MSFS20 Project migration to Blender 3.6.18 and pluging 1.6.12 (from RonH)

[Lagaffe]

Hello,

After several projects with Blender 2.83 and the plugin v0.41.3 I decided to migrate to a more up-to-date environment with Blender 3.3.18 and the plugin Asobo 1.3.3 downloaded today.
My last freeware which was compiled perfectly with the old enviement and displayed correctly under MSFS20 was duplicated then migrated into this new environment.
All the materials (I think) have been migrated with the button Migrate Data in the interface.

The 3 LODs of the aircraft were exported with the parameters attached below to this post. I checked each glTF file as usual and noticed information that I did not know :

{
"asset" : {
"copyright" : "Lagaffe",
"extensions" : {
"ASOBO_normal_map_convention" : {
"tangent_space_convention" : "DirectX"
}
},
"generator" : "Khronos glTF Blender I/O v3.3.36 and Asobo Studio MSFS Blender I/O v1.3.3",
"version" : "2.0"
},
"extensionsUsed" : [
"ASOBO_normal_map_convention",
"ASOBO_unique_id",
"ASOBO_material_blend_gbuffer",
"KHR_materials_specular",
"KHR_materials_ior"
],
....

(12 messages for specular and ior)

Then these files were copied to the Projects environment and compiled with fspackagetools in manual mode. A number of warnings (yellow messages) were displayed

used a non-supported extension: KHR_materials_specular
used a non-supported extension: KHR_materials_ior

Are these messages from a bad setting that has been checked? or from several textures that have not been migrated in the new MSFS shaders ?
I launch several research on the forum but there is not much discussion about these messages (here and also on the Q&A official forum)

Another little concern, I have my options tablet that worked perfectly before, now appears completely black ...
Would the settings for displaying an instrument defined in the panel.cfg have changed.
I still use:
associated with the display plan a $Tablet_Options texture (which is defined with the same name in panel.cfg)
Base color => Green
Emission => White
MSFS Material Params: Disabled

If you have some information to help me ...

 

[mamu]

Really recommend to set your materials to Disabled and then back to msfs standard material (or the needed one e.g. glass)

In this way you will properly reset the shader nodes (and of course you will get rid of the yellow warnings about specular and ior)

You will only need to reassign the textures back in the slots (you won't loose the UV, don't worry!)

Keep in mind that the MSFS standard material by default has the metallic and rougheness multipler at 1, if you don't supply the item/comp texture you need to tweak them directly in the msfs materials parameters

 

[Lagaffe]

Mamu

I wanted to test this migration on a freeware that is not yet too advanced in terms of development (the textures are basic and there is no PBR) to see what might happen.
Honestly I think it is better to avoid migrating on a project and even if you change environment, do it at the very beginning of a new add-on.

So you consider that these 2 messages actually correspond to materials that have not been correctly migrated ... this corresponds to my first impression because I really did not see what parameter in the multi-export could have generated this.

A screen of this new aircraft:

 

[rhumbaflappy]

MSFS doesn't use specular or ior. I think you could consider them warnings, rather than errors, if the compile goes well. If you look in the shader tab, you could see if those attributes are actually being connectec to a color or texture.

 

[Lagaffe]

Searching yet a solution, this morning I have find a post from Ronh ( https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/msfs-2024-sdk.459370/#post-929318 ) who give the reason of that :

If you change default ior or specular, because you touched the surface panel (please do not use the surface panel - only use the MSFS properties) then the Khronos core code will add the KHR extensions - the sim does not use KHR extensions and will flag them as warning.

 

[Lagaffe]

Hello,

Trying to use the button "Migrate Data" , apparently I had to make a mistake but the problem persists.
In practice I took the materials one by one and migrated them thinking that this was the method to follow.

To try to migrate safely, I finally duplicated my Blender project and on the copy, I deleted the materials one by one (34 materials). Then I opened this "cleaned" file with Blender 3.6.18 and the last plugin 1.3.3 from Asobo then I re-created all the materials taking as reference my old file opened in another instance of Blender but 2.83.
In the end, in 2 hours of time, all the materials were recreated with the basic parameters of MSFS materials and using the various PBR files (albd, comp, nrm) that I had created for version 2.83.

Now to adapt these materials, and if I am right ... I must act ONLY on the parameters that are defined in the tab MSFS Material Params if I am not mistaken because before I had taken very bad habits by moving the sliders in other tab like Settings/Surface that should not be advised .

