FS2004 aircraft mdl export

[arno]

Interesting that the blurred props display as transparent in the exterior model, but solid in the VC model. AFAIK they are the same parts using the same textures.

Yes, I noticed that too. Must be a bug somewhere that I need to look at.

BTW, it is the NoCrash which is required, I have retained the Collision Part in the next compile and it compiles fine. BTW, there is a point during the removal of parts where MCX allows the compile to proceed, but MakeMDL complains about the model being too big. Removal of a few more parts allows the compile to complete.

I think if the X file is set to VC in MakeMDL that might go automatically. Now MCX always compiles as exterior model.

 

[tgibson]

BTW, it appears the gauge mapping is inverted for the $ VC textures?

FSX original:

FS9 conversion:

PS. Ignore the regular VC texture differences, I'm deciding between two sets.

Hope this helps,

 

[arno]

Thanks for reporting, I'll check that later. Did you do a FSX to FS2004 conversion here?

I just succeeded in exporting a FS2004 aircraft with both the internal and external representation in there. But I need to tidy up some aspects, as the changes also affect other exporters now.

 

[tgibson]

Congrats! A big step accomplished.

Correct, I converted the FSX KBT Electra interior model to FS9 using MCX. I was doing the same thing when I got that MakeMDL exception error posted above so I turned off crash detection for this conversion.

 

[arno]

A new development release will be online in about 30 minutes from now which exports the VC as well. That kept me busy the last days, so I haven't worked on the issues yet that you reported with the previous build. I'm going to address those now.

Also I made a blog post about some of the changes that have been made:

ModelConverterX changes | SceneryDesign.org

 

[Venom]

Hello Arno,

you have my respect for all the work, time and effort you spent for your MCX program.

Thanks a lot.

I hope that you still have fun and learn many new things about solving program problems and challenges.

Also thanks to tgibson for his testings and precise testing reports.

 

[arno]

I hope that you still have fun and learn many new things about solving program problems and challenges.

Oh yes, this is what I enjoy. Exploring new features and learning more about the file formats used and how things work. So I'm having a lot of fun improving the FS2004 support right now.

 

[tgibson]

Hi,

This is great, you are making real progress.

Test 1: FSX KBT Electra to FS9
1. I loaded the plane using the cfg file so I got both the exterior and interior models displayed. The drop down box works fine, nice choice.

2. I have two model folders for this plane, model and model.fsx, both in the FS2004 Aircraft folder. This makes it easier to convert since I'm not bouncing back and forth between FS2004 and FSX. I convert the FSX model in the model.fsx folder to FS9 format and that goes into the model folder. I have both model versions in the aircraft.cfg file so I can load the exterior and interior models. I started with identical FSX exterior and interior models in each folder. In this case I am finding it difficult to distinguish between the models in the two folders. I cannot find the model folder name displayed anywhere in MCX, nor the MDL filename. Only the model's FS name is displayed in the title bar, ELEC_01, which is the same for both models. I had to remove the unneeded interior model from the model folder (FS9 format) so I could tell the difference (now one has no Internal choice in the drop down box). Thus more information on the locations and name of these MDL files would be helpful. I also don't know what sim format each MDL file has.

3. I tried exporting the plane to FS9, but MCX tells me the plane is too large. The error message says that it is "LOD 100", but both the interior and exterior models are LOD 100, so I don't know which model (or both) are over the limit. I happen to know in this case it's the VC model from my earlier work, but I wouldn't know this for a different plane.

4. So I chose the interior model of the FSX version from the drop down box, opened the Hierarchy Editor, and started searching for parts I could remove. Using the down arrow key to scroll through them is much faster than using the mouse, BTW. I found the first one, the right wing. I clicked the Remove button, and then started looking for my next part. Wait a minute, the display has changed? I then realized that MCX had switched to the External model! It would be nice if when you click the Remove button MCX would keep the display in the current model.

5. When displaying the Interior model, the Hierarchy Editor displays lots of parts (all?) from the Exterior model and visa versa. This caused confusion for me. I think it would be better if the editor filtered parts only for the model chosen in the drop down box. When I try to search for Internal to limit the display to the VC model, I get no results.

6. The same things happen if I click the Remove button in the Attached Objects Editor - the External model is now displayed. It also appears that the Attached Objects may be listed from both the Exterior and Interior models at the same time? Again, a filtered display of attached objects from each model would be preferable.

7. While removing parts from the VC I still got the "too large for FS9" error when I had removed FAR more parts than I needed to to export the VC model alone. Back then, I was able to keep the left wing, engines, and props and it would compile just fine, but after removing all of those I now get the too large error. I thought that each LOD (including exterior/interior models) had their own independent size limit? I tried removing all of the animated parts, and then also all the small details and MCX never let me compile.

