SceneryDesign.org This week I did some work on creating elevation data for our Dutch NL2000 scenery. I would like to share the challenges and solutions I encountered. For the NL2000 scenery we have been looking for replacement elevation data for quite a while already. The default FSX elevation data is OK, but it is not really […]
How to vary autogen building height?
One of the items still on my scenProc wishlist is adding a feature that allows you to vary the heights of the autogen buildings In the current version you have to set the same height distribution for all autogen tiles. But how to do that? I started a thread on the forum a while ago to […]
Optimize model tutorial
I have made a new video tutorial. In this tutorial I demonstrate how you can use the new material editor to optimize a model. The optimize tab and the drawcall minimizer are demonstrated.
Custom shadow model
A recent question by Don Grovestine on the FSDeveloper forum made me look more at the shadows of FSX models. As everybody knows, turning on the shadows in FSX can have a considerable influence on the performance. But the FSX MDL format also does allow you to specify a custom model that is used to […]
It’s the scale, stupid
While working on the next update of the NL2000 scenery, I have learned some interesting things again. For this update I have worked on the road bridges we have in the scenery. These objects have been in the scenery a couple of versions already, but with the road traffic that FSX has added it became […]
Importing into GMax
Today I was trying to import an object into GMax again. As usual I used ModelConverterX to make a 3DS file and then imported that one. But, also as usual, that meant a lot of trouble with the textures. Especially since the 3DS format can only store short DOS filenames, it can be quite some […]
Level of detail for FS2004 models
Tonight I have been improving how ModelConverterX reads levels of detail from FS2004 MDL files. The LOD values are now calculated more accurately. Since I spend quite some time figuring out some details I had figured out last year already (but forgot since then), let me sum up my main findings about levels of detail: […]
FSX AGN files
On the FSDeveloper Wiki we have a page describing the FSX autogen (AGN) file format. Today I have been experimenting with AGN files a bit, so I have added more information to this page. Polygonal buidlings, library objects and row houses are not also described. For the other sections I have added some extra explanation […]
Another object placement tool?
For a while I am thinking about how to integrate the different tools I have made better. An example of this integration would be to open objects from Library Creator XML directly into ModelConverterX or easily insert an object from ModelConverterX directly into a library. While playing with those integration idea I had another idea. […]
Adding objects to FlightGear
This evening I took my first (baby) steps into scenery design for FlightGear. Having done scenery design for Microsoft Flight Simulator for such a long time, it takes a little time to get used to the differences. Let me start with the good news, in the end I was able to see my objects. In […]