***NEED SERIOUS HELP***

[Katahu]

I have a major problem with the visual model of the Porsche. It's too big [literally].

I tried EVERY possible way that my brain could think of in order to figure out what was causing the BLOWOUT in size. In FS, the Porsche is about 1/4 the size of a city.

My unit setup and preferences makes Grid = 1.0m

I scaled down my Porsche, I exported with Mdlcommander and Middleman. I then exported again without those 2 programs. I made sure that the unit of measures in FS is set at Meters.

I tried literally everything that I could ever think of. But still, I kept having a city sized car.

I checked the FS9.cfg file. I looked into the AIRCRAFT folder [the one where the FS9.cfg file is] and deleted the folder Porsche [as I call it that way].

Again, I still had a city sized car. :-/

If no one helps me on this, then Project Porsche is doomed. And I don't want that to ever happen.

[Travis]

Okay.  In Gmax, what does the cursor position read when you put it directly in front of the forward bumper?

[aceronzo]

You might try mereging the car into a scene of an aircraft or so on that you know is the right scale, to see if it has to be resized again.Hope this helps  aceronzo

[Katahu]

The Forward bumper object is named as Text05 [this is intentional]. The Y axis = 2.2m when viewed on the LEFT viewport and the Z axis = -0.35m. These are the numbers that show the 2D-position of the mouse cursor in the Left viewport.

When the bumper is grouped with the rest of the Exterior model, the same object is shown as "[exterior]text05" (without the quotes).

[Firestriker]

This was quite a common problem when the new makemdl.exe came out with the MakeMdlSDK about a year and a half ago. I imagine you have not set your "System Units Scale" up properly. You get to this thru Customize > Preferences General tab. If you are using the makemdl.exe from the SDK your System Units Scale must be set to 1 unit = 1 meter. If you are using the makemdl.exe that came with FS2002Pro it must be set to 1 unit = 1inch. The Customize > Units Setup, is just a convienence so that work in the measurment system you are used to.

Hope this answers your question about your scale problem.

Lou

[Katahu]

Thanks man. That kind of info helps a lot.

[Katahu]

That's it. Now I have a new problem to solve.

My Porsche is now smaller in size, but now it doesn't want to be scaled down any further. The car is now about the size of a Learjet.

My preference is 1 unit = 1 meter and the unit setup is in "Generic". If I choose Metric instead of Generic, the car will be city-sized again.

I tried 1 unit = 1 feet and so and so, but no dice.

What now?

[Firestriker]

Keep your System Units Scale at 1 unit = 1 meter. It is the ONLY thing that counts when you export.

Remember, you model in REAL WORLD UNITS.

If you know the dimensions of your vehicle, max height, max width, max length, set your Units to what ever your known dimension system is. Like 15 ft long x 7 ft wide x 5 ft high so you'd use Decimal Feet. I use Decimal Feet any way because dimensions can be used directly in the aircraft.cfg file.

Make a box with these dimensions. Select all of the parts of your vehicle (NOT the box) then use the Uniform Scale on the icon bar or right click on it for a type-in box to scale up or down as necessary till it fits in the box.

Now lets say you don't know the overall dimensions of the vehicle. There are a couple of parts that are pretty standard, the tires and wheels. The wheels are probably 15 or 16 inches in diameter. The tires are of a standard size so you can find the dimensions of the tires on any number of websites that manufacture or sell tires for cars. Armed with the overall tire diameter you can determine the percentage to scale up or down the project. Example: the dimensions of an old F70-14 tire, quite a common size in the 60's muscle car days, is 26.24" overall diameter with an 8.30" cross section and mounts on a 14" rim. If my models tire has a diameter of 29" I can divide my target size of 26.24 by 29.00 and I find I need to scale the tire by 90.4% or 0.904. So, assuming the whole project looks in scale I would scale the whole project by that factor of 90.4%.

One other thing, you may need to apply an XForm Reset from the Utilities panel to your tire and collapse its stack before you can get accurate dimensions from the parts Properties box. Be sure your pivot point is where you want it before you apply the XForm Reset.

