Import Blender Model too Difficult

Am I the only person having trouble importing Blender models? At this point, I have created a simple cube with a material on it. I believe I have checked all the right boxes in Blender Export and typed the right letters into the textboxes in Blender Export.

There are many videos I have watched where you then have to rename files and copy and paste guid’s. Why do you have to do that? I have done it though.

There are so many errors in the console window, even in the tutorials. Which ones can you ignore? Which ones should you not ignore?

It seems like one of the keys is that certain files and folders have to be named the same. Sometimes I will clean, rebuild, open and for some reason the sdk console will tell me that it can’t find an XML file with the letters in all caps. It was not like that to begin with. So I go rename the file where it uses all caps. Then clean, rebuild, and open again.

It’s very frustrating. Can someone please point me to an easy to understand tutorial? Or share your tips and tricks?

Thanks.

Hi

It can be a very long and frustrating learning curve to get it to work. But once it works it’s great. Have spent many hours on Youtube etc before I got it right.

First important thing when exporting from Blender is to stay in Object mode and select all items (A) then export and set the right options. Once exported to a folder within the scenery structure make sure that it exports 3 files like this

I also get some errors when building the package. Some are okay but some regarding the model you will use is important. Most of the errors seems to be if all the fields in the scenery box is left empty.

I have also done a video but it’s in Danish so perhaps limited help, but it show the process i’m using. Let me know if I can help further

Regards
Claus

Thank you Claus. I have not ensured that I selected all objects and I have not made sure that I am in Object mode prior to exporting. Thanks for the tips. I will also check out your video.

i wish i spoke Dutch this looks like a well informed video

Google for Flying Theston. He has English videos that bring you to the end of your project, shows most things one needs to know in the 2 playlists.

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I just tried following the german tutorial below since in their docs there is not a single A-Z tutorial on how to do it. Problem is, their SDK kit is not the same anymore layout wise, so it deviates from the tutorial. I managed to get my cube into the scene and move it around, yet I am still not exactly sure how. There are artproj and whatnot. I mean I jusrt want to load my obj file, place it and press ‘Package’. How is this so difficult? Then something broke and I could not do it again. A total mess, the most user unfriendly thing.

Then I saw their SDK stream. They basically said they hire people and will now work properly on it. I will be back in a year. I mean just put a warning in front like " do not touch just yet, you will live a total nightmare because we basically only had 2 interns working on it so far". Right now, this thing is a complete disaster to use. I accidently stretched a window to fullscreen. It took me close to 5mins to figure out how to get it back to normal size again. It completely deviates from any 3D software in terms on usage, which makes it really hard. On top, they do not show a single from A-Z example and all infos are scattered across the doc. This was traumatizing to use. I spent 3h, could not get a community folder ready result. I have been doing 3D for 15 years. I must say, no wonder this SDK forum is a wasteland. They need to get this SDK similiar to what people are used to (Blender, 3DS, Unreal, Unity,…).

Are you sure texture dimensions must be multiples of 16, and not powers of 2 instead?

In my optimization tools, i ensure that the baked textures produced are a multiple of 4. It is an hexa system, but in two dimensions, so the width and the height must be a multiple of 4.

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Yes, the bin/gltf/xml files are understood. This is what the video about too. That’s the easy part in Blender.
But then I go ahead with the SDK, and the newest version deviates from any tutorial. Even their own samples are different from what is shown in their docs (Simplescenery is not a cube anymore).

They just need to do the A-Z examples. Right now, they wrote the docs as a reminder for them how things work. I know how this works, I am developing/writing docs myself. They need to write it for people who do not know about the SDK. Proper introduction, go by example and so on. This ‘collection of developer notes’ right now is not a documentation.

textures definitely need factor of 2. It is called ‘power of two’ and enables mip-mapping. It is a standard feature in DirectX. It is pretty much the same in any SDK that uses DirectX/OpenGL, may it be Unity3D, Unreal, CryEngine, or here the Flight Simulator.

I tried again this morning. Simple cube from Blender with the gltf exporter. All there, gltf/xml/bin. Did it by the book, all paths seem ok. 209 Erros, did not work. Honestly, this the poorest SDK I have ever seen. Even their installer does not have a author. Author is unknown so Windows blocks it unless you permit exception. Where did they find the guy who developed this thing of an SDK?

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yes, everything up to the 3D model is fine. Shows in 3D viewer, guid checked, xml there. All no problem.
Just the SDK does not wok. I will just wait a few months. In their last live stream they basically said straight away that up to this point they only had 1 1/2 interns working on this and are now hiring more people. Waste of time digging through that mess at this point.

If you end up with 209 errors in the log then the problem is on your side and not in the SDK. The SDK is far from perfect but me and many others start new scenery projects and export files every day without any big problems. This part is a bit unpolished but it work.

My suggestion is:
Open and load your scenery.
Build the scenery and ensure that you got no errors related to the airport itself.
Open and clear the console.
Now export the file again. What does the console say?
If the console log were fine then save and build the scenery again.
Now open and load the project again.
Look in the objects list, you should now find your test file there.

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Flying theston’s videos were the most useful for me. Still learning though ! But in regards to exporting f i have a special youtube playlist on my channel ’ blender2msfs for beginners. Check these videos by Carl Hughes and Flying Theston :

I was able to export the models from Blender using the Blender2MSFS toolkit. I then put the ’ control tower’ folder in the 'KPWK/package sources/modelLib folder. (and the *.png texture in the modelLib/texture folder)

But i am still struggling with how to add the 3d object into my existing project in the SDK .

( I’ve been working for the last few weeks on an existing project for KPWK "( Chicago Executive airport), with all stock SDK buildings, which are not accurately modeled like the real buildings), but now i want to add custom 3d blender models to it, starting with the control tower i made in Blender.

So i am stuck trying to figure out how to add 3d objects to an existing (almost complete) project. (I think it has something to do with ‘artproject’ asset.

If anyone has any tips i would appreciate it too! (About how to set up the ‘modelLib’-artproject assett) in ones package so the 3d objects in modelLib folder can be used in the project’s object editor .

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So i was able to add the control tower i made to my existing project, but now all my past airport edits dissappeared, except for the polygon file. ( i made sure the *.shp file was in the right ‘scene’ folder within package sources.

I see my Blender Control Tower show up in the Object Editor, but all my edits to the airport (which was 90% complete except for not having custom 3d objects ) are now gone. ( I had worked for weeks on adding stock SDK buildings, added trees, the perimeter fence, new aprons, taxiways, runways…all missing!

Any help appreciated.

Any help appreciated.

In your project folders are there now two xml’s the ones you use to load your project in?
Get us a screenshot of inside your prect sources folders.

Highly recommend having a backup folder for your prejects and save a copy there before making any changes that your not sure about making especially to project files.

Also as what happened to me recently i hadn’t made a backup for a week after making changes to a project and my storage drive which had my master project files in it decided to die so i had to redo nearly all the changes I made to one project. I got lucky my models files were on another drive and that I had backup up all my other projects.

Highly recommend backing up your project files and models and textures to google one drive or similar. then even if you whole pc died you wouldn’t lose any of your work.