• 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.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
    • Questions about aircraft design can be posted in the Aircraft design forum
    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    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.

Animation export to glTF?

Should ModelConverterX export animations to the glTF format?

  • No

    Votes: 5 5.7%
  • Yes, but only for well known developers

    Votes: 9 10.2%
  • Yes, but only for animations made in ModelConverterX

    Votes: 1 1.1%
  • Yes, but only when the developer has the modeldef.xml sources of all animations

    Votes: 13 14.8%
  • Yes, but I have another idea to prevent piracy (please post below)

    Votes: 4 4.5%
  • Yes, for everybody

    Votes: 56 63.6%

  • Total voters
    88
Status
Not open for further replies.
Some thoughts from my side. First of all the decision to not release this functionality to everybody at this moment has been largely based on inputs from the community here. Personally I was planning to release it, like any other MCX functionality, but the arguments of other developers in the community have convinced me that this is maybe not the right thing to do. You might have another community than the community of developers in mind when you make your statement, but you have to remember that MCX is primarily a tool for developers.

It is not a one-click automatic conversion tool. But it can help a developer to do his work easier, for example by saving the time to have to redo all animations from scratch. Some developers have tested the functionalities in their conversion and it saved them quite some time. But still developer skills are needed to make a functioning aircraft out of the conversion.

The main reason for not releasing the functionality at this moment is that it would make it easier to pirate on the work of developers and take it outside of the FS world. Once you have an aircraft with all animations in glTF format, it becomes very easy to use it in all kind of applications. If the target format would have been restricted to FS only I would have been less concerned. Because MCX can already do conversions with all animations from FSX to P3D for example, but there the content stays in the MDL format. If MSFS would have such a more restricted format I don't see why a conversion from FSX to P3D would be different than a conversion from FSX to MSFS.

And of course the genuine developers that only use a tool to convert their own work or work on models they have permission for to convert are never the problem. Just as user who only do the conversion for their own personal usage and don't share it with anybody else. But the problem are the small amount of users who misuse such a tool and use it to steal the work of others or make conversions of the work of others without their permission. In the end those misuses are against what the community as a whole needs. But I have to agree that balancing those various users is a hard decision.

I want the tool with full functionality to convert the default aircrafts from FSX to MSFS, learn how to make gauges and do all this, but for my own usage, not to reupload them anywhere...
 
The tool you refer to exists within the SDK and MCX is only one pathway to access it.
 
I want the tool with full functionality to convert the default aircrafts from FSX to MSFS, learn how to make gauges and do all this, but for my own usage, not to reupload them anywhere...
its the same for me! I am not interested in ripping and providing or selling this converted stuff. I a m feeling tired for discussing all this shit! sorry!
 
As has been explained earlier in this thread, at the moment the animation export capabilities are only available to respected developers who want to convert their own work. So it is not available at this moment to convert default models or the work of others.

As has been explained in this thread as well, this has been decided after consulting many developers here in the community about how they see such a capability. There are many developers who see this as a threat to their hard work, as it makes pirating their work easier.

On the other hand I am not very comfortable with the current situation either, as it is now up to me to decide who I give access or not. And that is not always easy to decide. So it is likely that I will change the policy in the future. The two most likely choices are make the feature generally available or remove it.

One last remark, attitudes like "I want this" or "I am tried to discussing this shit" are not really helpful in a thread like this. If you have read the discussion before I am sure you can also understand the different position that other developers take.
 
With all due respect to the work of developers, there are dozens if not hundreds of models that will never be supported by the authors. Why not give enthusiasts an opportunity to extend their lives in a new simulator? It's funny to read that the export capabilities in the converter are needed by "respected authors", who should have all the sources in a 3D editor anyway. Moreover, the plane does not consist of only one animation, as for me, this is the tip of the iceberg.
 
As has been explained earlier in this thread, at the moment the animation export capabilities are only available to respected developers who want to convert their own work. So it is not available at this moment to convert default models or the work of others.
Thanks Arno. I and many other hardworking developers really appreciate your work and your attitude towards the respect of developers. Let's hope it will stay that way in the future :)
 
With all due respect to the work of developers, there are dozens if not hundreds of models that will never be supported by the authors. Why not give enthusiasts an opportunity to extend their lives in a new simulator? It's funny to read that the export capabilities in the converter are needed by "respected authors", who should have all the sources in a 3D editor anyway. Moreover, the plane does not consist of only one animation, as for me, this is the tip of the iceberg.
You would be surprised how many developers have lost the sources of their work or have it stuck in a tool like GMax that does not allow you to export it easily into other tools. So in those cases developers will sometimes work from their compiled MDL file when converting to a different version.

Whether a developer is supporting a model or not for MSFS, even if this MCX capability was generally available, you would need permission from the original developer if you wanted to distribute his work for MSFS. Without such a permission any conversion would only be for personal usage.
 
