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MSFS Blender2MSFS support thread

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greece
I hear ya...

After this last game update, I couldn't even load any of my airports I was working on. Nothing would load, immediate CTD.

How did I fix it (this is so strange), well I loaded a nearly blank airport that had barely any info (an old XML file from FSX). After loading the almost empty airport, VOILA.... Suddenly I could load ALL my other files again. I am not talking about in a single game load or a single instance, I am saying I was about to have to reinstall the game after 2 hours of trying to get any file to load in the project editor (massive fails). There is a "secret cache" the game uses or something.

Actually, I think I am going to reinstall the game fresh given the way their update code works seems a little strange.
I'm afraid reinstalling everything from scratch would be the only way to get things going again.This "secret cache" theory must be the culprit here.
Figure this out:I open a previously made project in dev mode.Removing some objects.Save the scenery.Trying to open another previously made project.To my surprise both projects are visible simultaneously for a while and everything freeze except mouse cursor which becomes unusable.In task manager MSFS is reported "not responding",close it from there as it was the only way to tarminate it.
Apart from this there were several additions I've made to an existing project that wont saved eventhough I saved the scenery and built the project.Next time I opened it was as if I did anything,nothing was saved!
Only thing I'm happy for is I did nothing wrong and the issues are coming from SDK itself.
But how about our previous projects?It is certain they'll be fully usable after reinstalling just by copy them in the appropriate file structure?
 
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238
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finland
Also note that the devs are aware of the CTDs after this last update and they have promised a hotfix during this weekend! Don't know if it helps, but maybe worth waiting for it...
 
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195
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us-california
I've been strongly advised to use baking, although I didn't want to do that. But that's the thing: when it all went to hell, I abandoned baking and what you see in my post (the one you replied to) is without baking, and with new manual UV (although originally done with smart UV project, then manually adjusted). And I only installed latest Blender after I tried everything else to fix this, so that's not the reason for this problem...
i find project from view in ortho (side view works best for size ratio. I then lay them out in a fashion that is easy to paint in. also alway double check uvs in blander with a mesh tool Z(those cool color pictures) to verify noth is upside down etc.
 
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us-california
I don't recall which thing causes that specific error, but I think that's the common one.
Is this your first time trying to export an object, or have you done it before and now it's failing?

1) Make sure after you export your object, all 3 files are in the modellib\{{YourObjectName}} directory, not just 2 files
2) Delete any extra files if there are any
3) Ensure you are in Object Mode in Blender before exporting, and ensure your object is selected (green selection box around it)
4) Make sure you don't have multiple objects like a camera selected at the same time
5) Ensure the directory in your modellib exactly matches the name of your export filename, hence YourObjectName = YourObjectName.GLTF = YourObjectName.XML, Ensure you didn't accidentally rename the XML to MyXML.GLTF.XML (this has happened to me before)
6) Review all your checkboxes
7) Make sure you have ../texture typed correctly for the export texture dir.
8) Do not change any material node settings and be careful about addons
9) Make sure your object only has 1 UV Image per export
10) If all else fails, go to the image dropdown in blender above the UV, and hit the X for every unused image, save the blender file, then reload, then try again
--- # 10 isn't usually needed, but I think it solved an issue for me once or twice
How can you apply a pbr material (tiled) ussually they extend way off the UV grid and also a textured map for occlusions, scracthes, dirt etc etc if u can only have one uv map. I tried putting a label on a cube and the scale was all over the place. Using two UV maps, worked like a charm... in blender. However you are corret because as soon as I tried to build the package (using external tool) it deleted half of my existing textures from the other models. I pullwed it from the library an hte other textures cam back. I am at a complete lost as to how these devs, model pbr and occlusions and signage and whatnot on the same model with one uv map
 
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unitedkingdom
As far as I can tell, the engine completely ignores mutiple UVs, even though the exporter is capable of exporting them. I've been looking into the GTLF format and how it defines everything. There's a part where the actual mesh is defined:

JSON:
"attributes" : {
                        "POSITION" : 0,
                        "NORMAL" : 1,
                        "TEXCOORD_0" : 2,
                    },

The names are a semantic for the type of point; POSITION is the 3D position in space, NORMAL is the vertex normal (and used as the basis for how the normal map re-aligns the normals) and TEXCOORD_0 is the 2D UVs. The points themselves are held in buffers in the .bin file, the numbers after the semantic names are the buffer indices - where to find the points.

