Aircraft Part OBJs

General

Aircraft Parts are those OBJs that are intended to be attached to an X-Plane ACF on PlaneMaker's Object Window, but is not a Cockpit Object OBJ. These are the most common type of 3D OBJs exported using XP2B, and as such, is the default export type for XP2B.

The type of OBJ exported is set via a pulldown menu at the top of the OBJ Meta-Data dialog. Other OBJ types that may be exported by B2XP include:

This section presents recommendations and suggestions for developing and organizing Aircraft Part OBJs, but are not hard and fast rules that must be followed. An OBJ can represent any 3D shape and you can organize OBJs any way you like; however, certain workflows and patterns have evolved over the years that have proven to be successful and reliable methods for modeling OBJs for Aircraft Parts.

OBJs by ACF Component

This organizational method involves creating Blender collections for logical components of the aircraft and is the most common way to organize collections for Aircraft Parts. A simple list of OBJ/collections with this schema might be something like:

Since one OBJ file uses only one texture set, then the above organization scheme may not give you the level of texture detail that you need for some OBJs. In this case, you can start breaking up the logical components into more specific components so each can have its own texture and you can increase the texel density on each component. Breaking up the above list might yield a list of OBJs like so:

In both examples above, selecting these types of component OBJ names before the 3D work is performed can lead to some potential annoyances if you find yourself needing more texture space for a component than you initially estimated you would. For example, when two OBJs for the fuselage do not give you the texel density you need and you want a 3rd texture for the Fuselage, what do you call that OBJ? What if you need four? etc.

Another strategy for organizing your OBJ collections when you're not sure how many OBJs you're going to need is to use suffix numerals for the OBJ names like so:

The PRO with this schema is that

OBJs by Render Mode

OBJs by Class / Reusability

Defining factor is Reusability. The OBJ will be used multiple times in scenery, or attached to multiple aircraft.

OBJs by Leftovers

Leftover OBJs would be OBJs that contain any Meshes / UV Island of parts that you simply could not fit into another OBJ texture. For example, you may find yourself making a Cabin Seats OBJ and use the entire texture area for the seat upholstery and have no room on the texture left for the seatbelts and buckles. At the same time, you may have a Cabin Interior OBJ and end up with no texture space left for things like USB ports, cup holders, floor rugs or whatever. In these cases, you can utilize a Miscellaneous texture to put all these leftover pieces, rather than trying to force them into other textures and possibly compromise your texel density.