I couldn't go much further with this model since it wouldn't compile.

Test 2: FSX DC-6B to FS9:

1. When switching between models using the green arrows, the livery doesn't change to the first one listed in the new Livery drop down box. It remains the original model's livery. The Reload Textures button does load the correct livery, however.

2. When exported as an FS9 model, it does compile.

3. The mapping of the VC gauges still appears to be upside down.

4. None of the 3D mouse controlled objects will move or display a tooltip. The 2D gauges projected onto the VC panel have working mouse control and tooltips (even if the gauges are upside down).

5. The exterior animations appear to have the same issues as I posted above, except the control surfaces appear to animate correctly. All visibility conditions seem fine. I forgot to check the prop blades.

6. The cockpit windows are not transparent. Using Set Default Transparent on the FSX model before export does not change that.

7. In addition to the doors posted above, the landing gear is now transparent when viewed through the blurred props. Setting the diffuse alpha to 50 (50,255,255,255) before conversion does not change this.

8. When I load the converted FS9 model and try to export it again, I get the "too many vertices" error and cannot recompile. This keeps me from trying to fix the transparencies listed above using the FS9 model.

 

[tgibson]

That said, if I convert the FS9 DC-6B to FSX, re-import the aircraft.cfg file to reload things, import the new FSX plane, and export as an FS9 model that works OK without a "too many vertices" issue.

When I do this, the cockpit glass is transparent and nothing is transparent behind the blurred props. The only issue I see is that the water rudder animation is reversed. This can be fixed by reversing the animation in the original FS9 model before conversion to FSX format, pretty easy. After that the exterior model appears to be perfect (requires more testing though). The issues listed above for the VC are still present though.

That is a pretty amazing result!

 

[tgibson]

Part of the issue with the size of the Electra is shown below. I had to remove all of the VC model except the gauge polygons and the overhead to get MCX to allow it to compile. But when I load the resulting model into FS9, this is what I see looking back in the VC:

The nose gear is present as well. It appears that these are still prop blades and many other animated parts (note the flaps and tail control surfaces). These are definitely not in the MCX display - it shows very little:

The attach points are at the wing tips. Nothing there at all.

The DC-6B VC created by an FS9 to FSX to FS9 conversion appears to only have the parts I modeled in it.

 

[tgibson]

Test 3:
I wanted to try to convert an FS9 aircraft to FSX, but I'm not sure how to do that? If I display the Internal model from the FS9 DC-6B and export it as an FSX MDL (dc6b_interior.mdl), and then load it back into MCX it displays nothing in the External model and the exterior model is displayed as the Internal model. When I go to the VC in FSX it indeed displays the exterior cockpit.

In addition most of the animated parts in the converted exterior model (dc6b.mdl) are shifted to the center of the plane and nothing works. This suggests a hierarchy error? Import/export/import didn't seem to fix it.

 

[tgibson]

Test 4:
FSX DC-6B back to FSX. When I import the FSX DC-6B and export it unchanged to FSX I get most animated parts shifted to the center of the plane, and nothing works. It looks fine in MCX. The VC (also handled the same way, but separately) only contains the yokes, jump seat, still prop blades, parts of the main gear, and a shadow model. This is also what I see when loaded into MCX (without the shadow model).

 

[tgibson]

Test 5:

FS9 DC-6B back to FS9. The only issue I see is that the control surfaces are only animated about half as far as in the original FS9 model before conversion.

 

[arno]

Hi Tom,

2. I have two model folders for this plane, model and model.fsx, both in the FS2004 Aircraft folder. This makes it easier to convert since I'm not bouncing back and forth between FS2004 and FSX. I convert the FSX model in the model.fsx folder to FS9 format and that goes into the model folder. I have both model versions in the aircraft.cfg file so I can load the exterior and interior models. I started with identical FSX exterior and interior models in each folder. In this case I am finding it difficult to distinguish between the models in the two folders. I cannot find the model folder name displayed anywhere in MCX, nor the MDL filename. Only the model's FS name is displayed in the title bar, ELEC_01, which is the same for both models. I had to remove the unneeded interior model from the model folder (FS9 format) so I could tell the difference (now one has no Internal choice in the drop down box). Thus more information on the locations and name of these MDL files would be helpful. I also don't know what sim format each MDL file has.

The title bar indeed only shows the filename, maybe I should show the full path there.

As for the MDL version, once loaded into MCX it does not really matter anymore if it is from a FS2004 or FSX MDL file, they are loaded into the same internal representation. If you look at the event log you can see which loader was used to load it (MdlXReader or Mdl9Reader).