The other sliders in tab Surface/Settings are for materials standard that do not necessarily need PBR, I am right ?
But reading the SDK carrefully, it's also a good method I will re-read the appropriate section.

 

[Lagaffe]

Hello,

Some news of my migration: everything went well at the export level as for textures. I was even able to add additional slots on the windshield in order to visualize wear & dirt which was one of the main reasons to migrate to a much more up-to-date export plugin. The frozen parts stage will be the next step
By continuing my tests, I finally chose the solution proposed by RonH with its improved plugin so I now work with Blender 3.6.18 and his plugin 1.6.12 (fork from the 1.3.3)

PS: I was inspired by this post to get the result I wanted => https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/t...ot-implemented-in-the-blender-exporter.450667

However, I have a major concern with the display of the screen of the tablet on which I display the various options.

1. with my Blender 2.83 version this screen that was white when the tablet was unhided and showed the bmp for options.
2. now it remains desperately black however no modification has been made during this migration to the panel files:

• panel.cfg,
• system.cfg,
• animations.xml

I am using MSFS 2020 1.39.20 (the last SU16 Beta)

The "$Panel" texture used is a basic texture (no MSFS) with the Emission slot configured to display white.
I even tested with a texture named "Panel" (without the $ prefix to follow the last SDK) but nothing change. Apparently in a previous post, Anthony also seems to use the old FSX type prefixage with this kind of textures and had no problem.

I noted that the shading is now Random Walk (left image - Blender 3.6.18 ) and not Christensen-Burley (right image - Blender 2.83) and Subsurface IOR parameter is 1.4 !
I even tried to change the base color from black to white without any success.
This base color has an Alpha: 1.0 . Should this be changed to a value of 0.01 as for windshield?

I have also tried to use "Panel" in place of "$Panel" but no improvement occurs.

PS: In the previous version the name of the texture was "$Tablet_7AC" but the name of the texture is always in accordance whith the parameter in the panel.cfg file.

 

[Lagaffe]

Today, I find finally "a solution" to this anoying problem You should use different Blender/plugin choices to export the exterior and the interior models.

Per example, I have export my PBY interior with Blender 2.83.19/Vitus 0.41.4 and my tablet is OK. For the exterior I used Blender 3.6.15 / Asobo 1.3.3 to be able to manage dirt windshield and frost on the wings (functions provided by the Asobo 1.3.3 plugin).
Despite the different versions, the fspackagetools compiler "smoothes" the files and everything coexists perfectly under MSFS 2020 but also 2024 !!!

 

[EzRyder]

Today, I find finally "a solution" to this anoying problem You should use different Blender/plugin choices to export the exterior and the interior models.

Per example, I have export my PBY interior with Blender 2.83.19/Vitus 0.41.4 and my tablet is OK. For the exterior I used Blender 3.6.15 / Asobo 1.3.3 to be able to manage dirt windshield and frost on the wings (functions provided by the Asobo 1.3.3 plugin).
Despite the different versions, the fspackagetools compiler "smoothes" the files and everything coexists perfectly under MSFS 2020 but also 2024 !!!

this should not be necessary, you should probably use only officially supported software
currently that would be blender 3.3 or 3.6 LTS from here https://www.blender.org/download/lts/
with the latest Asobo plugin found inside the sdk installation

2020 (afaik this supports 3.6 now just the docs are old maybe?) https://docs.flightsimulator.com/html/Asset_Creation/Blender_Plugin/The_Blender_Plugin.htm
" As of version 1.3.x of this plugin, it is only compatible with Blender 3.3.x LTS. Other versions are not supported. "

2024 (again i think 4.2 'may be supported' in the beta at least but ... i would stick with the docs) https://docs.flightsimulator.com/ms...Plugins/Blender_Plugin/The_Blender_Plugin.htm
" These plugins are only compatible with Blender 3.3.x LTS and 3.6.x LTS. Other versions are not supported. "

the days of using random blender and plugin versions has been fixed some years ago when asobo started officially supporting blender,
if you use the correct software its fairly stable (certainly blender support is not perfect but its getting better and its documented to some extent now)

there was an issue with blender 3.1 and earlier, my understanding is they (blender) changed a lot in the way mesh objects are handled
afaik the only way to upgrade those older models is to export them as an obj, fbx or w/e then import them into the newer blender version -
this may require a bit of work to get back textures and bone animation etc, but may be worth it in the long run

its likely you will have issues with compatibility using that older software down the road

as for the textures ....
this is one of the Primary reasons they (asobo) have the plugin, you should not need to be doing any texture work outside the plugin settings themselves
and you should not be editing the shader nodes manually- none of that is really supported

 

[Lagaffe]

@EzRyder,
This discussion was opened by me last year, and at that time the SDK and plugin versions were not those of today, in a year things are moving!