Lou

[Katahu]

What does the XForm reset do?

[Firestriker]

The XForm Reset makes the current object as if it were original made in its current state and erases all that parts history. You can observe how this works by making a simple 3' cube. After you have it made, look at the Object Properties. It reads dimensions  of X 3', Y 3' and Z 3'. Now scale the cube by 50%. You know that the cube should now have dimensions of X 1.5', Y 1.5' and Z 1.5' but in the Object Properties, it still reads the 3' dimensions. Now apply an XForm Reset and collapse the cubes stack and chech the Object Properties, it now reads dimensions of X 1.5', Y 1.5', and Z 1.5' as it should. Also experiment with the pivot point. Move it and rotate it. Then apply an Xform Reset and collapse the stack.The pivot point will be set to its current position and aligned to the world axes.

Lou

[Katahu]

From what I see, it looks as if I have to do this to every individual object in the scene. If this is the case, then I'm not willing to do that because my Porsche has a large number of objects.

I have already reinstalled Gmax and I decided to export the model WITHOUT Mdlcommander and without Middleman. I am still using the FSexport file from FS2002 and the Makemdl.exe from the SDK's.

I made sure that the preference is at 1 unit = 1 meters and the unit setup is at decimal feet.

STILL, the car is about the size of a Learjet.

How can the wheels be involved in this OVERSIZED problem?

Besides, the Porsche has over 55,000 polygons and it takes almost 5-7 minutes for the whole export process to finish. And my patience has already begun to wear out completely after over 10-15 unsuccessful attempts.

If the wheels are not sized up, then that would mean all my other car parts are probably not sized up either.

You can easily imagine the kind of frustration I am going through because this has NEVER happened to me before when I was making the Mercedes.

It's clear that I am missing a piece of this complex puzzle. Even if that piece is literally in front of me, I can't see it.

[Katahu]

People, I need help here.

I am still stuck with this problem and I can't seem to escape from it.

I still have 1 Unit = 1 Meter already setup and I have scaled UP and scaled DOWN the visual model in Gmax for over a thousand times already and i have exported the model for over a thousand times as well. STILL no success.

It seems that no matter how big or small the Porsche is in Gmax, it will always show up in FS as the size of a learjet. Not only that, the edges on the visual objects [literally ALL objects of the car] appear jagged when they are next to another object. ???

I have done vitually everything that my MIND can think of. I have even gone as far as to reinstall Gmax TWICE and I still have this problem.

I am doing something wrong, I know. But what is it that I'm doing wrong?

So far, only two people have given me ideas, but their ideas back-fired on me.

[Hellhound]

try importing it in your mercedes .gmax file and scaling it right, deleting the mercedes, saving it in another name and exporting it

[Katahu]

I have already figured out that problem. However, I ran into another problem.

Since the SDK version of Makemdl.exe uses a measure of at least 1 unit as 1 meters [Grid = 10m], I am forced to shrink my Porsche down to the size of an ant in Gmax so that it can come out as the size of a car in FS.

However, during the export process, a message tells me about some OBED or Scale-Matrix somthing that has been applied or found. My model can still export, but the animations don't won't in FS after exporting.

I then tried to us the FS2002 version of Makemdl.exe because that version a measure of at least 1 unit = 1 inch. This allows me to export the model without having to shrink it in Gmax [thus avoiding the OBED error]. However, this comes at a price. The price is that some of the vertices in the FS model tend to be misplaced [causing jagged edges].

Then I went back to the SDK version of Makemdl.exe and the problem was fixed. But now I have to put up with the OBED error when exporting a pint-size car from Gmax.

I tried to set different units like 1 unit = 0.03 meters [Grid = 0.3m]. With this measure, each unit is about 1 foot.

But still. After exporting with these measure, the model appears in FS as if the measures in Gmax were Grid = 10m.

I'm now using Mdlcommander and Middleman because I found out that they are NOT involved with these problems.

[Katahu]

Pardon me if I am beginning to sound annoying, but please help.