SceneryDesign.org One common issue when trying to compile objects using XtoMDL in ModelConverterX is that XtoMDL can throw very unclear error messages when the XtoMDL tool is missing one of its prerequisites. For example the FSX XtoMDL needs a very specific DirectX version to the installed and different P3D XtoMDL versions depend on different C++ redistributable […]
Improved mipmaps handling
It turned out that for all those years the way ModelConverterX handles the mipmaps of textures was not really correct. So in the last version of ModelConverterX there are a number of changes that improve this. These include: The video below also shows most of these changes.
XtoMDL special characters
On the FSDeveloper forum there are regularly questions about why XtoMDL does not compile a certain object. XtoMDL then usually throws a bunch of not so clear errors, as shown in the picture below. One of the common causes for such errors are special characters. Let me start by saying that what I call special […]
Material color to vertex colors
The latest development release of ModelConverterX adds a new drawcall optimization option for MSFS. It is now also possible to copy the color of the material color to the vertex colors. That allows multiple parts with the different colors to be rendered in one drawcall, if the remainder of their material settings is the same. […]
Command line conversion
ModelConverterX is primarily a tool with a graphical user interface, but did already have some command line arguments to load objects or apply batch conversions. These command arguments have now been modified to support easy conversion between formats from the command line as well. This can be useful if you want to integrate ModelConverterX somewhere […]
Error report file upload error
From within ModelConverterX and scenProc you can upload an error report directly to my bug tracker. There is an option to include the file that caused the crash as well. Recently I noticed that most users did not try to upload the file anymore, which makes debugging harder. Today I found out the problem was […]
MSFS texture distortion
The latest development release of ModelConverterX contains some new functionality that help you to inspect if your model is likely to have texture distortion issues in MSFS and also allows you to minimize this effect by updating your model. The video tutorial below explains all these functions. I would also like to mention that the […]
Material changes using the hierarchy editor
In the latest development release of ModelConverterX a new feature has been added to the hierarchy editor. You can now also modify the material of model parts in the hierarchy editor. When you click on the material name you get a list of all materials in the model and can select which one should be […]
Export MSFS scenery package
With the recent changes for scenProc to export to MSFS as well, I have added writing a scenery to a MSFS package to the exporter capabilities. This means that ModelConverterX now also has the same export capability. So if you select “Export scenery” you will be able to export to a MSFS scenery package. The […]
Interactive node selection
The last ModelConverterX development release adds a cool new feature. You can now select nodes of the object by clicking on them in the preview. The hierarchy editor will then directly jump to that node or the material editor will show the material used on that node. The video below illustrates this new feature.