• 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.

Sketchup 8 pro

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faroeislands
Does sketchup 8 pro work better than the free version when making flight sim addons?

What exactly do I need in order to export from sketchup into prepar3d and fsx?
 
I don't think the pro version offers anything extra for fs addon developers.

The general approach is to export as a collada file and then use modelconverterx to convert it to a mdl object for fsx.

Send from my phone using Tapatalk, so excuse the short sentences and possible typos
 
Pro offers more features for the Sketchup interface, basically to make it more like autocad or similar softwares. It does not change anything that would be used for FS.

The tools you would use in pro are also in free when it comes to FS. There may be ruby scripts out there for FS use, but I havent come across any as of yet. I dont know enough about ruby to make any plugins yet, but its on my list :)
 
I learned how to do it from this tutorial:

http://www.calclassic.com/sketchup_tutorial.htm

Basically this is what you need:

1. SDK's installed and updated (including the pre-requisites MS C runtime library, the .net stuff - there is a forum here on how to install the SDK)

2. Makes your model in Skecthup then export as a collada (.dae) file

3. Import into ModelConverterX, fix textures and rename texture files, save as a .mdl file

4. Make a new library or open existing one in LibraryCreatorXML and save

5. Use Airport Design Editor or your favorite tool to get the object from the library and place it in your scenery file

6. Put the scenery file in an active Add On Scenery scenery folder and the textures in an active Add On Scenery texture folder

7. Start Flight Sim and fly

The tutorial linked above helped me learn the steps and then I made a checklist for myself to follow.
 
I learned how to do it from this tutorial:

http://www.calclassic.com/sketchup_tutorial.htm

Basically this is what you need:

1. SDK's installed and updated (including the pre-requisites MS C runtime library, the .net stuff - there is a forum here on how to install the SDK)

2. Makes your model in Skecthup then export as a collada (.dae) file

3. Import into ModelConverterX, fix textures and rename texture files, save as a .mdl file

4. Make a new library or open existing one in LibraryCreatorXML and save

5. Use Airport Design Editor or your favorite tool to get the object from the library and place it in your scenery file

6. Put the scenery file in an active Add On Scenery scenery folder and the textures in an active Add On Scenery texture folder

7. Start Flight Sim and fly

The tutorial linked above helped me learn the steps and then I made a checklist for myself to follow.

Yes, but SU free has all the tools you need to make scenery models, pro has added tools and functions that may make some of it easier but its not required. Havent done animation in sketchup yet. This applies only to the makng of models. other tools are needed to convert for fs use

Step 2 is the only time in this list that uses sketchup, the rest are other tools.
 
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