Ground polygons again...

[Efrain Ruiz]

Hi Arno,

Sorry to beat this horse to death once again but I just can't find a way to be able to see this code so I can change it as per your tutorial:

OBJECT_0_START label word
IFIN1 OBJECT_0_FAIL, image_complex, 2, 32767
ADDOBJ OBJECT_0_SCALE
SHADOW_CALL OBJECT_0_SCALE
OBJECT_0_FAIL label BGLCODE

The two .asm files generated, do not have the information above in them.

First of all, I installed GMax 1.2 along with the FS2004 gamepack. After reading that this mod only works with FS2002 gamepack, I have run into a dead end, I guess.

The reason is that this gamepack was supplied via FS2002's CD2 but I do NOT have my FS2002 cds any longer.

What can I do to be able to edit the .asm file with the mod to make the ground polygons flicker free and true ground polygons?

Also, I am making my ground polygons as a regular box with 0 height. Is this correct? Or should I use PLANE instead?

I have been doing massive research on this issue and GMax as a whole, but I have been overwhelmed with the vast amount of information out there and perhaps the answer is right in front of me, but just can't seem to find it at this moment. Thanks for everyone's help.

-Efrain Ruiz

 

[Thomas]

Hello,

The information you show there is indeed only available when you export a Gmax scene through the FS2002 SDK. You can download the SDK from FS2002 SDK. Just unzip this in the \Gmax\Gamepacks folder. You have to startup Gmax with the 'fs2002' hyperlink, which you can find in the \Gmax\Gamepacks\fs2002\ folder after extraction.

When you unzipped everything and started up Gmax with the fs2002 hyperlink, you should be able to export your scene through the fs2002 MakeMDL. When you keep the .asm files, you will see that you can find the 'OBJECT_0_START label word....' information. Then you can make changes described by Arno's tutorial. Then recompile the asm files with the BGLC.exe, also included in the SDK zip file.

I made my ground with 'Rectangle'-objects. For a grid I used the Array function of Gmax (too much to explain here). Then I applied a texture to the rectangles and then UVW Map. When adding an UVW Map modifier, choose 'Planar', so you won't get that irritating 'Line'-problem in FS.

Thomas

 

[bob5568]

The SDK doesn't contain the files needed to install the fs2002 gamepack, unless I'm mistaken. Until you have the fs2002 (PRO) disks, I don't think you can employ fs2002 makemdl.

Efrain, you might check on ebay...its gotta be way cheap to pick up a new version of fs2002 PRO. I'd sell you mine, but I'm using it for the same reason you want it.

Good luck,

Bob

 

[Thomas]

Euhm this SDK (the one I posted here, not the original one) contains everything you need. It has no installer like the fs2004 sdk, I know, but there was no installer either on the fs2002 discs. Just unzip in the gamepacks folder, so you will get two folders there: 'fs2002' and 'fs2004'. In the fs2002 folder you will find a shortcut to start Gmax with the fs2002 SDK (note that this shortcut loads some special parameters when you double click on it). It works perfectly over here and also on the computers of my other team members...

Thomas

 

[bob5568]

Thomas...I hadn't noticed that you are posting a link to a non-microsoft sdk. Who would have thought? I assumed reference to the sdk was to Microsoft's sdk. Is this link legal? Not that anyone would likely really care about an old microsoft marketing concept, but this link does disable the primary difference between fs2002 pro and fs2002.

Anyway, given this sdk does contain FSmodelexp.dle it will enable the fs2002 export.

Cheers,

Bob

 

[Firestriker]

Thomas,

Which version of FSModelExp.dle are you using when you export for FS2002?

FSModelExp.dle for FS2002 size 65584 dated 9-12-2001 or
FSModelExp.dle for FS2004 size 167984 dated 11-24-2003

Not that I really care, but the FS2002 version is only legally avalible with FS2002Pro and distribution of the file is a violation of the copyright.

Lou

 

[Efrain Ruiz]

Guys, it's people like you and Arno, which really make scenery design worthwhile! Thanks for the tips!

Ok, now I finally have 2 shortcuts on my desktop, one for running gmax with the FS2002 SDK and the other for running gmax with the FS2004 SDK. Both links work perfectly and I am now able to export using both SDKs.

I finally was able to export my ground grid and after making the corresponding tweaks, it showed up in FS2004 without bleedthroughs and working perfectly, BUT with one HUGE problem!

