Blender to FSX - Exporting many effects

jdberg · 25 Nov 2014

Hello Felix,

because the first thread "Blender to FSX" is so long and filled up with many topics I open a second one to explain my current "problem" with exporting effects. If you think we should keep it in the first thread, please feel free to move it.

The attachpoint feature of the Toolset is very important for me as a scenery designer and I tested Platform and No Crash with no problems in current version 0.6.03

I was also able to attach an effect like fx-navred for a red lightspot at a single cube. I however want to attach this effect to many lights on my airport. When I select all cubes and attach the same effect the tool always uses the same name. This causes the export to fail because it needs a unique name for each attached effect.
Could you add the possibility to automatically add a unique name e.g. add a number to the name given?
Another wish in this context: When I try to analyze what is attached to a cube, I have to go to Properties and have to step through the text in the very very small properties window. Whould it be possible to get a large window or a better display for these properties?
Another hint for other users: As Krispy1001 already mentioned the attachment of effects only work when there is a material added to the cube. Perhaps you could add that to the manual. If I can help you with that, please let me know.
Probably I found another bug or not yet implemented feature: When I select many objects with attached effects and click on clear I would expect that the fsx_xml part is cleared for all objects but it clears only one of them.

After many years with Gmax I am really happy with the features of Blender in combination with Blender to FSX Toolset so I plan to migrate to blender for my new scenery projects. Thanks so far for the excellent job.

Jörg

capt_x · 25 Nov 2014

Hallo Jörg,

given the bugs and errors you describe, it was about time for a thread dedicated to only effects. I feel so silly about this... :duck:

You know, I never looked at this from the scenery design perspective, so forgive me for all this. It should have occurred to me a lot sooner. Alas, I haven't really worked on the tool set this year until recently. Concerning your points:

Automatic unique name for "effect" attachpoints. Yes. I should have done this when @kevintampa5 mentioned it to me in January (i think it was)...
Bigger properties window. Difficult, but possible. The Blender UI concept doesn't really allow for popup-windows, but I can make a button display a message with the properties in it.
The Wiki manual. The way the wiki is meant to work is that we can all collaborate to make for a better knowledge base for our hobby, so please feel free to edit or add topics to the manual. At this point, we are merely gathering information, so what counts is that we keep the information up to date in some place. Go ahead...
Clear effects. I will look into that behaviour. Should be a simple fix.

Thank you for reporting all of this here, I will take a deeper look at it now and keep you posted on progress and next release.

Regards

capt_x · 26 Nov 2014

Quick update.

automatic unique name for "effect" attachpoint. Done. You can still choose a name for the effect attachpoint, a number will be appended that equals the counter for attached effects in the scene.
wiki manual. Added a quick note in the "Effects" section.
clear effects. I was unable to reproduce that behavior with the "Clear" Button next to the "Attach" Button. Can you go into a little more detail as to how you noticed that it was clearing only one attachpoint?

That's all for now...

capt_x · 26 Nov 2014

About bigger properties window. Just to get this right: What you want is a window that shows the attachpoint's properties as contained in the "fsx_xml" attribute of the object?...

jdberg · 26 Nov 2014

capt_x said:
Quick update.

automatic unique name for "effect" attachpoint. Done. You can still choose a name for the effect attachpoint, a number will be appended that equals the counter for attached effects in the scene.

wiki manual. Added a quick note in the "Effects" section.

clear effects. I was unable to reproduce that behavior with the "Clear" Button next to the "Attach" Button. Can you go into a little more detail as to how you noticed that it was clearing only one attachpoint?

That's all for now...

Great, especially the first topic will save me a lot of time.
I can help you updating the Wiki, but you were faster in this case. We should only look, that we do not update parallel and have non consistant versions.
Will check the clear effects thing again and hope I can reproduce it. It happened with my about 100 taxilights at EDFM, so it is not easy to get the same configuration back. I realized there is a problem, because one effect didn´t disapear and so I deleted all attachements individually. Will keep you informed, when I can reproduce the error.

capt_x said:
About bigger properties window. Just to get this right: What you want is a window that shows the attachpoint's properties as contained in the "fsx_xml" attribute of the object?...

Yes that is correct. The information is there but it is placed in a very small window. To read the text I copy it in the editor so I can read the complete line. It doesn´t matter how the window looks like but it should be larger.
Perhaps in the future a report would be helpful as a text-file so that you can see what is attached to what object. But that is just another idea. The more I use it for my scenery projects the more strange ideas will come

Jörg

capt_x · 26 Nov 2014

jdberg said:
Yes that is correct. The information is there but it is placed in a very small window. To read the text I copy it in the editor so I can read the complete line. It doesn´t matter how the window looks like but it should be larger.

