User created 4D scenery content RC10

Ich bin dabei mir anzueignen wie man für RC10 eigenen 4D Content erstellen kann.

Einiges konnte ich bereits u.A. dank der mittlerweile vorhandenen (RC10) Tutorials herausfinden (die scheinbar noch nirgends offiziell announced wurden - sind diese immer noch work in progress?), diese beschränken sich aber fast auschließlich auf Konvertierung alter Szenarien bzw auf das Erstellen von Panorama-Szenarien.

Was ich schon herausfinden konnte:

• Wie man eigene Geometrie über das .tgi Blender Addon exportiert, Diffuse Maps zuweist und mit dem RC10 Converter in .tmb konvertiert und in einer 4D Szene anläd
• Wie man eigene .ttx Texturen mit dem RC10 Converter erstellt
• Definieren des Objekts als static3d oder decal in der .tsc Datei der Szenerie, letzteres ist z.B. hilfreich wenn man nicht die Spawnpunkthöhe durch eigene Geometrie beeinflussen möchte

Was ich gerne wissen würde (leider gibts wohl zum RC10 SDK keine wirkliche Dokumentation der .tsc und .tgi Formate und die ganzen .tmb und .ttx Gamefiles sind halt durch ihr Binär-Format leider eine Blackbox):

• Wie kann man Alpha-Maps für Transparenzen verwenden? Wenn mein Blender Material eine Alpha-Textur hat, wird beim beim .tgi Export eine Logdatei mit Fehler erstellt ("channelName == NOT_FOUND -> Material: Mat03 |--- BlenderChannelname = Alpha")
• Wie kann ich ein Material als selbstleuchtend (ambient) definieren, so dass dies nicht von der Sonne beeinflusst wird?

So sieht aktuell mein .tgi Material aus was für Diffuse-Texturen funktioniert:

<[file][][]
   <[tmxglscene_impexp][][]
       <[pointer_list_tmxglmaterial_impexp][material_list][]
           <[tmxglmaterial_impexp][element][0]
               <[string8][name][Mat01]>
               <[string8][shader_hint][]>
               <[list_tm_tmtexture_index_pair_impexp][texture_list][]
                   <[tm_tmtexture_index_pair_impexp][element][0]
                       <[string8][channel][diffuse]>
                       <[string8][name][grid_gray]>
                       <[bool][repeat_s][true]>
                       <[bool][repeat_t][true]>
                       <[float32][uvscaling][1]>
                   >
               >
               <[list_tm_shader_fixed_uniform_impexp][uniform_list][]
               >
           >
       >

Wäre schön wenn etwas mehr Infos diesbezüglich geteilt werden, reicht auch erstmal formlos hier als kurze Antwort

Danke & Gruß

Translation via Google Translate (did not want to write everything in both languages):

I'm in the process of learning how to create my own 4D content for RC10.

I was already able to do some things, among other things: Thanks to the existing (RC10) tutorials you can find out (which apparently haven't been officially announced yet - are these still in the works?), but these are quickly limited to converting old scenarios or creating panoramic scenarios.

What I was able to find out:

How to export your own geometry via the .tgi Blender addon, assign diffuse maps and convert it to .tmb using the RC10 converter and load it into a 4D scene

How to create your own .ttx textures with the RC10 Converter

Define the object as static3d or decal in the .tsc file of the scenery, the latter is helpful, for example, if you don't want to influence the spawn point height with your own geometry

What I would like to know (unfortunately there is no real documentation of the .tsc and .tgi formats for the RC10 SDK and all the .tmb and .ttx game files are unfortunately a black box due to their binary format):

How to use alpha maps for transparencies? If my Blender material has an alpha texture, the .tgi export creates a log file with an error ("channelName == NOT_FOUND -> Material: Mat03 |--- BlenderChannelname = Alpha")

How can I define a material as self-luminous (ambient) so that it is not affected by the sun?

Update: I figured the alpha part out - it can just be included in the diffuse .png / .tif texture and will be used automatically as a mask.
But the texture name should NOT include "alpha" in the name when trying to convert it, the converter for some reason will not convert it and also will not throw any errors

Still desperately trying to figure out how to set a material to be self-illuminated though.. Any help?

Update: I also figured out a way to use the luminance channel, however the material always still needs a diffuse part to be visible, which then visually heavily impacts the brightness of the object in daylight. I would love to be able to have a way to render a material without any influence by sunlight. I also realized the luminance channel only works with static3d objects, not decal objects.

If I use a transparent diffuse texture, the whole object becomes invisible despite having a bright color with no transparency in the luminance channel (so the alpha component in the diffuse channel acts as a global mask). If I use a black diffuse texture, the bright colored luminance texture still gets heavily dimmed during daylight. This is probably there for city lights etc. to appear realistically only illuminated at nighttime, but I wonder if there is a way to override this behaviour with some tag in the .itg or sth

Without any documentation I'm struggling to make progress.

Anyone knows how the light_config.tmc is linked to the object .tmb? Without e.g. loading the island_obj.tmb on Creek Island, no lights get loaded at all, so the creation of lights defined in the light config file seem to be relying on some information included in the object .tmb file.

Apparently the light group name is important as the lights disappear if i change the light group name, but I don't know what information my object .tgi file needs to contain in order for a light to appear.

Quote from admin

We can however answer some questions if you like.

As for the light config, yes, each light group references an object in another file. All coordinates are then relative to the position of the referenced object.

If you contact us via email at mail(at)ipacs.de, we can check and see if we can provide you with more information directly.

Thank you for the offer, mail is sent 🥰

jparia sure, I can share more insight while i gain them like i did earlier in this thread.
I will just try to keep adding updates here whenever i figure out more stuff.
Right now this is more or less trial and error / toying around, but interesting to figure out to see what's possible 👌
A RC10 modding wiki would also be helpful, but for now this thread and the official documentation will have to suffice. I might also dust off my old blog and collect all necessary info there in one post if thats helpful. for now i will just stick to this thread.

Turned out the testgeometry I had used to try to place a light was buggy (imported from Cinema 4D to Blender) - when I use a native blender plane, light creation works perfectly fine simply by naming the object in the .tgi file the same as the light group in the light_config.tmc (even seems to be case-insensitive).

I'm struggling with the next thing and since I already wait for Email Feedback, I don't want to spam addition Emails right now.

I want to rotate an object i am loading in my scenery .tsc.
According to this thread from 2017, this feature was already added to FS2, so I'm curious, hasn't this been added to RC10 or am I using it wrong?

No matter what values I use, the object seems to be placed in the same orientation every time.

Quote from jparia

You always have to copy the object files folder into the Aerofly RC10 objects directory.
I haven't found a way to place them in the user part.

Not that familiar with the panorama scenes, but they are similar to the 4D scenes.
You can put the objects directly into your user scenery folder.
Export your model from blender as .tgi with the Blender Plugin from IPACS.
Check that the texture names in the .tgi represent your actual texture names (they can be converted from e.g. png to .ttx, you probably know the process from your air plane models)
It helps if you already apply materials with the same texture names in blender, the Exporter Plugin will then put those into the .tgi automatically
Then use their RC10 SDK to convert the .tgi to a .tmb and put it in your scenery folder and load it in the .tsc

Use "virtual" for collision objects and if you use "static3d", the texture names must match or it will load nothing since there is no fitting texture

hope this helps, but maybe you already figured it out

For dynamic objects you are probably right that they need to sit with the other objects as they are organized independently from scenes which kind of makes sense for reuse (but may be tricky for distribution of scenes with custom dynamic objects).



Texture name example in the .tgi file