The grid, is made up of (8) 1024x1024 bitmaps, (1) 1024x512 bitmap and (1) 512x512 bitmap. So in other words, I created (8) 1024x1024 boxes with zero height, (1) 1024x512 box with zero height and (1) 512x512 box with zero height and arrange them so that the entire airport ground appears correctly.

The problem is that now there seams to be a "seam" or "line" between each bitmap. I checked all my bitmaps and none show this edge seam. I even recreated the entire ground in Photoshop by pasting the textures side by side again and they all appear correct.

What could be the problem? Once again, I created the polygons as boxes and just edited their x/y location so that they create the grid.

Could it be that I need to do this ARRAY thing? When you say PLANAR, is this within the mapping menu or do I create PLANES instead? I am confused and any guidance will be greatly appreciated.

I do not pretend to be walked step by step because I know how much that bothers sometimes, but any direct reference to a tutorial on how to get rid of these "seams", "lines" or the proper way to place a ground grid, will be greatly appreciated.

I took the liberty of attaching the .asm files so you guys can take a look and perhaps see if there is something wrong along with a screenshot showing the seams.

Also, here is my MSN Messenger: eruiz_apr001@hotmail.com so that if you can be of any assistance, please contact me. I am on Atlantic Standard Time.

Thanks again and looking forward to get this solved! I am a quick learner and I have known Arno for quite some time, about 5 years to be exact. My first scenery was San Juan 2000 for FS2000, which has over 4,000 downloads at Avsim. It's a pleasure to meet you all and thanks again.

-Efrain Ruiz

 

[bob5568]

Efrain, two things about seams. I would suggest you use the "align" tool. Its one of the default buttons at the top. EXplore with it a bit. you select your part, click align, then idenfiy the reference part. give it the axis and the condition (center to center, min to max, max to min). This will set the polygons perfectly next to each other.

what I found was that (even with polygons perfectly aligned, I still had seams, when I let the entire texture be mapped to a polygon. I finally guessed that gmax was not able to depict the last pixel with full power. I took each texture and made the canvas bigger by two pixels in the x and two pixels in the y. Then I copied and pasted the last pixel of image content into the blank space on all 4 sides. Then I resampled the image back to the appropriate pixel count for the texture. Now I'm able to move the gmax texture assignment box inward to the texture by a pixel, and the seam problem was resolved.

Good luck!

Bob

 

[Efrain Ruiz]

Bob, let me see if I am on the same page as you.

Ok, if I created a 1024x1024 polygon and gave it a location of x=-512 y=0 then took my second polygon, which is also 1024x1024 in size and place that one at x=512 y=0, these would not be perfectly aligned side by side even though the coordinates place them exactly next to each other? I still need to "align" them even if placed next to each other by setting up their coordinates?

Second, let's take my 1024x1024 bitmap as an example. I should expand the canvas to 1026x1026 and on each side, copy and paste the adjacent pixel information then resize the image back to 1024x1024 BUT on gmax, have the texture assignment shrunk as if the bitmap was 1022x1022? That's 1 pixel inward on all 4 sides. This should do the trick? Thanks.

-Efrain Ruiz

 

[bob5568]

Efrain, I didn't mean you couldn't manually make a perfect alignment...you can...you just don't have to if you don't want to.

As far as the texture you seem to have it right. In gmax if you use an unwrap uvw modifier for each polygon, establsih a planar map, then click edit, you can then pull in the assignment box for that texture by one pixel. Because of the way you constructed the extra pixel on the edges you leave a seemless image between polygons, and yes...you are actually only assigning 1022 of your 1024 texture.

Let me know if it works for you. I tried a number of other ways to get rid of the seam, this is the only way that worked for me.

Bob

 

[Thomas]

@Firestriker & bob5568:
I use both the .dle export modules, the correct one is loaded when you either click the fs2002 or fs2004 Gmax-shortcut. I know this link is not fully 'legal', but I think it is stupid to let someone buy fs2002 pro again, just for the SDK. And I thought that all the SDK's are free just like Gmax. I'll remove it from our webspace as soon as possible then

@Efrain Ruiz:
I made my grid with the Array function of Gmax. Perhaps you can experiment with that as well. Just select one 1024x1024 rectangle, go to the array function (somewhere in the menu's). And then you can choose to clone this rectangle and place these clones at specific locations, for example 1024m in X direction.

