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Changes to options

arno

arno

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In the latest development release of ModelConverterX the way you can specify the different options has changed. Before all options were in one options form, but now they have moved closer to where you need them. That means that the options related to importing or exporting are now found in the same dialog where you specify which file should be imported or exported. And also the dialog will only show the options that are relevant for the format you are working with.

The video tutorial below gives a quick demonstration of where you can find the different options now. I hope you like it!

Continue reading...
 
Hi Arno,

If I’m not mistaken, testing the new version (1.8.250926-devrel), I noticed that the detection of FS9 was incorrect.
The default paths proposed for the FS2004 SDK (by the MCX initialization) point to directory names that do not mention the character "_" appearing as a base, such as:
bglcomp sdk in place of BGLCOMP_SDK or
makemdl sdk in place of MakeMDL_SDK
which are the names proposed by Microsoft during the default installation.

For the final users, it's simple to make the modification
;)
 
Hi,

The FS2004 SDK tools do not store a registry setting or so. So there is no way to detect where they are installed.

For many years I have these default settings in MCX:

c:\fs2004 sdk\makemdl sdk\makemdl.exe
c:\fs2004 sdk\bglcomp sdk\bglcomp.exe

I guess you are right that a better value would be with the folder names MakeMDL_SDK and BGLComp_SDK, as that is what the installer users. I am also not sure if FS2004 SDK is the default folder for them.

But this is not something that has changed with the new options, this is probably already the case for over 10 years :D

Edit: just checked the old FS2004 SDK installer and the default path is C:\Program Files (x86)\FS2004SDK\. So guess it would make sense to update the default settings to that, assuming that most people do not change it.
 
This is not a big deal, I corrected it very quickly. ;)

On the other hand, while trying to open a simple MDL of origin FSX, I have an unhandled exception and MCX refuses to display it. :(

1758876006923.png


As for the installation of MCX, I proceeded with a new installation in a new directory created for this version and after updating ASP and DOTNET to version 9.0.9 and then copying the license file into this directory.
Would I need another update of a basic component (I work on W11 last revision) ?.
 

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You might want to try to reset the options to default, I had another bug report this morning where an old setting from the previous release gave issues. Although I can't see exactly in this stack trace which object is not set.
 
OK.
For your information, I have already tried to view this object (animated elephant of FSX) after having reset the default settings but this exception is still coming back.
Good luck in finding the solution ;)
 
Is it the default FSX elephant? Then I can try to reproduce it
 
I found the cause of the bug, it is related to the force simple shader option that you have enabled. I guess that specific setting is used often and therefore also less tests. I'll fix it in the next release.

As a workaround for now, just disable the force simple shader (you can even manually select the simple shader if you want, that will not throw the error).
 
Ok, thank you very much, it works !
As it was not simple to find this options, I add this screen :

1758887831391.png
 
Yes, the preview settings have moved to a new screen as well. But the default setting of this option should be that it's off.
 
Hi Arno.

In this latest version, I was unable to find in the Options, the tabs for configuring the exports and notably the scale of the animations in order to be able to retrieve in the generated gltf files the animations under 100 and 200 keyframes.
Currently under Nlender, the animations are coded under 2400 and 4800 keyframes (according to the rules we used under FS9 and FSX).
Of course it is possible to modify the import in Blender so as to have the animations not at 24fps but at 1fps and this resolves the issue, but the export options in MCX were very useful.

I also noted that the textures seem to appear modified under MCX with a vertical mirror (to be tested) for MSFS objects
 
Hi,

You can set the animation scaling now on the import and export file selection dialog.

1760249414757.png


From which format did you import when you saw the inverted textures? Then I can try to reproduce it here.
 
Thanks for your reply about the options, it's OK, I have find it.

An aircraft just exported from Blender with the MSFS 2020 SDK (so before the fspackagetools compilation) is perfect. The inverted textures appear when I import in the last MCX an aicraft (glTF) after it was compiled by fspackagetools.
On the left the PBY just exported from Blender (sdK 2020) and on the right after fspackagetools compilation.

1760255826176.png
 
Let me see if I can reproduce the texture issue.
 
Hi,

I tried to reproduce this issue by loading some default aircraft models, but it is a bit hard to reproduce as most default aircraft are quite complex and don't load fully correctly in MCX anyway. I think I have an idea what might be going on, but would you have a relatively simple test object (simple glTF and simple packaged glTF) that show the issue? That would help me in debugging.
 
I think I have found it now, it was similar to the issue reported by Dick in this thread, but then affecting models loaded via the aircraft.cfg file.

rhumbaflappy

Thread 'Mixed up UVs'

The latest dev version (1.8.25074-devrel) has mixed up the MSFS2020 SimObject UVs:
Untitled.png

After I added this bug fix the default MSFS aircraft models also suddenly look a lot better :D
 
Sorry I hadn’t seen the message from Wesnesday but apparently a solution is being tested so well done.
Since there was a newer version available today, I installed it and the test is OK: the PBY-5 mentioned above displays perfectly, whether it is the exported version of Blender or the one compiled by fspackagetools. So the problem is solved.

Thanks.
 
Thanks for confirming, I did indeed release the fix this morning.
 
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