I probably omitted to specify that I had opened a post at the beginning of the week and that following some exchanges with RonH, a solution had been found, as it also partially addressed this problem from last year, I postponed it.
Exchanges with RonH : https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/t...to-a-newer-version-blender-3-6-may-be.460434/

My problem in Nov. 2024, was if I migrated to Blender 3.6/ Asobo v1.3.3. the programming of my tablet was no longer working but I had the possibility to use the latest functions (windshield dirty).
I am detailing more easily the solution found yesterday: one can perfectly compile the exterior with a given environment and the interior with another environment, it works perfectly, therefore the interior with Blender 2.83/Vitus 0.41.4 allows my tablet to work (without having to re-develop everything) and with Blender 3.6/Asobo 1.3.3 I have access to the necessary slots for my dirty windshield.

You recommend the latest official Asobo plugin but the plugin I’m talking about: v1.3.3 is precisely this one that I use currently (see the post indicated above).
On the other hand you talk about Blender 3.3, but Asobo has clearly written on the github where Yasmine Khojda (Asobo developer) publishes the updates that this version v1.3.3 is now (Nov. 2025) perfectly supported by Blender 3.6. => https://github.com/AsoboStudio/Microsoft-Flight-Simulator-2020-glTF-Blender-IO

In terms of development, one should never stop researching what the SDKs publish but always go beyond and find solutions by oneself

 

[EzRyder]

i was responding to this statement from Yesterday

Yesterday at 05:38

Today, I find finally "a solution" to this anoying problem You should use different Blender/plugin choices to export the exterior and the interior models.
Per example, I have export my PBY interior with Blender 2.83.19

if something in these models Only works in a LEGACY exporter and plugin something is Definitely not right

trust i do keep up, thats why i stated im pretty sure 2020 Does support 3.6 but i wasnt going to bother researching that for you (im currently working in 2024)
same with 2024, it also supports 4.2 going by this post (though i made no 'statement of fact', i tend to suggest what is rather than insist)

https://devsupport.flightsimulator.com/t/2024-blender-exporter-update-for-blender-4-2/16871/6

i was just trying to give you some helpful advise since you appear to be having trouble "migrating this to 3.6" as your title and yesterdays post suggest
this was the 'meat' of my posting, and the actual solution i was trying to give you to get that migration done correctly

" afaik the only way to upgrade those older models [made in blender 3.1 and earlier] is to export them as an obj, fbx or w/e then import them into the newer blender version "
your issues there probably have nothing to do with these plugins

 

[Lagaffe]

i dont think the asobo plugins are as 'blender specific' as you seem to suggest by giving those with each blender version

Read with attention the github of Yasmine and the notes for each release and you will understand my position about 'blender specific' (https://github.com/AsoboStudio/Microsoft-Flight-Simulator-2020-glTF-Blender-IO).

I understand your desire to help but in this case either I expressed myself poorly or your advice is no longer relevant since my concern dated from Nov. 24 (without a solution at that time, I had removed my tablet from my Aeronca 7 AC addon) and that the final solution was found yesterday by working on the Canso PBY which will allow me to keep managing my old tablet.

PS: I have been developing software for nearly 45 years and for MS since 2010, also I learned to be wary of SDKs that are never up to date, , especially those from Asobo.

 

[EzRyder]

again i have
Supported blender versions of the latest version of the addon (We can't guarantee not having bugs with other unstable versions):

• 3.3.x LTS
• 3.6.x LTS
• 4.2.x LTS
• 4.5.x LTS
  
  

  GitHub - AsoboStudio/Microsoft-Flight-Simulator-2020-glTF-Blender-IO

  Contribute to AsoboStudio/Microsoft-Flight-Simulator-2020-glTF-Blender-IO development by creating an account on GitHub.

  github.com
  note they stop at 3.3 (2.9x is depricated for a reason)
  
  good luck mate, i meant no offense