• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
    • Questions about aircraft design can be posted in the Aircraft design forum
    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

MSFS20 Blender2MSFS support thread

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Vitus

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This is the support thread for the Blender2MSFS toolkit, which you can find in the Resources of fsdeveloper under Scenery->Tools. Reply in this thread to post any questions, comments or suggestions in regards to the toolkit itself.

This toolkit was made possible by the generous donations and support of outstanding members of this community. If you would also like to support the further development of this toolkit, you can do so by donating to my Paypal:
https://www.paypal.com/biz/fund?id=CCDG5YZF2CAUC

To get you started, Dean Crawford and I compiled a primer, both for the use of the toolkit itself as well as how things are done in the new sim. Those documents are by no means exhaustive resources, but they should facilitate a better understanding of the processes involved in getting content deployed to the new platform.

You can find the wikipedia entry for the Blender2MSFS toolkit over here:
https://www.fsdeveloper.com/wiki/index.php?title=Blender2MSFS

A primer on some of the pitfalls with the new simulator has been posted here:
https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/primer-to-3d-asset-creation-for-msfs.448401/

For a more in-depth analysis, check out Sean's thread on the SDK:
https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/high-level-overview-of-msfs2020-tech.448406/

To get you started with Blender as a 3D modelling tool, I would recommend starting out with BlenderGuru's doughnut tutorial, which will teach you the basics of Blender:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjEaoINr3zgEq0u2MzVgAaHEBt--xLB6U

To dive deeper, check out the “hard surface modeling tutorial by Gleb Alexandrov and Aidy Burrows:
https://blendermarket.com/products/hard-surface-modeling-in-blender
It’s expensive, but filled with valuable information.

To get an idea, check out Gleb’s Youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/GlebAlexandrov/

I would also recommend you take a look at Didier’s thread about some plugins that make life easier:
https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/t...ns-to-add-productivity-and-efficiency.448273/


That’s it for now. Have fun learning!
 
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It's the same as always - still awaiting for moderator approval I'm afraid. I'm sure one of the mods will unlock it for you as soon as they're around again. Looks like everybody is flying right now :laughing:
 
I have been out of the scenery design for several years now. Made some airports using SketchUp for FSX in the past. I've been waiting for this release and I am ready to learn Blender and start building airports for the new MSFS2020. Do you recommend the above course for someone like me who is pretty much a complete beginner to Blender? I watched their demo video and it looks awesome but man it also looks pretty overwhelming. I guess my question is will this be something that I can move through as a new beginner to Blender and be able to follow along? Thanks!
 
I have been out of the scenery design for several years now. Made some airports using SketchUp for FSX in the past. I've been waiting for this release and I am ready to learn Blender and start building airports for the new MSFS2020. Do you recommend the above course for someone like me who is pretty much a complete beginner to Blender? I watched their demo video and it looks awesome but man it also looks pretty overwhelming. I guess my question is will this be something that I can move through as a new beginner to Blender and be able to follow along? Thanks!
Airports are stupidly simple and don't require any modeling that is too complex. You could probably start with some of the free youtube tutorials. I started with this one:

Most of what he says and does won't be any use in flightsim either but it does give a good overview on how Blender works and what you can do.
 
Airports are stupidly simple and don't require any modeling that is too complex. You could probably start with some of the free youtube tutorials. I started with this one:

Most of what he says and does won't be any use in flightsim either but it does give a good overview on how Blender works and what you can do.

thanks, I actually did this tutorial a long time ago but I need it again. I never had the time to do anything with it and had given up on P3D and just started flying DCS all the time. Ill take a look again and start small with my work. I only plan in doing airports. I don’t have interest in working on aircraft.
 
Anxiously waiting for this to be approved so I can start seeing my first aircraft in the new sim! :D Donation incoming

EDIT: And sent ;)
 
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@thetford569 I'd say the hard surface modelling tutorial is probably the second thing to check out in your case. I actually learned Blender with the same doughnut tutorial - it's really, really good!

As with all other 3d tools, a lot of your proficiency relies on knowing your keyboard assignments. And a lot of those are covered in the doughnut.

@OzWookiee and @AndyPaul thank you very much, your support is much appreciated! :wave:
 
@Vitus Is there anyway you can throw together a quick textured buildings export .blend template with it ready to export? I can provide my hangar asset here as base. I'm coming from X-Plane so it's a little tough to understand. For XP is was just select base+AO and a combined NRM and export.

I've tried all night with no success...I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. :( After exporting it I threw it through the gltf validator it appears with no textures. And is the XML needed always?

Also, are there any plans to incorporate lights and animations in the future?

I figured my post could maybe help our migration of XP devs over here :cool:.
 
Hello another fellow xplane developer here. was also trying to export one of my xplane models but kept on getting errors. then i re read the instructions and saw that i was using blender 2.82 and the plugin advertises as being only compatible with blender 2.83 and above so i simply updated and it exported without issues. Maybe try that if not on 2.83 already @Verticalsim
 
Yes, the requirement for Blender 2.83 is due to the Khronos glTF Exporter. I don't know what changed, but the older version contained in 2.82 doesn't play ball with my addon.
Lights are on my list, as are animations. However, since the animations really don't need more than a name to identify them, the necessity is limited. I have some ideas of things that would be good to have on top of that, but it'll require a lot of work.
Lights seem to be a bit easier to implement and that will probably come with the next update.

For an example, I think what the SDK provides is perfect for that. Check out the scenerySample to find out how to structure your folder, or copy it and use it as a baseline for the development of your own package - that's what I did anyway.
 
Well I did, they're simpleScenery sample included 2 objects, a light and a box. And each of the objects have a .bin, .gltf, and a .xml. But the "generate XML" option is turned off by default in your exporter; and it didn't say anything about if you needed it in the SDK docs. So I wasn't sure what's going. My biggest issue is that I'm getting no texture, and when I did try to export with the .xml and loaded in the sim I got "XML 1.0 not valid, v1.1 required.

Also, thank you for working on this! Will definitely drop some cash for sure! :cool:
 
I got the same error about the xml version number when I tried to build a package with a xml generated with the MSFS toolkit. The exported xml has the version number after the guid, where in the "Simple Scenery" box sample provided in the SDK, the version number is before the guid. Not sure if that is of any importance?

Code:
<?xml version="1.0" ?>



    <ModelInfo guid="{1b43f355-d3bd-4e35-5d92-8d2261fd532e}" version="1.1">

</ModelInfo>
 
perhaps im missing something (i apologize if it was obvious), but how exactly do you install this toolkit? I'm new to blender and development in general.
 
perhaps im missing something (i apologize if it was obvious), but how exactly do you install this toolkit? I'm new to blender and development in general.
Download the tool, don't unzip the file. Open Blender. Go to the "Edit" menu and select ""Preferences". Click on the tab "Add ons", then click on the "Install" tab, browse to the zip file and select it. Put a check mark in the box next to the tool. Done :-)
 
My biggest issue is that I'm getting no texture, and when I did try to export with the .xml and loaded in the sim I got "XML 1.0 not valid, v1.1 required.
It's possible that the sim requires a higher version of the xml - could you try just changing the first line to something like:
<?xml version="1.1" ?> and see if that works?

If yes, I'll make a note for the next update of the toolkit.
 
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