If you export a model with more than one set of UVs, you get something like this:
JSON:
"attributes" : {
                        "POSITION" : 0,
                        "NORMAL" : 1,
                        "TEXCOORD_0" : 2,
                        "TEXCOORD_1" : 3,
                    },

So you can see the extra UVs are defined, and it has incremented the buffer index, indicating they're held in a separate buffer in the .bin file.

In the Material definitions, for each material there is a section like:
JSON:
"baseColorTexture" : {
                    "index" : 1,
                    "texCoord" : 0
                },

Looking at the .gltf documentation from Khronos, "index" points to which image file to use and the "texCoord" field points to which TEXCOORD buffer to use for the UVs.

I created a simple cube object with a red and blue texture. I made two sets of UVs, one mapped only to the red side and one mapped only to the blue side. A basic export had the cube red in the sim; it was using the first set of UVs, as you'd expect.
However, changing "texCoord" : 0 to "texCoord" : 1 in the material definitions had no effect.

Just to check, I changed the buffer indices around on the TEXCOORD_0 and TEXCOORD_1 in the Mesh definitions, so TEXCOORD_0 was now pointing at buffer 3 and vice-versa. And hey-presto! The cube turned blue in the sim, so we know the buffer exists in the object and can be read by the game engine.

So, to recap, the exporter CAN export multiple UVs. The object files DO contain the set of points for both sets of UVs. But Asobo have their game engine completely ignore the setting chooses which one a texture is supposed to use, it's hardcoded to always use the first one.

I don't think it's going to be possible to use multiple UVs without a patch. I suppose we could try a feature request on the FS2020 support desk?
 
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204
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us-texas
I am not sure if we are talking about the same thing when discussing "multiple UV's", but you can setup multiple materials with each an Albedo, Normal, AO/Smoothness/Metallic. Then you can export it.
Export the object with 1 material and a single image first, then add another, maybe that will help?

I will try to explain, but maybe I am answering the wrong question.

Here is a screenshot of Blender, this object exports normally even without moving everything into a single UV. Make sure all your textures are powers of 2 / divisible by 4. Don't mess with the nodes, that will cause these issues.
 
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204
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us-texas
How can you apply a pbr material (tiled) ussually they extend way off the UV grid and also a textured map for occlusions, scracthes, dirt etc etc if u can only have one uv map. I tried putting a label on a cube and the scale was all over the place. Using two UV maps, worked like a charm... in blender. However you are corret because as soon as I tried to build the package (using external tool) it deleted half of my existing textures from the other models. I pullwed it from the library an hte other textures cam back. I am at a complete lost as to how these devs, model pbr and occlusions and signage and whatnot on the same model with one uv map
Not really one UV map, at a minimum I will have one UV for each type of texture (Albedo/Normal/ASM), but I start with multiple UV's and then I try to pack all my Albedos on one UV and all PBRs to other UVs at the end for performance reasons. Before I was talking about one UV for the Albedos, a single image where multiple materials share the same Albedo.

I copy all the Albedos to one image, all the normals to a different single image, all the comp/ASM to yet another image. So I try to not have more than 1 UV per Texture type at the end, but it's ok to just use smaller multiple files too I suppose. I use Adobe to create the final UV's, I just past the images myself with Adobe usually. There are addons in Blender and what not, but I don't think it's any easier than just pasting them myself, because I change stuff around too often.
 
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84
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unitedkingdom
I am not sure if we are talking about the same thing when discussing "multiple UV's", but you can setup multiple materials with each an Albedo, Normal, AO/Smoothness/Metallic. Then you can export it.
Export the object with 1 material and a single image first, then add another, maybe that will help?

I will try to explain, but maybe I am answering the wrong question.

Here is a screenshot of Blender, this object exports normally even without moving everything into a single UV. Make sure all your textures are powers of 2 / divisible by 4. Don't mess with the nodes, that will cause these issues.
I think you're talking about Multiple materials, not multiple UVs. Multiple materials still all use the same set of UVs.