I look at the time while this discussion is underway and I see that the enthusiasts who really want to do something have not done anything, but only strive to take advantage of what someone else has done. During this time, it is quite possible to make new models and not only with animation. Therefore, we can conclude that everyone who is so eager to use the animation saving functionality simply does not want to work on their own and do everything honestly, correctly and independently, they need the functionality not to speed up the work process, but in order to use other people's work without permission, perhaps in selfish Purposes and, no offense, but it's true.
 
Ok, I have encountered an issue that bears examination. I'm not advocating for a position, or condition, but I think it's a reasonable consideration. I've had great luck with Arno's MCX converting all my old and newer models to the MSFS standard. It is very efficient and I think it's best attribute, is to allow one to conceptualize, or overview the entire model, or object, before conversion.

Recently I have become more daring and decided to start including attached effects and animations and after what was almost certainly a terrible gaffe on my part - or, my computer is possessed, I was again rewarded by MCX's fidelity, to gather all these bits and pieces, moving flags and ship's smoke effects, from my earlier developments.
However, these won't export, at least the flags, to glTF.

No problem, they are simple flags, like 20 polygons. I have Blender and Gmax, I even have about 2 weeks left of 3ds Max 2021. I don't really use any of that software, but it's a possibility. My workflow is to model in Sketchup, then take the moving parts to MCX as Collada> from there to FSDS as .FSC>back to MCX and export usually as .mdl. I doubt I have the original .fsc, that's a possibility, but it would be at least 7 years old.

I was going to follow Henrik's route, but all my other static models are glTF LODded out with nice _c textures. So anyway, just putting it out there. I am clearly the original, at least of the animations, they may be open source model I attached them to, but anyway, I am not asking for the floodgates to be opened, Pandora's Box, but it is something to consider.

I can say you certainly don't pop the model into MCX like a toaster and out comes a pocket strudel of a MSFS model, far from it. On the other hand, with Photoshop open to compose the Comp texture, the procedure to convert a model from FSX to MSFS, start to finish, usually takes about 5 minutes, or less. So there is that. I will probably have discovered my work around before the first suggestions post, I literally just tried my first compilation. I'll search the old .fsc first, probably end up isolating the flag, the spinning radars, running them through FSDS and attaching them that way. There's the issue that FSDS only supports the old school bmp's, but I don't think I can get the animations into any other format, it is pretty much FSDS into MCX, or straight into FSX/FS9.

I might have to learn to twirl a baton in Blender..:eek:

------------------------

Well I found the FSDS animated flags and radars. I cannot add them to a glTF model, nor can I "append" them to an already compiled glTF model. So I stripped my original animations from my original model, folded it up into a nice package with the .fsc animations merged and I am still flagged for exporting from .mdl.

Suzanne is beckoning to me right now...

81027026d54f4dd3bcf295d84a3154f8.jpeg
 
Well I've had some luck, but it appears to be a dead end, pending some configuration elucidation, or update by Arno. I was able to get the animations into glTF from .fsc, but there were orientation discrepancies. I experimented with allowing rotation in glTF export and the result had to be rotated 90° in the x axis to be reasonably close to it's original position.

Once there, I was able to merge the main ship and the animations, in glTf format and successfully export that model. However, the animations did not look quite right. On closer examination, it appears the normals have been reversed, so in the picture, the geometry looks horribly distorted. If you imagine the end of the smaller lobe is actually facing away, like seeing the bottom of a Coke bottle, the image resolves to appear almost normal, except for the aforementioned glitch and a slight displacement from the original position, which I could probably live with.

So far.JPG


My solution, I think, would be to reverse the texture to the inside in FSDS, or maybe convince Arno to tune up the .fsc/glTF exporter. For security sake, MCX is already unable to export animations into the FSDS format, I tried combining my multiple animations into a single mergeable FSDS format model via MCX, but was unable to
,.
 
Ok I have been working on this for hours. See, I figure that since I am a bonafide developer, without access to the supported tools, Autodesk, I have to make due. If it is at all possible, I'll find a way. I managed to blow past the intentional dysfunctionality, pretty quickly, or so I'd thought. My initial success with the .fsc format encouraged me to try others that supported FSX animations, which would be only .X. That worked surprisingly well, I had to strip the animation, rotate the converted result to the proper orientation, that rejoin it with it's original model.

I "developed" 4 animated simobject models, 3 of them using original FSDS animations and one I straight converted through .X. They all looked like the one in the MCX viewport after compiling in MSFS and moving to the Community folder. You can see in the information panel that I have imported the model from within the Community folder. All looks and works as expected, the flag animation cycles.

community.JPG


I was not confident my traffic file was working, but I already knew that I could invoke SimObjects as static scenery models, so I spoofed a new scenery to be able to at least see my beautiful creations in sim. Here is what greeted my eyes:

sigh.JPG


It is almost the exact same view of the exact same model and the letdown after all that work almost imploded me.

