Arno Gerretsen

FSDeveloper is open again

We have been monitoring the server since yesterday and things seem to be stable again now. So we have decided to open FSDeveloper again. You can be sure we will keep an even closer look on the server performance during the next days and if you notice anything weird please let us know.

FSDeveloper is down - update

At this moment the FSDeveloper server is running again,but not stable yet. So we keep the forum deactivated till at least tomorrow. Here is a little background on what happened.

At this moment we do not know exactly why the server failed, but we are suspecting a hardware issue might be part of it. That is also why we keep the forums offline until we are sure the server is working fine.

Since the last few days we did get some errors that the daily backups could not be completed. We were still looking into the source of this problem, but it might be related to what brought the entire site down in the end. The fact that the last backups had failed, also mean that we can not restore the most recent data. So probably all forum posts and wiki edits made after the 20th of October are lost.

We are just as annoyed by all of this, as you will be. We hope that by tomorrow we have more information about the health of the server, so that we can bring FSDeveloper back online as soon as possible.

FSDeveloper is down

At the moment the FSDeveloper site is down. We hope to get it back as soon as we can.

FSDeveloper video tutorials

This week I came across the Procaster application to stream you desktop to the internet and yesterday I used it to do a interactive video tutorial about GMax on the FSDeveloper channel at Livestream. There was a good audience of about a dozen people, especially when you keep in mind I only announced the event 2 days ahead.

I think the general impression was that the video and sound quality are good enough to do online tutorials. And with the build in chat option the people watching could ask me questions during the tutorial. Maybe have a voice chat would make that kind of interaction even easier, but on the other hand it might disturb the tutorial more. So in total I think it was quite successful and I am looking forward to do more such tutorials later on. If you still have suggestions or feedback, please let me know.

Yesterdays tutorial about making a simple object in GMax is now available through the FSDeveloper Wiki as well. I have also made available the GMax and texture files there for reference purposes.

On the Wiki I have also create a page to collect suggestions for new tutorials. I have put some of my ideas on there already, but would be even more interested in hearing which topics you would like to see covered in a video tutorial. So please add your suggestions there and hopefully we can cover that topic later in a video tutorial.

Revival of a tool

Today I made a new version of a small tool I did some time ago. Actually I redesigned it completely from scratch using C# and .NET this time. The tool I am talking about is CompileHelper. This is a small tool to assist developers in compiling their source files. For many developers using command line compilers like BGLComp, BGLC or SCASM gives quite some trouble. This is mainly because they have not been designed to be used in the drag and drop fashion that is so popular nowadays.

On forum you often read that people get no BGL or MDL file from the compiler and that a little black window showed for a micro-second. That proves to be too short to read the useful information the compiler is throwing at the user. Often that information will tell you exactly why your BGL or MDL file could not be created.

A few years ago I made the first version of CompileHelper to ease this problem a bit. The tool allows you to drag and drop the source file on it, just like you would love to do with the compiler. CompileHelper then calls the compiler in the background, but captures all feedback. Then we the compiler is finished this feedback is presented to you. Besides that the tool will also determine which compiler you need.

So today I made a new version of this tool, because the problem is still as common as a few years ago. And the old version of CompileHelper did not support the FSX BGLComp directly. Therefore I decided it was time for a redesign. So if you want to get the new version, have a look here.

LOD Creator improvements

The functionality in ModelConverterX to create lower level of detail versions of a model was running very slow for complex objects. I have not fixed that completely (yet), but I have made some changes to this functionality that should at least make it easier to work with. The calculation that simplifies the object is now running on a different thread, so that at least the rest of the tool should remain more responsive. I have also added a progress bar, so that you can see how far in the simplification process the tool is already. See the screenshot of the new dialog below.

As you might see there are some more changes. I have removed the 3D preview from the LOD Creator dialog. Instead the mean 3D preview is used now to display the result of the LOD Creator dialog. You can still select the LOD you want to see from the LOD Creator dialog though.

Optimizing the simplication code further, so that it will run faster is still on my todo list. But at the moment I am also busy with preparing for the new gPoly ground polygon tool. So I am not sure which one will get my attention first. Now that I am talking about the gPoly tool, I would still be happy to receive your input on what you would like to see in a tool for custom ground polygons.

A clear license for the Wiki content

At the FSDeveloper community we are working on adding a clear license to the Wiki, so that it is clear what people can do with the content that is on there. Therefore we are proposing to use a Creative Commons license, please read all the details of the proposal on the forum.

3DS exporter improved

I have just fixed some bugs in the 3DS exporter of ModelConverterX. The main issue solved is that complex objects often could not be imported into GMax. Without going into too much technical details, this was caused by some variables being stored as a short, allowing a maximum value of 65535. Some object parts had more triangles or vertices than this limit and that resulted in the error when importing. This has now be been fixed and those model parts will be split when exporting.

Another improvement I made to the 3DS exporter is that the night textures and bump textures are now also written to the material when exporting.

For future improvement of the 3DS exporter I still have the wish to add animations as well, but that is a little lower on the priority list at the moment. And another 3DS related wish is to have an importer for the 3DS format as well.

How do YOU like to work?

As I posted before, I am planning for a new ground polygon tool. To get more clear how potential end users, yes that is YOU, would prefer to make ground polygons I have setup a poll at the FSDeveloper forum. So please let me know what your ideal way to add ground polygons to a scenery would be. That will help me in creating a tool that is easy to use. I hope to see your vote!