fsregen 0.20b - Create your own libraries from gmax

[Guest]

Hi all.The latest fsregen will let you design in gmax and turn your designs into library objects you can use from any design program you like.It now supports the new makemdl and has a number of other improvements/bugfixes.Get it from www.nhreas.com/fsregen.htmlPlease report all bugs as this is still (and probably will always be) a beta version :-)George

[Guest Simpit]

This is really great - thank you for working on this...Derek

[Guest]

Thanks very much Georgio!

[Guest cwright]

George, That's brilliant! A major shortcoming of makemdl is that it can't generate macros, a huge oversight that limits the usefulness of Gmax for scenery creation. With this new fsregen feature I should be able to place Gmax-designed objects with Airport 2.60. I'm downloading it as I write. Many thanks! Best regards, Chris

[Guest]

Hi guys.Thanks for your kind words.I'm still writing some code, with emphasis on the GUID generation and ability to save the design part of the library so you can add objects as you create them.I designed a dozen macros and already got confused with the GUIDs.Imagine the confusion with many libraries and many designers...Do you think that there should be a way of controlling these GUIDs ?Possibly an on line registry that each one of us gets allocated some GUIDs and if we publish scenery there are no conflicts ? Or am I taking it too far ?? :-)All the bestWaiting for them libraries now :-)George

[Guest GerrishGray]

Hi GeorgeGood work! Hopefully we can look forward to lots of reusable libraries of high quality objects now!I think that you are probably worrying too much about GUID's. As long as everyone understands that they need to make up something unique and, perhaps, personalised, I cannot see much likelihood of anyone managing to clash with anyone else, considering that they have 128 bits (= 32 ASCII characters) to play with. I would suggest that you just emphasise in your documentation that the ID's must be unique and authors should include an index of GUID's / object names in their documentation.Thanks againGerrish

[Guest christian]

Yes, indeed we want to have unique GUIDs. The program to use is guidgen which comes with Visual Studio. This program generates a unique GUID based on time and your system configuration and is garantied to be unique ( garantied by M$ ). The same generator is used for GUIDs you need to register software components (like COM dlls) in the windows registry. Too bad, you need Visual Studio, I don't know if you can download it for free from Microsoft somewhere...Cheers, Christian

[jkanold 0]

Neat, now where does one find Middleman v1.1?Ans what is it?http://members.rogers.com/jkanold/jimlogo.gifhttp://members.rogers.com/eelvish/flyurl.gif

[Guest]

Hi ...takeoff.to/landing (Chris File's cool site) is the place for middleman.Will let you keep the asm files that are generated every time you compile scenery with gmax/makemdl. Plus some other cool stuff...fsregen need them asm files.The visual studio program (guidgen) will create a unique ID within your windows installation... Plus it is MS copyrighted. I could include such a facility in fsregen, but the problem(?) is when your objects get out in the wild.We would need more than that... but maybe this is far fetched... just don't use the default values that you see when you start up fsregen.. Improvise. :-)George

[jkanold 0]

The new Makemdl doesn't work properly with GMAX.If you tick Optimize, the model either disappears with only shadows showing ( if it was the other way around I would be happy as I wish there was a way to make a model without a shadow ), or it is turned into a giant model.If you untick Optimize, the model is resized and placed at the wrong co-ordinates.I really would love to try your program out. http://members.rogers.com/jkanold/jimlogo.gifhttp://members.rogers.com/eelvish/flyurl.gif

[jkanold 0]

OK, I've made a BIN file.Now what do you do?http://members.rogers.com/jkanold/jimlogo.gifhttp://members.rogers.com/eelvish/flyurl.gif

[Guest Mark Hazeldine]

Let me get this straight; i can create a building in gmax and place it in Apt 2.60? Will this improve frame rates? I read the Gmax vs. scasm thread and it still seems a bit inconclusive. Does fsregen convert the gmax object into scasm (if so, then surely there's no speed increase over an FSDS macro) or does it "call" the gmax object from a library or something else? What i'm getting at is, will this just let me create slightly more advanced buildings or will it be more framerate friendly than the FSDS->Apt2.60 route? If so then yippie! By the way, would framerates increase further (over using fsregen) if i made just one or a few big gmax BGLs with everything in them?

[Guest]

Hi there.Jim, I haven't seen problems with the new makemdl and scenery myself. There are some with aircraft design but I don't think they affect the scenery export.Make sure you define the correct "SystemUnit Scale" in gmax's customize-> Preferences (it should be 1 meter per design unit). If you have made a bin file, you are pretty close, but haven't read the documentation :-) Please do. Even a popup window tells you to compile with "bglc /BGL .asm" .....Mark, There was a big thread regarding frame rates and some tests. Check it out. Also check www.nhreas.com/thetest.htmlIt seems that we get the best frame rates with library objects created in gmax, converted with fsregen into precompiled libraries and then placed into scenery.My personal opinion is that if you know how to write scasm and understand the impact of various programming methods, you can be as good as using gmax; even better. Depends which one comes easier to you.People are still looking into it and there may be further findings...So far the method I would choose to design an airport would be this:Use any of the traditional programs (AP2.6 for example) to make everything that cannot be done in gmax (runways, taxiways etc). Export to one bgl file.Make a large grid of X/Y lines every 10 meters with some object (a cube will do) in the 0,0 position in gmax and export it to another bgl file. Activate it in fs and you should have your basic airport with the grid on top.Press CTRL-S in fs, zoom out and take a screen snapshot.Go back in gmax and using the grid you made in reference with the screen capture you can place objects exactly where you want them to appear in fs.Make your complete scenery and export it without the grid this time.Your scenery should be complete.If there is some object that you use a lot, isolate it, put it in position 0,0 of another gmax file and using fsregen turn it into a library file. Then place it in either gmax or airport (or what other program can place lib objects). It seems that library objects are favoured and do increase frame rate. I don't think though that by replacing one instance of an object will make any dramatic difference. 50 of them maybe.. :-)Good luckGeorge

[Guest]

I need some advise, I'm trying to explore the use of fsregen with my gmax models. Its taken me this long since you uploaded your latest version of fsregen to learn gmax. When I go to open my asm file I get an error shown in the attached jpg. I'm new at middleman 1.1 and new at gmax and new at fsregen...so its undoubtably operator error, but I'm not sure what steps to take. Thanks for any help.Bob Bernstein

[arno 1]

Bob,I have never used the main menu, I only use the option to make the library and that is not yet where you are here :).Try to click on the "library compiler" button. There you can make the library. I haven't found out what all the other options do (I think I haven't needed them yet :)).ArnoMember NL2000 Teamhttp://home.wanadoo.nl/arno.gerretsen