• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
    • Questions about aircraft design can be posted in the Aircraft design forum
    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

Landing Lights

Stu, Send me your email addy to: p.pandj@verizon.net and I will send you some "blurbs" that work. I am reluctant to post them in this or other forums as I have some evidence that copying out of the forums messes up the syntax.

Paul
 
Stu Austin said:
Which version of modeldef.xml are you guys using? Reason why I'm asking is in your blurb it is stating "<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?>" whereas the modeldef.xml I have in my bin folder is stating "<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>".
Click to expand...

Stu, you are confusing two different files. The modeldef.xml is encoded in utf-8 format.

The "attachpt_xxx" blurb on the other hand is encoded in ISO-8859-1 format. This "blurb" is identical to the code created by the Attachpoint Tool when used in Max or GMax, and is placed in the "User Defined Properties" of the part. When exported, it is written into the X file as hexadecimal code.

Louis is simply allowing FSDS users to achieve the same goal by creating a new entry in the PartDataDefs.txt file.

The problem some folks have had is that there must be precisely 6 blank spaces between the first attachpt_xxx entry and the <?xml.... code, as shown in the example below.

In the example below I've created the "blurb" for attaching a "beacon light" to a moving object. In my case, the Citation II I modeled has the beacon mounted on top of the rudder. Using this code allows me to "attach" the beacon's .fx file to the rudder, so it will move along with the rudder... ;)

Code: 
attachpt_beacon_1	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?> <FSMakeMdlData version="9.0"> <Attachpoint name="attachpt_beacon_1"> <AttachedObject> <Effect effectName="fx_beacon" effectParams=""/> </AttachedObject> </Attachpoint> <Visibility name="beacon_light"> </Visibility> </FSMakeMdlData> 

   <Animation name="beacon_light" guid="54447384-cff6-479c-a654-9b9cd33e4f09" length="100" type="Sim" typeParam="AutoPlay" />


    <PartInfo>
	  <Name>beacon_light</Name>
	  <AnimLength>100</AnimLength>
	  <Visibility>
		<Parameter>
		    <Sim>
			  <Variable>LIGHT BEACON</Variable>
			  <Units>bool</Units>
		    </Sim>
		</Parameter>
	  </Visibility>
    </PartInfo>
 
Last edited:
Hello Bill. PutPut sent me his PartDataDefs.txt file and I now have lights. It worked the first time.
Now here is the strange part and it gets wierd.
In my original PartDataDefs.txt file, I did have 6 spaces between the "attachpt_landing_1 <?" and I still could not get it to work. After PutPut sent me his file, I opened them up (his file and my file) in 2 separate notepad windows and under view I selected status. In the status window it showed the line number and column number of each character. Both notepad windows were identicle in as far as spacing was concerned. I checked each character and they were identical. The only difference I saw was in his file, when I hit my right arrow key once, it moved 1 space. When I hit the arrow key again, it moved the same amount as a tab key which equals 5 spaces. I think my main problem was using notepad. I did have wordwrap turned off.
Tomorrow I'm going to try a couple other text editors and see what happens. But again thanks.
 
Stu Austin said:
Which version of modeldef.xml are you guys using? Reason why I'm asking is in your blurb it is stating "<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?>" whereas the modeldef.xml I have in my bin folder is stating "<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>".
Click to expand...

The difference in the " encoding" in the xml blurb and that in the modeldef.xml file is not going to matter.

CHeck the spacing between the name and the xml blurb. That appears to be critical.
 
EDIT - I just noted Fr. Bill's statement. the precisely SIX (6) spaces between the name= and the start of the XML blurb is critical.

STU - it wasn't notepad, it's the need for six spaces.

I use notetab and in the PartDataDefs.txt file that I had, I had been processing the statements with a space+tab. Notetab has a 5-space tab..... :)

Like Fr. Biill writes (either here or wherever we cross posts), once you get the hang of the blurb, that thing is flexible! For that matter, I find this quasi-manual attachpoint workaround easier to work with in FSDS than in gmax!
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top