• 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.

FSX Detailed Airport Grond Textures

pinkjr

pinkjr

Messages
1,239
Country
us-texas
Hi all.
Simplified question. How can I create high resolution airport taxiway and runway textures. Is GMAX the bottomline answer?

I assume I could always use SKU (sketchup) and a lot of small, highly detailed tiles, but I don't know. Perhaps its a lot of work and theres an easier or more appropriate way.

Currently I use SKU, MCX, SBuilderX, ADE (which I have been able to use for medium size apron ground textures).

What do commercial developers typically use?

Thanks,
David

Here's how my scenery is looking, I would like to improve the taxiways:

 
Yea... Sketchup... :scratchch good software to begin with. But what if you need texture bake ? Ok, use LightUp plugin. What if you need correction on UVs ?
Commercial developers won't typically use sketchup. You always will find that sketchup is short on capabilities. If you want to go commercial choose MAX, MAYA, C4D and of course the best of the best one - BLENDER which is free.

MCX, SBuilderX, ADE and many others are tools to make developer's life a lot sweeter. :coffee:
 
Shaun, thanks for the tutorial. However that only shows a solid patterned profile with a single sized texture. I can do that in ADE all day. I am looking for a way to do higher definition taxiways and runways that are not "constantly repeated".

fsfox, thanks for the recommendations. I assume there are tutorials for Blender?
 
fsfox, thanks for the recommendations. I assume there are tutorials for Blender?
Click to expand...
Sure there are, I would say plenty and good and clear tutorials.. If you are just new in blender I recommend some from these series http://www.littlewebhut.com/blender/ . This is for your technical understanding. Then in youtube I recommend to watch Andrew's Price channel, also Oliver Villar YT channel.
So you are about to spend 2-4 weeks to get use to blender if hard, every day learning.
Then FSDeveloper blender's forum tutorials, and do not forget to install Capt_X's Blender to FSX toolset to be able export .x for FSX file with all of your materials. Sure you can do OBJ or Collada too and set materials in MCX..
Thanks for your interest.

P.S.

If you hate Blender's Left/Right mouse clicks then you can change it over to Right/Left. So you can use it as in the most of programs like SKP, WORD, MAX etc..
But if you change the buttons over, then tutorials will sound a bit strange.. :D
 
Last edited:
thanks guys. Incredible, but while driving home I came up with an idea, why not try to use ADE to do this? Took me 10 minutes! As good as any payware scenery I have.

Will still look at Blender though!
 

Attachments

  • taxi.jpg
    taxi.jpg
    342.7 KB · Views: 2,413
hey pinkjr,
The last picture you've uploaded, taxi.jpg. Did you use ADE to make those taxi lines over the photoreal polygon?
 
yes sir, you bet. If you download my latest scenery from FlightSim TJBQ 2015, all ground texture was done using ADE. Here's another sample pic.
tjbq.jpg
 
Takes a while. The hardest thing to do on any scenery is the ground textures. I've read more tutorials on photoshop that I have on FS development.

But just like the picture states, you start with a seamless texture of concrete or asphalt as a base, and then you add layers of "noise" which are transparencies. Some add dark edges, other lighter worn-out center areas, airplane shadows, simulated oil leaks and skid marks, and even broken apron edges.
The difficulty lies on editing the images for transparency use. Placing them with ADE is just work, but the results quickly pay off.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top