FSX VC's - what's new ? [Archive] - FSDeveloper Community

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Plugg67

08 Jan 2007, 21:00

n4gix

09 Jan 2007, 10:50

Can anybody give a quick rundown of what's new with FSX VC's please ? i.e. I'm interested to know about any changes in what now needs to be done in 3DS/gmax over the methods used for FS9 VC's. I hope you guys know what I mean !

Many thanks indeed.

Plugg

Aside from the changes required by the use of FSX Materials, and the changes required in Self-Illumination, the modeling aspect hasn't changed at all.

You WILL have to read the SDK carefully to understand which options to use in the Material Editor for VC gauges though.

Also, the ability to specify a custom "lightmap" in the Self-Illumination slot has been eliminated. Instead, the same $vc texture assignment is made in the Self-Illumination slot, which basically makes the entire poly "glow bright white" at night... :eek:

...this in turn, means that all graphics placed on the lighted poly need to be darkened significantly for night time use...

...which effectively DOUBLES the number of bitmaps used in every gauge, since we need to have a "daytime set" as well as a "night time set..." :banghead:

Plugg67

09 Jan 2007, 19:04

OK n4gix, thanks a lot for your reply.

Plugg

n4gix

10 Jan 2007, 11:27

OK n4gix, thanks a lot for your reply.

Plugg

Well, having re-read my reply this morning, I seem to have forgotten to mention the changes to the animations, which affects the exterior model as well as the interior, but is much more heavily used in the VC...

ALL animations are now key-framed, the syntax and structure of the XML code used in modeldef.xml is significantly different from that used in the makemdl.xml file, and all animations are no longer "partname dependent," but rather are associated to the <Animation> tags in modeldef.xml via the Animation Tool.

Further to the above, all mouse control must be effected via the Attachpoint Tool...