Moving status #4

Since a few days FSDeveloper is running on the new server now and this are going well. The new server seems to be faster than the old one for most users. Today we have made two additional changes:

  • We have updated the style used. On the forum I explain the reasons behind this change.
  • The download section has a new user interface, it is less fancy but probably more user friendly. Once again the details are on the forum.

With this the moving of the FSDeveloper website is almost down, the only item still on our list is to improve the frontpage a bit, as we currently have a simple static one (which is still in the old theme). We have some nice plans for that already, but I’ll keep that a surprise for now…

Moving status #3

We have pointed the DNS to the new server now, so FSDeveloper should become accessible for you soon again. This might take a little while though.

We are still tuning and tweaking the last details, but the community could be reopened already. So we would like to welcome you back in our new home.

Moving status #2

The moving of FSDeveloper is going well. We have got everything running again and are currently in the process of some final testing and tuning. So hopefully we can get the site live again in a hour or two.

Moving status

Here is a little status update of the moving of the FSDeveloper website. We have moved everytihng to the new server and have upgraded the forum software by now. That all seems to be running fine. The wiki still needs upgrading and after that there will be a final test before the site can go live again. But until now things are going relatively smoothly and we hope to be ready in a few hours.

Offline during moving

Opposed to what I reported before, the FSDeveloper website will be offline tomorrow during the moving process to the new server. We decided to do this, as it makes the moving easier to perform. Of course we’ll try to be online as soon as possible again.

Tomorrow is moving day

Just to remind you all that tomorrow we will move the FSDeveloper website to a new server. The work will start around 10:00 CET and we hope to finish in a few hours. During this period the old server will be in read only mode, so you will not be able to post.

In case things go wrong and the old site might go offline, I will use this blog to post information. So keep an eye here as well. But hopefully that is not needed and we are up and running soon on the new server.

FSDS support

One of the features on the ModelConverterX wishlist is adding support for writing FSDS FSC files. I can now say that I started working on this. I got a SDK from Louis Sinclair, the author of FSDS, that explains how the file format works. To get more used to the format I decided to first make a reader that can import FSC files. The current development release has an initial version of this reader included already. It should read the geometry correctly, but I am still working on animations and other advanced features. I think I’ll also need some more test files to test the reader on those aspects. After the reader is done, I will start with the writer.

That I started on this FSDS support does not mean that the FS2004 MDL reader is completely done, I still have to look at the attachpoints and figure out a way to deal with the conditions and LODs. These issues are still high on my todo list as well and if there is feedback on how the FS2004 MDL reader works with your animations I would also like to now.

FS2004 animations

In the next development release of ModelConverterX you will find support for reading animations from FS2004 scenery MDL files. Or at least a first implementation of this feature. It is working for my test object currently, but I need to look for some more test files to be sure if it is robust enough. So if you try this new feature, please let me know how it worked for you.

While working with the FS2004 scenery MDL files I noticed that there is another problem I have to address. These objects often use conditional display, for example for the scenery complexity setting or for their LOD schema. Currently ModelConverterX does not support these commands yet and thereby they are always assumed to be true. In some cases this seems to lead to objects that appear to be empty because the empty LOD gets loaded only. So I need to figure out how to handle those commands that apply a certain condition.

AVSIM

I am sure this is old news to almost everybody already, but still it is too important to not mention it. When I came back from Brussels and opened my mailbox yesterday I read the shocking news that the Avsim website has been hacked and is completely gone for the moment. Here is the official press release:

AVSIM Hacked

Tom Allensworth, CEO and Publisher of AVSIM, today issued the following announcement; “We regret to inform the flight simulation community that on Tuesday, May 12, AVSIM was hacked and effectively destroyed. The method of the hack makes recovery difficult, if not impossible, to recover from. Both servers, that is the library / email and web site / forum servers were attacked. AVSIM is totally offline at this time and we expect to be so for some time to come. We are not able to predict when we will be back online, if we can come back at all. We will post more news as we are able to in the coming days and weeks.

There is a temporarily forum already where you can get the latest news about AVSIM. Hopefully we will see this great website online again soon. I have good memories to their scenery design forum, were we used to have detailed discussions in the days of FS2002 to figure out how the engine worked and how we could optimize our scenery.