Arno Gerretsen : Tools

ModelConverterX video tutorial

arno — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 14:03:00 GMT

Just a little reminder that in two days there will be an online video tutorial about ModelConverterX. I think tutorial I will give a quick introduction to the tool and after that I will show how you can use it to convert old API macros into FSX MDL files or how to import them into GMax for further editing.

So you are all invited to join this tutorial on Saturday 2nd of January at 20:00 CET on the FSDeveloper Livestream channel. See you there! And if you can't make it the tutorial will be available on the Wiki afterwards as well.

gPoly status update #5

arno — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 20:07:00 GMT

For today I made a little teaser video of gPoly to show the progress. As you can see the adding and editing of the polygons it getting there, so it seems I can move to the export functionality soon. Enjoy!

gPoly status update #4

arno — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 19:21:00 GMT

Time for another gPoly status update, today I have made some good progress on the tool again. The first part I have finished is the display of the GeoTIFF background image, this code seems to be quite optimal now, so that even with big images you can pan and zoom without too much delay. What I still have to do is verify the accuracy of the geo position, I think I need to render some reference information (of which I know the position) over it to do this. Another related feature on the todo list is the ability to make images georeferenced when they are not yet.

Today I also worked quite a bit on the user interface, especially the part that allows you to manipulate the layers in the project. Each layer can hold a background image or a set of features (polygons, lines, etc). Below is the screenshot of the current status.

gPoly status update #3

arno — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 21:15:00 GMT

This evening I continued on the gPoly tool. The focus was again on the display of the background images, since they are a very important feature when drawing ground features or when checking if they are in the right location. I made some good progress and for small to medium sized airports it is working fine now.

But when I try to load the high resolution background image I have of Schiphol things go less smooth, especially when you zoom in far and the highest resolution needs to be loaded. So there is still some work to be done when selecting the resolution that should be displayed, but progress is being made. I should note that the background image of Schiphol is a GeoTIFF of almost 4 GB in size, so it should be expected that things will never be super smooth when working with such a big file.

Day or night?

arno — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:26:00 GMT

Tonight I have added a nice little feature to ModelConverterX again (it will be in the 1.2 development release tomorrow). You might wonder what it is? You can now choose to render your object in day or night view. The night view allows you to preview the night textures. Here is a little screenshot of one of the default objects.

It is not yet finished, since I just display the night texture now. Whether it is a nightmap or a lightmap is not yet taken into consideration. So that gives some room for future improvement. But this will allow you to check how the object would look during the night.

ModelConverterX 1.1 available

arno — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 16:53:00 GMT

Just a quick note that a new stable version of ModelConverterX is available. If you have been using the development release lately there is not so much changed, but compared to the last stable release there are loads of improvements. I have also updated the user manual.

For the coming time the development of ModelConverterX will be slowed down a bit, since I plan to focus more on the gPoly tool.

Render modes

arno — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 21:20:00 GMT

Today I have added some more options to ModelConverterX, this time different render modes for the preview. Before you could only render the object as it would show in FS, but now you also have the option to only show the faces (no textures) or to show a wireframe view of the object. I some cases these different render modes might help to figure out what is going on with your model.

As you might have noticed I am trying to fix some of the open issues with ModelConverterX, so that I can release another stable version. Apart from a few items the list for version 1.1 is empty now, so after that I will focus more on the gPoly tool.

A too powerful tool?

arno — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:38:00 GMT

A tool like ModelConverterX is very powerful in converting objects between different formats. But the fact that it can read BGL or MDL files as well also means it becomes relatively easy to import the work of somebody else into GMax and modify it to your needs. This gives some tension, on one hand you want to create a flexible for the users who is converting the work he has made and allow him to enjoy his old work in FSX. On the other hand you don't want to encourage people to steal the work of others, manipulate it a bit, and then distribute it as there own.

ModelConverterX already shows a user license when you first start it that reminds the user to only use it with objects that he owns the copyrights from and is thus allowed to convert. But let's be honest, who is reading that kind of license before clicking on the agree button?

I do not want to limit the tool too much, since there is also a lot of legitimate usage of it. So I have decided to add a little reminder while you are exporting. If you are converting your own objects just wait till it disappears when the export is finished. If you are trying to steal somebody else's work I hope it makes you feel guilty (at least a little bit)...

gPoly status update #2

arno — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 09:35:00 GMT

Just a little update again with the progress of this morning. Using GDAL I got the geo-referenced background image loaded into gPoly. Until now it works quite good, but I think I will have to optimize the code a bit more to work better with bigger background images. Also I will have to add some functionality to make the image geo-referenced if it is not so already, not everybody has access to GeoTIFF files I guess. So there is still enough to do...

gPoly status update #1

arno — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 20:18:00 GMT

OK, this is dangerous. I have made this mistake before, posting about a tool that is not yet finished at all. So let me start with a little disclaimer: although I have started coding on the new gPoly tool and although I am writing about it on my blog now, I am not sure when a first version will be available. With these blog posts I will try to keep you informed about the progress. So let's start with the first status update.

After much thinking and filling many pieces of paper with thoughts, I have started coding this week. At the moment I am working on the basic user interface, a first screenshot is below.

Once I have the interface in place to display the ground polygons (and lines) I can start with other functionalities like importing from MDL files, exporting to BGL file or drawing new polygons. The current plan is that the tool can both be used to create ground sceneries from scratch or to tweak objects made with GMax without needing to have the FS2002 gamepack. With ground sceneries I mean elements like ground polygons, extruded lines and other ground features like dirt, skit marks, etc.

But the first item on my list is to allow the display of a background image, since such a reference is quite important when making ground scenery. So hopefully I can get that working tomorrow.