3. I tried exporting the plane to FS9, but MCX tells me the plane is too large. The error message says that it is "LOD 100", but both the interior and exterior models are LOD 100, so I don't know which model (or both) are over the limit. I happen to know in this case it's the VC model from my earlier work, but I wouldn't know this for a different plane.

Let me check, it might be the vertex complexity check does not work correctly when internal and external model have the same LOD. Since they end up in two X files they each have the 64k limit and it might be that now MCX checks it combined.

4. So I chose the interior model of the FSX version from the drop down box, opened the Hierarchy Editor, and started searching for parts I could remove. Using the down arrow key to scroll through them is much faster than using the mouse, BTW. I found the first one, the right wing. I clicked the Remove button, and then started looking for my next part. Wait a minute, the display has changed? I then realized that MCX had switched to the External model! It would be nice if when you click the Remove button MCX would keep the display in the current model.

I'll check, I guess on reloading the updated model it reset to external, but I agree it would be better to stay at the representation you had.

5. When displaying the Interior model, the Hierarchy Editor displays lots of parts (all?) from the Exterior model and visa versa. This caused confusion for me. I think it would be better if the editor filtered parts only for the model chosen in the drop down box. When I try to search for Internal to limit the display to the VC model, I get no results.

Did you check the only show active representation checkbox at the top of the hierarchy editor? When that is checked it will onlly show internal in that case (and searching only applies to that as well).

6. The same things happen if I click the Remove button in the Attached Objects Editor - the External model is now displayed. It also appears that the Attached Objects may be listed from both the Exterior and Interior models at the same time? Again, a filtered display of attached objects from each model would be preferable.

The attached object editor does not have filtering like the hierarchy editor indeed. Actually, are you expecting the internal model to have attached lights and such as well?

7. While removing parts from the VC I still got the "too large for FS9" error when I had removed FAR more parts than I needed to to export the VC model alone. Back then, I was able to keep the left wing, engines, and props and it would compile just fine, but after removing all of those I now get the too large error. I thought that each LOD (including exterior/interior models) had their own independent size limit? I tried removing all of the animated parts, and then also all the small details and MCX never let me compile.

Like I mentioned above, I think MCX might now combine the internal and external model when they have the same LOD for the limit. That is indeed not how it should be.

1. When switching between models using the green arrows, the livery doesn't change to the first one listed in the new Livery drop down box. It remains the original model's livery. The Reload Textures button does load the correct livery, however.

OK, I'll check.

3. The mapping of the VC gauges still appears to be upside down.

That bug is still on the list of things to check indeed.

4. None of the 3D mouse controlled objects will move or display a tooltip. The 2D gauges projected onto the VC panel have working mouse control and tooltips (even if the gauges are upside down).

I haven't spend a lot of time on the mouse rectangles, I am expecting that I need to fix a few things to make them work. That is also on the todo list already.

5. The exterior animations appear to have the same issues as I posted above, except the control surfaces appear to animate correctly. All visibility conditions seem fine. I forgot to check the prop blades.

The issue with the prop blades you reported before is still on the list of things to check as well, so that should still be "wrong".

6. The cockpit windows are not transparent. Using Set Default Transparent on the FSX model before export does not change that.

After loading the FSX model they are not shown transparent already? Normally that should be set in the FSX MDL file.

7. In addition to the doors posted above, the landing gear is now transparent when viewed through the blurred props. Setting the diffuse alpha to 50 (50,255,255,255) before conversion does not change this.

Yes, I have started working on making sure the part with a transparent texture get a diffuse color alpha as well so that MakeMDL can sort them correctly. That seems to be working and the fix will be in the next release.

8. When I load the converted FS9 model and try to export it again, I get the "too many vertices" error and cannot recompile. This keeps me from trying to fix the transparencies listed above using the FS9 model.

Must be the same issue as above. I guess I was lucky that the FS2004 DC-6 is below that limit, as I tested most with that model.

 

[arno]

When I do this, the cockpit glass is transparent and nothing is transparent behind the blurred props. The only issue I see is that the water rudder animation is reversed. This can be fixed by reversing the animation in the original FS9 model before conversion to FSX format, pretty easy. After that the exterior model appears to be perfect (requires more testing though). The issues listed above for the VC are still present though.

Do you have the water rudder animation listed in your animation_mapping.ini file as an animation that should be reversed? Because I was expecting that issue to be solved with the changes I made recently.

 

[arno]

Part of the issue with the size of the Electra is shown below. I had to remove all of the VC model except the gauge polygons and the overhead to get MCX to allow it to compile. But when I load the resulting model into FS9, this is what I see looking back in the VC:

The nose gear is present as well. It appears that these are still prop blades and many other animated parts (note the flaps and tail control surfaces). These are definitely not in the MCX display - it shows very little:

Did you start with the FS2004 or FSX Electra in this case?

