## Changes in the ASToFra tools in the last 90 days

#### MR [ 654 ] - 2026-02-07 08:04:10.872000

Add ModelConverterX Object (MOB) format
Added new ModelConverterX Object (MOB) format that can be used to export the internal ModelConverterX representation of an object to file and also import it again. This can be useful if you want to store the state of your object without exporting to one of the flight simulator formats. If the embed texture option is selected the textures of the objects are also stored in the format.
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::feature-request, reader, writer

#### MR [ 620 ] - 2026-01-30 11:27:50.312000

Resolved: "FBX export animations"
Added feature to export animations to the FBX format via Assimp. Both node animations and skin and bone animations are supported. When the object has been loaded from a MDL or BGL file, animation export is only possible with the export animations license (similar to how glTF animation export works).
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::feature-request, writer

#### MR [ 653 ] - 2026-01-25 07:55:29.527000

Resolve "Write skin and bones to glTF"
Added support to write skin and bone animations to glTF files. The bones and skin weights are always exported. For exporting the bone animations the same restrictions apply as for exporting animations to glTF files. Closes #5776
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::feature-request, writer

#### MR [ 645 ] - 2026-01-24 10:44:14.004000

Resolve "Read skin and bones from glTF"
Added support to read skin and bone animations from glTF files. glTF files processed by the MSFS package tool do sometimes have parts that use skin and bone animations that are still displaced. This is because the package tool does add some optimization that I don't fully understand yet. This will hopefully be solved in the future. Closes #5761 Closes #6834
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::feature-request, reader

#### MR [ 652 ] - 2026-01-24 07:57:17.702000

Resolve "MDL parts with wrong scale"
Fixed issue that certain MDL parts got wrong scaling in scenegraph optimization. Closes #6837
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::bug, reader

#### MR [ 650 ] - 2026-01-17 09:19:22.221000

Resolve "Option to include alpha in unwrap texture"
Added extra checkbox to the unwrap texture creator form that determines if the alpha channel of the original texture is copied to the unwrap texture. Closes #6833
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::feature-request, editor

#### MR [ 651 ] - 2026-01-17 08:19:18.990000

Resolve "System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception while starting process with link or file
Fixed issue that opening external links and files from the tools did sometimes give an error because the existing code was not compliant with the latest .NET version. Closes #6835
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::crash, scenProc

#### MR [ 648 ] - 2026-01-11 19:59:35.782000

Resolve "Parts displaced after scenegraph optimization"
Fixed bug in object scenegraph optimization that could result in parts being displaced. Closes #6832
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::bug

#### MR [ 647 ] - 2026-01-11 12:17:38.237000

Resolve "redistributable error"
Added option to disable the redistributable check in ModelConverterX (at start up and before using compilers like XtoMDL) to be able to proceed (at own risk) when the check gives a false error. Closes #6816
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::bug, writer

#### MR [ 646 ] - 2026-01-11 09:03:58.038000

Resolve "Texture resize function is slow"
Performance improvements to the texture resize function. This function is e.g. used to generate mip maps when the input texture does not contain them. Therefore this optimisation will speed up loading a new model in the preview. Closes #6831
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::bug

#### MR [ 640 ] - 2026-01-09 17:16:10.350000

Resolve "Emissive color not shown in preview"
Update the shader of the ModelConverterX preview to use the emissive color of the object as well. For PBR materials the rendering mimics MSFS, for non-PBR materials it mimics FS2004. FSX and P3D do not store the emissive color in the MDL file, so this feature is less relevant for these simulator versions. Closes #6820
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::bug, visualisation

#### MR [ 644 ] - 2026-01-09 12:30:05.268000

Resolve "Remove close button from options form"
Remove the close button from the Options and Texture search path forms to force users to use the OK or Cancel button to close it. When pressing the close button (X) at the top, changes were not saved. Closes #6815
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::feature-request, UI

#### MR [ 643 ] - 2026-01-09 10:25:02.936000

Resolve "Animation editor text missing"
Made sure that the full text of all buttons in the animation editor is shown correctly. Closes #6825
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::bug, UI, editor

#### MR [ 642 ] - 2026-01-08 20:16:18.255000

Resolve "CTD loading model"
Fixed endless loop in logic to search for textures that occurred when texture.cfg files have a circular reference. This endless loop resulted in a CTD of ModelConverterX. Closes #6830
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::crash, reader

#### MR [ 641 ] - 2026-01-05 06:13:59.052000

Resolve "Long animation tweak bug"
Fixed issue that applying long animation tweak to a FS2004 MDL file without animations would result in an invalid MDL file that could not be loaded anymore. Closes #6821
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::bug, writer

