Howto:Work with AC3D files in Blender: Difference between revisions

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Added section: FG2blender (PAF Team)
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(Added section: FG2blender (PAF Team))
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Current maintainer: [[User:Necolatis]]
Current maintainer: [[User:Necolatis]]


Tested with Blender version 2.63 to 2.76
Tested with Blender version 2.63 to 2.78a
 
You can follow the [http://forum.flightgear.org/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=13442 Forum thread] for more information.


'''Notes:'''
'''Notes:'''
* Before you export a model with this addon, make sure that you set the UV map and texture inside the material, not just inside the UV editor.  See the video tutorial [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URMjoFSm5pk here].
* Before you export a model with this addon, make sure that you set the UV map and texture inside the material, not just inside the UV editor.  See the video tutorial [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URMjoFSm5pk here].
* Inside Blender when you want to see the textures, be sure to set the shader to GLSL (or for 2.7 just set view mode to materials). Alternatively set textured solid in solid view.
* Before you export make sure to exit Edit Mode or some of your last changes won't be exported.
* Inside Blender when you want to see the textures, be sure to set the shader to GLSL (or for 2.7+ just set view mode to materials). Alternatively set textured solid in solid view.
* To see textured surfaces as they will be shown in Flightgear, go into the material texture and set the blend type to "Multiply" instead of the default "Mix" (the importer will also do this automatically). An example plane that will look very different if this is not done is the FGAddon aircraft ASK-13, notice the wingtips.
* To see textured surfaces as they will be shown in Flightgear, go into the material texture and set the blend type to "Multiply" instead of the default "Mix" (the importer will also do this automatically). An example plane that will look very different if this is not done is the FGAddon aircraft ASK-13, notice the wingtips.
* If you wonder where to put the scripts you could open blender's user preferences (''CTRL ALT U'', or ''File->User Preferences'') tick e.g. Import/Export and extent the informations concerning an existing script. Usually this throws the path. For Ubuntu 14.04LTS/Blender 2.79b e.g. it's: ''/usr/share/blender/scripts/addons/''.
* If you wonder where to put the scripts you could open blender's user preferences (''CTRL ALT U'', or ''File->User Preferences'') tick e.g. Import/Export and extent the informations concerning an existing script. Usually this throws the path. For Ubuntu 14.04LTS/Blender 2.79b e.g. it's: ''/usr/share/blender/scripts/addons/''.
* Be aware of the selection "Mirror color to emis/ambi" usually emissive/ambient 1.0 does produce pale results. Hotfix: Adjust mirrorcolor as ambient, choose mirror color->ambient in filter.
* Be aware that Blender only has greyscale for emission and ambient colors. If you want to export/import a color for those, import/export options gives you capability to choose to use Blenders mirror color for that.
* The importer will not fail if it does not locate a texture, instead it will issue warnings. Pull down the top bar to see if there was any, they will be orange lines.
* The importer will not fail if it does not locate a texture, instead it will issue warnings. Pull down the top bar to see if there was any, they will be orange lines.
* The exporter will not fail if it tries to save a texture without data, instead it will issue warnings. Pull down the top bar to see if there was any, they will be orange lines. Notice that since AC3D only support 1 texture per object, if multiple textures are attached to an object in Blender the last of the textures that has any data, if any, will be the one that get exported, but it will still warn about the missing data in the others, so take care.
* The exporter will not fail if it tries to save a texture without data, instead it will issue warnings. Pull down the top bar to see if there was any, they will be orange lines. Notice that since AC3D only support 1 texture per object, if multiple textures are attached to an object in Blender the last of the textures that has any data, if any, will be the one that get exported, but it will still warn about the missing data in the others, so take care.
* Orientation: The default settings in the plugin correspond to the FlightGear coordinate system (-X forward and Z up, also see: [[Howto:3D_Aircraft_Models]]). The default settings are: Forward -Z and Up Y.


You can report bugs with the addon [https://github.com/NikolaiVChr/Blender-AC3D/issues here], but please include problematic .ac/.blend files and their textures.
You can report bugs with the addon [https://github.com/NikolaiVChr/Blender-AC3D/issues here], but please include problematic .ac/.blend files and their textures.
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* When using this script, it is very important that everything is textured. The addon will silently fail if this is not the case.
* When using this script, it is very important that everything is textured. The addon will silently fail if this is not the case.
* This script does not work reliable when nested groups are being used in the imported AC3D model (example [https://github.com/NikolaiVChr/flightgear-saab-ja-37-viggen/blob/FG-v3.4/Aircraft/JA37/Models/Instruments/Altimeter2/altimeter-metric.ac here]).
* This script does not work reliable when nested groups are being used in the imported AC3D model (example [https://github.com/NikolaiVChr/flightgear-saab-ja-37-viggen/blob/FG-v3.4/Aircraft/JA37/Models/Instruments/Altimeter2/altimeter-metric.ac here]).
* The importer cannot handle the token 'subdiv', its just ignored.
* The exporter does not always export the rotations/location matrix of objects correctly.


: [http://www.mediafire.com/?m4f9m95qj9e5qq0 Download link (MediaFire)]
: [http://www.mediafire.com/?m4f9m95qj9e5qq0 Download link (MediaFire)]
=== FG2blender (PAF Team) ===
Authors: f-jjth, run
The PAF team (Patrouille de France), a French group of FlightGear enthusiasts have also made an AC3D Blender script. Their last commit dates back to 11 December 2013 and it feels like their FG2Blender project is abandoned. The PAF team is essentially active on their [http://equipe-flightgear.forumactif.com/ own French speaking forum]. There's no trace or documentation available, so the notes below are speculative and incomplete. It would be interesting to test these scripts and check if the work of the PAF team can be merged with the work of [[User:Necolatis]] as this is actually the only AC3D script that is still maintained.
'''Notes:'''
* According to the source code, the script seems to be able to export animation.
[https://sourceforge.net/p/pafteam/fg2blender/ci/master/tree/ Repository] ([https://sourceforge.net/p/pafteam/fg2blender/ci/master/tarball Zip file download])


== External links ==
== External links ==
[http://opencity.sourceforge.net/html/ac3dfileformat.html AC3D file format]
[https://sites.google.com/view/ac3dfileformat/home AC3D file format]


{{3d}}
{{3d}}


[[Category:Modeling]]
[[Category:Modeling]]

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