Difference between revisions of "MDL Tweaker"

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This article describes the use of the MDL Tweaker tool. This tool allows you to make some tweaks to your scenery objects. Ever wanted to make a Christmas tree that only shows in December or a tree that always rotates to the point of view of the user? This tool allows you to do all that without having to touch the ASM source files.
 
This article describes the use of the MDL Tweaker tool. This tool allows you to make some tweaks to your scenery objects. Ever wanted to make a Christmas tree that only shows in December or a tree that always rotates to the point of view of the user? This tool allows you to do all that without having to touch the ASM source files.
  

Latest revision as of 04:44, 27 March 2011

This article describes the use of the MDL Tweaker tool. This tool allows you to make some tweaks to your scenery objects. Ever wanted to make a Christmas tree that only shows in December or a tree that always rotates to the point of view of the user? This tool allows you to do all that without having to touch the ASM source files.

Installation

The installation procedure is rather simple. Just unzip the contents of the zip file you downloaded to a folder of your choice. If you plan to use this tool often you could make a shortcut to it on your desktop.

To remove the tool you can simply delete the folder where you unzipped all files to, that's all.

Available tweaks

So what kind of tweaks can you add to your object with this tool?

Warning: First I want to make clear that all tweaks apply to the whole object, so it is for example not possible to let only one part of the object appear at a certain condition.

Three different kind of tweaks can be applied to the object. These are listed below.

  • Rotate to user With this option the entire object will rotate around the origin in GMax (the 0,0 point) toward the viewpoint of the user. This can for example be used to make a tree that consists of only one polygon, while you don't see that it is flat because it is always rotated toward you.
  • Rotate to wind With this option the entire object will rotate around the origin in Gmax (the 0,0 point) toward the direction of the wind. It is obvious that this option can be used to make windsocks and flags behave like they should. It is a well known limitation of Flight Simulator that rotation to the wind only works if you have at least two such objects on your screen. So you might need to place a dummy object somewhere to get the rotation working properly.
  • Condition With this option you can make the object only show if a certain condition is met. This can be used for example to let your object only shown during daytime or to show the object only at a specific date. A maximum of three conditions can be applied to one object, so you could use more than one. Like setting a specific year and a specific day of the year for the object.

You can only apply one of the rotation tweaks at the same time, they can not be combined. Also these rotations do not work on animated objects and LOD models as these do not respond to the rotation command. For the LOD models it is in theory possible to let them respond, but the analysis of the MDL file required is too complex to implement at the moment. For the animations it is not possible at all, because the animation code never responds to the rotation commands.

The interface

OK, now you know what is possible, but how can you use the interface to apply the tweaks?

When you first start MDL Tweaker you will get a screen that looks like the figure below.

Mdl tweaker 1.jpg

The following steps need to be taken to tweak a MDL file:

  • The first step is to select the MDL file you want to tweak. Use the "..." box to bring up the dialog screen the select the file.
  • The next step is to select the tweaks you want to apply.
  • For the rotations check the checkboxes associated with them. You are only allowed to select one. See the figure below for an example.

Mdl tweaker 2.jpg

  • For the conditions you must check the checkbox to apply them as well. Once you have selected the first condition, the second will also be available for selection.

For each condition you must enter the variable to check and the minimum and maximum values between which the variable must be for the object to show. You can use the list of predefined variables or type in the variable you want to use. Use arrow button to copy the variable from the list to the textbox. For the values of the variable you can define if you want them to enter as decimal or as hexadecimal numbers. Entering a NAV2 frequency is easier in hexadecimal model for example, while a day of the year variable is easier in decimal mode. See the figure below for an example.

Mdl tweaker 3.jpg

  • Once you have setup all the tweaks you want to make you can press the "Apply" button to create a tweaked MDL file. If your original file is named myhouse.mdl then the tweaked MDL file will be named myhouse_tweaked.mdl automatically. When the MDL file is processed correctly the filename textbox will be emptied. See the figure below for an example of how the interface can look after applying the tweaks.

Mdl tweaker 4.jpg

Using the tweaked MDL file

You can use the tweaked MDL file MDL Tweaker makes for you like you would use the MDL file that GMax makes for you. So you can put it in an object library, or place it directly with a piece of XML code. Nothing special here thus.

Feedback and support

If you have questions, comments or suggestions about MDL Tweaker you can reach me either by email or through the forums of my website FsDeveloper.com.

If you get an error while using this tool or when you get an error while compiling a MDL file after tweaking it with this tool, please also include this MDL file and its source (ASM or GMax) in your email. This helps me in finding the bugs.

Thanks to

  • Nick Whittome for helping shape the idea of this tool and for testing the final result

Users license

(c) 2004 SceneryDesign.org \ Arno Gerretsen

This software program is distributed without charge to other scenery designers, redistribution of the original ZIP file is allowed. You are NOT allowed to sell this software program or ask money for its distribution. Models tweaked with this software program can be used in commercial scenery projects if you wish.

The copyright and any intellectual property relating to this program remain the property of the author.

The software distributed in this way may represent work in progress, and bears no warranty, either expressed or implied.