Designing buildings for FSX in 3ds Max

[SniperTNT 0]

I am interested in attempting to create my home airport, KBTL, into FSX scenery using photoreal ground textures and creating the buildings as they truly are.

 

Some questions arise however:

 

1) Is this possible?

2) How do I decide the scale of how big they should be?

3) When I am done with creating them in FSX, do I just use the FSX SDK Annotator and put my custom created buildings in as the autogen, or is there some other process that I have to follow?

 

Thanks.

[hesynergy 67]

I am interested in attempting to create my home airport, KBTL, into FSX scenery using photoreal ground textures and creating the buildings as they truly are.

 

Some questions arise however:

 

1) Is this possible?

...

 

Thanks.

Yup, check out my scenery Carnes farm in the library, and my posts re real objects on photo scenery...feel free to contact me for more.

 

Also go to fsdeveloper.com, Arno Gerretson is the resident genius, and READ!

 

DEFINITELY. Doable!

 

...BUT we need to find out how LM CHANGED THE SCENERY IN V2...

[CrownCityMisfits 58]

I will def check fsdeveloper. I am AE and C4D designer/animator looking to make some scenery. I recently learned how to bake AO in to my textures, so I want to test this in FSX. Exciting.

 

Sent from my SPH-L300 using Tapatalk

[anthony31 63]

I am interested in attempting to create my home airport, KBTL, into FSX scenery using photoreal ground textures and creating the buildings as they truly are.

 

Some questions arise however:

 

1) Is this possible?

2) How do I decide the scale of how big they should be?

3) When I am done with creating them in FSX, do I just use the FSX SDK Annotator and put my custom created buildings in as the autogen, or is there some other process that I have to follow?

 

Thanks.

1) Is this possible? Of course it is.

 

2) How do I decide the scale of how big they should be? You make them how big they are in real life. If the building is 10m wide by 20m long then that is how big you make it in the modelling program.

 

3) When I am done with creating them in FSX, do I just use the FSX SDK Annotator and put my custom created buildings in as the autogen, or is there some other process that I have to follow? You don't create them in FSX. You create them in Max. First off though you must install the FSX plugins for Max found in the FSX SDK under Environment Kit/Modelling Kit. You then export them as a MDL file from Max. Then you get the Library Creator program from fsdeveloper which will compile all your models into a model library .bgl. Then you put the model library .bgl and textures into a new scenery folder which you add to the FSX scenery library. Then you get Instant Scenery program (payware but it is the best tool for the job). Then you start FSX, run Instant Scenery and start placing your models.

[SniperTNT 0]

To add on to question number 2, I would have to go out and measure each building that I was going to build in 3ds max?

 

There has got to be an easier way.

[anthony31 63]

Yeah sure there is. It's called the Ruler in Google Earth. Just zoom into your airport in Google Earth, select the ruler, make sure it is in the right system (ie feet or metres) and measure all your buildings. 

 

For pinpoint accuracy, if the building is brick or block work you can count the number of bricks and then multiply be a standard brick width. Same for any building with corrugated cladding, again there are standard measurements for these and you can work out the width very accurately.

 

Once you have the measurements you can then rather accurately determine the height by comparing the ration of the side length to the height in any photos you have of the building. It also helps to know that door heights are again a standard 2.1m so you can work out building height if there is a door in the side of it becaues that is a fixed number.

[jtwhite 36]

For just creating buildings, etc., learn to use Sketchup, particularly the GeoLocation feature.

Million tutorials on YouTube.

And then download..

Download Arno's ModelConverter, the LibraryCreatorXML, then follow this tutorial.

http://www.calclassic.com/sketchup_tutorial.htm

 

It's easy as pie.

[SniperTNT 0]

And also, how would I use this (http://www.mapcacher.com/) to generate a high resolution image of the ground I will be using? After all, I do not want it to be blurry if it is going to be photoreal.

[anthony31 63]

What does mapcacher generate?

 

If you are making photreal ground textures you need to have source imagery in either bmp, tiff , geotiff or tga format.

 

Personally I just open Google Earth, turn off any terrain elevation (so it is flat as possible), set a marker so I can return to the same height at a later date if necessary and then screenshot, paste into paint program, move GE view and repeat until I have covered the whole area. Then in the paint program I arrange all the screenshots to make a nice big bmp which can be used to make the photoreal.

 

I suggest reading the FSX SDK documentation under the Terrain and Scenery subject, have a look at the part about Resample. You can also try looking for some tutorials in the AVSIM library. There are a few about making photoreal for FSX which would be a good place to start looking.

 

There is also this tutorial about PR scenery which you may like to read.

http://aussiex.org/forum/index.php?/topic/74-ozx-guides-10-making-scenery-for-country-airstrips/

[Whoabobs 0]

Hey Sniper, I also live in Battle Creek and have been wanting to remodel KBTL, just getting back into FSX and modeling. I have friends at Duncan (as I use to work there) and will attempt to acquire a detailed, to scale CAD layout of the entire airport including field markers and nav locations. Back when I left Duncan in 2009 I obtained the layout due to the new runway project at the time, have no idea where the print is now I'll be talking with friends at Duncan this weekend. Let me know if your interested, I'd be willing to collaborate on a project and put together a nice add on scenery package.         

[SniperTNT 0]

I'm still interested. I do have some time I can set aside for this in the next few weeks.