A question about creating APIs

[RNZAF Gooney]

~S~

I have a question for all you scenery gurus out there about changing a CFS plane (stock or add on) to an API for the Airport series.

I have MDL2BGL v4.00, and it works great for FS98 planes, but when it comes to my CFS repaints, I get an error "FSDS not converted", and can get no further.

Is there a way to do this without either converting my repaints to FS98 planes (a pain...they are in R8 format while my repaints of stock CFS1 planes are in bitmap) or designing a macro with something like DOD and applying the textures?

Thx in advance!

[ian elliot]

Hi, the program is fairly old, updated about 3 or 4 years ago, and not very succseful at converting more recent models, most of the aircraft ive converted come from the bowels of the file librarys of Flightsim or Simvation, some being 10 years old, old FS5 models, so if the model your converting is only a few years old, it probably won't be reconised.
As for repaints, if your succesful in converting a model, things should be OK as long as you name the new texture files exactly the same as the original's, although i not an expert on textures so there may be problems im not aware of.
Cheers ian

[RNZAF Gooney]

Thx Ian!

I guess it's time to repaint some loder birds and convert them.:mad:

[Cees Donker]

The bmp's can be converted to r8's with Martin's convr8! I've done all my recent statics that way.
I use an even older version M98toBgl, which is more user friendly and more stable.

:D

Cees

[RNZAF Gooney]

Cees,

I've been using SHOW from Simviation (Martins R8 converter and repainter) for about a year now. Helped with a ton of repaints for the Sky Tanks Squad, as in some instances I used non-cd planes for the base textures, then added the .AIR and .DP files so they were not mods.

The version of MDL2BGL I'm using now for me is a better one then the venerable M98toBGL, as it would crash on me for no reason whatsoever.

[Cees Donker]

Goony,

Have you got the configuration sreen filled in and working?

:icon29:

Cees

[ian elliot]

Thats the reason i use the older versions, MDLtoBGL always seems a pain in the a*** to configure and i never seem'd to get it right :violent:
cheers ian

[Cees Donker]

Thats the reason i use the older versions, MDLtoBGL always seems a pain in the a*** to configure and i never seem'd to get it right :violent:
cheers ian

Yep, me too!

:costumes:

Cees

[RNZAF Gooney]

For some bizarre reason, the config screen doesn't like the version of SCASM I have (keeps saying I need to select the folder for the freeware version, which mine is)! Other then that, it is performing well.


I noticed something rather interesting. While hunting down FS98 planes to convert (I never thought there were that many freeware warbirds out LOL), I have run into a few that I repainted for Sky Tanks, and not only converted to APIs, but also to CFS aircraft! The guys in the squad love the P-38L (strange thing....has the smaller "F" type scoops for the engine), and I also converted a FS98 cane to a Hurricane Mk. IIC (4x20mm cannons instead of the 8x.303 MGs, and updated te .AIR file to reflect the change from the Merlin Type II-III to the Type XX).

Needless to say, I could keep on converting for awhile:sheep:

[ian elliot]

Its funny whats lurking out there, i found a really nice F98 Hawker Hurricane which converts very easy into CFS1 to replace the stock model, if i had'nt been looking for models for my scenery i'd never know it existed.
cheers ian

[RNZAF Gooney]

OK, I got a really dumb question about the converting .BMPs to R8s.

After you run the .BMPs throught the converter, don't you have to alter the .MDL file? Or is it a case of converting the R8's into a similiar display format for FS98 then the CFS cd convention of 1 side for a .BMP?