Arno at FS Developer has been quietly creating a program that could really change scenery design, hopefully for the better.
It's called ModelConverterX, and its purpose is to be able to convert various scenery object formats, to allow their use in modern "library object" scenery programs. While there is an X in the name, it will create FS2004 scenery MDL files too.
You can get the latest information about ModelConverterX from the support forum.
For example, if you have an old API macro object lying around (they were used with scenery programs for FS98 and FS2000), you can (sometimes) convert them to a new library object, and place it with EZ-Scenery or Instant Scenery. As an example, in the future to create static aircraft you can create an API file using M98 to BGL, convert it to a library object MDL file using ModelConverterX (MCX), and then place it into your scenery. Much easier than trying to place it directly using M98 to BGL.
But enough of that - that's not the topic of this tutorial. Arno has recently added to MCX the capability to import COLLADA (.dae) and Google Earth (.kmz) files. So what, you say? Well, there is a relatively new program called Google Sketchup that many people are using to create building models for architects, presentations, and for placement into Google Earth. With this new import capability, this means that Sketchup buildings can now be placed right into FS!
Since Sketchup is dramatically easier to use than either GMAX or FSDS, this brings up the possibility of many more people being able to add custom buildings to their airport scenery. This can only be good. :)
First, check out the first few SketchUp video tutorials here, to get an idea how easy it is to create an object. You can also click on the large blue Download button to download the Sketchup program. It's free - you don't need the Sketchup Pro payware program for what we are going to do. As you continue using Sketchup, keep using these tutorials to expand your abilities - they are very useful!
Basically, you draw a 2D shape, then drag it upwards to create the 3D box. Now draw sub areas on your box, and drag them outward. If you have ever used GMAX this is equivalent to the Extrude Polygons feature, but here it is quick and easy - draw the shape and drag it out.
After getting the building the shape you want you next texture it, using either custom textures you have made (like people using GMAX, etc.) or you can use some textures included in Sketchup. You must be careful, though - most of these are not "square" (i.e. 256 x 256 pixels), which is required in FS. So you probably want to make your own special FS versions of these textures.. For example, if the image is 256 x 183, resize it to 256 x 256. This can be done later when you create your final FS textures.
Here GMAX has an advantage over Sketchup, since the texturing process in GMAX is more flexible. Of course, you can load your Sketchup building into GMAX using the MCX .3DS export feature and texture it there if you prefer. But texturing in Sketchup isn't that bad, and since I've only spent a few hours using it there may be a much better way (wouldn't surprise me).
The simple steps to texture a building are:
1. Draw lines onto your building to split it into separate sections (if you
need to apply a different texture, a different area of the texture, or a different
zoom level of a texture).
2. For the texture you want to use, create a Material for that texture (unless
already included in Sketchup).
3. Apply your Material to each building section, then move the texture around
and scale it until it looks good (see below).
4. If you need more than one texture, you create a new Material for that texture
(if needed) and apply it to the sections using that texture. A roof is a common
example of this.
So what I have done here is create a simple building in Sketchup:
1. I first selected the Rectangle Tool (brown square) and created a rectangle on the "ground" the size and shape of my building. Immediately after drawing the rectangle, type in the size you want the base of the building to be (in this case I typed in 120',30' ENTER to make a 120 x 30 foot building). Then using the Push/Pull Tool I dragged it up to the height of the main building. Again, immediately after you pull up the rectangle, type in the height you want (in this case I typed 30' ENTER).
2. I then drew a rectangle on the roof the shape of the tower, and dragged
that part of the roof upward to create the tower. To make drawing the rectangle
easier I used Camera/Standard Views/Top to get a top view.
3. Next using the Line Tool I drew lines down the side of
the building to divide it into 3 sections - under the tower and to the left
and right of that.
4. To demonstrate using Sketchup's built-in textures, I chose Sketchup's tile
roof texture using the Paint Bucket tool. When you select this
tool, the Material Editor will appear as a popup window. I
applied this roof texture to the roof polygons also using the Paint
Bucket tool. (With the Tile Roof material selected, just click the
roof). I adjusted the right/left/up/down lengths in the Material so the tiles
looked the right size on the roof. Do the same thing for the tower roof.
5. To demonstrate using a custom texture, I took an old texture I had sitting
around (for the the Burbank terminal, actually) and added it to the list of
Materials in Sketchup. I added it as a new Material (click the Paint Bucket
tool to bring up the Material Editor, then click the Create
Material button in the upper right of the Material Editor
with the + on it, name the material what you like (I called mine Burbank Terminal),
and then add the texture below - browse to it).
