3D Grass in FSX

This method has been presented in FSdeveloper by stacking ground poly and playing
alpha channel to make an illusion that the grass is connected vertically. My tutorial is
to make it easier and use new tool, ModelConverterX. It is also easy to make 3d grass
in a big international airport in any area shape.

1. You have made taxiway and the edge already. In this example I will make a grass
in the area among taxiways like an island of grass. I select the edge of the edge (1) of
taxiway to cover around the area. Click on Polygon Selection and drag around the
edge of the ground poly that you want to make grass

2. Click on Create Shape button. Choose linear in the pop up window and click OK.
You will get the Spline shape around the area.
3. Now you have spline that we need, press F3 to see wire frame and check all the
vertices that should be connected. Some time there are some vertices that are not
connected. You need to select this vertex and move a bit. There will be a window
pop up to ask if you want to weld them, just click yes.

4. In the area I intend to make grass, there is a cannel. I draw a rectangle (9) and
attach it to the previous spline.
5. Then convert that spline to be an editable poly. So I got a polygon for the whole
area of grass.

6. Apply the texture. I use the real texture of the grass and make alpha channel and
put noise to it. You can use just only pure green color for your texture. Your grass
will be all green. But I use the texture that has variation of color, so the grass will
have variation. However it will be pattern as well. Try it and see which suits to your
preference.

7. After apply to the polygon, you need to map it. Lets us map at 10 meters x 10
meters and see how it looks. The smaller area the dot is alpha channel will be closed
together. You need to try by yourself. No exact numbers here. You need to rename it
as grass or anything that you can remember (10).

8. Now you need to make stakes of ground poly up vertically. I use Array tool and
make (12) it stacks up to 10 layers at 15 cm apart (11). You can add more layers and
make it close together more. But the whole layers should not exceed 15 cm.
9. Now attach them together as one piece. Select the first layer and attach other layer
to it by using attach list. If you see it the screenshot here, I have GRASS too. It is the
grass that I have made before, comprise of grass from different areas attached
together. After I attach this area, I will select GRASS and attach this newly made
area to it.

10. Now, it you finish making it for the whole airport, you need to export it with
FS2004 gamepack to be FS9MDL. In case that you make the first area, let export it
first to see the result. If not satisfy, come back to gmax and change the mapping to be
smaller or put more stakes of the polygons. If you are satisfy with the result, you go
on making other areas.

11. Now you need to convert your 3dgrass into ground poly. Previously, you need to
tweak asm code by hands. But now we have ModelConverterX from Arno. Lets use
it. You have to load the MDL file to MCX Ground Polygon Wizard and choose the
layer you want. Normally, I use the lowest layer 8 or 12. You need to check these box
out as I show you with red arrows here. DO NOT filter out non-ground polygons, NO
Slice, NO Group polygons.
12. Then click on Convert button. You WILL get this message if you do it RIGHT.
If you do not get it, something wrong. You need to load MDL file again and check out
all the boxes I mentioned earlier.

13. Convert you texture with ImageTool and put it in Texture folder of your project
and put the bgl file to Scenery folder. Then get in FSX to see the result.

You can make texture for Spring, fall, winter and name it TextureName_SP,
TextureName_FA and TextureName_WI. And choose seasonal variation in MCX as
well. You can change your alpha as a white and make texture to completely white to
simulate snow. I havent done that but you can play around with your imagination.

Hope you have fun with it.

Copyright Jirayu Tanabodee 6 October 2014