Marginal X-Plane Scenery Tutorials Hangar Setting Up

Installing Blender

Get the latest version of Blender:

	Download and run the "Installer" build of Blender.
10.5	Download the "Python 2.5" build of Blender for Intel or PPC. To install, copy the Blender application out of the disk image eg to your /Applications folder.
10.3 & 10.4	Download the default "Python 2.3" build of Blender for Intel or PPC, unless you have installed Python 2.5. To install, copy the Blender application out of the disk image eg to your /Applications folder.
	Most distros come with Blender, so you can install it via your package manager (eg Synaptic, YaST, YUM). Or download the build that corresponds to the version of Python that is installed on your system.

This tutorial was written using Blender versions 2.33-2.36, so you might notice some cosmetic changes using a later version.

Run Blender to check that the installation worked OK. If the Blender window appears "blurry" turn off anti-aliasing in your video card's OpenGL settings and re-start Blender.

Installing export scripts

• Choose File → Quit Blender.
• Download the scripts required to export Blender objects to X-Plane's "OBJ" format:

Download:

XPlane2Blender

2000/XP	Extract the contents of the zip file to a new (temporary) folder. Open the new folder. Double-click on the file install.cmd. (This installs the scripts in the folder %HOME%\.blender\scripts if it exists, otherwise in the copy of Blender that is associated with .blend files).
98/ME	Extract the contents of the zip file to: C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\.blender\scripts (or wherever you installed Blender).
	Double-click on the file install.command. (This installs the scripts in the folder ~/.blender/scripts if it exists, otherwise in all copies of Blender that the Finder knows about).
	Start a shell window, and type: mkdir -p ~/.blender/scripts Extract the contents of the zip file to this folder.

You can now delete the temporary folder.

Information about the scripts can be viewed by choosing Help → X-Plane in Blender.

Create folders

We're making a model of the Virgin Atlantic maintenance hangar at London Heathrow (EGLL). We'll call the scenery package "EGLL" and the hangar scenery "VAhangar". Before we start making the scenery, we need to create the folders that it will live in:

• Find and open the Custom Scenery folder inside your X-Plane installation.
• Create a sub folder called EGLL - this is the name of our scenery package.
• Open the EGLL folder.
• Create three new sub folders, called Earth nav data, objects and textures.

...\X-Plane\Custom Scenery\EGLL

...\X-Plane\Custom Scenery\EGLL\Earth nav data

...\X-Plane\Custom Scenery\EGLL\objects

...\X-Plane\Custom Scenery\EGLL\textures

Start up

• Now start Blender. But don't touch anything yet!

Also run the Console application that comes with Mac OS X and which is found in the Utilities folder.

On start-up the Blender window is divided into three sub-windows. The window type is displayed in the menu bar of each window:

User Preferences

3D View

Buttons Window

Preferences

The User Preferences window at the top of the screen is minimised by default. To reveal the contents, grab the window border and drag it down:

By default, selecting things in Blender is done using the Right mouse button . That's counter-intuitive for anyone, and is a serious pain for Mac users who only have one mouse button (which by convention is the Left one). So, we'll tell Blender we want to use the Left mouse button to select things instead:

• Select the View & Controls section.
• Select Left Mouse under "Select with":

If you want to change language, colours, themes or other preferences, now might be a good time. But don't change any other settings in the View & Controls section or any settings at all in the Edit Methods section, otherwise Blender might behave differently for you than assumed in this tutorial.

• Close the User Preferences window by dragging the window border back to the top of the screen.

Clear the workspace

In the 3D View window in the middle there are four objects:

For our purposes, we don't need or want the Lamp, Cube or Camera, so lets delete them:

• Select the Lamp object by clicking on it using . Note that the lamp turns pink to show you that it's selected, and its name appears in the bottom left corner of the window.
• Press .
• A confirmation dialog pops up:

• Press or to confirm.

Repeat for the Cube and Camera.

Now that we have a nice clean workspace, let's save this set-up so it's the default set-up every time we start Blender:

• Choose File → Save Default Settings to save your choices:

Name the scenery

Finally, the scripts that we'll run when we're ready to export the scenery to X-Plane will make use of the Blender file name. So lets give the Blender file the right name now:

• Choose File → Save As...
• Navigate to the ...\X-Plane\Custom Scenery\EGLL\objects folder that you made earlier. (You can use the P button to go up a folder).
• Type in the name VAhangar and press .
• Press the Save As button:

Next time you start Blender, you can easily come back to this file by choosing File → Reopen Last.

Note that Blender does not automatically save your work when you quit. Always choose File → Save before you quit Blender! (Actually Blender does save your work, but in a file called quit.blend in your temporary folder. This can be opened using File → Recover Last Session.)

OK we're done with the admin, now we can start on the scenery.

Marginal X-Plane Scenery Tutorials Hangar Setting Up