SceneryDesign.org For those of you using FSDS as a modelling tool for Flight Simulator, it might be interesting to know that Adam Howe of Abacus has started a blog now. It already contains some tutorials that seem useful for FSDS users and hopefully the future will bring more interesting posts.
From the old shoebox (1)
Today I was cleaning out some old stuff in my computer room, when I came across some old sketches I made when designing scenery objects for FS98. Since then things have changed a bit, so I thought it would be funny to show them to you. I should start by mentioning that at that time […]
The animation puzzle
This evening I continued with the FSX MDL reader for ModelConverterX. With the LODs done, my next challenge was to read the transformations correctly as well, as some objects now show displaced parts. This was easier said than done, as understanding the way transformations are assigned, also means understanding how the animations work. Luckily, after […]
Objects with a LOD
I have added another improvement to ModelConverterX, it can now read the levels of detail from a MDL file and also display them. This is nice to see how Microsoft has made their LODs. At the moment this functionality only works for the FSX MDL reader, as there is not a very structured way in […]
Shadow model
While working on the FSX MDL reader for ModelConverterX I came across something interesting. I had some models that showed up a bit weird to say the least. It turned out that I was reading both their exterior model and their shadow model. But wait, did you say shadow model there? In the MDL format […]
OpenStreetMap rocks!
I had came across the OpenStreetMap project before, but only when I revisited it earlier this week the reail power of it struck me. Let me start with a little explanation about what OpenStreetMap is. It is a free Wiki world map as their slogan says. I has been created by people collecting GPS tracks […]
Sneak preview
Since I released alpha version 13 of ModelConverterX, I have been working on the next version. For that release I have mainly planned improvements to the usability of the tool. So that means the user interface gets cleaned up a bit, functions are made more logical etc. Another example of the things I am implementing […]
DrawCallMonitor update
Just a quick note that I released an update of the DrawCallMonitor tool. It has some minor improvements and small bugfixes, but hopefully it should make the tool slightly easier to use.
Finished the next version at last
In the last days I have been working hard on the next release of ModelConverterX, which I put online today. Every time when I thought I had fixed all bugs, some new problem appeared again. But now things seem to work good enough again. I am happy to get this new version online and I […]
Example of attached lights and effects
I just added the functionality to create FX effect files to ModelConverterX. This now allows the tool to write new FX files with the correct colour for light points that are used in the converted object. I am not an expert on making effect files, so maybe the FX could be optimized a bit further. […]