Perhaps in the future a report would be helpful as a text-file so that you can see what is attached to what object. But that is just another idea. The more I use it for my scenery projects the more strange ideas will come

Jörg

I don't know if I quite understand you yet. Can you make a screenshot of how small a window we are talking about? Are we talking about the "FSX Properties" rollout in the Properties panel on the right hand side OR the "FSX File Properties" panel in the toolshelf on the left hand side?

For starters... :teacher:

You know that you can resize any area on the fly, right? No need to copy the line into a text editor, simply click & drag the panel's boundary to your liking... That's one thing. The other is: When I need to get a hold of the "fsx_xml" tag line, I switch the UI layout from "Default" to "Scripting" (In Blender's top menu bar, right next to "Help"). In the lower third, there is the Blender interactive console. In there, I can easily read out the "fsx_xml" for the active object.

Hope this helps

PS. As to the idea of a log file, you have a good point there. Up to now, only some things are written to the console, others aren't. I should make that more consistent. Maybe it's time to implement something like the "Verify" functions of the ACES tools...

jdberg · 26 Nov 2014

capt_x said:
I don't know if I quite understand you yet. Can you make a screenshot of how small a window we are talking about? Are we talking about the "FSX Properties" rollout in the Properties panel on the right hand side OR the "FSX File Properties" panel in the toolshelf on the left hand side?
For starters... You know that you can resize any area on the fly, right? No need to copy the line into a text editor, simply click & drag the panel's boundary to your liking... That's one thing. The other is: When I need to get a hold of the "fsx_xml" tag line, I switch the UI layout from "Default" to "Scripting" (In Blender's top menu bar, right next to "Help"). In the lower third, there is the Blender interactive console. In there, I can easily read out the "fsx_xml" for the active object.

Hope this helps

PS. As to the idea of a log file, you have a good point there. Up to now, only some things are written to the console, others aren't. I should make that more consistent. Maybe it's time to implement something like the "Verify" functions of the ACES tools...

Oh great master forgive me because I am really a beginner with blender and so I need any help I can

All jokes aside, here are two pictures to see what I mean.
The first shows the properties window which I made as large as I can, you see some parts of the xml-code but not the important information which effect is added (thats in the part replaced by ...)
Don´t know if I can make that window larger but I was not successful with it.

The second window is the console window when switching to screen layout "Scripting". I see the console but no information about the selected object or the xml-code attached to it.

So if you have any hint that is really appreciated

Jörg

capt_x · 26 Nov 2014

Ok, I see now... The window you are talking about is located in the "Display" (Hotkey N) panel on the right side of the 3D-viewport. That is an automatically generated rollout for object properties. I haven't yet found out why that shows up, but it shouldn't, actually. At this moment, there is not much I can do about that. But, what I am doing: I am adding information to the "FSX Properties" rollout in the Properties panel, so that you can see directly which effect, visibility, etc is attached to the active object.

The console is somewhat cumbersome to use in this regard, but this is what I do anyway:

Select the object you want to query.
In the console, type
Code:
```
C.active_object.fsx_xml
```
(the 'C' is capital/upper case and stands for bpy.context). Hit Enter.
If you want to repeat the action for another object: select the object and hit the up-arrow key on your keyboard. This brings back the last command entered in the console.

You should now be able to read the fsx_xml tag .

I will probably release an updated version by tomorrow evening. Still got some stuff to sort out.

Regards

jdberg · 26 Nov 2014

capt_x said:
Ok, I see now... The window you are talking about is located in the "Display" (Hotkey N) panel on the right side of the 3D-viewport. That is an automatically generated rollout for object properties. I haven't yet found out why that shows up, but it shouldn't, actually. At this moment, there is not much I can do about that. But, what I am doing: I am adding information to the "FSX Properties" rollout in the Properties panel, so that you can see directly which effect, visibility, etc is attached to the active object.

The console is somewhat cumbersome to use in this regard, but this is what I do anyway:

Select the object you want to query.

In the console, type

Code:

C.active_object.fsx_xml

(the 'C' is capital/upper case and stands for bpy.context). Hit Enter.

If you want to repeat the action for another object: select the object and hit the up-arrow key on your keyboard. This brings back the last command entered in the console.

You should now be able to read the fsx_xml tag .

I will probably release an updated version by tomorrow evening. Still got some stuff to sort out.

Regards

Console-command works perfect and shows the complete line.

The Infomation in the Properties panel would be perfect but that is a sufficient work around, thanks so far.

capt_x · 26 Nov 2014

jdberg said:
The Infomation in the Properties panel would be perfect but that is a sufficient work around, thanks so far.