6. Now we need to adjust the "mapping" of the texture on this part
of the building (a "face") so it looks the way we want it. The "trick"
is to select a "face" (section), apply the texture using the Paint
Bucket tool, right click the face and choose Texture/Position.
Then you drag it around until it is aligned properly. You can also use the little
green "pin" (actually the 0 right next to it) to scale and rotate
the texture on this face. For example, drag the green O to the right to "zoom
in" the texture, making it larger on the building's face. If you use the
green O to get it spanning the correct horizontal distance, you can then use
the blue box to then get it spanning the correct vertical distance.
You can press ENTER to get back to the normal screen, with
your face now properly texture mapped.
7. You then repeat this process for each face. After learning how to do this, it didn't take long at all to get it looking this way:
8. Now you use File/Export/3D Model and select the COLLADA format (.dae). If you push the Options button at the bottom right and check the Export Texture Maps box, your textures will be copied to a new folder with the same name as your .dae file.
9. Now we File/Save our Sketchup file for later use, and quit Sketchup.
You'll find your new COLLADA (.dae) file right where you exported it to, along with a folder of the same name containing your exported textures - they will have had their names changed to texture0.jpg, texture1.bmp, etc., unfortunately.
10. Next, you'll need to download and install theFS2004 Make Model SDK from MS. If you are creating FSX libraries, then you need to install the FSX SDK from your FSX Professional DVD's, then update to (at least) the SP1A SDK.
11. Then install and start ModelConverterX, available here (use the latest development release):
12. Now in MCX use the Import button to import your new COLLADA file (.dae). I had a little problem with this at first, but your building should be displayed complete with textures:
13. Now you need to make a choice - leave the new cryptic texture file names, or change them back to something understandable. I do the latter. You also need to convert any texture files incompatible with FS into a compatible format. MCX can do this for you using the Mass Texture Editor, and makes it very easy. First set the default format you want the editor to suggest (you can later change this individually for each texture within the Editor, if you wish). Go to Options/Texture Settings/Default Type and then click on the current choice (DDS by default). You can then use the drop down arrow to select another type. If you are compiling for FS2004, select DXTBMP for DXT1 format. If compiling for FSX you can also use the DDS choice. Make sure the path to ImageTool is correct as well. Note that the BMP choice will convert textures into 32 bit BMP textures, which are NOT frame rate friendly! They are very high quality, though.
14. Click the Mass Texture Editor button in MCX, and select
the first texture on the left. If you hover your mouse over the name, the image
and its size (in pixels) will be displayed. In our example, texture0.jpg is
a 256 x 163 pixel JPG file. I will then rename this texture to roof_tile.bmp
by typing that in the Name box.
15. In this case I can see that there is a red triangle with an exclamation
point inside it at the lower left of the MCX screen. If I click the Error
Log tab there, it says that "The size of texture0.jpg is not a
power of 2, this is required by FS". Therefore, it is suggesting (by the
green check mark) that I should resize this texture to 256 x 128, the closest
size to the 256 x 163 original. If I use the drop down box the other choice
is 256 x 256. Either is acceptable. Since my texture1.bmp file is already 256
x 256 pixels, the program is not suggesting I resize that one.
But I do have the choice to reduce the size to 128 x128 or increase it to 512
x 512 if I desire (which for this texture I do not). Since I have left my default
texture type as DDS, the program is suggesting that I convert both of my files
to that format (by the two green check marks). I will use the drop down boxes
to choose the DXT BMP format for texture0.jpg. Since the texture1.bmp file is
already in 256 color BMP format I will not change its format, so I uncheck that
box. If my texture was instead a 24 bit (millions of colors) image I would change
the texture to DXTBMP format. I do want to change the name
from texture1.bmp to KBUR_terminal.bmp, so I type that into the Name box. Here
is my screen so far:
16. The final thing to do is select the folder you want your converted textures
to be placed into. The default choice is the location of your imported DAE file,
but we want our textures in the folder that contains our exported textures.
