I don’t know; it’s not at the top of the priority Q right now.

Just curious about when, if ever, will the Ac3d X-Plane plugin support object lights, or if it’s even in the roadmap.

“Many also use SketchUp which by the way is more user friendly for first time developers.”

SketchUp is easy to get started with, but I’m not sure it’s suitable for heavy-duty “gaming” work. In particular it lacks UV unwrapping and texture consolidation/baking. There are third-party plugins that attempt to address this, but at the expense of complicating the workflow.

FYI the X-Plane plugin supports basic v9/v10 features including animation, draping and lights.

yep – there will not be any one tool to make everyone happy, and fortunately no requirement that there be only one.

Blender 2.6x are working perfect with 3.20 export script, and it is, a lot easier to work with that, than the 2.49. There is noway to go back 2.49, except the import future that is missing from 3.20 script.

But, on the other hand, I can understand why Laminar stick with 2.49. If you have tons of artwork, it is going to be enormous task to go to an newer version.

So, Laminar sticks with 2.49 and I with 2.6x! I think both are happy! And everyone should feel so with what suits to their needs!

Wait, I am _not_ saying that there should be one preferred 3-d program for X-Plane.

I am _not_ saying that everyone should use Blender 2.49, or that Blender 2.49 is in some way “official”.

In terms of tools, I am not writing tons of exporters for tons of programs because I do not have time. So I work on exporters here and there as I can; very often the time I can spend on tools comes from supporting our internal team. I would like to see exporters for many 3-d programs but I will not write them all myself, because of a lack of time.

The tools section currently only lists tools that were directly coded by LR and are part of LR’s tools code base. The old scenery section used to contain links to third party tools; I think I need to include the links again.

No. The scripts are not portable because the blender python interface changed, making a port impossible. You really have to think of 2.49 and 2.5x as different programs.

There are already exporters for _both_ 2.5x and 2.49 right now.

There is no such thing as a “standard”. There are multiple programs that can all be used to model for X-Plane: ac3d, Blender 2.49, blender 2.5x, 3DS, and to a lesser extent Sketchup and who-knows-what-else. The fact that I am working on scripts for 2.49 doesn’t make 2.49 official – it is one of many solutions. The code for the 2.49 (and 2.5x, and ac3d) exporters are all open source; anyone can work on them.

I can say this:
1. the LR internal team is going to stick with Blender 2.49 for a while because we have an existing set of art assets in 2.49, and it would take a large amount of effort with no benefit to users to convert to 2.5. for our internal use.
2. the LR internal team has, for the most part, not asked me to convert them to 2.5. There are a few things they see and like in 2.5x but the learning curve and total change-over of switching versions outweighs the new features by a lot.

As I see the point of maintaining just one perfered 3D program for X-Plane it must make an objection to this rule of thumbs. As many seem to be using either Blender, Ac3D, etc. Many also use ScetchUp which by the way is more user friendly for first time developers. I am not sure how suited the export feature is for Scetchup, but I would imagine the X-Plane community are a hole lot more int. in having more developers out there than only the inner hardcore users that infact bother to learn program such as Belnder, which btw is not all that cool..

I boils down to preferences right, but why not having a scripts for several programs listed in i.e your download section here at this blog? Either it is Blender, 3DSMax, Maya, Scetchup etc. The general purpose would be, if you know a 3D program, you can develop for X-Plane?

Thoughts?