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New German AF Bases for P3D

Let's hear all about the eye candy at those military bases.
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Victory103
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New German AF Bases for P3D

Post by Victory103 »

New release for P3D includes ETNW,ETNJ,ETNT and built to work with MAIW packages.

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/s ... ses-Part-1
DUSTOFF
ARMY PROPS
NAVY SAR

-Chris
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Re: New German AF Bases for P3D

Post by dummy »

Nice find!! wonder if these will work in FSX.
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Re: New German AF Bases for P3D

Post by Manschy »

Simply try it :wink: .

Most livery objects are from FSX. If the ADE files will not work properly in FSX (if maybe it is done for P3D), you should be able to load the airports in the latest ADE version and compile it into FSX...
Regards, Manfred.
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Re: New German AF Bases for P3D

Post by hschuit »

I tried Wittmund but for me it is not a keeper. I checked the afcad layout against a sat image in ADE and it is way off. Then it has several sketchup objects which are not optimized for performance to put it mildly. The package custom objects need ~2,200 textures for only 3 airfields, add to that the MAIW libraries it uses and you have a lot of drawcalls.

Henk.
Last edited by hschuit on 04 Jun 2020, 09:58, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: New German AF Bases for P3D

Post by dummy »

Manschy wrote: 04 Jun 2020, 09:05 Simply try it :wink: .

Most livery objects are from FSX. If the ADE files will not work properly in FSX (if maybe it is done for P3D), you should be able to load the airports in the latest ADE version and compile it into FSX...

Thanks Manschy!! great advice :lol:
will give it a try
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Re: New German AF Bases for P3D

Post by Manschy »

I did some minor improvements (changed some landclass layer, flatten and excludes so the CVX file works fine...), but unfortunately I am not able to change some library objects, just because I can't load the appropriate libs into ADE properly. Still lots of black objects but I would like to exchange some of my open grass shelters with closed ones which is not possible so far.
I don't know where to find the other objects out of the MAIW libs...

Otherwise I have to say I am really satisfied with it so far because good german air bases are rarely done in the sim...
Regards, Manfred.
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Re: New German AF Bases for P3D

Post by dummy »

Manschy wrote: 04 Jun 2020, 19:48....because good german air bases are rarely done in the sim...

Totally agree with you here Manschy! I would love to see a Buchel, Schleswig or Witmund scenery Manschy style!! :D :D :lol: :lol: Hint hint!!

cheers,

Edwin
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Re: New German AF Bases for P3D

Post by dummy »

hschuit wrote: 04 Jun 2020, 09:53 Then it has several sketchup objects which are not optimized for performance to put it mildly.
Henk.
What has one to do to optimise a sketchup object for use in FSX Henk?
i'm thinking of trying to make objects/ airfields by myself.


thanks in advance.

cheers,

Edwin
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Re: New German AF Bases for P3D

Post by hschuit »

Edwin, good scenery objects have the lowest possible amount of vertices/drawcalls and Sketchup does not help to achieve that. Tools like Blender and GMax are much better to create good scenery objects. Maybe you can try to import them in MCX and run the drawcall optimizer tool. But that still leaves the problem of the large amount of vertices. Ideally you would rebuild them in Blender/GMax and add LOD's.

Henk.
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Re: New German AF Bases for P3D

Post by John Young »

The key thing with scenery objects is to minimise draw calls (use attached objects sharing the same texture sheet) and drastically reduce texture vertices by welding the common ones together. So for example, you may have 500 texture vertices in a control tower staircase and railings, but you can probably weld those down to 4. That, along with a LOD or two in this case, really helps.

