Convert and Place Object Wizard error

[Severin]

Anyone else has offset problems using the wizard? I thought it was a problem only local to MCX 1.3 but its recurring in the "Developmental release".I have attached a photo from using both versions.

Arno,time permitting,could you have a look at the problem? Because,after modelling the groundpoly and curb together in Blender but exported both files separately, I placed the ground poly using the GP wizard and placed the curb using the object place wizard. I used the same coordinates for both but there is an offset in the result in FSX.
Thank you

 

[Gman]

Hi Severin,
Your project looks awesome, I hope you get your offset issues sorted without too many problems.

I recently had a similar issue with offsets which I solved in MCX.

I intended to make a CrosshairsPlus style user aircraft from one of my helicopter tower .mdl's to use as a "what you see is what you get" placement tool for the tower.

I should have been able to slew it into position, pause, record the coordinates from Jim Robinson's built-in scenery gauge, and then plug the data into MCX or ADEX to place my tower. Unfortunately, when I placed the tower, in the sim it came out offset from the position of the placement aircraft.

What I eventually figured out was that even though I had my towers, pads etc, zeroed out (centered) in GMax, in the sim as scenery objects they were not centered when placed by the coordinates, a problem which I had never recognized when placing my towers with EZScenery or Instant Scenery2, which apparently compensate for off-center objects by placing them visually instead of by coordinates.

What I finally did was to open the .mdl for the scenery object tower in MCX, then I opened the MCX Transform Object drop-down menu, selected Move Object, clicked Center, clicked Move, clicked Close, and then exported the modified .mdl.

Now, when I place the tower with either MCX or ADEX, it is placed perfectly in the same position as the placement aircraft. It is actually more accurate than Instant Scenery was, probably thanks to properly centering the .mdl in MCX, the flight simmer's Swiss Army Knife. I have since gone through and centered all of my ChopperWorld X scenery objects in MCX, and made a small fleet of pad and tower placement aircraft which are working much better than I had ever anticipated.

And the MCX Convert and Place Object Wizard is really working out well with my "poor man's Instant Scenery". What better way to pick the object to be placed than to open the library.bgl in MCX and have large multi-viewable images of the objects? Amazing!

As always, thank you Arno!
Cheers
Gman

P.S. Arno, do you think you will ever implement an altitude control for the Convert and Place Object Wizard? Sometimes I want to place a pad or tower on top of a building or high-rise which requires placing an object above ground level.

 

[Severin]

Hi Severin,
Your project looks awesome, I hope you get your offset issues sorted without too many problems.

I recently had a similar issue with offsets which I solved in MCX.

I intended to make a CrosshairsPlus style user aircraft from one of my helicopter tower .mdl's to use as a "what you see is what you get" placement tool for the tower.

I should have been able to slew it into position, pause, record the coordinates from Jim Robinson's built-in scenery gauge, and then plug the data into MCX or ADEX to place my tower. Unfortunately, when I placed the tower, in the sim it came out offset from the position of the placement aircraft.

What I eventually figured out was that even though I had my towers, pads etc, zeroed out (centered) in GMax, in the sim as scenery objects they were not centered when placed by the coordinates, a problem which I had never recognized when placing my towers with EZScenery or Instant Scenery2, which apparently compensate for off-center objects by placing them visually instead of by coordinates.

What I finally did was to open the .mdl for the scenery object tower in MCX, then I opened the MCX Transform Object drop-down menu, selected Move Object, clicked Center, clicked Move, clicked Close, and then exported the modified .mdl.

Now, when I place the tower with either MCX or ADEX, it is placed perfectly in the same position as the placement aircraft. It is actually more accurate than Instant Scenery was, probably thanks to properly centering the .mdl in MCX, the flight simmer's Swiss Army Knife. I have since gone through and centered all of my ChopperWorld X scenery objects in MCX, and made a small fleet of pad and tower placement aircraft which are working much better than I had ever anticipated.

