Classic British Flight Sim

Hey all,

I was referred here by a friend from Hovercontrol. I'm currently doing a mod for a helo and was wondering about the vertex/poly limits for FS9. I've been doing A LOT of reading and haven't found any definite responses. The only place I found something sort of conclusive was on these forums, but they don't seem to apply to what I am doing.

Basically, I don't know if my issue has to do with poly limits or something else, but when I export the model into an .mdl for flight simulator, it shows up blank in FS9. However, if I go back to an older version of what I've done, it seems to work fine, it's very confusing. Certain combinations of what I've built don't work, while other combinations do. For example, I re-did the interior seating and I also added some external parts. If I use the external parts and not the seating, it loads fine. If I use the seating and not the external parts, it loads fine. If I use both, no dice. If I take away both, it works fine. If I take away both, but add several other parts that exceed the poly/vertex limit, it works fine. Let me clarify a bit by adding some numbers:

Aircraft does NOT load with a model with these statistics,

Parts: External 364, Virtual Cockpit 282, Total 646
Vertices: External 42830, Virtual Cockpit 17392, Total 60222
Polygons: External 32823, Virtual Cockpit 12354, Total 45177


Aircraft DOES load with a model with these statistics,

Parts: External 375, Virtual Cockpit 351, Total 726
Vertices: External 40669, Virtual Cockpit 31020, Total 71689
Polygons: External 31341, Virtual Cockpit 22681, Total 54022

(All numbers taken right out of FSDS)


Basically, the one that DOES load fine has SOME of my mods built into it. It's not quite the default that I'm working from, but it's not quite the complete project either. The one that DOES NOT load up fine is a slightly more complete project, with some of my work.

I remember reading a long thread where it mentioned something about how you name parts and animations and all sorts of things that I haven't even touched.
So I wonder, does anyone have any idea why it won't load under certain circumstances? Am I overlooking something obvious, or is this just too complicated for someone of my 'skill' (or lack thereof STUPID )

I'd really appreciate some input on this one. Thanks!!

(P.S. - I apologize if this is somewhere in an FAQ or something, but I tried my best to search these forums and many others, all to no avail. If I missed something, it certainly wasn't because I didn't try!)

Hi Rob and welcome

It's all pretty much mumbo-jumbo to me but I've a feeling more than one person here will be able to help you out ;-)

ATB

DaveB :tab:

Hi,

I might suggest asking this question at the Freeflight Design Shop forum.

Hope this helps,

Thanks gentlemen! I'll post there as well, no harm in extending the roots. Eventually someone'll know.

Hi Rob,

Sorry for the delay in replying ;-)

Could you clarify a couple of things?...are you saying that the model doesn't load in FS or that the model doesn't compile in the first place? Also, how are you compiling it, directly through FSDS or exporting as an .x file and then manually compiling through MakeMDL?

If the latter then you'll have access to the MakeMDL options tab, you can check the box to save the error log and this will list any problems with the compile.

As far as poly and vertex count goes, bear in mind that assigning materials and textures actually duplicates the vertices, it's like adding another layer, so the count in the FS mdl file is higher than the numbers that FSDS reports. If you have ACM, Aircraft Container Manager, this will pull the numbers from the in game .mdl file and you'll see a considerable difference. ACM is no longer available but you may be able to do a google and find a copy somewhere ;-)

Hope this helps as a start, process of elimination ;-)

ATB,

Derek

Not a problem at all! Thanks for the info.

I export to an .mdl straight out of FSDS. But I will save as .x and then use MakeMDL so I can fiddle with the options there like you've said. The model compiles just fine, and that was with those numbers I gave you up there. As far as I can tell, those numbers are way above the "limit" and I have a lot of parts/textures/materials, but it compiles so I figured theres no problem on that end. The problem is that it does not show up in Flight Simulator (I did all the .cfg entries properly, but when I select the new model I just made, it is completely invisible, and upon loading, only has a 2D panel, everything else is nonexistent).