RADItor

arno — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:58:00 GMT

Today I got a question about the size of an addon aircraft in the preview window in FS, it was appearing too small. If I knew a solution? Actually I did and I had discussed it before with some other aircraft designers. The preview size is determined by the radius within the MDL file, but unfortunately there was no easy way to edit this (unless you like to attack the MDL file wit your hex editor). I have now made a small tool that allows you to tweak the radius and bounding box values of a MDL file. Enjoy and use at own risk!

Google Building Maker

arno — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:50:00 GMT

Today I stumbled upon this new tool by Google: Building Maker. It is quite impressive to see how with a few mouse clicks you can make a 3D model using images showing the object from different angles. I guess this way of constructing would be the dream of many FS developers as well.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

I did try the tool for a simple office building and that worked quite good, but I am not sure how easy it is with irregular shapes. I guess it is mainly suitable for objects that don't need too much detail and mainly rely on their photo textures.

I also noticed that the latest Google Sketchup has a function to use Google Streetview images on the object directly. Although it might be easy, this new feature and the Building Maker tool make me wonder about the copyrights of the images used. We are not allowed to take images from Google Earth and use them in FS, but these kind of object depend a lot on such images. So would a designer who made an object like that be allowed to use it outside Google Earth?

KMZ reader

arno — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:13:00 GMT

As a little bonus feature on top of the COLLADA reader I added yesterday, I have now also added a KMZ reader. KMZ is the file format used by Google Earth for its objects and basically it is a ZIP file containing the COLLADA file for the object and all the texture used all in one.

Below is a little screenshot of this reader in action. I took this cottage object from the Google Sketchup Warehouse to test if the reader is working fine and as you can see it is.

COLLADA reader available

arno — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:48:00 GMT

The COLLADA reader for ModelConverterX, that I talked about in the previous post, will be available in the development release from tomorrow. The reader can read the geometries and materials used by the objects. At the moment transformations and animations are not yet supported. Below is another screenshot of the duck test object, now with the texture applied correctly.

I have tested it with some of the COLLADA sample objects and with some Sketchup output and the reader seems quite robust. But since this is just the first version of the COLLADA reader I would not be surprised if some user would find DAE file that can crash the tool. If you do find such issues please let me know.

COLLADA reader

arno — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 11:37:00 GMT

Last I week I gave Google Sketchup another try and it seems a program you can learn to use quite quickly. If you compare it with GMax I think it has a learning curve that is much less steep. And I think if you model carefully in Sketchup you can make models with it that are suitable for real time rendering. So I think that for some people who just want to make some simple objects Sketchup might be a nice alternative.

But how to get those objects into FS? The free version of Sketchup only exports KMZ and DAE files. You could probably convert them to 3DS, import into GMax and then export, but I think all those extra steps make things too complicated. So I decided to work on a ModelConverterX feature that has been on my list for a while already, support for COLLADA DAE files.

I am not there yet, but I can now read the basic geometry from COLLADA files into ModelConverterX, below you see a screenshot where I loaded the COLLADA test duck. I still need to work on reading the materials used correctly and I guess some testing to see how robust the code is would be nice as well. But with a bit of luck I will have a beta of the COLLADA reader in the development release soon.

FSWeekend 2009

arno — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:08:00 GMT

Time for a little update. This weekend was the annual FSWeekend in the Netherlands again, and I was present there on behalf of NL2000 and FSDeveloper. For NL2000 this was certainly not the first time we were there and it was a lot of fun to meet all those users of our scenery again. There are people you see almost every year at the weekend. For FSDeveloper it was the first time we were (a bit) visible at the event. Due to the more technical nature of the FSDeveloper community there was maybe a little less interest, but hopefully it helped some people to get starting in making some addons themselves.

Another interesting thing at the FSWeekend was that IVAO had organised a seminar about the future of Flight Simulation. At those sessions a panel discussed the consequences of the closure of ACES and what it meant for our hobby. The panel of 5 consisted of Jonckers (IVAO), Kenny Moens (IVAO), Mathijs Kok/Winfried Diekmann (Aerosoft), Francois Dumas (FSAddon and more) and me (NL2000/FSDeveloper). I guess this topic could deserve its own blog post later on, but in short the participants agreed that for the short term the consequences were mainly more stability and more time to develop nice addons. For the longer term the opinion varied more, but it is logical that you look differently at it when you try to make a living on FS addons. The fact that Aerosoft is considering to build their own simulator was also discussed of course and that sounds interesting indeed. I guess we'll see what the future brings, but the FSWeekend also showed that there are still many people enjoy flight simulation as a hobby.

So with the FSWeekend over now, it is time to move on to some other things again. Besides the busy work schedule and the normal family activities, I will try to focus on two things in the coming weeks. The first one is to finish the typical Dutch windmill objects for the NL2000 scenery. Since we got asked many times at the FSWeekend when the next release will be, it guess I should try to give this some priority. Because we can't release a Dutch scenery without such objects, we should keep up the myth that we all live in windmills and wear clogs. Oh and to come back to the question about the NL2000 v4 release (which I answered a dozen times this weekend), it will be released when it is ready and we can't promise a date yet. But we can see the end of the beta testing tunnel by now.

The other activity I want to put some focus on is the new gPoly tool I am planning. The idea has crystallized quite clear in my head by now, so I am looking forward to start the actual coding. I really think that a tool to make the creation of custom ground polygons a lot easier would be helpful to many developers. So hopefully I can report some progress on this soon.

Revival of a tool

arno — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 18:58:00 GMT

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

arno — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 11:29:00 GMT

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.

3DS exporter improved

arno — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 09:20:00 GMT

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?

arno — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 07:46:00 GMT

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!