XPlane2Blender Notes

[Copied from main xplane11 page]

Non-visible Blenders Layers are not combined with their corresponding X-Plane Layers and do not get exported.

Making objects visible in multiple layers is not recommended because it can get messy fast. [fact check]

The most helpful document was the “hello world” process I went through until I figured out what was going on.

What is required is this:

• You have a single texture image used by everything in your cockpit.
• Make a graphic representing the gauge needle. It will be UV mapped to the same texture.
• Make a Armature Bone which you parent to be the Bone Parent of the gauge needle.
• Apply rotation and scale for the bone and the gauge needle object.
• To set up the movement, you need to be in Pose Mode.
• Select the Bone, and look at the X-Plane tab in the Properties.
• Paste in the dataref to be mapped, e.g., sim/cockpit2/engine/indicators/N1_percent[0]
• Go to Frame 1 or other starting point
• Press “I” to make a key frame, and select Rotation.
• In the Bone Properties, enter a value, such as “0” and click the “key” button. This creates another gauge entry which tracks with the regular Blender animation.
• Go to Frame 100 or other ending point
• Rotate the Bone to the ending position. I used YXZ Euler. I selected the axis that gave the correct motion, in my case, entering something like -270 degrees. There is a tendency for the gauge to rotate the closest direction, not the correct one. This is only related to the Bone and its rotation, not relevant to the XPlane2Blender plugin.
• Press “I” to make a key frame for this ending position, and select Rotation.
• In the Bone Properties, enter the end value, such as “1” and click the “key” button.

At this point, you can “scrub” across the timeline from 1 to 100, and the bone should move as desired. Usually, the value in the Bone properties will show the proportion as well to match.

Export the Cockpit.obj file. If you follow the directions and place the Blender file in <airplane>/cockpit_3d/-IMAGES- then clicking the button “Export OBJ” in Blender's Scene tab will overwrite the file in the correct place. Then within X-Plane, you can use Developer → Import Aircraft and Graphic, and it more quickly reloads the aircraft.

At its simplest, you use Plane Maker to append the Cockpit.obj file to the aircraft, and then position it relative to the aircraft's position.