A question to FSX Gmax designers

[pcmeneg]

Hi,

I have some GMax models developed for FS9.
If I've understood well, with FSX_GMax I have to:

1- keep only polygons and texture mapping, then to delete all FS9 material, no longer compatible, in particular the multi-materials.

2- to do manual assignment of all animation.

Are there any shortcuts?

Do you suggest I should use the FSX special material for all objects or only for wing, fuselage and tails?

Thanks in advance

[Mathias]

1. Yes, basically like that.
I would install "Columbo" from here http://www.scriptspot.com/bobo/mxs4/ as it allows you to select parts by materials. Should make material re-assignment a bit easier.
It's for Max 4 but works fine with Gmax.
And yes, all_materials_should_be_FSX_native.

2. Once the SDK is successfully installed and running you can select the most common control surface animations from a dropdown menu in the animation manager. Every animated part has to be keyframed though and the keyframe length has to be typed in into the manager.
If you want 3d gauges you need to write your own code more or less like you probably did it in FS9.

[Lionheart]

When you are compiling a model and it has FS9 materials, the compiler asks if you want to convert FS9 materials to FSX materials. Click yes. This is great for basic materials that do not need bump mapping and specular maps and other such things. (Flat black for instance).

Saves you a bit of time.

Also, when you are creating your 'new' materials, to speed things up, you can;
* Merge other FSX project parts (such as 'fuselage' material from another FSX plane project) into your new project, then drag a copy of the bitmap of the FS9 'fuselage material' in to the new 'old' one (other FSX material) and you now have a new FSX material, copy/pasted if you would, from another plane, all settings saved (specular, light, bump, etc, etc, etc). You Merge a part that has 'that' material on it, and you get that material imported into your new scene.
* You do not need to actually 'delete' the materials. Just start replacing them with the new ones. Begin the new materials names with FSX so that you can then go down the materials list and see which ones are still FS9 and which are the new FSX materials.

That material finder that Mathias is talking about is AWESOME! Pick a part that has the material you wish to renew. Select it and click Run Script and then select that script that is the material 'type' part finder. Suddenly you have 20 or 50 parts selected that has the same material applied. GO to your Material Editor and hit 'Apply' to apply the new FSX material to all of them at once. Then delete the older unused material.

You can find unused materials also by the [ ] brackets. They will follow the name of the material and have all parts inside those brackets that are using that material. They will be empty if its unused...

* Once you find a 'misc' animation, you can then change it around (copy/paste/modify/rename) to fit your new misc animation. You will need a new GUID for it though.

* You can create groupings of Animations or Effects, etc, for certain classes of effects (controls, etc) of for your latest plane, such as Epic LT, etc.. Great if you are creating 10 or 20 new animations and you want them to show up in a certain category 'alone' and not mixed into a HUGE stack of animations that arent in any order whatsoever.. (Can give you gray hair looking for a single animation out of 200 animations listed in no order.. )

EDIT: Be sure to get the FSX SDK SP2 animations list! It has more animations in it.. Very much needed..

Hope that helps.

Bill

[n4gix]

Rather than having a swiss army knife for a simple task, I use this script for 'Selecting Objects by Material'

I've added script to allow one to place an "icon" on an existing "Mesh Tools" toolbar, or to allow one to create a new, empty "Toolbar" and add the "icon"...

Operation is simple: select one object, then click on the icon to execute the task. This way one doesn't have to keep running the script manually.

This script should be placed in the C:\gmax\stdplugs\stdscripts folder, so it will load and be available everytime GMax is started. :ernae:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
-- Description: Object Select by Material
-- Created: 18MAR2009 version (0.75)
-- Created by : Hiroshi Igami (Project Opensky)
-- http://www.projectopensky.com
--
-- Modified* and Expanded by: Bill Leaming (Eaglesoft)
-- Modification Date: 28APR2009
--
-- How to use:
-- 1. Select 1 parts which will has the material to be selected
-- 2. Run this script
--
-- Known problems.
-- Selects the group when there is a parts using the material inside.
--
-- *Added "On Execute do" command, and macroScript menu entries to allow
-- adding this script to an existing "Mesh Tools" menubar, or a user-created
-- menubar.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
macroScript SelectByMaterial
category:"Meshtools"
toolTip:"Select by Material"
Icon:#("Material_Modifiers",1)
(
On Execute do
(
selmat = $.material
for i in 1 to objects.count do
(
if ( objects[i].material == selmat ) then (
selectmore objects[i]
)
)
)
)

[Lionheart]

Rather than having a swiss army knife for a simple task, I use this script for 'Selecting Objects by Material'

I've added script to allow one to place an "icon" on an existing "Mesh Tools" toolbar, or to allow one to create a new, empty "Toolbar" and add the "icon"...

Operation is simple: select one object, then click on the icon to execute the task. This way one doesn't have to keep running the script manually.

This script should be placed in the C:\gmax\stdplugs\stdscripts folder, so it will load and be available everytime GMax is started. :ernae:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
-- Description: Object Select by Material
-- Created: 18MAR2009 version (0.75)
-- Created by : Hiroshi Igami (Project Opensky)
-- http://www.projectopensky.com
--
-- Modified* and Expanded by: Bill Leaming (Eaglesoft)
-- Modification Date: 28APR2009
--
-- How to use:
-- 1. Select 1 parts which will has the material to be selected
-- 2. Run this script
--
-- Known problems.
-- Selects the group when there is a parts using the material inside.
--
-- *Added "On Execute do" command, and macroScript menu entries to allow
-- adding this script to an existing "Mesh Tools" menubar, or a user-created
-- menubar.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
macroScript SelectByMaterial
category:"Meshtools"
toolTip:"Select by Material"
Icon:#("Material_Modifiers",1)
(
On Execute do
(
selmat = $.material
for i in 1 to objects.count do
(
if ( objects[i].material == selmat ) then (
selectmore objects[i]
)
)
)
)




We should really rename you Captain FS Brainz....

Thanks Bill.

:ernae:

How on Earth do you keep coming out with all of these FS Dev technologies....

:isadizzy:


Bill

[pcmeneg]

Thank you guys for interesting answers!

I've just discovered that GMax has an hide "select by material" function. I've added it on edit menu by "customize user interface", see attachment.

In addition FSX material menu doesn't manage the multi-material, so I've to break down all objects that are connected to multi-material using "select by ID".