#### MR [ 639 ] - 2026-01-05 06:13:31.303000

Resolve "redistributable error"
When checking for the C++ 2005 redistributable that the FSX XtoMDL needs, allow both the RTM and the SP1 version. This is a workaround for users where the RTM version can be installed, but the SP1 version gives an error. Closes #6816
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::bug, writer

#### MR [ 635 ] - 2026-01-04 13:02:14.994000

Resolve "Export texture with UV mapping"
Added an unwrap texture creator function that can generate an unwrap texture based on the loaded object. It can be opened via the special tools menu or via the texture tab context menu in the material editor. Closes #1439
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::feature-request, editor

#### MR [ 638 ] - 2026-01-03 21:30:30.842000

Removed code quality warnings
Added more checks for potential code quality issues to the build pipeline. And applied fixed for certain common issues.

#### MR [ 637 ] - 2026-01-03 19:57:06.947000

Resolve "Model zoom/orientation not correct"
Fixed bug in scenegraph optimization that resulted in attached object being displaced (especially for FS2004 aircraft), which resulted in the initial zoom/orientation to be calculated wrong. Closes #6819
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::bug, reader

#### MR [ 636 ] - 2026-01-03 15:14:23.824000

Roslynator
Added Roslynator code quality checker to the build pipeline.

#### MR [ 634 ] - 2026-01-03 10:34:52.163000

Resolve "Aircraft shown as transparent"
Fixed issue that entire model was shown transparent when loading certain FS2004 aircraft models. There was an issue in the way that ModelConverterX combined the diffuse colour alpha value with the texture. Closes #6817
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::bug, reader

#### MR [ 573 ] - 2026-01-02 05:59:27.594000

Resolve "Read skin and bones from FBX"
Added support to read skin and bone animations from the file formats that are read via the Assimp library (COLLADA, FBX, ...). Closes #5753
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::feature-request, reader

#### MR [ 632 ] - 2025-12-30 21:26:49.170000

Resolve: "Crash after loading empty model XML file"
Fixed a crash that would happen when a model XML file was loaded that contained no valid objects and therefore returned an empty scenery.
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::crash, reader

#### MR [ 631 ] - 2025-12-27 08:58:37.533000

Resolve: "Crash loading incomplete glTF"
Fixed crash when loading a glTF model that only has the BIN file and is missing the glTF file.
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::crash, reader

#### MR [ 630 ] - 2025-12-27 08:57:32.830000

Updates of NuGet packages
Updated various NuGet packages, including Assimp, GDAL and EmguCV, to their latest version. Closes #6805
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, scenProc

#### MR [ 629 ] - 2025-12-24 07:54:54.099000

Resolve "Normalize all model textures at once"
Allow items from the scenegraph node context menu in the hierarchy editor to be selected when multiple nodes are selected. This way operations like normalize texture coordinates, flip texture coordinates, smooth shade, etc. can also be performed on multiple nodes at once. Also added an option so that the texture coordinates of the entire model can be normalized directly on import of a model. Closes #6811
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::feature-request, editor

#### MR [ 628 ] - 2025-12-22 21:11:54.746000

Resolve "Add rotate with wind tweak"
Added Rotate with wind tweak that can be selected when exporting a FS2004 scenery MDL like the other tweaks. It will automatically rotate the object in the wind direction. Closes #6812
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::feature-request, writer

#### MR [ 627 ] - 2025-12-20 23:00:05.906000

Resolve "Select mode does not work after rotate"
Fixed bug that after rotating object the select mode did not work correctly anymore. Closes #6810
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::bug, editor

#### MR [ 625 ] - 2025-12-20 22:29:05.536000

Resolve "Add FS2004 MDL tweaking"
Enable the following ASM tweaks to be applied when exporting a FS2004 scenery MDL. The tweaks can be enabled with the options in the export object dialog. - No shadow: the model will not give a shadow in FS2004. - Rotate to user: the model will always rotate towards the user in FS2004. - Long animation fix: this enables animations with more than 1024 frames to work correctly in FS2004. - Seasonal textures: add seasonal textures to the object (this tweak is not controlled with an option in the export object dialog, but automatically applied if a material has the HasSeasonalTextures flag set). Closes #697 Closes #6807 Closes #6808
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::feature-request, writer

#### MR [ 612 ] - 2025-12-19 20:48:51.409000

Resolve "Remove remaining fixed pipeline elements"
Removed the last remaining bits of the fixed pipeline OpenGL from the 3D preview logic. This means that the preview is now fully shader based. Closes #6746
Affected tools/features: FXEditor, ModelConverterX, visualisation

#### MR [ 621 ] - 2025-12-19 19:47:17.697000

Development release version 1.9
Set the version of the development release to 1.9.
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX

#### MR [ 626 ] - 2025-12-19 17:44:14.732000

Resolve "Attached effects do not show in FS2004"
When effects are near the edges of the object bounding box FS2004 does not always show them. ModelConverterX will add an invisible box around your object to prevent this issue when exporting to FS2004 MDL. Closes #6809
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::bug, writer

#### MR [ 624 ] - 2025-12-10 20:36:47.326000

Improvement auto-generated source files
Improved pre-build logic to generate certain source file automatically during build.

