Lines with GMax

[Guest Dirk]

Hi folks,i just startet getting used to Gmax..... I am creating a soccer-arena at Hamburg Germany. Everything works fine in FS except the lines. I used the lines-tool to create lines. Everything is visible in FS except these lines. Does anyone have an idea how to create lines in gmax??Thanks & regardsDirk

[Guest VideoAce]

Hi Dirk,When creating a line in gmax on the roll out, select Mesh Setting and then check "Display Mesh". If this is not check than your lines will not be rendered.Bill

[Guest Dirk]

Hi Bill,thanks for your immediate response. I tried your advice but it didn't work. The "Display Mesh" wasn't checked, but even after checking it, the result was negative. In GMax i can see the lines, in FS2004 not. Have a look at the picture. The red arrow shows the lines i'd like to see in FS. The green arrow shows three lines in different styles i created to see if they might be visible in FS (they where not...).Any other mistakes i did??Thanks and regardsDirk

[Guest Firestriker]

Dirk,I would apply a material with the LINE_ prefix in the name as explained in the MakemdlSDK. This material name triggers makemdl.exe to insert the code for lines between verticies rather than drawing triangles.Lou

[Guest Dirk]

Hi Lou,good tip, i didn't know that way.... I read the manual and find what you meant. As i said, i am not quite used to GMax... Could you explane where to place that prefix and the steps i have to do before?Thanks Dirk

[Guest Firestriker]

Dirk,Try this:Start a new gMax scene.Make a simple cube 20ft. x 20ft. x 20ft. (or something similar)with it centered at the origin and the bottom at ground level for simplicity sake. Convert it to an Editable Poly.Open Material Editor and Material Navigator and make a new standard material. Name the material LINE_cube, similar to the image below. Set the Diffuse Color to RGB 1,1,1. Apply it to the cube.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/66555.jpgExport to scenery model. Name it something like wire_cube.mdl. Edit the wire_cube.xml file and set a location. Compile to a bgl.Put it in your Addon Scenery/Scenery directory.Fire up FS9 and go check it out. You should see just a wire frame cube.Lou

[Guest Ridge_Runner_5]

I have noticed at least with aircraft design that if you have an object that is not textured in a model, then it will not show up in the game. Try just applying a material like he specifies, with 1,1,1 as RGB. Then it oughta show up in FS...

[Guest Dirk]

Hi Lou,thank you for that excellent discribtion. I did everything as you adviced and it works. The only thing is that not all lines of the cube are being displayed. As you can see on the picture some lines are gone... is that normal??Thanks Dirk

[Guest Firestriker]

Dirk,Yes, what you are getting seems to be pretty common when using a base object like the cube. In my experiments, I had made a 12 sided cylinder, converted to edible poly and then collapsed the top verts to one vert forming a cone. Applied the Line_ material and exported. In the sim only 6 of the 12 edges (every other one) were drawn. I imagine this is do to the "optimize" option in makemdl. I haven't tried using the makemdl.exe prior to the most current one and handleing the X file > ASM > BGL process manually with this, but I'll bet if you turn the "optimize" option off it would show exactly what was built. I know from messing with the ASM files for other models that if the option is left checked, you can't always fine all the parts as they apparently have been combined with other parts.Hmmmm... now what I am thinking is that one could write a little batch file (makemdl.bat) to call makemdl.exe and pass the command line parameters for specific situations like this turning off the optimize option. Hopefully mdlcommander and middleman will be upgraded to accomplish this...but haven't see Chris around anywhere lately. Maybe he got burned out on FS and has moved on to other things.Lou