The latest development release of ModelConverterX adds new functionalities to the hierarchy editor. With them you can edit animations and transformations in your model and add new animations and transformations as well. In this video tutorial I demonstrate how it works: I hope this new functionality makes it easier to tweak your models. If you […]
Prepar3D v4 visibility conditions for scenery?
This evening I have been testing Prepar3D v4 a bit more and I have especially looked at using visibility conditions in scenery MDL files. Before these were not supported at all for MDL files placed through BGL. We had to use SimObject for them, as tools like SODE do. But with Prepar3D v4 things have […]
Scene Builder Wizard
In the latest development release you will find a new wizard, the Scene Builder Wizard. With this feature you can build one scene (object) from a set of FS library objects and their placement. With this information ModelConverterX will generate a combined scene that contains all these objects at the right positions. This might be […]
Understanding extrusion bridges
Lately I have been working with XML extrusion bridges for scenery and while doing so I noticed some weird artifacts. Even though I out the end points under the ground, they sometimes still float above it. And I also noticed that two bridges don’t always connect even though you specify the same position and altitude […]
GPW and P3D v2
Today I have been experimenting with updating the ground polygon wizard of ModelConverterX to also export P3D v2 MDL files for ground polygons. Given the recent announcement by Lockheed Martin that the FS2002 style polygons will be dropped in the future, it became time to update the GPW. The good news is that it was […]
Which texture on my autogen building?
The autogen SDK shows us how the texture sheet that is used for generic autogen buildings is structured. There are parts for houses, medium/large building and warehouses. See the images below that comes from the SDK. But the SDK doesn’t tell us which type of building get’s which part of the texture sheet. On obvious […]
I need 6 seasons!
I guess you learned at school that there are 4 seasons in each year. But when you start making scenery for Flight Simulator you will see that FS actually has 5 seasons. Besides the usual seasons spring, summer, autumn and winter, FS also has a heavy winter season. This means winter with snow actually. So […]
Placing effects
Although the scenProc tool is mainly used to create autogen files, it is also capable to produce BGL files using BGLComp. A processing step to place library objects this way has been available for quite a while. Today I have added another step that uses the BGLComp exporter, it can be used to place effect […]
FSDevConf schedule
The schedule for the FSDevConf has been announced. So have a look and put the sessions in your agenda that you would like to attend! As you can see I will also be giving a few presentations. You can expect sessions from me about the following topics: How to convert a SketchUp object to Flight […]
Blender
For a long time 3D objects for Flight Simulator could only be developed with a couple of tools. For example FSDS or GMax with the right gamepack. But over the last few years there is a trend to use more and more tools. For example SketchUp is also popular now to make scenery objects. Recently […]