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Adding elements to Virtual Cockpit

Skinner_11

Skinner_11

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204
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hungary
Hey guys!

Let's say I have a nice aircraft, with a good 3d cockpit, and I would like to add some polygons to that, without breaking the existing functionality (clickspots, gauges). I'm thinking about modelling an Electronic Flight Bag and adding it to the VC. Is it possible? I know that deleting and editing is not really possible with VC models, but maybe this is?

Thanks for any answers in advance :wave:
 
Nope, it's not.

If licensing is not a restriction, you can export the model from MCX, but you will basically only end up with mapped geometry.
 
Unless you can somehow get ahold of the original modeldef.xml, then no it is not possible. It's not necessarily gauges that are the problem, it's the animations and clickspots. You can easily find out which gauges go where by picking materials from the cockpit and looking for a "$" texture name. (But this is given that you aren't prohibited from doing it by the original author.)
 
I'm thinking about modelling an Electronic Flight Bag and adding it to the VC
Click to expand...
Wouldn't you rather model this in 2D (as a pop-up-window) for the sake of use-a-bility?
 
In the past I've considered merging a HUD into a VC using MCX, I assume it would work, but haven't actually tried.
 
Just to be honest, it is possible to add parts to a model, but the required effort and amount of trial and error involved just not makes it worth it.

Assuming you have figured out the structure of .x files, which is an entire science on its own, the basic workflow starts with exporting the cockpit model as an .x file from ModelConverterX and save the Modeldef generated by MCX to a text file. Custom clickspot, visibility and animation code, however will be garbled so the first thing one has to do is get the modeldef* and .xanim in order, sorting out code and cleaning up each entry's name. Then, using the model loaded into MCX as a reference, one has to re-assign every single animation, click spot, visbility, etc... by finding the appropriate part in the .x file* (they are generically numbered instead of named, so you'll be searching your posterior off!) and generate a part info entry for it in hex format without absolutely any margin for error. Once this is done, the .x file may be compiled with XToMDL using the cleaned up Modeldef and .xanim files. After you've made thoroughly sure that the model works as it should and after you've squashed the zillion bugs introduced during export and recompilation, you may merrily add any additional parts you've modeled in Max or Blender and exported from there in .x format. Keep in mind, however, that the model in .x format will most likely be flipped upside down so you have to adjust your added parts accordingly. You're also going to drive yourself insane with figuring out a correct combination of poly and normal orientation as .x files have a mind of their own.
When you're done with everything, you'll have wasted hundreds of hours with very little gain. Congratulations!

If you want a taste of what it's like to work on models in .x format, download the BAC 1-11 FSX upgrade from my homepage and check out the conversion related documentation. Note that the model is "only" FS2002 grade, which means little to no clickspots outside of 2D panels and low part and material count. Also, the conversion toolkit already contains a lot of fixed parts and specific instructions about what is to be added where in the .x and .xanim file, things which you will always have to figure out on your own since every model is different.
I hope spending (way too much) time with the seeminly simple conversion will kill any ambitions you might have and settle for more convenient solutions.


*Exmaple numbers for a current payware grade cockpit model:
MDL file size: 10 MB
Polycount: 242000
Partcount: 922
X file size: 29.5 MB
X file lines: 1,500,000 (!!!)
XANIM file size: 360 KB
XANIM file lines: 4450
Modeldef file size: 802 KB
Modeldef lines: 23000
Modeldef custom code lines: 8700
 
So, in all due respect, lets assume someone DID have permission from the original author, why wouldn't Skinner just convert the interior / exterior models, import into Blender or .3ds Max, re-animate, clean-up, add parts, re-export and call it a day?
 
fsxar177 said:
So, in all due respect, lets assume someone DID have permission from the original author, why wouldn't Skinner just convert the interior / exterior models, import into Blender or .3ds Max, re-animate, clean-up, add parts, re-export and call it a day?
Click to expand...

Because as Heretic said it is very difficult and time consuming. You could not "call it a day" more like a couple of months.

To give an example, I want to redo/update a model of a Hunter FR-10 I made in 2009 using FSDS and convert it to Blender.
That was easy using MCX. BUT, now I have 166 unnamed parts in the external model and 222 in the interior model. I have the original source so it should, in theory, be simple to rename the Blender parts to be the same as the FSDS ones, recreate the hierarchy and the animation. I do not have the original modeldef, I'd have to recreate that using the FSDS animation scheme for guidance.

If I had nothing else to do I could finish the task because it is a very small project, but I'd hate to tackle one of my larger projects and I would flat refuse to do it to someone else"s project because I would start with no idea of the approach they took.

So, when I get around to it I'll start the project from scratch, that way it will probably get finished this year.
Roy
 
As another example of the level of difficulty involved, for a recent project I managed to somehow corrupt the only copy of a project's modeldef.xml file.

So, I used MCX to "decompile" my latest interior .mdl file. I then took the resulting reconstituted modeldef.xml file, loaded it in my editor and then spent nearly 26 pain filled hours carefully restructuring the file into its original format.

That step was necessary because MCX gleefully renames <PartInfo> <Names>xxxx</Names> into some weird gobbledeguk that bears no relationship with the names used in the original source .max file, making it totally useless without the hand reconstruction.
 
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