VC question

[JABO-DEV]

Sorry if I missed this one right in front of my face. I've been searching but no dice. How does 3d get added to the VC? in FSDS you "mark" the parts for interior view, How would I do that in a .3ds file?, I was hoping there is a prefix/suffix in the part name. May be I don't understand VC,s? I might just upload the GeeBee without a VC of any kind, but that would be a shame thanks for your time again,

[Felix/FFDS]

What you do - in the current version of makemdl - (at least one way) is to create your interior parts (probably clones of your exterior) and set ALL the interior parts as children of a dummy (actually a very tiny box set at 0,0,0) part called "interior" .

Similarly, all your exterior parts are set as children of an exterior dummy called "exterior".

In your hierarchy, - you have only two top-level parts - interior and exteriore:

exterior
----wing
----fuselage
----l_gear
--------l_tire
.
.
.
.
etc

interior
-----seat
-----panel
-----lever_stick_l_r
---------lever_stick_fore_aft
.
.
.
.
etc

[Moach]

another way is to group your VC parts in a group called "interior"... then, group your exterior parts in another group called "exterior"

basically the hierarchy will look just the same as if using felix's method, doesn't really make a difference... just 2 ways of doing the same thing

oh, and when grouping, don't forget to set the groups pivot points to 0,0,0... same as with the dummy

c ya

Moach

[JABO-DEV]

My inexperence in Gmax is getting in the way of this one. if I group objects together they will retain thier names and pivot points?  and, there isn't any thing to be added to the panel.cfg? So much I need to ask ,thanks guys

[JABO-DEV]

It worked, Thanks guys

[Firestriker]

Actually, I am mistified as to where this custom of grouping interior and exterior parts came from. If you look at the sample aircraft that came with FS2002, or the Curtiss_Jenny for FS2004, you will see that there are NO groupings at all, only display control nodes. As Felix points out, just simple objects with or without geometry (no points or polygons), and even dummies will work. If you don't group parts, you eliminate the posibility of pivot points being messed up or scaling problems due to grouping and ungrouping.  In my own work I have found that 2 dummy nodes, placed at the origin and at the top of the hierarchy named interior and exterior with their respective parts linked to them will produce an interior and exterior model using either gamepack. This also works with different LOD models.

exterior
--LOD_100
----wing
----fuselage
----l_gear
--------l_tire
--LOD_50
----wing
----fuselage
----l_gear
--------l_tire
etc

interior
-----seat
-----dash
-----vc_panel
-----lever_stick_l_r
---------lever_stick_fore_aft


Lou