Why can't you use FSDS planes?

[Wing Nut]

I know you can't, but I was wondering if anyone knew the specific reason why it won't work?  I've heard several people comment that there might be a way no one has discovered yet, and wanted to know what you pro's think.

Kevin

[Felix/FFDS]

Airplanes made with any program that wasn't developed to the FS2002 SDK were made to teh "old" style MDL format, which FS2002 recognized, but in FS2004, this backward compatibility is not there.

Thus, these "old style" models will appear, but animations - landing gear may be fixed, props disappear, etc., will not be correct.  There may be other effects, depending on how much "hard coding" was done in the aircraft.

Models made with FSDS2  *and made for FS2002/2004* WILL show up and operate correctly.

[Hagar]

Basically it's an animation issue. The original FSDS models were animated with a separate application named Aircraft Animator. This uses a different principle for animation sequences to those described in the FS2002 SDK & used in Gmax & FSDS2 models. The format of the MDL file is also different. This is the reason some parts didn't display properly when these aircraft were used as AI traffic in FS2002 (& AI aircraft in CFS2).

It could possibly be corrected by SCASM editing. This involves decompiling the MDL file & manually changing every single animation reference before recompiling it in the correct MDL format. It's very time-consuming & very few people know how to do it. If you miss just one entry you would have to start again. Some CFS2 models were SCASM edited to correct faults with the animation in AI & also to give them breaking parts. These SCASM edited models are not always suitable for FS2002/4 due to differences in the graphics engines.

It's much easier for the original authors to update older designs with either Gmax or FSDS2 although this still involves a considerable amount of work.

[Wing Nut]

So then why do I get that paper airplane figure on some planes, and is there a way to correct that?

[Hagar]

So then why do I get that paper airplane figure on some planes, and is there a way to correct that?

This is a visual bug with some multi-LOD aircraft designed for CFS2 in FS2002/4. They work perfectly in CFS2. The zoom values for the different quality models are set up differently. It's one of the differences in graphics engines between the sims I mentioned.

PS. Multi-LOD aircraft are actually 4 or more different quality models set up to be viewed at different distances. It's done to improve the frame rates, just like the default aircraft. The models vary in quality from highly detailed to a basic shape. The long range model is sometimes no more than a simple cube or your "paper plane".. This is what you sometimes see with a CFS2 aircraft in FS instead of the fully detailed & animated close up model.

[Wing Nut]

And that is in the mdl?  Is there any way to adjust it with a hex editor?

[Hagar]

[quote]And that is in the mdl?

[Wing Nut]

Yeah, but I'm almost tempted to try my hand at making planes again for this one.

[Hagar]

Ah OK. Thought so. You could always post a request in the Aircraft Wanted forum. I doubt this would do much good but you never know. It's possible someone likes it as much as you & will do a proper FS9 version.

[SilverFox441]

Don't let talent (or a perceived lack thereof) stand in the way!

Very few modellers were any good on their first few subjects, the trick is to keep plugging away.