I can very much sympathize with the illiterates, who'd had to depend on the priests, to interpret the word of God. It was a way to maintain power and that is what is happening here. I am not a pirate, I work hard and long at this, years developing these particular models and I know the "big guys" that have Autodesk aren't intentionally holding me back, but that is exactly what is happening.

The perceived threat of piracy. We never had such protections in FSX or LM, aside from the protections professional vendors like Flight1 attached to their products. Benjamin Franklin put it well, "Those who surrender freedom for security, deserve neither."

There you go. I did the work, I deserve the freedom to see the fruits of my labor, but the overbearing atmosphere of security is literally killing it. We're going to need to make a poor people simulator where we can use Blender and Sketchup to make our little stick planes simulate the real simulations.
 
Rick,

Two remarks.

If you make the animation from scratch in MCX you can export them to glTF. So adding a rotating radar or so to a SketchUp model can be done with MCX for MSFS.

For your remark about piracy protection. As I see it the main difference between the mdl and gltf animation export is that mdl export can only be used in the sim. If you export to glTF it can be loaded in blender or many other tools as well. That's where the main additional privacy concern is I would say.
 
Oh, so you mean the pirates are making money, from a market the original developer never thought to tap. They are selling kalongs MV22 over on Second Life. To be clear, the threat is perceived and not actual; or has there been a rash of this sort of thing, like catalytic converters? And if glTF export is the gateway to profit loss, can these pirates not simply purchase one legal copy of the glTF animations and then distribute it onto their Second Life marketplace?

Have you been watching the progress of the C-17 conversion to MSFS? With permission from the original developer, it has taken this guy months. He's had to rebuild the VC, rewrite gauges, he is not quite recreating the entire model. How is addressing additional privacy concerns not surrendering the freedom of being able to compose, for the security, of nobody being able to compose.

As to composing in MCX, I am unable. I find no ability to manipulate model parts independent of other model parts, aside from isolating these parts, experimenting with orientations and then reimporting. Do you have a tutorial?
 
Hi Rick,

I don't have a full tutorial for it, but in the hierarchy editor you can create new animations. It is indeed a requirement then that the animated part of a seperate node, so in SketchUp you would have to design it in such a way that it has an unique material already. Else it would get merged with other triangles with the same material.

As for the piracy things, the main concern indeed seems to be that works gets used outside of the FS world as well (I am not a commercial developer myself, so I have no personal experience with all this). With the current MCX MDL export capabilities the work can only be used within the FS community. That might be a concern to many developers already, but it was not voiced as strong as now. With an open format like glTF the usage is not limited to FS anymore. I know that some developers don't want to make MSFS models because MSFS does not add enough protection once they release a glTF version of the model.

But there should also be a distinction between the plain glTF that you feed into the packager tool (this is what MCX makes) and the compiled glTF that comes out. The latter has a couple of MSFS specific optimizations, which makes it non-complient with the glTF standard and probably restricts its usage in other tools.
 
Well the priests used to tell the publishers that people would invoke demons, if they were allowed to read. Once that apple was bitten, likely because a disgruntled elite realized one could sell identical copies of these marks on paper, books themselves became dangerously sinful. The first acts of writing that weren't tallies of the king's grain reserves, or registers of the king's holdings, that were actually fictional, were denounced as Satanically narcotic, filling the peoples minds with fictional realities and distracting them from their daily toils.

So you are telling me, my solution to not having 3ds Max, to not be an elite, is to add a draw call to my model.

The "unique material" requirement can probably be spoofed by using the exact same material with a new name, possibly with one swapped out pixel to make it unique. Then after the model has compiled and my glTF animation has made it safely past the .mdl/.bgl border guards, I can go back into the model as a full fledged member of the glTF animation gang and merge my immigrated animation with the native material.

This is a flag model, ready to be animated. I see nothing in the Hierarchy Editor that allows me to add, or change anything, only remove things. Can you tell me where to click?

animation.JPG
 
So you are telling me, my solution to not having 3ds Max, to not be an elite, is to add a draw call to my model.
Well, the fact that you have the part animated does mean it has its own drawcall anyway. So you are not really adding a drawcall here.
This is a flag model, ready to be animated. I see nothing in the Hierarchy Editor that allows me to add, or change anything, only remove things. Can you tell me where to click?
This node has no transformations at the moment. So you need to right click on the # transformations text to get the menu where you can add a new transformation or animation. That will add the new animation. Then you can right click on the animation to edit its properties.
 
Thank you for the clarification. I am used to animated parts that are textured from a single, or larger texture file that also covers static polygons, to not show up as distinct draw calls. Is this mistaken?
 
Thank you for the clarification. I am used to animated parts that are textured from a single, or larger texture file that also covers static polygons, to not show up as distinct draw calls. Is this mistaken?
Animated parts will always show up as extra drawcalls, even if they use the same material as a static part.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top