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I know that the manual of ModelConverterX is lagging behind the development release a bit. This is actually on purpose, since I only update it when I make a new stable release. But I do realize that this means that many features are undocumented at the moment. Since reading manuals is not something every user does, I am trying a new approach now. I have opened a YouTube channel on which I will regularly post short videos to show how certain functions of ModelConverterX work.

So hopefully that will make it a little easier to use the tool. And on the plus side, it is also quite nice to make such little videos. Of course the manual will still get updated when I make a new stable release.

Crashboxes

I have added a new function to ModelConverterX, you can now also visualize the crashboxes of MDL objects. This can give a very interesting insight in how those crashboxes have been made by XtoMDL or MakeMDL when you exported the object. They do not always follow the shape of the object exactly. To turn on the display of the crash boxes, you need to press the icon with the wall on it (next to the icon that toggles the display of bounding boxes). Below is a screenshot that shows a church I made with the crashboxes enabled.

Added platform support

Sometimes a new feature is not that difficult to implement as you first think. For example adding support for platforms was on the ModelConverterX wishlist for a long time already. Yesterday I have started on it and now the new feature is done already. So from tomorrow you will find that the development release can handle platforms as well. This means you can:

  • Read platforms from FS2004 and FSX MDL files
  • Write platforms to FS2004 and FSX MDL files
  • Edit platforms using the Attached Object Editor
  • Preview them in the preview

Since I do not have FS2004 installed on my computer anymore, I have not been able to test all the FS2004 related functionality as much as I wanted. So please let me know if you find any issues in it. Since there is no manual yet for the new features of the development release, I will try to give some instructions on how to use them below.

Display of platforms

When you have loaded an object that has platforms in it, they can be displayed in the preview. This is toggled with the same button that is used to display other attached objects in the model. The platform will be shown as a semi-transparent polygon (red by default, yellow if you have the platform selected in the attached object editor). See the two screenshots below as illustration.

Editing and adding platforms

You can edit the platforms using the Attached Object Editor. You will not be able to change the actual shape of the polygons, but you can change their position or orientation (heading, pitch and roll).

You can also add new platforms in the editor. For those new platforms you can enter a length and width attribute to determine their size. That means they are always rectangular. Of course you can also specify the position and orientation. See the images below.

Auto platform tool

A last new feature is the Auto Platform tool. This is available from the Attached Object Editor as well. Below you see the form of this tool. This allows you to automatically create platforms from polygons that match certain criteria. There are two criteria you can select:

  1. The normal. You can create platforms from any polygon that is facing upwards. But with the Filter normal upwards setting you can determine how much upwards it must be pointing. A value of 1.0 means completely upwards (so a flat roof). A value of 0 would be a normal wall that is not pointing upwards. You can enter a value in between these two limits. This allows you to determine if you want to create the platform for a flat roof or also for the tiled roof elements.
  2. Material. If you enable the checkbox you can also filter on the material that is selected in the combobox. This means that platforms will only be made from polygons that have this material.

The image at the bottom shows how I have made platforms on the roof of this test object. They are shown in yellow in this image.

Platforms!

Maybe not the most exciting looking picture. But it shows the feature from the ModelConverterX wishlist that I have started working on. This feature is adding support for platforms. I have started with reading the platforms from FSX MDL files. What you see in the image indicated with the red lines are the triangles of the platform. I am still experimenting what is the best way to represent them in the preview. Also I will need to add support to write them back to the MDL files before this feature is really useful. So if will take a little while before this is available in the development release. But at least you know I am working on it now.

Seasonal textures in the Ground Polygon Wizard

About a week ago I already wrote about the new functionality I was working on for the ModelConverterX Ground Polygon Wizard. Now I have finished it and from tomorrow it is available in the development release. Since there is no manual for this tool yet, let me explain how to add night textures or seasonal textures to your ground polygons while converting.

Most of the process has not changed. So you still select the file you want to import. The gridview in the middle will then show all materials found in your object. In this view you will see two extra columns. One is for night textures and the other is for seasonal textures. So if you check the checkbox that type of texture is added to the material. For the night textures the default suffix to the texture name is _LM. For the seasonal textures the suffixes are _SP for spring, _FA for fall, _WI for winter and _HW for heavy winter. Summer gets no suffix, as that is the normal texture.

You will also see the “Define seasons” button. If you click on this you get the image shown below. This allows you to specify at which day of the year the different seasons start. If you want to know how to determine the seasons of the mesh scenery, have a look at this article on the FSDeveloper Wiki. I have tried to make this form as user friendly as possible, it should automatically make sure that if you change one day, the matching day of the next or previous season also changes.

I hope this new functionality is useful. And if there are any bugs and suggestions on how to make it easier please let me know.

ModelConverterX preview and FSX material settings

I have updated the preview in ModelConverterX. It now uses more of the FSX material settings while rendering. More concrete this means that the framebuffer blend and alpha test function options in the material are now displayed in the preview correctly. So you should get a better idea of how your model will look in FSX. I have not tested all combinations, but it should be how FSX will also display them. Some settings really give funny results, I am not sure if there is a useful way to use them yet.

Microsoft Flight forum closed on FSDeveloper

We have decided to close the Microsoft Flight forum we had on FSDeveloper. The reason for this is that we are a developer oriented forum and at the moment there is not much to discuss about development for Microsoft Flight. Therefore most discussing going on in that forum was gossiping, rumours and guessing. This often turned into heated discussions, not in the friendly tone we like to have in the FSDeveloper community.

Therefore we have closed the forum now. If you want to gossip about Microsoft Flight there are enough other places on the internet to do so. When there is enough information to discuss development for Microsoft Flight, we will of course allow this again on FSDeveloper.

Ground Polygon Wizard: night and seasons

In the last few days I have been working on the last missing feature of the Ground Polygon Wizard of ModelConverterX, the option to add night and seasonal textures from the wizard. This work is not completely done yet, but the part that generates the actual code is done. I just need to finish the graphical user interface and do some more testing. So hopefully I can release this feature in a couple of days. On the right is a small preview of how the user interface will probably look. For each material you can specify with a checkbox if it needs a night texture or seasonal textures as well. Just like you specify the layer and visibility range.

FSDeveloper emails

It seems that we have a few issues at the FSDeveloper website with sending emails. We are investigating these issues now. So if you tried to register a new account and don’t get an email confirmation this can be the cause. If you have trouble with this, please contact us and we’ll try to help you.