• 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.

FSX Plugin Installation (3DS Max 9) not really working

Heretic

Resource contributor
Messages
6,830
Country
germany
Hi folks!

Since the Wiki didn't know about this and the search engine here is kind of b*tchy ("3DS Max 9" is a valid search term, FFS! :banghead: ), I take the last resort for a forum user and simply open up a new thread.


So far I don't have the need for the FSX plugins since I'm still in the pure modeling stage for my Do-328.
I only wanted to experiment a bit with them to get familiar etc...but!...they won't work.

I've added the 3DSM9\Plugins folder via "Customize" -> "Customize System Paths" -> "3rd party plugins" tab -> "Add:" -> (Inserted path to appropriate SDK subfolder)


Problem 1:
When I want to start the animation manager it gives me an error message instead of popping up.
"-- Type error: Call needs function or class, got: undefined"
All the other tools give me a "This tool is currently not supported." error.

Problem 2:
A duplicate "Aces Tools" entry in the menu bar. If I remove both of them, they'll reappear one after another when I restart Max twice.


Further info:
- 3DS Max 9 SP2 x86
- Windows XP SP3 (DE)
- Decimal sign is set to "."
- .NET Framework 2.0 installed
- VC2005 runtimes installed
- FSX SP2 SDK installed and configured

What did I miss/What am I too stupid for?
 
Messages
588
Country
germany
Check path

Hallo Björn,

check your path in the "Customize->Configure Systems Paths->3rd party"-tab again. Does it point to "\3DSM9"-folder or "\3DSM9\Plugins"-subfolder?

Cheers

Felix
 

Heretic

Resource contributor
Messages
6,830
Country
germany
Hey Felix,

it's pointing to the "3DSM9\Plugins"-subfolder.


I'm still puzzled about the possible cause. :confused:
 
Messages
588
Country
germany
FSX SDK corrupt?

Did you make any changes to the SDK-install? or installed it to a non-default path? Run ConfigSDK.exe? Anyway, check PM-Box.
Greetz
Felix
 
Last edited:
Messages
588
Country
germany
ok, then you need to run "ConfigSDK.exe" (see folder "\SDK") to fix the relative paths throughout the whole SDK, since everything is configured for default install path (See SDK-doc: "Flight Simulator X SDK Overview", bottom of page).

Greetz
 

Heretic

Resource contributor
Messages
6,830
Country
germany
Already did that as well before.


Now I simply reinstalled the SDK and Max 9 and everything seems to work perfectly now. :)


Thanks for your help anyways, Felix! Much appreciated. :)
 
Messages
588
Country
germany
Never mind... Pleased to hear that it is working now, for whatever reason it wasn't before... Take care.
 

Heretic

Resource contributor
Messages
6,830
Country
germany
Bjorn! How've you been? Been a long time since the SimV days...

Hey Kevin!

Yeah, long time indeed...

I'm still alive and studying, while wasting away good parts of my spare time (well, at least when the add-on developing urge breaks through) trying to bring this foxy lady into FSX:
http://www.aerodynamika.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?num=1206569611/0#0

I'm not far along so far, but since I've already spent a year with this sexy thing and still need to spend time with her at least once in a while, so I think I'm in for a longtime relationship right to the end. :D

Projected release date: One week before FSXI's release. :D
 
Messages
466
Country
us-arizona
Already did that as well before.


Now I simply reinstalled the SDK and Max 9 and everything seems to work perfectly now. :)


Thanks for your help anyways, Felix! Much appreciated. :)

I think I know exactly what was happening to you because it was happening to me also. Every time I started max, multiple ACES Tools menu items would appear and keep adding new ones on every fresh max start. I finally realized that I shouldn't have copied any of the max tools into the max plugins folder etc...

I'm thinking you might have done same as I did prior to adding the path for the tools and tried installing them manually. To solve the problem above, I went through and deleted all the FSX sdk max files I had manually installed and all is good.

Glad you got it working.


JonP
 

Heretic

Resource contributor
Messages
6,830
Country
germany
Oh, never thought to see another reply in this one.


Anyways, thanks for the input, Jon! Will consider this the next time when I'm running into problems with Max. :)
 

Heretic

Resource contributor
Messages
6,830
Country
germany
*Bump*

I'm on Windows 7 right now and Max 9 refused to add the correct path to the Max 9 plugins in the SDK.
You could select the "Plugins" folder, but for some whack reason Max cuts off the path to the plugins right after "...\3DSM9". The consequence: Erroneus loading of the gamepack.

Solution:
Go to "C:\Users\[Username]\AppData\Local\Autodesk\3dsmax\9 - 32bit\enu", open the plugin.ini and modify the path to the plugins manually by adding "\Plugins" to it so that it reads something like this:
"FSX=[Path to the SDK]\Environment Kit\Modeling SDK\3DSM9\Plugins"

This will make the Aces Tools work again.


Hope this is of any help to someone having similar problems.
 
Messages
1,484
Bjorn...thank you thank you thank you!!!!

You can tell I was successful at convincing 3ds Max 9 to work with fsx sdk. You did indeed have the solution right, however let me make a minor comment.

I struggled to no end to make your solution work as I could not find "C:\Users\[Username]\AppData\Local\Autodesk\3dsmax\9 - 32bit\enu" on my win7 64bit machine. I'll bet its "hidden", and I'm too new to win 7 to know how to unhide folders.

I finally found it by looking in the "customize\configure system paths" pull down in max. Voila! there were listings using that path statement, and amazingly, I was able to open the folder "C:\Users\[Username]\AppData\Local\Autodesk\3dsmax\9 - 32bit\enu" by double clicking on the entry in the configure systems paths box. Then it was easy, as you say, although the final and working version of the line in my plugin.ini is:

New Entry=E:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X SDK\SDK\Environment Kit\Modeling SDK\3DSM9\Plugins

Anyway, thanks for the needed clue! Ain't the internet grand. Tonight with this idea, and finding the solution to my other problem, my max is finally fully working.

Heres the other problem I had in case anyone else is trying to use max9 with win7: the error was: DLL <C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max
9\stdplug\DxPlugins\DxDDS.bmi>failed to initialize. Error code: 998 -
Invalid access to memory location.

The solution was: download DxDDS.bmi from here (http://gatornet.net/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=viewdownloaddetails&lid=6&ttitle=DxDDS.bmi), unrar, and copy/paste into folder ...Autodesk\3ds Max 9\stdplugs\dxplugins

Cheers,

Bob
 

Heretic

Resource contributor
Messages
6,830
Country
germany
Well, just had the same problem on my laptop today and my manual *.ini fixing method worked perfectly! :D


And you're welcome, Bob. Glad to help. :)
 

n4gix

Resource contributor
Messages
11,674
Country
unitedstates
*Bump*

I'm on Windows 7 right now and Max 9 refused to add the correct path to the Max 9 plugins in the SDK.

Actually, that's the same problem FSX's Scenery Library has. It's a "Win7" thing...

The same solution will work as well. Simply click anywhere in the "blank area" and it will pick up the correct and full path... ;)
 
Top