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am I alone ?

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Guest Dominique

About 80 people read it in the FSX forum and no reaction...http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho..._id=9954&page=1Like, wouldn't YOU love an object-oriented (moving polygons and not points of polygons !), 3D-viewing, Window-type of GUI, bug-free editor ? mesh, LWM (including sloped) and VTP2 ... Dreaming is free. I would even be ready to pay 39.99 bucks for it !

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Guest lmoelleb

Personally I think MS better spend the time elsewhere. It just takes so insane long to make an internal tool ready for release.FS works with the entire planet. This means automated processing and the like, MS might even be running several of the tools with no GUI at all.

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Hi Dominique,In general I agree with Lars. It would be nice if MS would provide a useful tool, but I think they can spend their time better then that. Besides that addon scenery designers usually demand a higher quality from their scenery than the default scenery, so it might also be that the tools MS are using are not as powerful as we like (because our target is different). So I would prefer some good SDKs and then I am sure some people will come up with cool tools.


Arno

If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done.

FSDeveloper.com | Former Microsoft FS MVP | Blog

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Salut Dominque,I had not noticed that it was particularly cumbersome to make scenery. There is a plethora of tools available, many of them really great, and every aspect of scenery design is much easier now than in the past, except for dynamic scenery.Perhaps you could indicate what tools you use and what you find difficult about them. Undoubtedly, your experience is valuable and would help to make them better.Amiti

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Guest Dominique

he he, I AM aloneAbout the FS team spending time, I mean, they could hire new people, couldn't they :-) or make it between cycles, when FS "N" is out and FS "N+1" is still in two to three years time ?About SDK, I'm old enough to have programmd the Rockwell 6502 in my Apple 2, then tweaked ad nauseam DOS interfaced programs (the black screen, the prompt > line and the only editing with F3 :-hah ). Call me an old geyser but I like now a good windowed GUI, where everything is at the tip of the mouse and where the learning curve is directed where it should be, to substance and not harnessing the idiosyncrasies of a tool. I've no pleasure or intention to understand the intracacies of the polygon relative offsets or compute the 1/128

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I see what you mean, Dominique. Obviously, things could always be better, and that is a good motto for life in general.I use a variety of tools and this mix allows me to do just about everything very easily. - LWMViewer lets me create accurate backgrounds for use in drawing programs, and it is great for checking the results; - Ground2k4 is excellent for coastlines since it automatically creates the Water Mask; - SBuilder handles all elements of terrain in a very comprehensive manner. Lines and polygons can be moved in their entirety, (but in the last version of Ground2k4 also). Sloped polygons are easy to make and all objects can be placed; - LWMViewer 2 - I just love this and do more and more with it. I do all land and water class here since one can load the terrain and see exactly how the land class will look. Also, moving, changing, and replacing all default objects, accurately placing any other object as well as easily creating generic buildings - it is easy to see exactly where to place everything; - GMax, in spite of what so many people seem to think, is very easy to use, powerful and flexible; - all of Arno's tools that do the small but vital things.It all seems so much easier than it was just a few years ago, and I am doing projects that were extremely difficult and tiring back then.Best regards.Luis

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Guest jimkeir

Hi,Not really alone, just a little ahead of the curve :) It'd be great to have something with those capabilities but I honestly wouldn't expect to see it coming from Microsoft. That's not a dig at all; what I mean is that internal tools will always be rough around the edges. If it's good enough to get by, then they can use it to produce their main target. 'Good enough to get by' is usually not good enough for public release though.The third-party designers are still working on their tools (slowly, in my case :-roll ) and one day may even have something resembling what you want, but I suspect you'll always have to use different tools for different jobs.For example, LWMViewer2 has the 3D display you're looking for and can manipulate objects in 3D but has no polygon drawing functions. Why? Because at the time I added the 3D view, there were very few object-placement programs and only Lago's payware one was interactive. There were several polygon-editing programs around though, so why spend time adding a feature that already exists elsewhere when there are things that still force people back to Notepad?One question, too. I'm not sure what you mean by 'elitist' - can you explain a little more? Do you mean that it's only open to the 'old-timers' and not accessible to anyone else, because of the complexity of the toolset?Cheers,Jim

