Gah, im stupid, help.

[Guest realwildwobby]

I have been working on an airport and have a couple questions.1) do i make one big scene with everything in it in GMAX, or do I make parts and place parts individualaly.2)How do I get rid of existing scenery?3)How do I texture... LOL!4) How do I make night textures?5) What else is important for me to know?P.S. I know how to model good... just I need the above answersThankyou!

[Guest fame]

Good Morning realwildwobby:The answers to all your questions can be readily answered simply by conducting a careful search through this forum. -or-Better yet, why not do yourself a favor by reading the first pinned entry in this forum, "The Beginners Guide To Scenery Design" an excellent how-to and reference work.Good LuckTom G, Sr.

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi realwidewobby.I will answer #1. Please DO NOT make a scenery with everything in it inside Gmax. Make buildings or objects separately, and place them as individual objects. This will save you much frustration, and will save those that try to help you in the future from chasing the wild geese. ;)These individual objects can, and should be combined into an singular object-placement BGL with the XML/BGLComp method for FS9.Dick

[Guest realwildwobby]

>Hi realwidewobby.>>I will answer #1. Please DO NOT make a scenery with everything>in it inside Gmax. Make buildings or objects separately, and>place them as individual objects. This will save you much>frustration, and will save those that try to help you in the>future from chasing the wild geese. ;)>>These individual objects can, and should be combined into an>singular object-placement BGL with the XML/BGLComp method for>FS9.>>Dick How do you combine into an singular object-placement BGL with the XML/BGLComp method for FS9?Thank you!

[Guest Checkmate]

Hi realwidewobby,I'm a sort of semi/occasional/drop-in type sceneryenhancer so take my advise with gigantic grains ofsalt. There is a file in the library called "rwy12_tutorial.zip".I think it will get you where you want to go.Regards,Checkmate

[Guest realwildwobby]

but arent I suppose to find the LAT and LON if flight sims top view or whate ever? another question is how do I make my building face a certain direction? Also, I have no clue how to do textures... can someone help me with that?Thanks,Robby

[arno 1]

Hi Robby,Yes, you indeed need to find out the position of your object. But you need some reference anyway to place your objects (also when you put everything in one GMax file). So just use a map or slew through FS to find the correct location of your object.To let your objects face in a certain direction, you need to give them a heading. In general objects are designed facing north in GMax.For textures, I would suggest that you read the MS house tutorial and the tutorials that came with GMax. They should get your started on that.

[Guest realwildwobby]

thanks for the reply! I understand texturing and everything now. But the heading you change in the XML before compiling? Also, after the texture mapping, do you keep the texture file(s) as BMP? or do you need to convert them? And if you place multiple of the same objects you just make something like:<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>Copying the: and do you have to change the:name="49484DD94DD821F1229CD181D37899EC"?Thanks a lot,Robby

[Guest JohnC]

If you are going to build a solid object for viewing in Flight Simulator, do the following:Create a folder on your desktop...(call it Gah for instance)Inside put (1) a shortcut to bglcomp(2) a shortcut to your scenery folder(3) a shortcut to your FS9 stored flight that "looks" directly at your object's planned locationIn GMAX, export the object you want to see in FS9 and send the outputs to Gah. If it compiles correctly, you will get two files in Gah...an MDL file and an XML file.Edit the XML file by opening it and clicking View, then Source and you will get a standard text file.Remove all the comment lines. Comment lines start with in XML. Now put in the appropriate LAT/LON coordinates and leave everything else alone for now anyway. Save it. Don't touch the MDL file.Now (a) drag and drop the editted XML onto the bglcomp shortcut. In a few seconds (or less) a file of the same name will pop up and it is a BGL file. Drag and drop the BGL file onto the scenery shortcut.Dblclick the stored flight shortcut and you should see your "object" om FS9 in all its glory. You will do this MANY times. Many many times. The shortcuts in the folder idea I got from someone in the New Zealand flightsim community in the form of a tutorial.

[Guest realwildwobby]

wow, great help!So do you mean delete the just if there is a comment in there? because other things that look important are in those tags too... Thanks ALOT for the help though.I APPERCIATE it.

[Guest JohnC]

Delete everything between the comments. And start with simple structures, and simple texturing exercises until you develop a facility for it. The GMAX Scenery SDK is something you should have down COLD, except for LOD and animation.

[arno 1]

Your approach for placing two object is indeed correct. If you want to place the same object again, you only have to copy the SceneryObject command, not the ModelData command. So you don't have to change the GUID (the name) either.For the textures, the only step needed before you can use them in FS is to convert them to DXT textures (they still have the extension BMP). This can be done with ImageTool that comes with the GMax SDK as well. You then place these DXT textures in your texture folder of the scenery. The origional BMP files should be kept for use in GMax as well.