DrawCallMonitor vs ModelConverterX

DrawCallMonitor is a tool I made some time ago to show statics about the amount of drawcalls, texture vertices and triangles used in a specific MDL file. Recently I have not updated this tool, because the Object Information form of ModelConverterX gives the same information. But is this information really the same?

While discussing how to minimize texture vertices with Lefteris recently we found out that the information shown by the two tools is not the same. So the obvious question then is which one can I believe more?

Given the way the tools are implemented I would say DrawCallMonitor is more accurate. It actually scans the MDL file and reports the amount of drawcalls, triangles and texture vertices mentioned in the part header. ModelConverterX on the other hand imports the object and stores it in an internal memory representations. From this representation it then calculates how many triangles and texture vertices there are. But sometimes things are optimized a bit already when importing. So it is likely that ModelConverterX might report less texture vertices.

I am currently comparing the code and how the tools work on different objects. While doing so I even found out that after exporting an object from ModelConverterX the amount of texture vertices was even lower than reported in the tool before. So I think it would be a good idea to figure out which figure is most reliable. You expect some more information soon!

ModelConverterX user settings

How ModelConverterX stores your settings is a topic that has resulted in some discussion on the forum already. So let me try to make things more clear with this post.

I am using a build in functionality of .NET to store the settings, which are conveniently called settings as well. This functionality automatically makes sure that the settings are stored on your computer and it does that per user on your system. So they end up somewhere in the application data for your user.

As long as that all works as expected that is fine of course. But when making updated versions things get a bit tricky. The settings functionality takes two things into account when determining where to store the data:

  1. Version of the application
  2. Folder name of the executable

The version of the application is something I don’t change often, only with major release. So the development release is version 1.3 for quite a while already. But the folder where the application is stored is something I don’t control of course. Some users prefer to keep different versions side by side, which I can understand, but that results in the user settings not being shared by the different versions. Most likely each new version will always start from scratch with all default settings. So if that annoys you, I would suggest that you always store the latest development release in a folder with the same name.

Having said all this, you know how the current implementation works. And hopefully it helps you to be less annoyed by loosing the settings when you upgrade. But I must also add I understand this is not a perfect situation. So I will be looking at better ways to store the user settings in the future. When I do that I will also look at related issues, like for example the desire to have different profiles for FS2004 and FSX models. But that is something for the future.

Animation slider

I have made a small change to the ModelConverterX user interface. The control to manipulate an animation have moved to a new toolbar now. Since this toolbar takes some space, it is only shown when the object loaded has an animation. Else the entire toolbar is hidden. This new toolbar also has a slider that you can use to move the animation frame. From tomorrow this change is in the development release.

Changes to FSDeveloper forum structure

Today I will be making some changes to the forum structure. With time going on, how we make our addons has also changed slightly. For example when we started FSDeveloper more ASM tweaking was needed, but now that forum is not so active anymore. With these changes to the structure we want to make sure you can find what you are looking for quickly. Let me stress that we won’t remove anything, we might merge two categories or put a subforum in a different category.

I will post all the details once I am finished with the changes. For now this is just a warning that today you might notice that I am making these changes on FSDeveloper. So if you suddenly see a forum move, don’t worry, it’s me.

First version FXEditor released

I have just released the first beta version of the new FXEditor tool. With this tool you can edit the special effects of FS and it gives you an interactive preview while you are editing the effect. On FSDeveloper I have opened a new support forum for this tool. Especially take a look at the general information topic there, since it tells you where to download the tool and where to find the manual.

Make sure that you set the path to your FS version in the options before using the tool, as else certain parts will not work correctly.

This is a first beta version, so not all effects will render correctly at the moment. I am aware of the following limitations at the moment:

  • The preview tries to render the effect as close to FS as possible, but this might still need some tuning.
  • The tool will play the sound of an effect as well, but when you load a controller effect it will currently only play the sound of the first effect, not of others.
  • Effects that are extruding along lines, like the waves, are not supported by the tool at the moment.