 

[arno]

I wanted to try to convert an FS9 aircraft to FSX, but I'm not sure how to do that? If I display the Internal model from the FS9 DC-6B and export it as an FSX MDL (dc6b_interior.mdl), and then load it back into MCX it displays nothing in the External model and the exterior model is displayed as the Internal model. When I go to the VC in FSX it indeed displays the exterior cockpit.

In the exporter settings there is an option that specifies how this should be exported. Either prefer external (default), prefer internal or export as separate files. Maybe adding an extra option prefer currently displayed would make sense as well indeed.

In addition most of the animated parts in the converted exterior model (dc6b.mdl) are shifted to the center of the plane and nothing works. This suggests a hierarchy error? Import/export/import didn't seem to fix it.

Does this show only in the sim or also in MCX? I have not seen such issues before, but you reported it a few times already, so I'll have to check it.

FSX DC-6B back to FSX. When I import the FSX DC-6B and export it unchanged to FSX I get most animated parts shifted to the center of the plane, and nothing works. It looks fine in MCX. The VC (also handled the same way, but separately) only contains the yokes, jump seat, still prop blades, parts of the main gear, and a shadow model. This is also what I see when loaded into MCX (without the shadow model).

OK, I'll try to reproduce this somehow.

FS9 DC-6B back to FS9. The only issue I see is that the control surfaces are only animated about half as far as in the original FS9 model before conversion.

That issue is on the list to check already.

Thanks for the detailed testing again, with these few posts I have been able to add 5 or 6 new items to the list of things to check again

 

[tgibson]

My replies:
I didn‘t notice the checkbox at the top of the Hierarchy Editor, I’ll try that.

The VC model does not need any lights (they will be provided by the exterior model while in the VC), but I assume some authors might have put them there? If so, it would be nice to be able to get rid of any unneeded duplicates. Or you could just eliminate them in MCX, or we could just ignore them.

The cockpit windows were already set as transparent in the FSX model. I tried resetting it to see if that would help. It did not, the windows were still opaque in the FS9 conversion.

I did not look at the animation INI file to see if the water rudder was reversed, I will do so.

The Electra is only available as an FSX native model, it was never produced for FS9.

Yes, please make the default option to export the model currently being displayed. I think that would be the most intuitive approach. I did look for those options but I must have missed it.

When I see the issue of the animated parts of the exterior model shifted to the center of the plane, so far it has always looked OK when imported into MCX. The VC has been different, and I see those problems in MCX as well.

 

[arno]

Hi Tom,

The VC model does not need any lights (they will be provided by the exterior model while in the VC), but I assume some authors might have put them there? If so, it would be nice to be able to get rid of any unneeded duplicates. Or you could just eliminate them in MCX, or we could just ignore them.

OK, I'll see what I can do. I have also been thinking I can maybe integrate the attached object editor into the hierarchy editor. But I need to see what makes sense.

Yes, please make the default option to export the model currently being displayed. I think that would be the most intuitive approach. I did look for those options but I must have missed it.

I'll do. I never thought about that option while coding it, but it is indeed the default value that makes most sense.

When I see the issue of the animated parts of the exterior model shifted to the center of the plane, so far it has always looked OK when imported into MCX. The VC has been different, and I see those problems in MCX as well.

I'll try to reproduce it here on my end.

 

[tgibson]

i was thinking that you could bring up the Attached Object Editor from within the Hierarchy Editor if you right click on Attachpoint Name and choose an Edit Attachpoint menu item.

BTW, when I try to search for Attachpoints in the Hierarchy Editor, they appear when I type in att but not atta. Very odd.

And the Representation checkbox in the Hierarchy Editor seems to work fine, it changes properly when I change models in the drop down box.

I've checked and the converted FS9 interior model of the Electra does contain attachpoints - 4 of them, two taxi lights and two landing lights. Interestingly the taxi lights are listed as AttachedLight, while the landing lights are listed as AttachedEffect. I'm not sure it matters to the model though. The exterior model only contains two attachpoints, apparently, two landing lights at the wing tips (different location from the ones in the VC, which are between the engines under the wing).

However, the original FSX model contains 8 attachpoints, not six. And they appear to be flipped during conversion to FS9 - in the FSX exterior model there are 2 taxi lights, 2 landing lights between the engines, and 2 red/green navigation lights at the wing tips. The VC only contains two landing lights at the wing tips.

The animation ini file says that rudder_water_deploy should be reversed. I don't know if that tag is actually reversed, I've never used it. I have always used lever_water_rudder.

BTW, for the last few versions of MCX when I close an Editor dialog box only the screen portion behind where the box was located will rotate with the mouse, the rest of the screen is frozen. After a few seconds the entire screen will rotate again. I can force this by going to windowed mode and back to full screen.