John
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Re: New German AF Bases for P3D

Post by TimC340 »

I've been going through this process to some extent myself. I'm very comfortable with SketchUp, and I love the fact that it is measurement-based (I was quite talented at technical drawing in my youth!). However, it's not easy to apply textures, and it is easy to allow the model to get too complicated. I'm slowly working on a technique to import SketchUp models into Blender in order to tackle both issues, yet be able to retain the ease of initial accurate creation that SketchUp allows. Even using just SketchUp alone, and using MCX to convert the item into a sim-compatible mdl, I can make them acceptably manageable for P3D on a good computer (without LODs), but I'm aware that I'm rather more blessed than many on that score.

Other real-life things are demanding much of my time just now, but I will get on top of this.
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Re: New German AF Bases for P3D

Post by dummy »

Thanks for your answers guys.
So i probably leave sketchup for what it is and will look into blender for creating my own objects.
Are there any good tutorials covering the welding of texture vertices, minimise drawcalls etc.

cheers,

Edwin
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Re: New German AF Bases for P3D

Post by John Young »

I wrote a tutorial on exactly the topics you are looking for Edwin when I was part of ACG. We were producing very detailed custom scenery at the time. The file is just over the attachment limit to post here, but if you drop me a PM with your e-mail address, I'll send it to you.

John
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Re: New German AF Bases for P3D

Post by dummy »

PM send John.

Cheers,

Edwin
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Re: New German AF Bases for P3D

Post by TimC340 »

John, any chance of a copy of that tutorial for me as well?
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Re: New German AF Bases for P3D

Post by John Young »

No problem Tim, sent by e-mail.
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Re: New German AF Bases for P3D

Post by TimC340 »

Thanks John.

Edwin, there are a lot of people using SketchUp as their primary design tool for FSX/P3D. While there are issues as John alludes, there's now a lot of experience in using this tool and I think most of those issues have been addressed - in probably a variety of ways. I do think that using a more games-oriented 3D design program like Blender or 3DsMax is probably likely to be more efficient and much more capable overall, but the learning curve is steep!

For advice on SketchUp for FSX/P3D, there's loads in this forum at FSDEveloper. There's also a series of YouTube videos by Mark at Soarfly Concepts: Clicky. Mark also has a load of tutorial videos about ADE and a lot of other FS stuff.

For advice on using Blender for FSX/P3D, there is also a Blender forum at FS Developer, and there is also this YouTube series by Bill Womack: Clicky. Bill concentrates on version 2.79 of Blender, but he's promised to update the videos for 2.83 (the new Long Term Support version).
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Re: New German AF Bases for P3D

Post by dummy »

Tim,

thank you for your answer.
Then maybe i should start with sketchup and then later on switch to blender when i gained some experience. I was indeed afraid of a steep learning curve that's why sketchup popped up as my favourite.
i accidentally stumbled on soarfly concepts youtube channel a few days ago, very interesting stuff.
Will check out the FSDevoloper site.

have a good weekend guys.

cheers,

Edwin
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Re: New German AF Bases for P3D

Post by rocket_26_ »

For scenery in my experience, draw calls is the main performance issue for FSX/P3D, texture vertices not so much.

LODs are needed less in P3D for scenery as they can be counter productive and bump up the draw calls. The only scenes I use them for now are cars and ground equipment.

About 5 years ago I switched from GMAX to 3ds MAX. You cannot weld the vertices the same way as GMAX. Only if the faces join each other on the object. A lot of the welding we use to do on the ACG airfields got undone once the object was compiled. You can check this in MCX.

The other issue is, if you weld everything as 1 vertex, ambient occlusion cannot be added properly to those parts.

I built Lakenheath without welding a single vertex and almost performs as well as my Coningsby which I did weld everything. Thats is despite Lakenheath being far larger and also using larger textures plus a ground poly.

Of all my scenery Alconbury performs the worst, as it happens that has the most drawcalls of any of my other work.
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Re: New German AF Bases for P3D

Post by TimC340 »

SketchUp is quite inefficient in that it creates a lot of triangles that are unseen yet can create a heavy workload for the sim. Its ease of use compensates for that, and there are plugins that can make its models much more FS-friendly. This is one that was recommended on FSDeveloper.
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