I'm talking about adding a whole second set of UVS, and have the different textures pick which one within the same material. So you could have the Albedo use a different set of UVs to the normal, or the AO/roughness/metal.

1604263761004.png


1604263874349.png
1604263908249.png


It's definitely a thing ;), I've used it in my own game engines.

Sorry, it must sound like I'm obsessed with this :laughing: but it would make my life so much easier if we could do it
 
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us-texas
We can take any UV map and just create a new material from it (hence different UV, regardless of Blender's internal UV mapping). I guess you are talking about multiple UV sets internally in Blender per material, though that might help when using third-party utilities, it makes no difference for what I am doing (and I assume for what most others do in Blender), since each material has its own independent coordinates and independent images, it essentially functions the same as multiple UV's. The main difference I guess being if I wanted to internally interface with post-baking or using third-party utils.

If you need to remap based on the same texture, just create a new material with the same texture files, in the game it will only use the same texture file, it will not duplicate it AFIK.
 
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germany
Hi, sorry for my ignorance, but I downloaded and tried to install the latest version of the toolkit, deactivated my old version in the preferences before I installed the new one but it didn't seem to work. Do I have to manually remove the old files and if so where are they located?

Cheers, Fabian
 
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81
Country
greece
I've been trying for days now to overcome this issue to no avail unfortunately.Does anybody happens to now how could I get rid of this:

There are countless settings in Blender and I'm sure there must be one for this.Any 3d object I've made irrelevantly its shape has exactly the same negative effect on terrain and the rest of the placed objects.The pictured one is without any texture at all applied,seems the object itself is emitting this light/glow like its a flashlight.In the 2nd photo the object has its textures and the glowing light is less prominent however it's still clearly visible and even worse making the terrain sparkle.

I've tried everything I could think of but my ignorance using Blender effectively wont let me find any kind of solution.

Thanks for any help.

Nick.
 

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Pyscen

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us-texas
Hello

How are the textures being applied (what is your workflow?) and what textures are being used, such as albedo and normal, etc?
 
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30
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denmark
I've been trying for days now to overcome this issue to no avail unfortunately.Does anybody happens to now how could I get rid of this:

There are countless settings in Blender and I'm sure there must be one for this.Any 3d object I've made irrelevantly its shape has exactly the same negative effect on terrain and the rest of the placed objects.The pictured one is without any texture at all applied,seems the object itself is emitting this light/glow like its a flashlight.In the 2nd photo the object has its textures and the glowing light is less prominent however it's still clearly visible and even worse making the terrain sparkle.

I've tried everything I could think of but my ignorance using Blender effectively wont let me find any kind of solution.

Thanks for any help.

Nick.
Could you by chance not have removed the default light source in blender and exporting this together with your model?
 
Messages
195
Country
us-california
I've been trying for days now to overcome this issue to no avail unfortunately.Does anybody happens to now how could I get rid of this:

There are countless settings in Blender and I'm sure there must be one for this.Any 3d object I've made irrelevantly its shape has exactly the same negative effect on terrain and the rest of the placed objects.The pictured one is without any texture at all applied,seems the object itself is emitting this light/glow like its a flashlight.In the 2nd photo the object has its textures and the glowing light is less prominent however it's still clearly visible and even worse making the terrain sparkle.

I've tried everything I could think of but my ignorance using Blender effectively wont let me find any kind of solution.

Thanks for any help.

Nick.
Go into your shader editor and look towards the bottom of the page at the emission node. Make sure it is notconnected to the large bdsf shader at.. yep the emission input. Also in the materials editor you can make sure the color under albedo is white and the color under emissions is solid black
 

Pyscen

Resource contributor
Messages
2,993
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us-texas
Hi, sorry for my ignorance, but I downloaded and tried to install the latest version of the toolkit, deactivated my old version in the preferences before I installed the new one but it didn't seem to work. Do I have to manually remove the old files and if so where are they located?

Cheers, Fabian
Hello Fabien

You should not need to deactivate the old toolset. What I would do is reactivate the toolset that you currently have installed and then reinstall the new toolset. You should be able to comfirm which version is installed by looking at the version #.
 
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81
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greece
Could you by chance not have removed the default light source in blender and exporting this together with your model?
You're a real savior,at least for the countless hours I would spend trying to find what was going wrong!!I didn't know the Blender light source must be removed prior exporting!!It was so simple for crying out loud!!The attached photo is after the Blender light source been removed.