And the MCX Convert and Place Object Wizard is really working out well with my "poor man's Instant Scenery". What better way to pick the object to be placed than to open the library.bgl in MCX and have large multi-viewable images of the objects? Amazing!

As always, thank you Arno!
Cheers
Gman

P.S. Arno, do you think you will ever implement an altitude control for the Convert and Place Object Wizard? Sometimes I want to place a pad or tower on top of a building or high-rise which requires placing an object above ground level.

Hello Gman, that's quite tricky what you did.I found a way to align the objects this morning.I used the "Earth Curve Correction" tool in MCX to correct the offset.This must be my Christmas gift because it was by sheer luck,I came across that function in MCX.

Thank you for the comment on my scenery too. May I ask what project you're working on now?

 

[arno]

Hi Severin,

Glad to hear you solve it. Ground polygons are indeed automatically corrected for the curve of the earth. So your curbs have to be corrected manually to make sure they keep aligning.

Gman,

There is an altitude option in the Convert & Place Object Wizard already, does that not do what you want? I would have to check the code it see if that is altitude AGL or MSL.

 

[Gman]

Hi Arno,
I'm running MCX 130, and in the Convert Wizard Position interface there is Lat, Lon, Heading, and Scale, no Altitude.

Since it currently uses MSL as the default, an option for AGL would be handy.

I have one landing pad which is made to be placed on hillsides, mountaintops, cliffs, and other uneven surfaces and it worked perfectly because it is still touching the ground. But if I try to place an object on the roof of a building or skyscraper, it is placed on the ground with no option to raise it. (I could do so in ADEX if necessary).

Thanks again Arno, over the past few years using MCX I was able to resurrect my FS9 ChopperWorld kit which I had lost the source files for, convert it to FSX, get all of the .mdl's in order, textured and centered, and now can place the objects with ease.
Thank you so much!

Cheers
Gary

 

[Gman]

Thank you for the comment on my scenery too. May I ask what project you're working on now?

Hi Severin,
Your project looks even better now, great work sorting it out!
I'm not really working on any projects per se, mostly just tinkering around with updates to older versions and figuring out how to place my collection of helicopter related objects since parting ways with Instant Scenery.

Mostly I have been updating my collection of CrosshairsPlus aircraft with some newer versions including some large format crosshairs up to 100m, some bullseye style crosshairs including some night visible versions, and some various grid aircraft in various sizes up to 1223m, all of which are also in a library.bgl so they can be placed as scenery objects.

The creation of the scenery object library to match the various crosshairs and grids was what got me started on the chopper tower aircraft going in the opposite direction, from scenery object to CH+ placement aircraft. I thought flying the crosshairs and grids was fun, but flying a huge chopper tower around is really interesting.

My current method for placing my towers, fuel stations, and pads now that I have a small fleet of placement aircraft all equipped with Jim Robinson's scenery gauge to render positional data, and now that I have the MCX Convert Wizard sorted out, it takes about the same amount of time it would have taken for placing a single tower or pad with Instant Scenery.

As far as say, building a heliport with a tower, GSE and a few vehicles, I already had various groups in ChopperWorld which included a chopper trailer, forklift or tow vehicle, fuel drums, ground power trolley, cones, stepladder, fire bottle, etc in various configurations which could be placed in one click, so I really don't need to be able to build the same thing with separate objects as a one-off like I might if I still used IS. Now I just need to find my libraries of static aircraft I made with SAMM, and I will be rockin' and rollin' and turning my sim into a slide-show again....wooohooo!

Cheers
Gary

 

[Severin]

Hi Severin,

Glad to hear you solve it. Ground polygons are indeed automatically corrected for the curve of the earth. So your curbs have to be corrected manually to make sure they keep aligning.

Gman,

There is an altitude option in the Convert & Place Object Wizard already, does that not do what you want? I would have to check the code it see if that is altitude AGL or MSL.

Thank you

 

[Severin]

Hi Severin,
Your project looks even better now, great work sorting it out!
I'm not really working on any projects per se, mostly just tinkering around with updates to older versions and figuring out how to place my collection of helicopter related objects since parting ways with Instant Scenery.