Let me know if you have problems with certain effects or if you have other suggestions to improve the tool. I have two items on my wishlist already:

  • Remember recently opened files, so that they can be reloaded quicker.
  • Add user editable templates for new effects. That way you can get a suitable template when creating a new effect.

ModelConverterX special effects update now available

I have just put a new development release of ModelConverterX online. The main change in this version is that it is now possible to visualize special effects in the 3D preview as well. So if you are placing such an effect, you will be able to preview how it is going to look in FS. Next to the paperclip button that toggles the display of attachpoints, you will find a new button now that toggles the display of the particle effects.

Since effect files reside in the effects folder of your FS installation, it is important that you make sure that the path to FS is set correctly in the options. The FS paths have moved from the texture settings to the FS related settings of the options in this new version. If your registry keys for FS are valid you don’t have to set it manually by the way.

Please be aware that this is a first beta release of the particle effect functionality. I tried to make the rendering of the effects as close to the way FS renders them, but I am sure there are still some bugs in there. So let me know if you have problems viewing certain effects or if you feel that the dynamics of the effect are wrong.

Special effects getting out of control!

I still remember how this started. I had made a video tutorial about adding effects to an object using ModelConverterX. One of the remarks on that tutorial was like “he would it not be nice if we can see the actual effect in the preview as well?”. Well, why not I thought, it should be fun to try to render the effects as well. So from that moment on the idea was spinning around somewhere in the back of my head.

I actually started coding it when I got back from vacation and after not that long I can render my first particle effect for a smoke stack. If you follow me on Facebook as well, you have probably seen the short videos of it I posted there. At the moment I think I can render the majority of the default special effects that come with FSX, although I am sure there will still be a few bugs in the rendering of them. Below is a screenshot of one.

The main thing I still need to do is add support of the controller effects, these are effects that call other effects again. For example the firework shows are setup using them. At the moment they can not yet be rendered. Once that is done I think I am close to releasing this feature for everybody to play with. I am sure you will find some bugs in certain effects, but I will be able to debug that much quicker once more people start testing and using this feature.

With this blog post I would also like to announce a new tool, FXEditor. You might already have seen in the screenshots that they are not from ModelConverterX. I made a small tool to help me develop and test the rendering of particle effects. At the moment the tool mainly loads the FX file and then renders it. But as you can see I have a text editing area in it already. In the future I want to make it an editor so that you can have a quick preview of edits you make to effect files.

It might take a little debug to make sure that the preview represents correctly how your effect will look in FSX later on, but I think that will be a fun way to develop FX files later on. At least I have a lot of fun with it now developing. I never realised that different kind of effects that come with FSX by default. In the last couple of days I have learned a lot already about how they work.

And as the icing on the cake I have also added a feature to hear the sound file associated with the effect. Especially the chickens of the barnstorm effect surprised the rest of the family here at home. Maybe I should add an option to not play the sound as well in the future.

OK, enough talking and screenshots for now (it is quite fun to view all the different effects). Tomorrow I will continue on the controllers and hopefully within a few days I can give this feature to the users for further testing.

Object Information form update

I have updated the Object Information form of ModelConverterX. Besides rearranging the information a bit, you can now also see and edit the placement information of the object on the form. This means you can see the latitude, longitude, heading and scale the object is placed at. If there is no placement yet, you can use the “Add position” button to create one.

At the moment only a few object readers will read placement information. So this information will be read only from the KMZ reader and from certain SCASM files. Also when exporting the placement information is not used by all exporters. Only the BGL exporter for FS2004 or FSX uses it at the moment.

If you click “Show map” button you will get a form with a map view, similar to the one used in the Convert and Place Object Wizard. This should make it easier to select the right placement for your object. I have also redesigned the Convert and Place Object Wizard a bit now, it will show the map in the same separate window as the Object Information form from now on.