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.

Heading for Brussels

Tomorrow I am going to Brussels for my work, as we are attending the ITEC there. This means that during the next days I won’t be behind my computer. Over the weekend I have been working a bit on the FS2004 MDL reader for ModelConverterX, but I am afraid it is still a bit buggy. I had hoped to iron out more bugs by now. Some of the default FS2004 library BGL files will still crash the tool. This is mainly related to reading the transformation and animations from the files. Once I am back I will continue working on this aspect, I feel I am almost there to implement it correctly.

Video tutorials

On FSDeveloper we have some video tutorials available for quite some time already, but most of the time they are hidden somewhere in the forums or Wiki. We have changed that now, by embedding a video player in the Wiki. This allows you to view the video tutorial directly inside the Wiki article. Have a look at the different tutorials that are available.

Currently there are not so many availble, but I hope that more video tutorials will be contribute in the future. They can be a very nice way to learn. You might also have noticed that I have put a new video tutorial for ModelConverterX online. It gives an overview of the basics of the tool.

International Flight Simulation Consortium

You might have read about the International Flight Simulation Consortium on the internet already, for example at Avsim or Francois Dumas’ blog. I don’t so much to add to what has been said there already, except that I was also present at the meeting and that FSDeveloper is thereby involved in the initiative. Once there is more news to report I’ll certainly do so.