How To get Google Earth 3d terrains or objects into to BeamNG as a DAE

Channel:

BeamNG - TerryMartinART - Mods Assets Solutions

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3,300

Published on May 4, 2021 1:23:15 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNjuQ26DWfQ

Game:

BeamNG.drive (2015)

Category:

Tutorial

Duration: 25:38

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10

Part 2 here only 45 sec long
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYjAhqUA6sc

Meshroom free download https://github.com/alicevision/meshroom/releases/tag/v2021.1.0

BeamNG.drive on Steam
https://store.steampowered.com/app/284160/BeamNGdrive/

Google Earth Pro is free too.
https://www.google.com/earth/versions/#download-pro

First 1/2 of video I am not talking

Each pause in Google Earth is a screenshot being taken

Last part of video only missing loading the DAE from the asset browser, it loaded fine.

I turn off Nvidia Notifications so taking screenshots I do not have to wait for the little notification to leave the screen or that will appear in the next screenshot. You can just wait, but I am not patient.

I use the Magnifier tool while taking screenshots to zoom in enough that the Google Earth is clipped off the screen and the top menu is clipped off the screen. You can manually crop each photo but who wants to do that. You will get a little more detail if you do crop with no zoom however.

You can screen capture at any resolution in Google Earth.
I did try to make a city, it would take far more screenshots than a simple valley like this takes. I great idea is a rock quarry. Every city has one it seems. They would make for a great base mesh to build a dirt track on.
Some areas of Google are flat, obviously you will know the difference when looking for places. There are settings for detail in the options of google earth. Be sure to set everything on best quality. You can also raise the default scaling of terrain and buildings from the 1 to anything from .1 to 3. 3 makes everything look too tall. default is fine for me.
Areas with snow, Mount Everest did not have enough detail in the whites for meshroom to place enough points on. They where clipped to much or blownout.
There is also a web version of Google Earth. I downloaded the free Google Earth Pro to use my 3d card. My PC locks up when enabling hardware acceleration in the browser. So for me the browser crawls.
It may seem like a long video but this is really easy, after one time you will likely say that Terry Martin is doing everything the hard way. And find a lot shorter method.
Last thing is there are various level of detail that meshroom will allow to be selected. High and Ultra are available if you find normal does not work good enough for you. Takes a lot longer.

Any problems feel free to ask !
If you run into problems with Depth Map calculation in meshroom , You do not have enough screenshots (OR photos if real object if not using Google Earth) to calculate the needing data. It will turn red any section that has a problem. Depth Map is the one that will give problems if you have any. Meshroom is how I captured my head to put on the Crashhard Dummie using this technique but had extra steps to get it to work in the mod. Will save that video for when I figure out how to make my own mod of a ragdoll.

If you do use photos of real objects, don't get the FOV blurring out anything in the foreground or background and be sure the sun or lights do not clip your whites or darks. Outside cloudy day is perfect. No shadows works great for 3d objects in real life.

Really the last thing.... In games where you can turn off the hud, and only see game, you can take screen shots to use same method for creating as in google earth. You need anisotropic filtering at 16 cause meshroom does not like blurred backgrounds. Some games will work better than others depending on antialiasing. Or crop out the hud. I made a section of a bridge from Cyberpunk, and a pile of trash from the outskirts.

Realize "converting to mesh" is not necessary step in blender after adding a decimate modifier. Found the apply in the menus on the right a couple days later. It may be applied automatically when exporting come to think about it. I am new to Blender.

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