The last week or so I have been working on a new feature for ModelConverterX that really was a trip back down memory lane. The new feature is that certain ASM tweaks that we used to make for FS2004 can now automatically be applied by ModelConverterX when you export your FS2004 scenery MDL file. These are:

• No shadow for the object: selected as option on the export object dialogue.
• Rotate to user for the object: selected as option on the export object dialogue.
• Seasonal textures: selected in the material editor by setting has seasonal textures attributes to true, the seasonal settings can be set for your object in the seasonal settings editor).
• Long animation fix, this feature was already available in the animation editor in the special tools menu. That editor has been removed now and instead there is an option in the export object dialogue for it now.

What ModelConverterX does when you use these options is that it will intercept the ASM files that MakeMDL can create and will automatically apply the ASM tweaks for the different features that we used to have to do manually in the old days. After the tweaks have been added ModelConverterX will use BGLC9 to compile the MDL file again with the tweaks included.

You might say that it has taken a long time, but with these few changes most of the MDL Tweaker II features have now been migrated to ModelConverterX. It only took 20 years to do so. The only feature still missing is the conditional display of objects. ModelConverterX uses visibility conditions for that, maybe one day I can link them to the ASM tweak for conditional display on export as well.