This is what it will look like:

jdberg · 26 Nov 2014

That's it

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capt_x · 27 Nov 2014

@jdberg
Hallo Jörg,

your initial suggestions in this thread have now been implemented and a new version of the tool set awaits you at the usual location. This leaves us with your suggestion of an optional logfile and the so called "Verify" functions of the ACES tools. These "functions" do in fact verify the scene/model's integrity with regard to export, to prevent subsequent crashing or failure of the XToMdl.exe application. So if something is ill-configured in your scene, it will warn you about it. That has been on my wishlist for a long time now.

Anyway, I hope to have made your workflow faster with the last update...

Take care

jdberg · 27 Nov 2014

Hello Felix,
I made my first test now and regret to say, that there is still a problem in the current version 0.6.04
In the change log you mention, that there are new buttons "clear" and "clear all". I must be blind but I cannot see them. I have a new clear in the FSX-properties part, which clears the xml-attachment for one single object.
And there is the button besides attach which says clear and this clears all.

But one step further, I did the following

Clear all my attachements (no crash for the visible objects and effect for the effect-cubes)
Select all visible objects and attach no crash, this works fine and can be perfectly seen in the new FSX-properties part (great new feature)
Deselect all objects and select all cubes for the effect
Attach the effect to all cubes, works fine for these objects
After that step, however the no crash attachment of the visible objects is gone.

Any idea?
Sorry, that I cannot say, everything is working now

Jörg

capt_x · 27 Nov 2014

Hallo Jörg,

jdberg said:
Hello Felix,
I made my first test now and regret to say, that there is still a problem in the current version 0.6.04

No problem. I am thankful for all your reports, that's how the tool set is supposed to get better. Remember it is still a test version...

In the change log you mention, that there are new buttons "clear" and "clear all". I must be blind but I cannot see them. I have a new clear in the FSX-properties part, which clears the xml-attachment for one single object.
And there is the button besides attach which says clear and this clears all.

The new button functionality is in the FSX Animation tool. I changed the "Clear All" button into a "Clear Selected" button. So the new button in the FSX Animation Tool should read "Clear Selected". That's all... For the Attach tool, everything remains the same.

But one step further, I did the following

Clear all my attachements (no crash for the visible objects and effect for the effect-cubes)

Select all visible objects and attach no crash, this works fine and can be perfectly seen in the new FSX-properties part (great new feature)

Deselect all objects and select all cubes for the effect

Attach the effect to all cubes, works fine for these objects

After that step, however the no crash attachment of the visible objects is gone.

Any idea?

Yes. Simply leave the "NoCrash" option ticked on before attaching the effect to the cubes. Every time you attach an attachpoint to an object, the old fsx_xml gets overwritten with whatever new options there are now. So if you untick the "NoCrash" checkbox before ticking the "Effect" checkbox and hitting "Attach", there will be no "NoCrash" tag in the fsx_xml. Simply leave it on if you need both.

I hope this solves your issue and I'm always happy to read your test reports.

Regards

Felix

jdberg · 27 Nov 2014

capt_x said:
Hallo Jörg,
No problem. I am thankful for all your reports, that's how the tool set is supposed to get better. Remember it is still a test version...

Thats no problem for me I will do further tests and will report

capt_x said:
The new button functionality is in the FSX Animation tool. I changed the "Clear All" button into a "Clear Selected" button. So the new button in the FSX Animation Tool should read "Clear Selected". That's all... For the Attach tool, everything remains the same.

OK, never expected this thin in the Animation tool, found it.

capt_x said:
Yes. Simply leave the "NoCrash" option ticked on before attaching the effect to the cubes. Every time you attach an attachpoint to an object, the old fsx_xml gets overwritten with whatever new options there are now. So if you untick the "NoCrash" checkbox before ticking the "Effect" checkbox and hitting "Attach", there will be no "NoCrash" tag in the fsx_xml. Simply leave it on if you need both.
I hope this solves your issue and I'm always happy to read your test reports.
Regards
Felix

No, this was not my problem. When I attach something to one object the fsx_xml value before is overwritten, thats clear.
I had the problem, that the attachement of the cube effect light influenced the nocrash attachement of the visible objects. So these are other objects and these objects where not selected.
But please let me do further tests to reproduce the error, before you invest to much time in that.
Jörg

jdberg · 27 Nov 2014

Made some more tests and in the end it works now as designed, I have to modify the effects for P3D-usage but they are visible now and the no crash option is also still there.
At the moment I have no idea what I made different this time, I simply started again from the beginning by clearing all effects.

So you can focus on other things and I will proceed with my scenery objects in Blender. If there is anything more to report I will do

Jörg

capt_x · 27 Nov 2014

You did that in Blender? Sehr schön!

Did you use an array modifier?

jdberg · 27 Nov 2014

Yes the lights are done in blender with the attached effects and 3D-models you cannot see here in the picture. The rest of the scenery was done with Gmax .
And I didn't use any array modifier, still learning blender as a beginner.

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