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FSX Building airport from scratch

X

xinjie00

Messages
7
Country
singapore
Hi guys i am new to here i am wondering how to build a airport from scratch like how to make taxi line and all the the runway stuff and also how to put the my building and all the airport runway taxi line all together currently i am using sketchup to make airport buildings also is there any nice tutorial for newbie like me? And wat software do u guys recommend other than sketchup? Tks!


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Hi xinjie00,

If you have not made an airport using ADE then try that first. Making high quality airports is a very complicated process where there are a lot of different things to learn. Understanding AFCADs with ADE is one of the first things to learn. Sketchup can be a little limiting in how far you can go. Most people will use Blender as it is free, no need for 3DS Max or any expensive 3D software. Blender is more difficult to learn than Sketchup but it offers the tools to do more advanced modelling and texturing. You can look up an tutorial for Blender to get started with it. Doesn't have to be flight sim specific. I've placed links to both software below.

http://www.scruffyduck.org/airport-design-editor/4584106799

https://www.blender.org/
 
Hector Lee said:
Hi xinjie00,

If you have not made an airport using ADE then try that first. Making high quality airports is a very complicated process where there are a lot of different things to learn. Understanding AFCADs with ADE is one of the first things to learn. Sketchup can be a little limiting in how far you can go. Most people will use Blender as it is free, no need for 3DS Max or any expensive 3D software. Blender is more difficult to learn than Sketchup but it offers the tools to do more advanced modelling and texturing. You can look up an tutorial for Blender to get started with it. Doesn't have to be flight sim specific. I've placed links to both software below.

http://www.scruffyduck.org/airport-design-editor/4584106799

https://www.blender.org/
Click to expand...
In ur opinion gmax or blender more useful to use?...and also how do u make aiport taxiway and the building together tks .


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As I know, most of us using gmax or 3ds max(payware version of gmax).
As @Hector Lee said making an airport in this programs or sketchup, blender or whatever is very complicated.I apsolutely understand you becouse before 1 and a half year I was same as you, but everyday I was watching youtube tutorials, sometimes when somebody said to me, watch this tutorial, I was like, what this guy would help me with and I was closing the videos, but today I know that these tutorials was so helpful and useful.For beginning you can use this tutorial on how to make ground polygon, basic runway in gmax.

http://iblueyonder.com/wp-content/uploads/iby_ground_poly_tutorial.pdf Really Helpful tutorial, all beginners use this tutorial as primary tutorial.

When you learn how to make a runway, go ahead and see this tutorial

NOTE: READ THE WHOLE TUTORIAL CAREFULLY! I didn't read it carefullyy and I got so much problems, misunderstandings and something else..So I'm saying this expirienced.

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/wiki/index.php?title=Ground_Poly_Tutorial_for_the_year_2014+

This is a tutorial how to make a taxiway line or taxiway edge line (just increase the width dimension of the rectangle, everything is explained in this tutorial)

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/wiki/index.php?title=Taxiline_creation_with_GMax

In the future you'll want to put your own texture but it won't tile to the line and won't fit to the line correctly, there is a tutorial for this too.But, not now, I will give you whenever you want, but not now becouse you will be confused of everything :) Good luck and ask me everything about your question! Wish you all best!

Teo
 
Tekica123 said:
As I know, most of us using gmax or 3ds max(payware version of gmax).
As @Hector Lee said making an airport in this programs or sketchup, blender or whatever is very complicated.I apsolutely understand you becouse before 1 and a half year I was same as you, but everyday I was watching youtube tutorials, sometimes when somebody said to me, watch this tutorial, I was like, what this guy would help me with and I was closing the videos, but today I know that these tutorials was so helpful and useful.For beginning you can use this tutorial on how to make ground polygon, basic runway in gmax.

http://iblueyonder.com/wp-content/uploads/iby_ground_poly_tutorial.pdf Really Helpful tutorial, all beginners use this tutorial as primary tutorial.

When you learn how to make a runway, go ahead and see this tutorial

NOTE: READ THE WHOLE TUTORIAL CAREFULLY! I didn't read it carefullyy and I got so much problems, misunderstandings and something else..So I'm saying this expirienced.

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/wiki/index.php?title=Ground_Poly_Tutorial_for_the_year_2014+

This is a tutorial how to make a taxiway line or taxiway edge line (just increase the width dimension of the rectangle, everything is explained in this tutorial)

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/wiki/index.php?title=Taxiline_creation_with_GMax

In the future you'll want to put your own texture but it won't tile to the line and won't fit to the line correctly, there is a tutorial for this too.But, not now, I will give you whenever you want, but not now becouse you will be confused of everything :) Good luck and ask me everything about your question! Wish you all best!

