On 8/25/2020 at 5:30 PM, tangerine said:

So..it took me like 2 hours last night doing a few tutorials.
 

So I found myself some tutorials but I run intot a snag. I just can't get the model into the library of the sim.

I exported it from Blender, I did all the steps the tutorials describe but when I try to build the scene in the SDK I get a compiling error, and after restarting the scene the model does not show up in my library.

So could you point me into the right direction?

Yep was reading it on the MSFS forum going to play with it too...

The tutorial (at least the one I read) left off one major step when you've added the buildings and saved your project.

You must compile the BGL again once the buildings are in place.  You will know you are done when you have the following files in your /Packages/{your-package-name} directory:

layout.json

manifest.json

 

The tutorial forgets this step.  Until you do that and the COPY the entire folder {your-package-name} into your Community folder in the actual MSFS directory, you will not see your new stuff.

 

Hope this helps

1 minute ago, VFXSimmer said:

The tutorial (at least the one I read) left off one major step when you've added the buildings and saved your project.

You must compile the BGL again once the buildings are in place.  You will know you are done when you have the following files in your /Packages/{your-package-name} directory:

layout.json

manifest.json

 

The tutorial forgets this step.  Until you do that and the COPY the entire folder {your-package-name} into your Community folder in the actual MSFS directory, you will not see your new stuff.

 

Hope this helps

That is the next step, I would need to do. Right now I have not even began to start the actual placement of my model because I can't get it to show up in my modellibrary.

7 minutes ago, Farlis said:

That is the next step, I would need to do. Right now I have not even began to start the actual placement of my model because I can't get it to show up in my modellibrary.

Hard to say exactly.  I had to try a couple of times to be honest and it was always a user error on my part.   For example, I had set the texture directory in the blender export to "../textures" instead of "../texture" and that caused it not to work.  Look for typo's in the .xml files that it asks you to change.  Any mistake there and the compiler will miss your object directories.

Could be any of a bunch of those things.  Would suggest trying again and slowly checking each step?  All I can say is that it DOES indeed work if you do everything correctly.  I installed a bunch of buildings in my college Alma Mater yesterday.

1 hour ago, VFXSimmer said:

Hard to say exactly.  I had to try a couple of times to be honest and it was always a user error on my part.   For example, I had set the texture directory in the blender export to "../textures" instead of "../texture" and that caused it not to work.  Look for typo's in the .xml files that it asks you to change.  Any mistake there and the compiler will miss your object directories.

Could be any of a bunch of those things.  Would suggest trying again and slowly checking each step?  All I can say is that it DOES indeed work if you do everything correctly.  I installed a bunch of buildings in my college Alma Mater yesterday.

I figured it out. I had given my model a name with an Umlaut. The compiler doesn't like that at all.

On 8/25/2020 at 11:32 AM, cwburnett said:

I put a mod to the CJ4 that makes it fly rationally (not a rocket with 30 minutes of fuel) in this forum 12 hours ago. It quickly found its way to page 5 of the forum, yet I know more than two people have complained about wanting a better CJ4...it's just impossible right now to find useful stuff amongst all the "here's why I'm not installing MSFS" or "I wasted 3 cheeseburgers" threads...

That's why we created the "Tips and Tricks" forum. If the process is simply a matter of changing some parameters, then a step-by-step description is all that is needed. Once submitted, one of us mods or administrators will lock it for posterity.

22 hours ago, Jetman67 said:

Wonder if that created scenery would be wiped out by updates or would it be a layer above

As long as people use the Community folder for all add-ons, there will never be a problem. This is the only place for any "custom stuff"; liveries, new aircraft, scenery, et cetera.

Under no circumstances should anyone ever modify the sim's default files. Period. Full Stop.

I saw that one user on Reddit imported a castle from Google. After pushing it through Blender the 3D file was 120MB!! He tried to reduce the size by making it a bit simpler, but even a 10% reduction was enough to break it.

Are the models really going to be this big? In that case I do not see this being something other than a curiosity for a small subset of simmers. I wonder how the performance will be if you add 10-20 of these models to the city you are flying over.

15 minutes ago, espent said:

I saw that one user on Reddit imported a castle from Google. After pushing it through Blender the 3D file was 120MB!! He tried to reduce the size by making it a bit simpler, but even a 10% reduction was enough to break it.

He probably didn't simplify the mesh and textures properly. My first model (a church with 4 towers and cloister) that I just finished is 2mb, and the 4096 texturemap for it is 20mb.

4 minutes ago, Farlis said:

He probably didn't simplify the mesh and textures properly. My first model (a church with 4 towers and cloister) that I just finished is 2mb, and the 4096 texturemap for it is 20mb.

Any good instructions any where I just want to add some simple stuff in Queensland like a target symbol on a roof and some water towers etc,cheers

Are there any video tutorials on using SDK or scenery editor or inserting custom buildings, etc? I'm a visual learner 😁

I want to insert my own (simple) buildings, and I also want to be able to tell autogen what type of buildings to put in specific locations (thus giving me a grocery store where it belongs rather than the apartment complex MFS gives me). It would also be nice to define tree lines on mountains, etc.

19 minutes ago, Jetman67 said:

Any good instructions any where I just want to add some simple stuff in Queensland like a target symbol on a roof and some water towers etc,cheers

How to grab photogrammetry data for blender:

And how to clean up the model:

And then you have to search a little bit at FSDeveloper to figure out how to get that cleaned up model into MSFS. 

For me that was the trickiest part.

47 minutes ago, n4gix said:

That's why we created the "Tips and Tricks" forum. If the process is simply a matter of changing some parameters, then a step-by-step description is all that is needed. Once submitted, one of us mods or administrators will lock it for posterity.

Roger that. There's a thread for the mod and it is now a package that can be added to the community folder that just modifies the two files. I do wonder, though, since once it is in Tips & Tricks I can't modify it anymore with updates, as it is very much a WIP.

I also made some videos of navigating the various avionics which were added into Tips & Tricks already. I have a few more to do, but it is also locked. If I send additional links to add, would a mod add those, or how does that work?

On 8/25/2020 at 7:37 PM, B787Pilot3222 said:

I'm working on it 🙂

In which case, my requests are EGPH, EGAA, EGHR (complete with racetrack buildings) and EGAC , in that order!😉

On 8/25/2020 at 8:06 PM, Pevenhull said:

The Forth Bridge needs doing.

All 3 of the bridges need doing! And Edinburgh City Centre for that matter - the Castle especially.

2 hours ago, cwburnett said:

I do wonder, though, since once it is in Tips & Tricks I can't modify it anymore with updates, as it is very much a WIP.

I also made some videos of navigating the various avionics which were added into Tips & Tricks already. I have a few more to do, but it is also locked. If I send additional links to add, would a mod add those, or how does that work?

We have been locking the posts there to prevent fellow members replying, commenting, or otherwise making the post cluttered with side-chatter and such noise...

However I can unlock your contribution(s) so that you can make updates, and will simply have to hide any replies (or move them back to the main forum at least.

We would prefer to keep each entry in the T&T forum down to one tip or trick per post, and keep them as short and to the point as possible.

PM me with whichever you wish to be unlocked.