Month: October 2011

If you download the development release package of my tools, you will find a new tool in there from today. I called it agn2txt and it dumps the content of an autogen AGN file to a readable text file. It is a tool that I used which learning more about the autogen file format. I have included it, because I thought it might be useful for others as well. I have plans to later also add a txt2agn tool that can do the reverse step, so that you can make minor changes to the autogen by editing the TXT file. … Continue reading agn2txt

Today I was trying to import an object into GMax again. As usual I used ModelConverterX to make a 3DS file and then imported that one. But, also as usual, that meant a lot of trouble with the textures. Especially since the 3DS format can only store short DOS filenames, it can be quite some trouble to get everything imported correct. I had heard of scripts to import Wavefront OBJ files before, so I decided to look around a bit. In the end I found this script. Using it, it became a lot easier to import my objects I have … Continue reading Importing into GMax

Tonight I have been improving how ModelConverterX reads levels of detail from FS2004 MDL files. The LOD values are now calculated more accurately. Since I spend quite some time figuring out some details I had figured out last year already (but forgot since then), let me sum up my main findings about levels of detail: The LOD switching distance is determined by the object radius and the LOD value. For example a LOD value of 40 means that the object will switch when 2.5 times the radius of the object covers 40 pixels. The LOD value of the highest LOD … Continue reading Level of detail for FS2004 models

On the FSDeveloper Wiki we have a page describing the FSX autogen (AGN) file format. Today I have been experimenting with AGN files a bit, so I have added more information to this page. Polygonal buidlings, library objects and row houses are not also described. For the other sections I have added some extra explanation as well. Why did I do this? I wanted to see if I can create AGN files based on shapefile footprints of buidlings. So understanding the AGN format was the first step in that process. I have now made a small tool that can decompile … Continue reading FSX AGN files