The next development release of ModelConverterX contains improvements to the rendering of the object in the preview. The two biggest changes are that the specular hotspot and the fresnel effects are now shown in the preview as well. I am not convinced that the fresnel effect is exactly like in FSX, but I think it […]
Classify building footprints
I have been adding more built-in attributes to scenProc recently, to allow you to classify buidling footprints in different types. Then for each type you can make different kind of autogen. This work is not yet finished, but in this blog post I want to show what you can do already now. Please read the […]
Built-in help
In the last two days I have made scenProc a little more robust. Before any mistake in the configuration file would usually result in a crash of the entire tool. That has been changed now. The tool will now check if you provided the right amount of parameters and give a warning when that is […]
User interface change
I have changed the main user interface of ModelConverterX a bit, actually it has gone back to some of the concepts that the tool used in 2008 already. I did remove the tabs that were used for the preview, event log and options. Instead of those tabs the options are now on a separate form, […]
Problem reporting
user: He, your tool does not work. me: What do you mean? What are you trying to do and what goes wrong? user: When I import my object it crashes. You need to help me, I have to convert this object. me: What is the error message you get at the crash? Can you maybe […]
Correcting for the FSX curved earth
One of the main differences between FS2004 and FSX when it comes to rendering the earth, is that FS2004 assumes that the earth is locally flat while rendering the scene, while FSX uses the correct curvature of the earth as well. But this has some consequences for scenery designers. When you make ground polygons they […]
Bye, bye, performance indicator mode
ModelConverterX used to have a render mode called performance indicator mode. With this mode you could spot where the texture mapping or normals were not so optimal. The recent updates to the preview have removed that mode. But I have now added two replacements. One is called the Normal Inspect mode and the other TexMap Inspect […]
A bit buggy
The recent changes I made to the ModelConverterX preview turn out to be a bit buggy. To be honest that’s not a surprise to me. I am still learning the OpenGL shader language and also the fact that every graphics card might handle the shader code slightly different does not make the job easier. But […]
Updated ModelConverterX preview
The development release of ModelConverterX now contains an updated preview of the objects. It is now using OpenGL shaders, which as enabled me to add some cool new functions. Like showing bump maps and the reflection influenced by specular maps. Be aware that this is a big change, so it might have resulted a few […]
Instant Object Studio – part 2
Since my previous blog post about the new Instant Object Studio tool I received a review copy of the tool (thanks for that Konstantin). So I am now able to answer some of the questions I still raised in my previous post. When placing for example a roof on a box, the tool does not […]