Deep Inside a Gauge File

[Ali Cat]

[Shessi]

Carlo,

Interesting, so that is a default CFS2 Zero gauge?

The absolute holy grail would to be able to convert xml to gau gauges or vica versa....

Cheers

Shessi

[Ali Cat]

Hey, Shessi and so good to speak with you again.


Yes, the output is the gauge names straight out of the A6M2 standard gauge file (a binary which hunt). I plan to push the code to read all gauge names in one's gauges directory. Its not much of a utility but I've noticed some have requested it. I also wanted something for my first c++ project.


A bit of an explanation on this one. I've long been intrigued on just how CFS2 talks to all those dll's. I've learned a lot and while there's still hope that this effort will lead to something useful, the news is not good. While some CFS2 dll's export functions that look like c++ (you can see the function names and passed argument types), most do not. All the dll's (that I've noticed) export two names: “ImportTable” and “Linkage”. The bad news is that these are not function names. They are data structures that can (and do in the case of gauges) also contain pointers to functions.


After this project I have a number ideas for the next one but, XML to CFS2 gauge – yikes – how juicy. I had not thought of that. A few ideas for what's next.


-Gauge maker: To do right this would be a biggy (not hard just a lot of coding). And with such a tool it would be easy to add an XML import.


-Read a BGL or better yet a MDL file to develop an exporter. (yes, I'm aware of ModelConverterX).


-Continue working on the dll exports.




Ideas welcome but no promises – I'm easily distracted Ya' know.
AC

[Ali Cat]

Oh yes, two quesions:

-Has anyone else noticed that MDL files are dll's, too? It made me jump.

-The FS 2000 Scenery SDK mentions a Bglmac.inc file. Anyone know were I can find it?

AC

[Allen]

Never heard of a Bglmac.inc. A goggle of it shows some talk of a bglmac.inc for BGLC 8.0

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/7...ns-of-bglc-80/

[Ali Cat]

Thank you, Allen. I had Googled it a bit but had no luck. A few weeks ago I wrote code that read the header to a BGL file (easy). It's a tiny start to a possible project that I don't know would even be useful. The idea started with the thought of importing a model into a game engine -- Godot, for example has caught my eye. ModelConverterX may be all we need here I just haven't been down that road enough to know. Guessing it would be a crazy amout of work but I like very much the thought of all the incredible work done herein could possibly live on much longer.

AC