Arno Gerretsen

A little bit of success

I just succeeded in exporting my first object from ModelConverterX back into FsX. In a previous post I showed a museum building that I had loaded into ModelConverterX from an API macro. Now I have been able to write it as a X file again, which I compiled into a FsX MDL file with XtoMDL. And the screenshot below shows you that it shows up in FS like it should.

So that means that the tool is getting close to actually doing what I want it to do. Loading in objects in one format and then saving them in another. But before I can release the first test version to the public, there are some things that I need to improve:

1. The API loading code must be improved, as I have only tested it with two or three macros until now. I am sure that the next one I try contains some unsupported SCASM commands. So I want to test it a little more, to make sure a wider set of SCASM commands can be read.
2. The user interface needs to be improved a little bit, as at the moment I have some hardcoded stuff in there for the debugging. Of course the first test version does not have to be perfect, but it should at least allow you to specify the filename you wish to save to.

Besides these two important things that I need to fix before I can reelase, there are also some smaller things I want to look at. For example I need to make sure that the X file I am writing is as optimal as possible, so I will have to examine the MDL file and see if it has a weird structure or contains weird things. And also the 3D preview in the tool needs a little work, as you can only zoom on the picture now.

But for today I am quite happy to have something working, although there is always more to do. I'll let you know once I have some more progress again. 

XtoMDL does not yet like my X files

 Yesterday I wrote about the continuing work on ModelConverterX. As I already mentioned then, watching the Tour de France delayed my progress a little bit. But I got as far as exporting my object as a FsX X file. At least that is what I thought. But XtoMDL does not yet seem to agree with me, as it refuses to compile the X file into a MDL. So I guess I have some more debugging to do, to see where I made the error in the X file.

But at least I seem close to having an API macros being compiled into a FsX MDL file, so I hope I can have it fully working by the end of this week. You'll be able to read on this blog if I can really hunt the bug down that fast. 

NL2000 version 3

As you might have read on the internet already, the new version of the NL2000 scenery has been released. This latest release is for Fs2004 and again covers the entire country, with all its airports. The main difference is that this time the entire country has been filled with 1 meter per pixel photo scenery, hence the big download size of around 22 GB.

Personally I am very happy that this scenery has finally been released. Not because that means that the scenery is ready, but because that means I can now finally spend all my time on FsX. I have not really enjoyed working on a Fs2004 scenery, while FsX had long been released. But as a member of a team, you are not alone in setting the directions of course.

So I have also decided that this was the last NL2000 version I will be building scenery for. From now on I want to concentrate on the FsDeveloper community and on new tools and techniques. So I hope to be able to make some new tutorials and tools soon.

This weekend I already started work on the ModelConverterX tool again. Today I hope to make a start with the exporting functionalty, so that I can save my imported API as a FsX MDL object. If the Tour de France does not draw me too much to the television today, I hope to get the basics working.


 

GFL SDK

Loading in all the different kind of textures that FS supports in a tool can be a quite challenging task. Some scenery object use 8 bit textures, others 32 bit, or compressed DXT textures. Some objects even still use the old RAW textures with a palette. And in FsX the DDS format has been added to this long list.

For my MDL Tweaker tool I have used the graphical DLL files by Martin Wright to help me reading the different (compressed) textures that FS supports. But yesterday when working on ModelConverterX I can across another library that can also help me with this subject, GFL SDK. This is the library that is behind the XnView thumbnail viewer as well. Using this library made my job of loading textures a lot easier and the library also provides some functionality to edit the textures (in case I ever need that).

So if you are having trouble with loading all those different texture formats in your tool, you might want to check out this nice library as well.
 

Two new FS MVPs

Two more FS MVPs have been added recently, Lefteris Kalamaras and Brian Gefrich. Congratulations to them and I think we should be very happy with the increasing number of FS MVPs around in the community. Also check Owens blog post with some more info about these new MVPs.