So in this case I click the ... button at the lower right of this window, and
browse from the My Sketchups folder to the My Sketchups/terminal folder (since
the name of my DAE file was terminal.dae, Sketchup created a terminal folder
to place the exported textures into). Note you can use any folder you like to
store your files, so your folder names will be different. So here is my final
screen, ready for conversion:
17. Now all that's left to do is click the Update button and copies of the original exported textures will be converted to the correct format (if checked), resized (if checked), and renamed (if edited). These copies will be placed into the folder listed at the bottom. Now the great thing - all of your texture references in your MCX Materials have been automatically changed to the new names!
18. Now we have to do one thing that MCX doesn't do, if we chose not to convert our 8 bit texture to DXT format. If you check the Convert box and convert to any other format, MCX will automatically copy the exported texture file, convert it, and rename it to your name in the Name box. But if you do not check that box, it does not make the copy. It does change the names of your MCX material(s), so all you need to do is place a copy of your original BMP file into the same folder that all the converted textures were created in
19. Don't be surprised if you suddenly get some black and white checkerboards appearing on your model. Once you make the conversion, MCX is looking for textures only in something called its Texture Search Path. Since your folder isn't on that path, your textures are no longer showing up on the 3D model. You can add this folder to the Path (in Texture Options), but I don't bother. Just continue with the conversion.
20. BTW, now that you have the textures converted, if you load your DAE file again into MCX you don't have to do the conversion again. Just set the Texture folder: box to the folder you have your converted textures located in, and press the Match button. The MCX program will automatically find the renamed textures that match the original exported ones, and change the names in your Materials to those names. The exception to this is if you have resized the texture - then it won't find it. If that is the case, just type in the new name of the resized texture and press the Update button.
21. Now the only thing left is to add the _LM night texture (if you have one)
to the material(s). First copy the night texture into the same folder that contains
the day time texture. Then open the Material Editor by clicking its button on
the MCX screen, and click on the Material's name on the left. Scroll down on
the right until the current texture name is displayed. Click the Nightmap Texture
line below that and then click the ... button. Browse to the correctly named
texture. Continue this until you have them all added, and finally press the
Close button.
22. Now press the Export button and select FS9 MDL Object as the type in the drop down box. If MCX cannot find MakeMDL, use the Options menu or button and go to the Exporter Settings and set the MakeMDL path (click the MakeMDL path line and then the button with ... on it and browse to where you installed it above). If you are creating an FSX library, you need to use the FSX MDL Object choice instead, and make sure the path of XtoMDL is set correctly.
Note that the file name for the MDL file created above cannot
have spaces and not begin with a number or punctuation! MakeMDL
quirk. If you don't get an MDL file created, click on the Event Log
tab at the bottom left of the MCX screen, and find out what went wrong.
You can click the little button in the upper left to save the log as a text
file, in case you need to post it to a forum or send it to someone:
Next we'll get it into Flight Sim. I use EZ-Scenery for this, but I suggest that if you will be doing any scenery work at all you buy Instant Scenery - it is cheaper and does more. However, if you already use Rwy12 or ADE or other freeware scenery library object placement program feel free to use that instead.
23.First download and install Arno's Library Creator XML program v2.02:
24. For FS2004 you will also need the BGLComp SDK installed from MS.
25. Starting Library Creator, use the Options/FS2004 BGLComp Path choice and browse to it (where you installed it). If you are creating FSX libraries, you will need to use the FSX BGL Comp path menu choice instead. It can be found in your FSX SDK that you installed above.
26. Now select Options/Relative Paths. This makes the XML file cleaner and clearer.
27. Then choose File/New Library. Create the new library XML file in the same folder where you saved the MDL file in MCX. I call mine something like KBUR_library.XML. This will also be the name of the final library BGL file.
28. Now click the Add MDL Objects button and add your new MDL file. You can include many buildings for the same logical area (i.e. around one airport) in this same library (add them later if you like as well). Note that you can include FS2004 *or* FSX library MDL files, not both, in a single library.
29. Finally, use File/Save Library and then File/Compile Library choice:
30. Hopefully you will now have a BGL file in the same folder as the rest of the files. That should now be copied into an active scenery folder.
31. Copy your texture files (the ones with the correct names and in an FS compatible format) into the texture folder that corresponds with the scenery folder we copied the library BGL file into (step 30).
32. Use your favorite scenery program (Rwy12, ADE, EZ-Scenery, Instant Scenery, SceneGenX, etc.) to place your new library object into your airport scenery:
You may have to adjust the Scale value to get your building to be the right size. I've added a default control tower on top of my tower (one of the small towers in the generic.bgl library file) to make it look a little nicer. :)