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Large viewing distance in spot view

S

Stoeckli

Messages
27
Country
switzerland
Hello

I almost finished to convert a FS2004 aircraft to FSX material and animations with Gmax. Everything looks fine except the viewing distance in the spot plane view.
I studies some posts in this forum concerning this topic - without success.
I checked the bounding boxes -> nothing large visible.
I deleted parts which generate Face vertex warnings.

NOTE: When I uncheck "Export Animations" in Gmax, the viewing distande seems to be OK. When I check it again in Gmax, the viewing distance is large again. I checked again the bounding boxes while moving the animation slider. Nothing large is visible. I went some steps back. It seems to me, the viewing distance increases with the number of animations.

Can anybody help?

Many thanks in advance an
best regards
Kurt Stoeckli
 
Hi Kurt,

Not sure if it applies here, but in the preview window of the aircraft menu the radius that is stored in the RADI section of the MDL determines the viewing distance. It could be that optimizing that value will also help for your problem.

Only problem might be that you need a hex editor for that at the moment. I am still planning to make a little tool for that later :).
 
Hi Arno

Thanks for your fast answer, this sounds promissing. I am using UltraEdit-32 as Hex-Editor. But to me it is not clear how to locate that parameter for the radius. Is it in the MDL-File? If yes, how can I find it?

Thanks and best regards
Kurt Stoeckli
 
Editing FSX .mdl files is from all indications not going to work.
Often an element is outside the wingspan and it can be a single stray vertex or tiedowns that is the culprit
 
Hello

OK, but how can I locate this single stray vertex or tiedowns?
Without exporting the animations it seems to be OK.

@Arno
I do not want to say no before I tried it. Can you tell me how to locate the value of the viewing distance by using a Hex-Editor.
Could I produce a X-file from Gmax, edit the viewing distance and then compile it with XtoMDL?

Thanks for any help
regards
Kurt Stoeckli
 
Hi Kurt,

No, XtoMDL determines that number. So you really need to edit the MDL if you want to try. It is the RADI section, which contains one float value that is the radius. So you will have to decode the hex numbers into a float to see if the value in there makes sense.
 
Hi Arno

OK, I found that the fuselage (part name <fuselage_LOD_100>) makes the trouble. In the object properties of Gmax, the dimensions of this part for Y are 531m (due to rescaling). Deleting that part makes a normal view distance, but this is the fuselage of the aircrfat :(. Is there a way without remodeling the fuselage? Can I override this dimension with an additional part at a particular position in the hierarchy?

I understand that the RADI section contains one float value which is the radius. Anyhow, here I am lost. I can decode hex numbers but how can I find this RADI section, what Hex-Editor or else are you using?

Any Help is welcome :wizard:
Best regards
Kurt Stoeckli
 
If you have a 531m aircraft main model, something is wrong.

Have you tried resetting the scale? (hierarchy tab, reset scale)
 
Hello

I could find various parts being resposible for the large viewing distance in spot plane view. It seems to be much better.
Now when I start FSX with the start flight "Test.flt" as default, the aircraft is still far away. Then I start the same flight "Test.flt" from the menu "Select flight", the viewing distance is OK (about 60feet, zoom=1). How come?

@Arno
May I kindly ask you to explain in more detail of how to find the RADI section and the value for the viewing distance in the MDL-File. What Hex-Editior are you using?

Best regards
Kurt Stoeckli
 
I've been having the same problem. in my case however this large viewing distance problem only occurs when i am trying to attach a visibility attach point to the props. i do not really know how to solve this but i am sure it has nothing to do with any stray vertex. I think it is some kind of a bug with the FSX makeMDL SDK.
 
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