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Guest cwright

>Like, wouldn't YOU love an object-oriented (moving polygons>and not points of polygons !), 3D-viewing, Window-type of GUI,>bug-free editor ? mesh, LWM (including sloped) and VTP2 ...>Dreaming is free. I would even be ready to pay 39.99 bucks>for it ! The good news is that such an editor exists. The bad news is that it's for Far Cry and not for FS. The Far Cry editor (it comes on the DVD) is an astounding piece of software, probably more amazing than even the game itself. You can edit just about any aspect of the game: terrain mesh, objects, vegetation, lighting and environment settings such as visibility ranges and animated entities such as AI humans or animals. When you run the editor you're essentially in the game: the graphics display is exactly the same except of course for labels and various helpers etc. In fact the editor is fully integrated into the game: after editing just hit CTRL-G and within a second you literally are in the game (e.g. the AI humans may start shooting at you and you can shoot back!) Hit ESCAPE and you're back in editor mode. While in editor mode many animations still run normally: water/wave effects, swaying vegetation, animals and flying birds. Amusingly, even the AI humans are alive: they won't move around but they will scratch themselves occasionally or bend down to tie up their shoe laces! Click the AI button and the AI humans will come to life, for example jumping into a vehicle and driving off. Terrain mesh editing is incredibly easy. As you move around the world you can adjust the terrain by raising and lowering it in real time using the mesh tools. After creating a new hill you could hit CTRL-G and within seconds you could be climbing your new hill! Selecting and placing objects is also very easy. In fact the interface in many ways is similar to gmax (if you think gmax is hard don't let that put you off - it really is easy, trust me!) You can import textures and then use the paint tool to paint the textures directly onto the terrain. Perfect, for example, for painting in extra roads or pathways. As you can use any suitable texture roads can look far more realistic than in FS. I will soon be releasing a version of AutoAsm for Far Cry. You could use TerraScene and AutoAsmFC to import real roads and coastline data and convert to a bitmap. You then import the bitmap into the Far Cry editor and you very quickly have real-world coastlines and roads in your scenery. Just imagine a similar editor for FS. After adjusting the terrain and adding a few new buildings you could hit CTRL-G, climb into your aircraft and make a test flight around your new scenery. If there's something that's not quite right, hit ESCAPE, do some editing and then jump into your plane again. Because the editor is integrated closely with the game, such an editor would probably have to come from Microsoft or from a company working very closely with it. Will it happen? Maybe in time. Many modern games come with a full editor on the DVD, so why not FS? Far Cry has been out several years and it's very cheap (about

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Guest Dominique

Thank you guys for some interesting hints@Luis> - LWMViewer lets me create accurate backgrounds Yes LMWviever is nice but I don't see how you create stuff with it, I see it as a viewer> - SBuilder handles all elements of terrain in a very>comprehensive manner. Lines and polygons can be moved in their>entirety, (but in the last version of Ground2k4 also). Sloped>polygons are easy to make and all objects can be placed;SBbuilder is a program I'ven't tried yet as it is indicated in SHoF as requiring W95/98 and as its installation gives me an "erreur d'ex

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For me the problem is getting good source data. with that in hand using the 3rd party tools isn't that bad. Other than dealing with the known FS9 quirks.scott s..

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The problem with SBuilder may be that you have your decimal separator as a comma ',' on your system and it will only work if the separator is a point '.'

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Guest jimkeir

Hi,>>For example, LWMViewer2 has the 3D display you're looking for>>and can manipulate objects in 3D>Will look into it next weekend. I was using the first version. Can I>see in 3d the various bgl (mesh, roads and LC) created with G2k4 ?Yes, it'll load pretty much everything except old SCASM models and you get a realtime 3D environment. Useful as a viewer, as before, plus you can interact with models (GMax and generic). You do need fairly chunky 3D hardware to make the most of it.I've been working on the mesh display for a while, but have been slowed down by some compatibility problems and one or two side-projects. I can't say when the next update will appear, but sooner rather than later. Feel free to let me know what you're after...Cheers,Jim

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Guest Dominique

Thanks .I changed , to . and now I don't have the message, I've the error 9 message index range out of range or something like that now (it's in French).Never been able to install the program... I see now that it needs Pete Dowson FSUIPC that I don't have anyway.

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I see now that it needs Pete Dowson FSUIPC that I don't have anywayWell just about every scenery design program uses FSUIPC or it's equivilent - usually the free version.

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Guest cwright

Dominique, here's a simple example of the Far Cry editor.1. A general view in the editor showing some boringly flat terrain. In the left you can see some vehicles and AI humans. http://www.kline.demon.co.uk/demo1.jpg2. I open the mesh painting tool and with a few brush strokes create a small hill. The yelow and green lines indicate the (adjustable) size of the tool. http://www.kline.demon.co.uk/demo2.jpg3. I position my viewpoint just above the crown of the hill and hit CTRL-G. I am now running the game with my edited scenery (but still in the editor). Some of the AI humans jumped into their vehicles and drove off - you can see them in the distance. Here I am standing on the crown of my brand-new hill! http://www.kline.demon.co.uk/demo3.jpg From painting the new hill to standing on its crown took no more than about thirty seconds. When Crytek designed the CryEngine the editor was an integral part of it. Their designers used the editor to create the actual game maps. They actually supply the source code for all the game maps on the DVD so you can load them into the editor. Very useful for seeing how it's done - and it means you can create your own versions of the retail game maps! I hope this is the future, so that one day all games - including FS - will come with editors like this! Best regards, Chris

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