NZFF

Other than EOD, what is a good, easy to use and learn (e.g. within 10-20mins) scenery maker. I would use GMAX but that might take too long for now.

Gmax is your best bet and the end of the day ,ive been using assorts of tools over the ends ive been doing it and i find this one the easiest ,really i would expect anything like this can be learned in that amount of time ,think about at least 2months to pick up the basics and whats what in the ways of making models ..

Gmax is great, haven't used it lately, but after I read Robin Corn's tutorials which are great, and made a couple of things, i realized it is quite easy. Prob one of the best, free programs out there.

Gmax - here

Robin's tutorials - here

If by 'easy to use and learn (e.g. within 10-20mins)' you mean building a basic box, adding a texture and placing in the sim, then you could do that with GMAX by following a suitable tutorial, provided you had all the tools ready and installed, and nothing went wrong. However it may take you some time to get the gamepack etc up and running.

If you mean learning enough to build a complex hanger, then you are probably looking at a couple of weeks of pretty full-on study, but that isn't a GMAX issue, it is 3D design in general -- it just ain't easy, and if you find something that is real easy then it probably won't be powerful enough to do what you want.

To give you some idea of what is involved when I design a building:
1 hour preparing the texture;
30 minutes to 10 hours design depending on the complexity;
5 minutes exporting, adding to a library and placing in FS.

It took me about a year to learn GMAX, but back then there were very few resources or tutorials -- that's why I wrote my own. I'm still learning -- last night at about 10:30 I finally managed to get my first vertex-animated figure working in FSX, after a couple of weeks of hard work:)

toprob wrote:

QUOTE (toprob @ Aug 24 2008, 10:25 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If you mean learning enough to build a complex hanger, then you are probably looking at a couple of weeks of pretty full-on study, but that isn't a GMAX issue, it is 3D design in general -- it just ain't easy, and if you find something that is real easy then it probably won't be powerful enough to do what you want.

To give you some idea of what is involved when I design a building:
1 hour preparing the texture;
30 minutes to 10 hours design depending on the complexity;
5 minutes exporting, adding to a library and placing in FS.

It took me about a year to learn GMAX, but back then there were very few resources or tutorials -- that's why I wrote my own. I'm still learning -- last night at about 10:30 I finally managed to get my first vertex-animated figure working in FSX, after a couple of weeks of hard work:)

Best answer to that question yet ! I used the easy programs FSDS1-2-3 , yet to fully get up to speed with GMAX , the texture is probaly the most important part .. 1 hour preparing , Rob missed out one major point - the time to get the perfect shot (photo) to create the wanted texture , and the huge cost sometimes , weather its travel , camera gear , TIME ..

Basically I want to make an addon to a certain (non-nz) airport which has just got a new terminal. I just want to make a basic rendition (with the ability to make it better over time) of that terminal.

[_____....______....____________....\
..........\_|..........|_/......................\....|
...................................................\_/

Above is sort of the shape.
Mainly squarish with a few jutting out parts with just one roundy bit at the end

(sorry this is quite hard to draw using only text)

Yeah well i would look back at Robins post again and start downloading all the bits you need to get from nothing to fsim
if you are going to do this you will need
Gmax
fs2004 SDK
Robins links to his tutorials windowlight.co.nz
time
prob gimp or something like photoshop for texture building
i started out reading Robins tutorials back in the day and wouldnt be doing all this if it wasent for them and his time putting them together ..
you will be over the moon when you finally get a export to fsim after all the work you have ahead

how do I install GMAX? All it does is extract something then install Fraps.

Gmax has a self installer and does not install fraps at all should look like a red blue 1.2 exe and ask you lots of stuff ,the exe must be crossing each other or something ive had the same thing happen to me but backwards with uninstallers wanting to delete other things ,werid and i dont know