Exporting?

[GHD]

Thanks Arno.

 

[GHD]

Hi Arno,

The "Remove all animations" doesn't appear to work. When I click on the button, the dialog doesn't disappear:



It is still there when I export:



It makes no difference whether I close the dialog, on re-importing the model I get the same error, "An item with the same key has already been added."

The .mdl file no longer has the path name, just the bmp file name

Might it work as a scenery object if I export as an FSX model?

 

[arno]

Hi George,

The form is not supposed to close, like the material editor it can remain open. I should probably add some notice that the action has finished. But when exporting you should get a valid FS2004 MDL (at least I get).

Can you send me the MDL file that gives you the error for debugging? I thought I fixed that bug here yesterday, but maybe you have another issue.

 

[arno]

I have now also added a list of the animations to the animation editor. It just shows how many animations there are. When removing this list is emptied so that you can see that the operation has finished.

In future version it will be possible to edit only selected animations, etc. But that is for later .

These changes will be in the development release of tomorrow.

 

[GHD]

Can you send me the MDL file that gives you the error for debugging? I thought I fixed that bug here yesterday, but maybe you have another issue.

The file is exactly the same as I attached yesterday.

The transformations I used were:

Scale 0.00098
Move Z 3.994
Rotate Y -0.9

I then exported as an FS9 model.

Attached is the exported model.

 

[robystar]

Hi,

Well, it works, kind of.
I tried importing the SAMM mdl but it would not open.
I then tried to open the SAMM bgl and it opened.
I then set scale, alt and pitch, exported and compiled to bgl with Lib Creator xml.
Added it to the ADE LOM.
The MCX scaled lib object appears in ADE at the original scale and covers the whole airport but not so in FSX. It is there at the right scale with textures and all.
I haven't tried to remove all animations yet, so I noticed that in FSX the static (in my case) heli opened and closed its doors and also lowered the horizontal rear stabilizer off and on. In other words: I have an animated scenery object!
I have two more questions:
- How, George, do you see the path for the textures written in the mdl?
- Is there some explanation available for the extra options when exporting (F4, F6, keyframe value, etc.)?
In the meantime my static aircraft lib is a mess with many texture folders, subfolders, mdl's, bgl's etc. and all that for one aircraft.
It would be nice to know for instance which texture folder is the one the mdl is pointing to. Hence my question.
By the way, thanks a lot Arno.

 

[GHD]

Hi Roby,

Just open the .mdl file in Notepad and search for ".bmp", eg.




Did you export as an FSX model? Even if I remove animations and export as an FS9 model, it fails to load in MCX.

 

[robystar]

Hi George,

Yes I did.

Opening the mdl with wordpad and scrolling down an endless list of gobbledegook, I came up with only four instances of intelligible language:
- the word (I believe of Indian origin) " Ugh" ;
- the exclamation "Aw" ;
- a four letter word I will not mention here ;
- and a list of textures.
But no indication of a path.
Were you joking?

 

[GHD]

OK, if I export as an FSX model it works correctly

It also includes the full pathname for the texture file

However, the placement xml has some peculiar characters after the scenery object closing tag

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<FSData version="9.0" xmlns:xsi='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance' xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="bglcomp.xsd">

	<!-- Sample object placement.  Remove comment markers to place object east of 34R at Sea Tac. -->
	<!--
	<SceneryObject instanceId="{8375592a-a9ba-42d8-8132-1f5b5bbbd844}" lat="47 25.89" lon="-122 18.43" alt="0" pitch="0" bank="0" heading="0" altitudeIsAgl="TRUE" imageComplexity="NORMAL">
		<LibraryObject name="{5585a4bb-3ed0-4e14-afc3-048a1a105a03}" scale="1.0" />
	</SceneryObject>[B][COLOR="Red"]CCC[/COLOR][/B]
	-->

	<!-- Inclusion of model data.  Use the 'Name' of this object to place --> 
	<!-- it in other locations.                                           --> 
	<ModelData sourceFile="Q:\747A\WoA_AIA_B744_RR_BAW-British Airways\Scenery\FSX747.MDL" />
</FSData>

They are non-printable characters indicated by "CCC" above.

 

[arno]

Hi George,

I found out why your MDL does not load. It is because of the LODs. For these huge objects the LOD values calculated when loading the FS2004 MDL are not really correct, that gives trouble when you export again with these values. To fix this I have added an option when scaling to scale the LOD values as well. When I use that, I can import the FS2004 MDL correctly afterwards. Can you try with the "Scale LOD values" option selected when you scale the object?

Not sure about the problem with your XML. The dummy XML is made by XtoMDL if you ask for it in ModelConverterX.

I'll do some more testing with the texture name, hopefully I can get MakeMDL to accept the path in it.

 

[GHD]

I spoke too soon

The FSX mdl is not correct, it is missing the engine pylons, the nose is wrong and so is the undercarriage:



At least the texture path was correct

Edit.

I'll try scaling the LODs and export as an FS9 model.

 

[GHD]

Can you try with the "Scale LOD values" option selected when you scale the object?

Hmm, if I scale the LODs, MCX will load the mdl, but it isn't correct:

 

[arno]

Hi,

I took another look at it. It seems for the FSX MDL you also need to strip the animations. Else the gear are animated and moving around a bit. I am not really sure what kind of animations are in the MDL, since the preview does not really show them.

The attached screenshot shows the FSX MDL with the animations stripped. In that case it works fine for me.

For the FS2004 MDL, if I scale the LOD (which you better also do for FSX btw) and remove the animations, I can import it again in MCX without trouble.

I have attached the two MDL files I have made as well.

Only problems are the textures in the FS2004 MDL file. I did some testing, but it seems MakeMDL always strips out the relative path. The only work around I see at the moment is to manually edit the ASM files and then compile the MDL again. But that is a bit annoying .

 

[GHD]

That's fine, if I can get the FSX model to export correctly, you don't need to bother with the FS9 version.

 

[GHD]

SUCCESS

The procedure is:

1. Import the SAMM mdl file
2. Remove animations
3. Scale (including LODs)
4. Move Z
5. Rotate Y (negate the SAMM pitch value)
6. Export as FSX model (to save texture path)

BTW, the XToMdl placement (with the odd characters) compiles fine using the FSX BglComp.

Thank you Arno.

 

[robystar]

Hi,

You beat me to it, George.
Everything is working fine here also (see attachment).
Also, the objects dimensions in ADE are now correct.
(Except maybe that there is a small, tiny, little, unimportant, negligible, minor, insignificant issue with respect to transparency.)

 

[GHD]

(Except maybe that there is a small, tiny, little, unimportant, negligible, minor, insignificant issue with respect to transparency.)

I don't think you can blame either SAMM or MCX for that

 

[arno]

Glad to see it is working now .

 

[robystar]

Not blaming anyone or anything, George, just pointing it out.
Maybe it can be solved with alpha channels in the textures.

 

[GHD]

Glad to see it is working now .

Well, it's working for one model, I have another 29 to test