Doug and Av8rThor thank you so much for your inputs as well,apparently the solution to my problems was way more simple than that!!
However I have another question now my primary issue is gone:Is it possible to export an 2 sided object like the one in the photos with a texture applied on the top side and another texture or a simple basic color on the bottom side?I've already tried by following this procedure:
I applied the basic texture on the one side and do what was needed in "MSFS Material Params" by applying the same material also there.Then I've made another material using a basic color and applied it to the bottom side correctly on Edit Mode and then Face Select button because the metal panel I'm working on is corrugated.Then I've made a .png file by repainting in Gimp an already made .png file from my texture list using the exact same color with the material I applied in Blender on the bottom side of the object.Then I applied the new texture to the object's bottom side and finally I exported to MSFS normally.However no textures at all was present in SDK dev mode when I saw the object in the sim.The object was completely "textureless",in fact it's the same object depicted in my yesterday's 1rst photo.

Is there a specific technique/procedure to do something like this?I would like to have a texture applied only to the one side and the other I would like to have it painted in a simple color.Is it doable?

Many thanks again guys,you're truly great!

Nick.
 

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You're a real savior,at least for the countless hours I would spend trying to find what was going wrong!!I didn't know the Blender light source must be removed prior exporting!!It was so simple for crying out loud!!The attached photo is after the Blender light source been removed.

Doug and Av8rThor thank you so much for your inputs as well,apparently the solution to my problems was way more simple than that!!
However I have another question now my primary issue is gone:Is it possible to export an 2 sided object like the one in the photos with a texture applied on the top side and another texture or a simple basic color on the bottom side?I've already tried by following this procedure:
I applied the basic texture on the one side and do what was needed in "MSFS Material Params" by applying the same material also there.Then I've made another material using a basic color and applied it to the bottom side correctly on Edit Mode and then Face Select button because the metal panel I'm working on is corrugated.Then I've made a .png file by repainting in Gimp an already made .png file from my texture list using the exact same color with the material I applied in Blender on the bottom side of the object.Then I applied the new texture to the object's bottom side and finally I exported to MSFS normally.However no textures at all was present in SDK dev mode when I saw the object in the sim.The object was completely "textureless",in fact it's the same object depicted in my yesterday's 1rst photo.

Is there a specific technique/procedure to do something like this?I would like to have a texture applied only to the one side and the other I would like to have it painted in a simple color.Is it doable?

Many thanks again guys,you're truly great!

Nick.
You can click the Double sided checkbox in the material settings but then both sides will show the same texture. If the other side needs to show a basic color then it's probably easier to just duplicate the plane, move it a millimeter in the according axis and assign a new texture to it. Check that the normal is facing in the correct direction. I don't know if you can assign colors without textures in MSFS, if not just create a flat image with a single color and use it as a texture. You might even be able to create a complete white texture in Blenders internal image editor, assign it to the plane in the material settings and then use the albedo color mix setting to adjust the color to your liking.
 
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greece
Just did it!And even better by using textures instead of just a simple basic color.It was quite easy and straightforward:
Entered a second material,the one I d like to apply on bottom side of the object.Then in edit mode and "Face Select" I applied the second material to all "faces" on the bottom side.Then again on Object mode and selecting my new material on the list I choose "MSFS Material Params" to standard as it's disabled for the new material.Apply my texture from there as we normally do,export the object and that's it!As it's obvious from the photos below,each side keeps its assigned color.

Cheers,

Nick.
 

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Awesome, I will have to try that. I have painted textures on double side but 5hey leak through
 
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us-texas
Note: I had ScruffyDuck change my user name to Alpine Scenery because I lost my domain to a squatter. Sorry for the confusion anyone, if anyone is wondering why they see this name in their threads suddenly, that is why. Old name was SceneryFX.

Flashing Issues
Although not as bad as FSX, there are still also flashing issues if you have vertices too close together without re-connecting the mesh (I don't mean rejoining, I mean physically connecting).
Just time consuming to reconnect mesh, so sometimes I simply add an invisible black wall between the two mesh to solve the flashing, depends if windows or not and what all is being done.
 
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