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Exporting to 3DS file

Al Gay

Al Gay

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99
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canada
First let me thank all of you GURUs that put together such wonderful tools to allow guys like me to practice my hobby.:)

I have a want to modify some of my earlier GMax models that I no longer have the GMax files for. I have been openning the MDL or BGL in Model Converter X and exporting as a 3DS file that I can import into GMax.

The file converts fine and imports fine into GMax BUT the various parts of a scene are no longer listed in the Select By Name list. This contains only two entries, "AA_LOD_100 and AB_LOD_100"

Is there a way to get the Select By Name list back so that I can make modifications?

I am working in both FS2004 and FSX.

Thanks,

Al
 
Hi Al,

In the MDL files all polygons with the same material are grouped together. There is no information about your original named parts. So unfortunately it is not possible to get them back.
 
Certainly not the answer I had hoped for. Must ensure I have backed up copies of GMax source files in the future.

Thanks Arno
 
Hi,

You can get the objects better separated from each other by setting the MCX Options/Object Model Settings/CollapseModelParts setting to FALSE. This will separate all textured objects. Most untextured objects with the same Material will usually still be welded together. You must set this before loading the object into MCX.

But they will all still have names like AA_LOD_100 - part names are not saved in the MDL or BGL files, so there is no way to retrieve them.

Then once you get your 3DS file imported into GMAX, you will need to go through each Material with a texture and click the blue and white cube to get those textures displayed on the model. Sometimes you also have to browse to the texture file again, since the conversion often makes the texture file name an old DOS name like text~1.bmp.

Finally if you you are using smoothing in this model, you need to Select All Parts, add an Edit Mesh modifier, select all vertices, and Weld them using a threshold of 0.005 or even smaller. Then you can Auto Smooth the parts as you see fit (in Polygon submode select the polygons, and press Auto Smooth). Or do it manually if you wish. I then usually Collapse the Mesh on all parts after this to "start fresh", which avoids some selection oddities.

Hope this helps,
 
Hi Tom,

When reading API macros or FSDS files that will help. But for most MDL objects it doesn't matter, because inside the MDL the polygons are not separated anymore. But it is always worth a try.
 
The models parts can be reconstituted with a bit of work.

It just requires a new multimaterial and quite a bit of:

Select
Detach
Hide
Select
Weld

It is worth noting that any FSX material settings are lost (mapping will be ok)

The best way to recover your FSX material settings seems to be to copy them across from the ModelconverterX dialog.
 
Tom,

Thank you for that. I think I worded my initial post improperly to begin with. It would be nice to have the original part names but what I really wanted was to be able to modify the scene. I see now I can move and adjust parts singley and that was what I had wanted.

Much appreciated. It never ceases to amaze me that there is such a great knowledge base out there in the Flight Sim world and everyone is more than happy to help out some of us with a little less knowledge. Too bad that the rest of the world didn't do the same.

Cheers,

Al
 
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