My first post...and a question

[Guest]

Hello all and welcome to my first post on this forum :-) Lots of talent here, just hope some of it rubs off on me. I have been reading around the posts and have found alot of the advise helpfull beyond belief but... I cannot get my aircraft to apear in FS2002pro for some reason. I have exported from GMax and such, set up the folders and aliased the panel/sounds etc... but its just not showing up for some reason, hope someone can help. If you need more info to help me out i'll be glad to give itP.S. the project i'm working on is a "what if" version of the Cessna 337 skymaster if Cessna were to re-release it as an updated "sp" edition. i'll post some screens if someone can explaine to me how to take screen shots on GMax and how tp post them here.Thanks for taking the time to read this and I hope to hear from you.

[Guest odog]

Another Loon for the Bin!:-grnmdWelcome, well could be alotta things. When I first exported I just picked a plane that was close to mine, back up the MDL and rename your gmax file to match it and overwrite the old MDL.this will at least get you in the game. then I just reverse engineered the aircraft.cfg file. Changed the names and specs to match what I want.See ya,

[Guest]

coolness, it worked and i'm now able to get the model into the sim...now onto the other 300 questions I have ;-) I have went through every tutorial I have came across but there are still some issues I have to deal with such as, finding a list of tags (l_aileron, r_aileron) etc for all the parts (this one is probably right under my nose so please dont make fun :-)) also when I set my cockpit windows to a nice double sided transparent glass in GMax...in FS2002pro its only one sided ARG! and I wont even go into getting my virtual cockpit working...hehe having the time of my life finally learning to design FS aircraft :-)

[Guest]

The list of tags is on freeflightdesign.com, in the tips section (or is it tutorials? one or the other).Double-sided glass...well, if all else fails, you can make your window out of two separate sets of polys, and flip the normals on the inner set...you'll effectively be simulating the thickness of a piece of glass. Anyone want to share an easier way?Matt

[Guest odog]

Hey,Also to add to your confusion the MakeMDL SDK is avail from microsoft at their developers desk, it will explain (or try) what all the tags are and some other stuff.When Im lazy, and when the situation calls for it I name a material in gmax with a DS_ prefix, like DS_GLASS and it will be double sided in the sim...to see it double sided in gmax you also have to tick 2 sided in the Material Ed.

[Guest]

Hey, now that's a great tip...thanks!Matt

[Guest]

yes indeed that is a good one...and now for something completly diferent..(insert strange Monty python animation here) I have a new problem for some reason..Getting an error message when I try and export, worked just fine before and now its telling me it cant find the makemdl program. that is odd since it hasnt been moved (yes I checked :-)) wondering if this is one of those "dreaded scale errors" I keep hearing about...sure hope not.P.S. if I'm asking to many noobie questions just lemme know ;-) I dont mean to be a bother but its just really great to be able to interact with others who share my interest

[Guest odog]

Get used to it.Happens all the time, First thing you need to do is determine what type of error you have. Then check out FFDS, and look for something in the tips and toots section.I know once you get used to modeling and gmax youll learn to avoid them and sometimes they appear for no reason whatsoever! Aint this fun!Sometimes gmax has mind of its own, sometimes its just stupid.

[Guest]

>Get used to it. >>Happens all the time, First thing you need to do is >determine what type of error you have. Then check out FFDS, >and look for something in the tips and toots section. >>I know once you get used to modeling and gmax youll learn to >avoid them and sometimes they appear for no reason >whatsoever! Aint this fun! >>Sometimes gmax has mind of its own, sometimes its just >stupid. Heh! The most common 'error' I encounter is the dreaded "colocated vertices within triangle..." and "blah, blah, blah, scale..."Whenever that happens (particularly when I've made only a very minor change since the last successfull export), I save the current scene to a new file (increment the series by 1), do a "Reset," then reload the same file and proceed with the new "Export."