorry for being sloppy but - no, the result is the same. Can't reach the site. Neither with Forefox nor with IE !!

[greggerm 312]

And nice work there, Greg! Love the skyline. The green groundtextures, was that something you added or is it XP default.

 

Thanks Z. -

 

Explaining my earlier post edit, I've often been critical of the scenery world in XP10 and I was about to go off on a passive-aggressive rant about things, so I opted to take a deep breath instead, as my opinions would not actually speed anything up or be constructive to the process.

 

If you're speaking of the terminal & garage skyline, thanks! It's a pretty accurate rendition of the local airport - even the facade walls look close to reality! If you're speaking of the other buildings out in the distance, well that doesn't represent reality too much and is one of the reasons why I needed to take a deep breath earlier.

 

The green ground textures are entirely XP10 default - in fact, the entire scenery you see is made of XP10.10b4 items and objects. I'm very hesitant to use any 3rd party libraries because I want any scenery I make to be no muss, no fuss, and someday get into the default XP10 distribution package.

 

Cheers,

-Greg

[Zolitnitsky 0]

...I've often been critical of the scenery world in XP10 and I was about to go off on a passive-aggressive rant about things

 

Well, to NOT criticize XP would be very strange to me. Looking at it from a computer game perspective (which the flightsim purists don't, I know) it's a disaster. The GUI, the bugs, the sceneries, the scope of it all - and more or less forcing everyone to become a 3D artist or a programmer (which is not entirely bad within limits) in order to be able to contribute. And the "force" being default "post WW3-looking" airports (among other things) that a normal "gamer" otherwise wouldn't endure very long! So at least I don't mind you letting of some steam if you want. Just watch the colourful metaphors.

 

...If you're speaking of the terminal & garage skyline/buildings out in the distance...

Well, all of it! :lol: ! As for realism, as I said before, I'm thinking with my scenery that to pinpoint every single building to the utmost accuracy would be a little wild - even with the flying perspective mind. But you would like the resemblance to at least feel somewhat "real" (I believe XP uses the term "plausible") with important landmarks, towers and so on. I'm not familliar with your senery/city but I'd say it looks more than "plausible" to me! But I sure hope I find some of those green textures, it would look nice for the park in my scenery ^_^ !

 

As for a new thing I just discovered! When you open the fac-files in notepad++, and deletes the spaces between the lines, the red outlines in OE disappear and ALL facades are now visible! EVERYONE of them! (That osm2xp managed to convert in the first place, that is - in my case). It also seems neither of the editors like spaces between the line as WED also is sensitive to this, refusing to open certain files (I don't remember which ones exactly now but apt.dat realated is good guess). Anyway, I just thought it be worth something.

[Zolitnitsky 0]

So I'm figuring out the next step (sort of).

 

One of last basic things you seem to need in doing a scenery is some simple 3D modeling (if you're doing this much it won't be long until you discover it). In my case it's just to enhance small or perhaps medium buildings with some (own) textures. I've tried Blender with a pathetic result. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure its a lovely ap, being freeware and has a lot of tutorials and XP support, but the learning curve together with what I want to use for, my scope if you will, it's just not acceptable.

 

Hence AC3D for me. As I understand it, It was also once apart of XP from the beginning and the plug-in has been working fine so far. Looking like a **, believe you me, this is nevertheless my first (but hopefully not last) 3D model!

 

 

Import some OpenSceneryX object (a building preferably) to get a sense (take note) of the size your working with to not end up with a puny hut. Close and select "new". Make two boxes (quads) and use "reduce" (in object menu) by 90% twice on one of them, and then remove some surface on the bottom on both. Put them together and Bob's your uncle! Just remember to put the building straight on the base line before exporting or you'll have a half-building showing up in OE! ^_^ !

 

You'll of course need "Texture Coordinate Editor" in "tools" menu to apply some texture. In my case a good sample came along conveniently with the OSM conversion of the facades earlier. I made a copy of that texture and placed it in newly created "objects" folder in my scenery. To apply the texture, import the image (object menu) and pick a surface and pick/slice your texture - and feel free to experiment! If you you make your own texture, by the looks of it, it should probably be in the power-of-two (1024x1024) or so in order for XP to read it.

 

Finally, some questions regarding auto-gen scenery.

 

As I've been reading some tutorials on the library system. My interpretation of this is that if you want to "change" the scenery you rather use the library to auto-generate the area to your taste with the EXPORT or EXPORT_EXTEND command. However, the later just increases the variety (substitutes) - not the amount of objects - of the existing ones ("placeholders").

 

So what of it? Well, if - like in my case - you have a scenery where the city area are looking like a dessert with few or none buildings by default, how do you populate that area using auto-gen into a "city-like" region? Substitute trees? Cause even when I've finished my scenery the contrast to the rest of the area will look very strange. Unless I take on the whole city in some way - and THAT'S a NO GO!

 

How do you do it?

 

Z.

[carrotroot 77]

Hi Z, you might want to redirect your energy towards modifying the art files that come with OSM2XP. It's easier to edit 2d png's and let OSM2XP do the hard work of building and placing your buildings, than to try and go down the present road you are going. Because what you are asking now is really outside the scope of what a beginner needs to understand for scenery creation.

[Zolitnitsky 0]

Hello Carrotroot!

 

And much thanks for your reply!

 

...you might want to redirect your energy towards modifying the art files that come with OSM2XP. It's easier to edit 2d png's and let OSM2XP do the hard work of building and placing your buildings, than to try and go down the present road you are going.

 

Providing you by "art files" refer to the png-textures; well - I'm trying (that also :P)! Though changing the png's doesn't seem to have any effect on the facades. Currently I have the same art files (by name) in both the "facade" and the "objects" folder where the later contained the edited one.

 

.....and As I'm writing this I realize that perhaps the edited one should of course be in the facades folder ^_^ !

 

Also one thing regarding sloped roofs, while your coming to the point of being able to edit a facade-file, many of the building-png's most to likely are to be "deformed" as the the highest floor slopes rather then roof with the roof texture ("roof is built out of a floor"). For house-textures this generally looks better. You can change the texture of the highest floor (or do your own) but I assume that would also somewhat require the understanding of the "algorithm for selecting panels and floors" (which is not nessessary when doing objects).

 

This might also be limited to the set of texture I got in the extraction. Perhaps there are some more Europe-friendly building textures somewhere ells.

 

I know, probably beyond beginners' again...

 

Because what you are asking now is really outside the scope of what a beginner needs to understand for scenery creation.

 

Perhaps.

 

When you ask a question you're often directed to the tutorials. So I did.

 

However, XP as a whole is also different in many ways. I'll get back to you on that one.

 

 

- Z .