#### MR [ 623 ] - 2025-12-06 12:21:30.661000

Fixed compile error when folder already exists
Fixed issue with previous merge request that resulted in compile error in certain cases.

#### MR [ 615 ] - 2025-12-06 11:47:53.575000

Resolve "Normals not shown in preview"
Added mention in manual that normal visualisation shader might not work on some hardware. Also clean up shader initialisation code. Closes #6801
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::bug, visualisation

#### MR [ 622 ] - 2025-12-06 11:22:39.777000

Resolve: "Development release check"
Fixed bug that it was not detected correctly if a build is a development release or not when checking for updates. Also made sure the development release is shown in the title bar when it is a development release build.
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::bug

#### MR [ 619 ] - 2025-11-28 18:28:14.588000

Resolve "Use X-Plane light name on export to X-Plane OBJ"
Updated hierarchy editor to be able to search for lights better (search for X-Plane name) and also so more details about lights. Closes #6782
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::feature-request, writer

#### MR [ 618 ] - 2025-11-28 13:52:58.462000

Resolve "Use X-Plane light name on export to X-Plane OBJ"
Improved writing of lights to X-Plane OBJ files. Before all lights point lights were exported with the name specified on the export file dialog, but now if the XPlaneName attribute of the light is set that name will be used as light type. Also added mapping from FS effect files to X-Plane light names. This can be found in the light_mapping.ini file. Closes #6782
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::feature-request, writer

#### MR [ 617 ] - 2025-11-27 06:17:35.491000

Resolve "model not shown in preview"
Fixed bug that when loading an object with only an internal representation that the preview control would initially activate the external representation and thus an empty screen is shown. Closes #6803
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::bug

#### MR [ 616 ] - 2025-11-26 20:22:43.480000

Resolve "not all GPW settings loaded"
Fixed bug that not all settings from a loaded GPW MGP settings file were stored correctly when the case of the material name differed between the model and the MPG file. Comparison is now done non case sensitive. Closes #6804
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::bug, editor

#### MR [ 614 ] - 2025-11-22 07:54:23.771000

Resolve "DirectX download link broken"
Updated download link that is used to download DirectX 9.0c when it is detected that this version is missing. The link used before was broken. Closes #6802
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::bug

#### MR [ 613 ] - 2025-11-21 19:11:36.186000

Resolve "Last location not remembered in all editors"
Made sure that the location control used in the for example the ground polygon wizard and the convert and place object wizard is initialized with the last used coordinates instead of always zero. Closes #6800
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::bug, UI

#### MR [ 604 ] - 2025-11-16 14:40:05.575000

Resolve "Support additional X-Plane commands"
Added support to X-Plane OBJ reader to read ANIM_hide/ANIM_shpw commands as visibility conditions. There is no mapping between X-Plane and FS variable names, the users has to convert the visibility condition code manually if conversion if needed. Closes #6760
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::feature-request, reader

#### MR [ 611 ] - 2025-11-15 09:11:23.882000

Resolve "Cleanup code smell"
Removed various code smells from the source code. Closes #6797
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, scenProc

#### MR [ 610 ] - 2025-11-14 19:40:33.414000

Resolve "Option to remove all visibility conditions"
Added option to the object writer to remove all mouse rectangles and/or visibility conditions from the object before exporting it. This option can be activated for any format in the export object dialog. This can be useful if you want to export an object as scenery that contains mouse rectangles or visibility conditions. Closes #6799
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::feature-request, writer

#### MR [ 609 ] - 2025-11-14 11:49:13.288000

Resolve "Cleanup compiler warnings"
Made sure the source code compiles without warnings.
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, scenProc

#### MR [ 608 ] - 2025-11-09 12:31:17.991000

Resolve "Animated parts exported wrong"
Fixed bug that removing a LOD from an object that cause export issues with animations in other LODs. This did happen when modelparts of different LODs are nested. Closes #6798
Affected tools/features: ModelConverterX, Severity::bug, writer