P3D v4 X-Plane WED Terminal Kit

[Jay Bloomfield]

Is anybody aware of a similar utility for FSX and P3d?

https://developer.x-plane.com/?article=terminal-kit

This option in WED 1.6 allows the creation of airport terminal buildings of various shapes and sizes with minimal effort, somewhat like One Click Hangar does for hangars. I know that MCX can then convert OBJ to MDL for personal use, but that approach seems a bit roundabout.

If there's nothing analogous, it's either a potential idea for an enterprising developer or maybe as an plugin for ADE. Thanks.

 

[=rk=]

This is probably more like the autogen system and does not generate actual models in any format, rather, it assembles the object on the fly from the available components that he "artist" has pre-arranged. Imo, it is so close to actual modelling, with untold restrictions and limitations, based on it's interface, that one could learn it's use, or simply take the plunge and start modelling very similar shapes with a similar learning curve.

 

[Heretic]

That's pretty cool.

The closest thing you have for MSFS/P3D is the object library in Airport Design Editor. I've seen airport creators assemble new terminals from default terminal objects or the generic building models and while it can't compare to WED's procedural approach or a custom model, it does work reasonably well.

 

[arno]

Hi,

To me it seems the generic buildings that can be placed with bglcomp come closest. This is also what's used for many terminals on default airports.

But the X-Plane feature seems more powerful and flexible from looking at the docs.

 

[Jay Bloomfield]

Thanks for all the responses. One still has to create the basic object shape in Sketchup, etc., but the TK cuts down the time to add facade details like repeating garage doors, poles, skylights, etc..

In that sense it is more primitive than One Click Hangar, which also provides generic hangar models.

I see the TK not so much as a tool for a commercial developer who is focused on a creating a detailed airport terminal, since it's limited by the XP default library. Rather it is a tool for users to bypass the tedium of creating/customizing terminals.

For my own personal use, when a stock airport terminal is rebuilt in real life, I end up piecing together generic buildings in ADE to create a new terminal. The one terminal that I modeled from scratch at KILM took me so long that it cut into my flying time. It looks nice and I learned a lot about both Sketchup and Blender, but not being a developer it's a lot of work and that approach is best left to rest of the community.

 

[Heretic]

I wonder if such a tool can be replicated for FSX, maybe as a feature in Airport Design Editor. Polygon creation in general and dynamically tiling textures are already implemented for landclass and ground polygons and a texture mapping scheme similar to the one used for ground polygons can be used for walls and roof polys. Textures are already present in the form of the ones for the generic airport buildings.
It at least would make things easier and do away with the need to shove lots of smaller default buildings together to obtain a terminal.

For my own personal use, when a stock airport terminal is rebuilt in real life, I end up piecing together generic buildings in ADE to create a new terminal. The one terminal that I modeled from scratch at KILM took me so long that it cut into my flying time. It looks nice and I learned a lot about both Sketchup and Blender, but not being a developer it's a lot of work and that approach is best left to rest of the community.

I know that feeling. There still is an unfinished 3ds Max model of KDEN's old terminal on my hard drive that I sort of gave up upon. Modeling, mapping and texture creation themselves aren't difficult, but the constant guessing of dimensions, lack of reference photos and figuring out the most efficient mapping with the least repetition in textures was very exhausting.

 

[arno]

I still want to implement something like that in scenProc, to represent buildings that are not easy to do with autogen. I have been collecting some papers on roof generation already, but further no time to work on it yet.

 

[Jay Bloomfield]

My "piecing together generic buildings" approach is referred to in the linked thread as "Lego block airports".