Sketchup to X-plane manual

X-Plane plugin for SketchUp
Overview

SketchUp is a free (as in beer) 3D object editor for Windows and MacOS.

This SketchUp plugin exports models to X-Plane v7 or v8 .obj format.

Installation

Copy the files SU2XPlane.html, SU2XPlane_DE.html and SU2XPlane.rb into your SketchUp Plugins folder:

* Windows:
SketchUp & Pro 6: C:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 6\Plugins
SketchUp 5: C:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp\Plugins
SketchUp Pro 5: C:\Program Files\@Last Software\SketchUp 5\Plugins
* Mac OS:
Sketchup & Pro 6: /Library/Application Support/Google SketchUp 6/SketchUp/Plugins
SketchUp 5: /Library/Application Support/Google SketchUp/Plugins
SketchUp Pro 5: /Users/you/Library/Application Support/SketchUp 5/Plugins

(Re)start SketchUp.

You can now delete the .zip file that you downloaded. This help file can be viewed by choosing Help → X-Plane in SketchUp.
Creating X-Plane scenery objects

Before you start, you can use Google Earth to get a photo of the area that you're about to model:

* In Google Earth zoom in to the area.
* In SketchUp choose Tools → Google Earth → Get Current View.

Create your model in SketchUp out of Rectangles and Circles (any Arcs will be ignored). Save the SketchUp .skp file in the aircraft or scenery folder where you want the X-Plane .obj file to end up.

In an image editor application create one texture file that is like a "collage" of all of the textures that you need in your model. The height and width of the texture file must be powers of two (eg 128, 256, 512, 1024) but it doesn't have to be square. See …/Custom Scenery/KSBD Demo Area/KSBD_example.png for a basic example.

Save the texture file in 24bit or 32bit PNG format (ie with or without an "Alpha" channel) in the aircraft or scenery folder where you want the X-Plane .obj file to end up.

Use the Paint Bucket tool to apply your one texture file to every face in your model. Use Context menu → Texture → Position to map the correct portion of this texture file to each face (see here for a tutorial).

To position a texture on a curved surface you first have to enable View → Hidden Geometry. Then select one face of the surface at a time and position the texture on each face.

If you want both sides of a face to be displayed in X-Plane then apply the Paint Bucket tool twice; once on each side of the face. You can use the Window → Entity Info panel to see which texture(s) are currently assigned to the two sides of the currently selected face.

You can use Tools → Highlight Untextured to help you with texturing. This doesn't change how your model will appear in X-Plane, but it does highlight in SketchUp any problems with your texturing:

1. Untextured faces are coloured red. This helps you to identify these faces.
2. For faces that are textured on just one side, the other side is hidden (by setting the opacity to 0). This helps you see if you've textured the wrong side of any faces. Use Context menu → Reverse Faces on the face if you have.

Attributes

This plugin adds three entries to the context menu. These can be used when you have a face selected:

Hard
Controls whether aircraft can land on and/or collide with this face in X-Plane. Making faces "hard" is expensive so use this sparingly. Vertical "hard" faces don't work as you might expect; if you want to make a building collidable just use this button on the roof, not on the sides.
(Note that only faces that Sketchup considers to be simple rectangles can be "hard" in

v7 objects.
X-Plane versions prior to 8.20 have a bug where .obj files that contain hard faces must be placed in WorldMaker with an "object heading" of 0 - if you need to rotate the object then rotate it in SketchUp and not in WorldMaker).

Ground
Controls whether the face is rendered with "polygon offsetting" in X-Plane.
Use this on faces that lie flat on the ground to prevent Z-buffer thrashing in X-Plane. Don't press this button for other faces.
(Note that this setting may not have the desired effect in some X-Plane versions prior to 8.20).

Alpha
This is a hint to X-Plane that the face is textured with a partially or wholly transparent or translucent texture.
Use this on any transparent or translucent faces through which you want to see other faces from the same model. Don't press this button for opaque (normal) faces.

Exporting to X-Plane

If you have not already done so, choose File → Save As… and save the .skp file in the aircraft or scenery folder where you want the X-Plane .obj file to end up.

If you have loaded a terrain photo from Google Earth then you need to hide it before exporting:

* Choose Window → Layers.
* In the Layers panel ensure that "Google Earth Terrain" and "Google Earth Snapshot" are both unchecked.
* If you loaded the terrain photo before you started modelling then you can read the co-ordinates where your model should be placed in X-Plane from the Window → Model Info panel; select Location and press the Custom location… button.

Then choose one of:

File → Export X-Plane v7 Object
v7 objects can be used in X-Plane v7 or v8.
Curved surfaces will appear "steppy" in X-Plane.

File → Export X-Plane v8 Object
v8 objects can only be used in X-Plane v8.16 and later.
X-Plane will display curved surfaces correctly.

The object is created in the same folder and with the same name as the current SketchUp file, but with a .obj extension.

You may see the following warnings:

Warning: You used multiple texture files. Using file name.
You used more than one texture file to texture the faces in your model.
X-Plane requires that you use only one texture file for all of your faces.

Warning: n faces are untextured.
You have not applied a texture to all of the faces in your SketchUp model.
X-Plane will colour the untextured faces with the bottom left pixel from your texture file (or grey if you have not applied a texture to any of the faces).

If you see either warning then X-Plane probably won't display your model as you intended.
Limitations

Construct your SketchUp model out of Rectangles, Circles, Components and Groups only - any other SketchUp types (including Arcs) are not exported.

This plugin does not allow you to create advanced X-Plane scenery primitives, including:

* Animations
* Attributes: eg cockpit, materials etc
* Level Of Detail
* Lights
* Lines
* Smoke

License

These tools are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike license.

Use of these tools does not impose any requirement on you to license your work under a Creative Commons license. For the avoidance of doubt, this means that you can license any scenery that you make using these tools under commercial terms (subject to any licensing restrictions on any imported or library objects that you use).

The author would appreciate a courtesy copy of any commercial scenery that you make using these tools, but you are under no obligation.


Extraido del programa

Con respecto a este manual, probe usar arcos, y los exporta. Le pude poner incluso textura a los mismos. Asi q no duden en usarlos, pero siempre pruebenlo por las dudas