In the last days I have been working hard on the next release of ModelConverterX, which I put online today. Every time when I thought I had fixed all bugs, some new problem appeared again. But now things seem to work good enough again. I am happy to get this new version online and I hope all the recently added features will be useful to the users.

I am quite excited that I got features like automatic alpha channel detection, conversion of lines into 3D objects and support of effects into the tool now. They had been on my wishlist for quite a while already.

Another big change is how the textures are handled in the tool. I switch to another library to load them, as the previous one had some trouble with the alpha channels. I have now come back to the graphical DLL files made by Martin Wright. I had used them in another tool before already and it seems when trying to read FS texture this library is just the best choice.

After this release I will relax a little bit, but then the next one is planned already. For version 0.5 (to indicate that the tool is more stable) I mainly plan to make the tool easier to use and clean up some aspects. And I also have a small update of the DrawCallMonitor tool planned. Luckily there are enough challenges left to work on…

I just added the functionality to create FX effect files to ModelConverterX. This now allows the tool to write new FX files with the correct colour for light points that are used in the converted object. I am not an expert on making effect files, so maybe the FX could be optimized a bit further. Let me know if there are suggestions in this field.

The image to the right shows an object I converted as a test. As you can see it is a chimney and at the top there is a smoke effect file attached. And on the pole there are different lights. In the API code these where made with the Light command, but they are converted to FX files by ModelConverterX for this FSX MDL object.

So now all the main functionality for the next release is working, I just have a few other minor bugs on my todo list. Let’s get back to the source code now…

This evening I have been able to take one more step on the problem of attached objects. After cleaning up the ModelConverterX code a bit more they are now really working. It is quite cool to be able to attach effect files now to your object and convert those already in the old SCASM macros.

Also for the light points attached to those objects this is good news. I can now read them in and export them to the FSX objects as attached FX files (because the old style light points no longer exist). This is all working now, except that I need to write the FX files themself. I hope that by taking some default FX file and modifying that I should be able to get started on that.

After that problem is solved I have fixed the main new features for the next ModelConverterX release. There are still a few smaller bugs on my list for the next release, but I hope to get the next version out in a few days. And occording to the plans that will be the last alpha version, the tool is getting so stable now that we can start moving in the direction of a “real” release.

Although Adrian Woods has an interesting post about how to add attachpoints to your X file, it still took me most of the evening to get things working. First I probably picked a wrong effect that does not work for scenery, but I also forgot to add the mesh to the X file frame of the attachpoint. Although that mesh is not put into the MDL when compiling with XtoMDL, it still has to be present in the X file.

But after having learned that, I could attach a nice firework show to my object converted with ModelConverterX. Now that this test is working, I can continue adding the attachpoint functionality and attach useful effects (for lights for example). But that is something I will continue working on later this week.

I have made some more progress on ModelConverterX by now. The extrusion of the 2D lines into 3D shapes is working fine and in the options the user can specify the shape he wants to extrude with. That can range from a flat plane (2 vertex circle) to a circle with more vertices so it looks round. Although the last will not always be advised performance wise.

So with that new feature solved, the next one to work on was not hard to find. I now started working on attached objects, for example lights or effects. I have already done the code to read them in from SCASM macros and the next thing to work on is writing the attachpoints to the X file for FSX objects as well. For the lights my plan is to have them being created as effect files, so the tool will have to generate a FX file for the light with the colour the light should have.

One of the most important features still missing in ModelConverterX is the ability to read in API macros that use lines instead of polygons. I have started working on a solution for this now. Those lines will be read in and then transformed into a 3D object. It is like you extra a certain shape along the line to get a 3D version. I will use a simple circle for the shape to extrude with, where the radius and number of vertices are an option the user can specify. By setting the number of vertices to 3 you would get a triangle to extrude, which costs the least polygons of course.

On the right you see a first picture of this feature. All the bars that form the arms of the crane are defined with lines in the API macro. But the tool has converted them into polygons that actually show up.

There is still some finetuning to do on the extrude functionality though, especially where the polygons of different line segments are supposed to line up with each other. But at least the basics are working now.

After working on the Wiki for most of the last week, now it is time to spend some time on ModelConverterX again. I do have some good ideas for the next version. I want to add some features that will allow the conversion of even more objects and I think after that I can remove the alpha tag from the tool and make it a beta or even a normal version. Here are the points that are at the top of the list for the next version:

• Ability to convert macros that use lines. These lines will be converted into simple 3D shapes of polygons, because the FSX format does not work with lines. With this option added the last category of macros not supported should be fixed, although there will always be special macros left that give trouble.
• Conversion of objects that have effects attached. For example smoke from a chimney. These macros should get an attachpoint for the effect in the FSX object.
• Conversion of light points. This will probably be done by using effects in the FSX models, how exactly is something I still have to look at.

So that is my roadmap for the next release. I’ll keep you informed about the progress I am making.