I also had this 'Line' problem in the beginning and to get rid of it, I simply assigned my 1024*1024 textures to the rectangles and only applied a UVW Map modifier => PLANAR. And that's all. So I didn't apply a UVW Unwrap modifier. And it shows up perfectly in FS now.

Thomas

 

[Efrain Ruiz]

Thomas, I figured out how to use the array function. At least for this purpose. lol Anyway, did you create the polygons as a "box" or "rectangle"? I did them with Standard Primitives|Box. Should I do them with Shapes|Rectangle?

Bob, if I can't make this grid display properly with Thomas's way of doing it, I will just stick with the way I had it, which was with the following code:

Set( BUF 1024 )
Set( LINBUF 1024 )
set( areamx 1024 )
set( fsvers 0x800 )


Area(  E   %1 %2 38  )
LayerCall(  :R1  4  )
Jump( : ) 

:R1
RefPoint( 2 :A3 1 %1 %2 v1= 27780  E= 2.7 V2= 27780  )
Points( 0
512 0 1536 ;0
1024 0 1536 ;1
2048 0 1536 ;2

-2048 0 1024 ;3
-1024 0 1024 ;4
0 0 1024 ;5
512 0 1024 ;6
1024 0 1024 ;7
2048 0 1024 ;8

-2048 0 0 ;9
-1024 0 0 ;10
0 0 0 ;11
1024 0 0 ;12
2048 0 0 ;13

-2048 0 -1024 ;14
-1024 0 -1024 ;15
0 0 -1024 ;16
1024 0 -1024 ;17
2048 0 -1024 ;18

)

LoadBitmap( 0 L6 EF 28 110 28 ground_08.bmp )
Smoothing( 1 )
BitmapMode( 1 ) ; not to be supported after version 7.0
TexPoly( m 0 32767 0 0
9 0 0
3 0 256
4 256 256
10  256 0 )

LoadBitmap( 0 L6 EF 28 110 28 ground_12.bmp )
Smoothing( 1 )
BitmapMode( 1 ) ; not to be supported after version 7.0
TexPoly( m 0 32767 0 0
14 0 0
9 0 256
10 256 256
15 256 0 )

LoadBitmap( 0 L6 EF 28 110 28 ground_13.bmp )
Smoothing( 1 )
BitmapMode( 1 ) ; not to be supported after version 7.0
TexPoly( m 0 32767 0 0
15 0 0
10 0 256
11 256 256
16 256 0 )

LoadBitmap( 0 L6 EF 28 110 28 ground_09.bmp )
Smoothing( 1 )
BitmapMode( 1 ) ; not to be supported after version 7.0
TexPoly( m 0 32767 0 0
10 0 0
4 0 256
5 256 256
11  256 0 )

LoadBitmap( 0 L6 EF 28 110 28 ground_10.bmp )
Smoothing( 1 )
BitmapMode( 1 ) ; not to be supported after version 7.0
TexPoly( m 0 32767 0 0
11 0 0
5 0 256
7 256 256
12 256 0 )

LoadBitmap( 0 L6 EF 28 110 28 ground_14.bmp )
Smoothing( 1 )
BitmapMode( 1 ) ; not to be supported after version 7.0
TexPoly( m 0 32767 0 0
16 0 0
11 0 256
12 256 256
17 256 0 )

LoadBitmap( 0 L6 EF 28 110 28 ground_15.bmp )
Smoothing( 1 )
BitmapMode( 1 ) ; not to be supported after version 7.0
TexPoly( m 0 32767 0 0
17 0 0
12 0 256
13 256 256
18  256 0 )

LoadBitmap( 0 L6 EF 28 110 28 ground_11.bmp )
Smoothing( 1 )
BitmapMode( 1 ) ; not to be supported after version 7.0
TexPoly( m 0 32767 0 0
12 0 0
7 0 256
8 256 256
13 256 0 )

LoadBitmap( 0 L6 EF 28 110 28 ground_07.bmp )
Smoothing( 1 )
BitmapMode( 1 ) ; not to be supported after version 7.0
TexPoly( m 0 32767 0 0
7 0 0
1 0 256
2 256 256
8 256 0 )

LoadBitmap( 0 L6 EF 28 110 28 ground_06.bmp )
Smoothing( 1 )
BitmapMode( 1 ) ; not to be supported after version 7.0
TexPoly( m 0 32767 0 0
6 0 0
0 0 256
1 256 256
7 256 0 )

:A3 
Return 
EndA

Is this code fully FS2004 and future version's compatible? The reason why I am trying to make this grid with Gmax, is because I am not sure if the way I am currently doing it, which by the way, displays PERFECTLY, will still work in the future releases of MSFS.

