• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
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    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

Anti-piracy measures reverted

arno

arno

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Sometimes you have to try something to see if it works. A few days ago I introduced some extra checks that restricted exporting from ModelConverterX when you are modifying a model for which you don’t seem to be the author. I have now reverted those changes, because they didn’t work out as expected. There are three main reasons why they didn’t work as theoretically assumed:

  • The mechanism to detect if you are the author was not robust enough, it also gave this warning for people who were modifying their own models.
  • The mechanism didn’t account for the fact that some people want to make modifications for their own usage, without the intention to redistribute them.
  • The mechanism was mainly intended to protect the complex 3rd party aircraft models, but it turned out more and more AI models also use custom animations. It was never the intention to limit the modification of such models as well.

So due to these reasons I have removed the restriction again now and you can use ModelConverterX on any model as before.

Of course it is still very important that developers respect each others copyright. So that is something that I will keep stressing on the forums. But it didn’t turn out to be feasible to let ModelConverterX check this, without restricting many genuine users. What remains is an appeal on all developers to only distribute work that you have made yourself or for which you have permission to distribute it from the original author.

Continue reading...
 
Hi. :wave: First off, I'm not a developer in any way, shape or form. I'm here because I'm, well, reliant on MCX. :) I just preview FSX repaints with it.

My experience with it was a case of 'Hooray!'(I discovered it) 'Boo!'(You lost the refresh button) 'Hooray!(refresh button returned) 'Boo!'(Anti-piracy thing) 'Hooray!(lost the AP) Boo!(the latest version won't load .dds files, so big red cross)

Eagerly awaiting the next 'Hooray!' :D

Keep up the good work. If ever you decide to charge for MCX I'll be among the first with my money. :twocents:
 
Hi Arno,

MCX is a wonderful program for developers. Like a knife, it has sharp edge to do good and bad things depends on the users.
Are there any possibility that the maker can add some signature or password to there model through MCX and embedded in bgl file?
So, anyone else except the maker of that file cannot export bgl file to be MDL and texture and modify it. I think it is not right even for their own use.
However it is possible to look at a files to see how the model is, but not for exporting it as mdl and texture without password. The works can be protected and the tool is still useful.
 
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Thank goodness! I was really concerned that I couldn't update MCX anymore.
 
This is a really challenging topic for all. I like the way you approached it. Try something for good reasons, revert if bad outweighs the good. Well done!
 
Since all the developers should have their mdl if they are genuine. I wonder if bgl file should be protected. It would have be protected if MCX can see the bgl file but cannot export to MDL. So any scenery or aircraft models can be used by any one who buy them.
MCX is meant to check bgl file, isn't it?
 
That only works for scenery of course, aircraft are only mdl files.

And it wouldn't work for developers who have lost their sources and want to recover their work.
 
arno said:
It wouldn't work for developers who have lost their sources and want to recover their work.
Click to expand...
What about this function to export to mdl is kept, just only registered person will have that privileged to save?
May be those who have this function need to put password before this function is opened up for use?
Just thinking.
 
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