I will see what I can do about ACM and report the new numbers.
I did post on another forum as well and was told that I have a "poison part", one part that is not functioning properly and as such, it is what makes the model not load in flight sim. So I have to remove parts until I find what it is and then rebuild it. I'm not sure thats the case because I've compiled all the parts on their own without the aircraft and they work fine, it's once everything is together that it seems to be an issue. Someone else had said that the file size will often kill it as well, and having excess parts and materials will cause large filesizes and that was where I was going wrong.

I have no idea - but like you said, it is a start in the process of elimination!

I really appreciate your time and assistance, I will get back to you as soon as I try all this new stuff.
Thank you!

Ok sounds like your compiling into that threshold area where MakeMDL either works or does not work, its quite hard to get into that area by actually trying but easy to get into by mistake LOL.

In simple terms MakeMDL is just about to keel over, add a few more polys and the model will not compile, remove a few and it will, its MakeMDLs twilight zone.

From Experiance there are many things you can do to get MakeMDL top work better, your poly count is certainly well below MakeMDLS threshold, models upto 73,000 have been compiled but it takes time and care. MakeMDL seems to work on a bucket system, a bucket for polys, a bucket for textures, a bucket for animation etc etc. Each bucket has a finite limit but if one bucket is less full than another then MAkeMDL tries to utilise that free space....with in reason.

Being as your poly count is with in limits then your failure to compile is due to something else, sometimes it can be a simple rouge part, a part that might have a errounous scaling is always a good one, I work in Max and it pays in circumstances like this to select all parts and reset their scale, not sure if FSDS can do that.

Ok , this is all rough and ready notes so in no particular order heres some things to try, check all your animations, make sure they are linear, not euler ( not sure if thats and option in FSDS ), euler is a slow to accelerate and slow to deccelerate animation, much like London tube train doors, it requires more mathmatics and lots of Euler animations fill up the animation bucket, linear doesnt.

Parts, I see you have hundreds of parts ?, normally in Max, anything above 120 tends to cause problems, but FSDS might count parts differently ?. Make sure you dont have one part with a very high poly count, about 8-10,000 per part I've heard is a good basis to work on.

Materials, make sure you dont have a odd material in there somewhere, I had a model ( famous payware ) that would not compile for the love of trying, found out that a material name had accidentally had a ' added to it, that threw MakeMDL a spasm for weeks !, also check your part names, try not to let any parts start with a number, always a letter and never if possible use spaces between part names, look at how MS name all their parts example prop_slow, note the under score, many people name parts like thus "pilots left arm", thats bad, it should be "pilots_left_arm", I've often had to go in and rename parts with an underscore and the model then compiles fine, the same applies to material names and texture names, I know its a pain but rename all parts, materials and textures with an underscore instead of spaces between names, it might not help but it will keep MakeMDL sweet and is generally good house keeping.

Errant parts, these are the hardest to find and it might take weeks, basically you compile the model bit by bit until it fails, I usually compile half an aircraft then add bits until it fails, the problem is if you have more than one part thats faulty, say you have 100 parts and part 2 is faulty, you can compile 1-50 with a faulty 2 and it will be ok because MakeMDL used spare space elsewhere, you could probably compile parts 1-95 ok but add 96 and it fails, that doesnt mean part 96 is wrong, just that MakeMDL cannot cope with faulty part 2 and the rest of the model, its a nightmare and can take ages to find, generally it'll be a very small part or an animated part somewhere, best of luck. Hopefully something above will cure it before you need to try this last step.

Hope that helps

Best

Michael

Ok, I have taken everyones advise into account and came up with this:

I removed as many materials as possible, same with textures. I cut the polygon count in half for most of the parts (the more detailed ones) but managed to keep quality at a maximum, it still looks quite good. I've renamed everything according to what you've said Michael. I've checked everything you've said. I've compiled this thing about 100 times part by part.

In the end, I finally got it working! The poly/vertex count is about 85% of what I had posted above for the one that DOES load. It is in sim and looking great!

I can't thank you all enough for the help. I've learned an incredible amount about how MakeMDL functions, and some of the things to watch out for when building with FSDS and compiling to the sim.

Thanks guys, I couldn't be happier to finally have it all working!!!

-Rob

Good show, happy modeling .

Best

Michael