Thanks for the help, guys!

-Efrain Ruiz

 

[arno]

@Firestriker & bob5568:
I use both the .dle export modules, the correct one is loaded when you either click the fs2002 or fs2004 Gmax-shortcut. I know this link is not fully 'legal', but I think it is stupid to let someone buy fs2002 pro again, just for the SDK. And I thought that all the SDK's are free just like Gmax. I'll remove it from our webspace as soon as possible then

The SDKs might be free (but still copyrighted by MS of course), but the dle file was never distributed, as it only came with Fs2002 Pro. It was one of the main reasons for people to buy the pro version. I don't know why MS decided to do it like that, the Fs2004 approach is much better of course, but it does make distributing that file kind of illegal.

It's a pity for designers who no longer have (or never had) Fs2002 Pro, as the old gamepack certainly has a few useful features left.

 

[arno]

Hi Efrain,

Anyway, did you create the polygons as a "box" or "rectangle"? I did them with Standard Primitives|Box. Should I do them with Shapes|Rectangle?

If you are making ground polygons it is easier to start with Planes, as you won't have to weld the not needed vertices together in the end to get rid of them. But starting with a box and editing it a bit is also possible of course (as always there are multiple ways to reach your goal).

Is this code fully FS2004 and future version's compatible? The reason why I am trying to make this grid with Gmax, is because I am not sure if the way I am currently doing it, which by the way, displays PERFECTLY, will still work in the future releases of MSFS.

It is compatible with Fs2004 (although it uses Fs2000 style code). And until the next version of FS is there we never know if it will work there again.

But to be safer I think it would be a better approach to use the Fs2002 style floating point commands in your grid. Then you would have code like the Fs2002 GMax gamepack, but then written in SCASM.

 

[Efrain Ruiz]

But to be safer I think it would be a better approach to use the Fs2002 style floating point commands in your grid. Then you would have code like the Fs2002 GMax gamepack, but then written in SCASM.

Is there a simple way to convert this FS2000 style code to FS2002 floating point style code?

 

[arno]

No . As far as I know there are no converters to do that.

 

[Efrain Ruiz]

No . As far as I know there are no converters to do that.

Seems like a nice to-do project, for all you programmers out there, huh?

 

[rhumbaflappy]

Hi Efrain.

I wouldn't worry about the next FS version until it gets here ( probably a year from this coming November ).

If they remove the old code compatibility, then they may well scrap Gmax/MakeMDL/BGLC as well! In fact, BGLC wasn't even in the FS9 SDKs... we had to invent BGLC_9 to allow FS9 ASM code tweaking!

Just make your code and enjoy the scenery now. FS10 will get here when it gets here. Then Arno, I, and others will peek at that coding, and do what we can to fix it.

Dick

 

[Efrain Ruiz]

Hi Efrain.

I wouldn't worry about the next FS version until it gets here ( probably a year from this coming November ).

If they remove the old code compatibility, then they may well scrap Gmax/MakeMDL/BGLC as well! In fact, BGLC wasn't even in the FS9 SDKs... we had to invent BGLC_9 to allow FS9 ASM code tweaking!

Just make your code and enjoy the scenery now. FS10 will get here when it gets here. Then Arno, I, and others will peek at that coding, and do what we can to fix it.

Dick

Hi rhumbaflappy,

Your post really put a smile on my face! Because it made me open my eyes! I mean, if my FS2000 style grid works perfectly NOW, why torture myself when the next version of FS is not due till a year from now. hahahahaha I will do just that. If it stops working then, I know you guys will find a solution quickly. THANKS!

 

[arno]

Yes, Dick made a good point here. If you have the choice between two techniques that work the same, then I prefer to use the newest one (as that will be safest for future versions). But if there is only one technique that works, just use it. If it no longer works in the future, we'll find a solution for it then.

Actually quite of a lot of opcodes are officially obsolete since Fs98 or so, but most of them do still work. It seems logical that quite some of these will be dropped in future versions, but we will never know until that version is there .