Mostly I have been updating my collection of CrosshairsPlus aircraft with some newer versions including some large format crosshairs up to 100m, some bullseye style crosshairs including some night visible versions, and some various grid aircraft in various sizes up to 1223m, all of which are also in a library.bgl so they can be placed as scenery objects.

The creation of the scenery object library to match the various crosshairs and grids was what got me started on the chopper tower aircraft going in the opposite direction, from scenery object to CH+ placement aircraft. I thought flying the crosshairs and grids was fun, but flying a huge chopper tower around is really interesting.

My current method for placing my towers, fuel stations, and pads now that I have a small fleet of placement aircraft all equipped with Jim Robinson's scenery gauge to render positional data, and now that I have the MCX Convert Wizard sorted out, it takes about the same amount of time it would have taken for placing a single tower or pad with Instant Scenery.

As far as say, building a heliport with a tower, GSE and a few vehicles, I already had various groups in ChopperWorld which included a chopper trailer, forklift or tow vehicle, fuel drums, ground power trolley, cones, stepladder, fire bottle, etc in various configurations which could be placed in one click, so I really don't need to be able to build the same thing with separate objects as a one-off like I might if I still used IS. Now I just need to find my libraries of static aircraft I made with SAMM, and I will be rockin' and rollin' and turning my sim into a slide-show again....wooohooo!

Cheers
Gary

That all sounds awesome, GMan. I'm not too familiar with CH+ and placement aircraft but I'll look into it as soon as I can.I've been trying to look up just a blurb of it online but every post I come across is lengthy.May I ask what SAMM is? Thanks again for the compliment.

 

[arno]

Hi,

Hi Arno,
I'm running MCX 130, and in the Convert Wizard Position interface there is Lat, Lon, Heading, and Scale, no Altitude.

Try the development release in that case, it already has an altitude option in the wizard as well.

 

[Gman]

Try the development release in that case, it already has an altitude option in the wizard as well.

Thanks for the heads-up Arno, I kinda figured that might be the case. I will give it a try.

Cheers
Gary

 

[Gman]

That all sounds awesome, GMan. I'm not too familiar with CH+ and placement aircraft but I'll look into it as soon as I can.I've been trying to look up just a blurb of it online but every post I come across is lengthy.

Hi Severin,
CrosshairsPlus was originally developed as a placement tool for Rwy12.
So many designers were creating objects for Rwy12, but it was difficult to know how they would end up facing in the sim, or where the object's centerpoint was, it was lot of hit or miss. The meter graduations on the crosshairs and its vertical scales helped users to figure out where to place an object, either to line it up with another object, or with the tarmac of an airport, the vertical scales showed the *object's centerpoint. (*otherwise hard to see if it was a large object like a hangar)

It is an aircraft in the form of a crosshair, which was built around Kevin Bryan's FS9 *Jetpack, so it can either be slewed into position, or flown in Jetpack mode out of slew. (*coincidentally the next most accurate placement aircraft since its centerpoint was so clearly defined by the jetpacker's two feet)

Jim Robinson updated the original CH+ kit with a smaller crosshair model for accurate placement visibilty and added a "panel" view with a GPS and a scenery gauge which generates positional information which can be used to place objects. The idea was to select a location, place an object, save the flight, restart FS9 to add the object, select the saved flight, and then, with the crosshairs still in the same position, see where the object ended up in relation to the crosshairs, where the object's center was, and which way it was facing. The end result was a handy alternative to using a four bladed helicopter as a crosshair.

With the invent of the "what you see is what you get" placement utilities, the crosshairs and Rwy12 were no longer the best way for casual users to place objects. I know it took me about five minutes to decide to buy EZScenery when it came out, it was a better mousetrap. However, many users have continued to find ways to use the CH+ kit in ways that serve their needs, occasionally including myself.

I have been enjoying flying my night visible versions a lot.

SAMM is Don Grovestine's awesome freeware Static Aircraft Model Maker, which allows you to convert and place high quality static aircraft (or whatever simobject) scenery .mdl's from flight and AI models. Very addictive utility that one!