Teo
Click to expand...
Tks alot finally some one know my pain in developing the sceneries


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Object placement depends on which method of modelling and exporting do you use. If you model and export each building separately then you can use ADE, Whisplacer or ModelConvertorX. If you model and export the airport as a whole then just use ModelConvertorX. I personally use MCX and the video below shows how it works.


If you are using ADE for taxiways then exporting the airport from ADE will do the job. If you are doing ground polys for your taxiways then the ground poly tutorial should explain it.

As for software, there no need to get 3DS Max. It's expensive and there is no real need for it unless you are a professional 3D artist. Blender has almost all the features from 3DS Max plus there is an updated toolkit for exporting from Blender. I personally won't recommend newcomers to get started with GMax as it isn't actively updated. The newer SDKs (P3D) don't seem to be updating for gmax as well. Most people will keep using gmax because they started out in gmax. You can stick to Sketchup now and move on to Blender later when you are more comfortable with working with 3D. A number of people who were using gmax are already moving to Blender or 3DS Max so there's no real benefit of learning gmax from scratch at the moment. Blender allows for baking textures and ambient occlusion which is an important part of making good textures but that is considered a more advanced technique.

Important thing is to have fun while you are doing it and not compare yourself to the best developers right at the beginning.
 
Hector Lee said:
Object placement depends on which method of modelling and exporting do you use. If you model and export each building separately then you can use ADE, Whisplacer or ModelConvertorX. If you model and export the airport as a whole then just use ModelConvertorX. I personally use MCX and the video below shows how it works.


If you are using ADE for taxiways then exporting the airport from ADE will do the job. If you are doing ground polys for your taxiways then the ground poly tutorial should explain it.

As for software, there no need to get 3DS Max. It's expensive and there is no real need for it unless you are a professional 3D artist. Blender has almost all the features from 3DS Max plus there is an updated toolkit for exporting from Blender. I personally won't recommend newcomers to get started with GMax as it isn't actively updated. The newer SDKs (P3D) don't seem to be updating for gmax as well. Most people will keep using gmax because they started out in gmax. You can stick to Sketchup now and move on to Blender later when you are more comfortable with working with 3D. A number of people who were using gmax are already moving to Blender or 3DS Max so there's no real benefit of learning gmax from scratch at the moment. Blender allows for baking textures and ambient occlusion which is an important part of making good textures but that is considered a more advanced technique.

Important thing is to have fun while you are doing it and not compare yourself to the best developers right at the beginning.
Click to expand...
tks XD
 
xinjie00 said:
Also by the way how do we add the building and terminal with the taxiway..


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Click to expand...

Simply, you make your terminal or whatever object in gmax, export it, import it in ModelConverterX(MCX) as @Hector Lee's Video is showing to you, you get the coordinates, place them in the object converter, export, put the files in your SIM root folder (Addon Scenery) and you are done, but for now, do the ground polygon first and let us know how it's going, send us some images :) Good Luck!
 
Tekica123 said:
Simply, you make your terminal or whatever object in gmax, export it, import it in ModelConverterX(MCX) as @Hector Lee's Video is showing to you, you get the coordinates, place them in the object converter, export, put the files in your SIM root folder (Addon Scenery) and you are done, but for now, do the ground polygon first and let us know how it's going, send us some images :) Good Luck!
Click to expand...
Hahaha i will try tks xD


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I'm using Sketchup. But ...
1. It is only free if you make freeware scenery.
2. It is not possible to do lofting, which makes it very hard to make taxilines and taxiway edges and this.

If you begin with a small airport, you will find out some difficulties later. There are many chances to make a wrong decision, which cause a lot of work later. For example, I placed all my taxilights in Sketchup as 3D-models. Later I had the idea, to use effects together with the taxilights. But when I import the model with all taxilights into Gmax, the center of every taxilight is in the center of the scenery. So I couldn't use a script in Gmax to place the effects to the taxilights. The only way was, to place all again.
And because I made my groundpoly also with Sketchup first, I placed all taxilines in Sketchup. Many hours of work, because the textures are sometimes not correct after export as dae model and I must find where a texture was not perfect placed in the model. Later, the airport changed some taxilines and I did all the work again. Maybe, I made all taxilines 3 times. And this is frustrating, to do the same work again and again.

Gmax is free and if you save your project every 5 minutes, it is also not so difficult to make the groundpoly, taxiways with Gmax. And it is a good choice to make animations.

I will learn Blender. Because it is possible to bake shadows into the textures.

Today I had a problem with an apron texture, I use as light shine by night only. I did this in another project without any problems. It was so easy. Today at the other airport I did it the same way, but now the texture is also visible by day and I do not know why. I spend 8 hours today for this. And in all other airports I made, I never had this problem before.
 
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