Cheers
Gary

 

[Severin]

Wow that's interesting. Scenery developing seems a lot easier nowadays as compared how you describe using these tools.Thanks for clearing up on that and SAMM.I've been thinking hard about how to make a static model for my scenery. Knowledge about SAMM came at the right moment.I've already tried a few conversions here and I must say,its some good stuff. Thank you and Merry Christmas!

 

[Gman]

Wow that's interesting. Scenery developing seems a lot easier nowadays as compared how you describe using these tools.Thanks for clearing up on that and SAMM.I've been thinking hard about how to make a static model for my scenery. Knowledge about SAMM came at the right moment.I've already tried a few conversions here and I must say,its some good stuff. Thank you and Merry Christmas!

SAMM is a lot of fun, back in the Rwy12 days, the only static helicopters I knew of were by Hovercontrol members MIKRCO and Soundisgood, and the set consisted of 1 Bell 206, and 1 Hughes 500D, for which I had a dozen repaints each and I would swap out the textures so I could get a screenshot of this or that chopper parked at my heliports as I was coming in to land.

Nowadays there are many options available for static aircraft, but as far as making (and placing) static aircraft for your own use on your machine, SAMM is the way to go. During the testing of SAMM I converted dozens of different aircraft, and with Don's constant adjustments to the program, was eventually able to successfully convert about 75% of the aircraft I attempted. It's been a long time since I've used SAMM, I literally converted every possible aircraft I would ever need, but knowing Don, it is probably better now than when it was released.

Of course, just like converting objects in MCX, if you plan on using static models you converted from an aircraft you did not make as part of a project to be released to the public, you would need prior permission from the author.

Merry Christmas 2U2!
Gman

 

[Severin]

SAMM is a lot of fun, back in the Rwy12 days, the only static helicopters I knew of were by Hovercontrol members MIKRCO and Soundisgood, and the set consisted of 1 Bell 206, and 1 Hughes 500D, for which I had a dozen repaints each and I would swap out the textures so I could get a screenshot of this or that chopper parked at my heliports as I was coming in to land.

Nowadays there are many options available for static aircraft, but as far as making (and placing) static aircraft for your own use on your machine, SAMM is the way to go. During the testing of SAMM I converted dozens of different aircraft, and with Don's constant adjustments to the program, was eventually able to successfully convert about 75% of the aircraft I attempted. It's been a long time since I've used SAMM, I literally converted every possible aircraft I would ever need, but knowing Don, it is probably better now than when it was released.

Of course, just like converting objects in MCX, if you plan on using static models you converted from an aircraft you did not make as part of a project to be released to the public, you would need prior permission from the author.

Merry Christmas 2U2!
Gman

Absolutely,thanks for reminding! May I ask a question? This is on a different topic. What's the best thing to read if I want to get into making my own approach lights,PAPIs etc and animation for FSX? I've looked around here but I haven't seen any comprehensive information. Thank you.

 

[Gman]

May I ask a question? This is on a different topic. What's the best thing to read if I want to get into making my own approach lights,PAPIs etc and animation for FSX? I've looked around here but I haven't seen any comprehensive information. Thank you.

I haven't a clue.

Nonetheless, I would start with the SDK, just so I could say I tried.

Cheers Mate!
Gary

EDIT.....Maybe I would also take a good look at ADEX. (Airport Design Editor X).

 

[tgibson]

Absolutely,thanks for reminding! May I ask a question? This is on a different topic. What's the best thing to read if I want to get into making my own approach lights,PAPIs etc and animation for FSX? I've looked around here but I haven't seen any comprehensive information. Thank you.

http://stuff4fs.com/newpage.asp?Folder=AFLT

 

[Gman]

http://stuff4fs.com/newpage.asp?Folder=AFLT

Nice pull Tom.
Thanks neighbor!

Merry Christmas!
Gary

 

[Severin]

http://stuff4fs.com/newpage.asp?Folder=AFLT

Wonderful,thank you!