an N3N for FSX

[heywooood]

Javis!!! you could hear my eyes pop out of their sockets and snap back in again from the deepest part of the Marianna Trench to the outermoystest layers of the stratosphere !

WooHoot

 

[Javis]

As a fellow modeler, I can help out with FFG. The first and most importantly thing not to do is export the materials/material editor as it will fail upon loading the script in 3DS Max. I don't export animations either as I tend to redo them after the conversion, so it's not a huge loss. Other then that, everything else should be smooth as silk.

Thanks, fellow modeller ! I'll try one without exporting the editor. The export an sich works well even with anims included but takes about half an hour. The trouble is that clicking the Grabber icon with Gmax and FFG on the Taskbar doesn't produce any action at all. Clicking it without Gmax active it works fine ( can't find Listener window ). True though that my puter has become a bit unstable lately, might be a problem there as well.

Thanks again for the tip !

Tom (Hairyspin) offers his help as well !


cheers,
jan

 

[speedy70]

Hi Jan,
Has there been any news from Dutch on the Sperry autopilot for the C47?

The aircraft is ,in my opinion,one of the best FSX aircraft, payware or freeware.My sincere gratitude for the model and the hours of enjoyment it has given me.

Cheers Chris

 

[heywooood]

Thank you Jan - for taking up the N3N again

To all who have worked on it in the past, who are currently working on it, or whomever may yet work on the Navy N3N - Thank You !

 

[gman5250]

For Javis and anyone else struggling with FFG.

I've been working with this for quite some time now. Very simple, stable and for me.
I struggled for quite some time with Gmax in Win10, but have been able to stabilize the program enough for general usage.

This utility allows me to bring many Gmax projects into 3DStudio efficiently and with very few glitches.

http://nimcreations.com/project/3ds-max-gmax-bridge-maxscript-utility

 

[hairyspin]

I struggled for quite some time with Gmax in Win10, but have been able to stabilize the program enough for general usage.

Could you share what settings you use? Thanks!

 

[Javis]

Hi Jan,
Has there been any news from Dutch on the Sperry autopilot for the C47?

The aircraft is ,in my opinion,one of the best FSX aircraft, payware or freeware.My sincere gratitude for the model and the hours of enjoyment it has given me.

Cheers Chris

Thanks Chris!

No, didn't hear from Dutch for a long time but if i can get the Gmax/Max conversion going we'll have a Sperry III to replace the C-47 inop installation right away. It is kindly donated to us by Mike Cyul from Flight Replicas. He told me he had one left over from his DC-4. So if you have the Flight Replicas DC-4 you can start practising. How about that, huh !

Cheers,
jan

 

[Javis]

To all who have worked on it in the past, who are currently working on it, or whomever may yet work on the Navy N3N - Thank You !

You're welcome, heywooood. Absolutely!

( mind you, if it'll all workout eventually... gauges, flightdynamics, soundsuite.. you know ;-)

Cheers,
jan

 

[Javis]

For Javis and anyone else struggling with FFG.

I've been working with this for quite some time now. Very simple, stable and for me.
I struggled for quite some time with Gmax in Win10, but have been able to stabilize the program enough for general usage.

This utility allows me to bring many Gmax projects into 3DStudio efficiently and with very few glitches.

http://nimcreations.com/project/3ds-max-gmax-bridge-maxscript-utility

Thanks very much, Gordon ! I'll look into it ! ( as soon as this damn heatwave is over.. )

Cheers,
jan

 

[gman5250]

Could you share what settings you use? Thanks!

Let me know what specifics you want Tom and I'll put together some screen captures.

I struggled with Gmax, re-installing multiple times and trying various tweaks. The program came back to life when I deleted (with extreme prejudice) Windows Telemetry. I'm not sure if that was the fix, but that's what seemed to work.

Gmax (from FSX disks) install is vanilla on my default C Drive.
3DStudio Max 2015 is default, including current updates.

Win10...everything disabled that is not necessary for dev work. All of the Bravo Sierra peripherals went in the round file...hopefully they will remain there. lol

ESET security, with permissions for Gmax and 3DS Max.

3DS-Max GMAX Bridge installation was done exactly as per their install instructions. Be sure to get the right scripts in the right files in Gmax and 3DS Max. It's pretty straight forward.

Arno's tools are up to date as well.
The meshes and animations from the converted models do not seem to have any issues in MCX, although I convert to .mdl via the export menu in Max using Bill Leaming's shortcut tweaks for efficiency.

SDKs
FSX
P3Dv2
P3Dv3
P3Dv4

NVIDIA Drivers are current

Windows is current with a caveat.
The last update really broke my system, so I'm currently working out of dual boot on my Win7 Drive.
I just received the latest Win 10 Enterprise and will need to install a new HD. The system is mirrored, so I'll plug in the working setups as they exist now. Hopefully I'll be back up to full song in the next month or two.


3DS-Max Gmax Bridge

The program worked straight out of the box. I do get some anomalies with euler rotation on landing gear i.e. the K Invader nose wheel that rotates as it retracts. The baked euler from the original model loses it's "align to world" orientation when it comes through the bridge, so all of the axes behave a bit like a Rubik's gyroscope. lol
I resolve that by keeping generic c-wheel and l/r-gear polys in my assets. I replace the originals that potentially "break" the imported bridge code and start fresh with the generic part. It's a bit of work, but nothing like building a new nose gear.

This is the utility that I used to convert the FSD Lockheed JetStar. That was a pretty complex model, and the "bridged" mesh came across quite nicely. Naturally, the main gear and nose wheel will probably need re-code and of course the various props, but I keep a generic set of prop dummies for these kind of conversions. All of the normal control surfaces came across with full animations, as did doors. VC may be another issue, but all of the basic axes and pivots are where they should be. I haven't checked animations yet.

I figure if something that complex comes through the utility relatively intact, I'm way ahead of the game.

I tried for a long time to get FFG to work, but this Gmax Bridge utility is much more intuitive, so it's my work horse now.

Let me know what else you might need Tom.

 

[speedy70]

Brilliant news about the Sperry Jan and indeed I do have the DC4 by Mike of flight replicas.

This means we will have a fully working C47,FANTASTIC.

Thank you.

Cheers Chris

 

[heywooood]

thanks Jan - yes the caveats - notwithstanding, good news is just all up in this here thread.

 

[tgycgijoes]

N3N Updated

I have just downloaded the latest version of this that was done for FSX in 2015 by A.F. Scrub with many thanks. I am subscribed to this thread and will watch as new things come about. For all things N3N check out the site below if you haven't already.

https://notastearman.wordpress.com

 

[hairyspin]

Let me know what specifics you want Tom and I'll put together some screen captures.

I struggled with Gmax, re-installing multiple times and trying various tweaks. The program came back to life when I deleted (with extreme prejudice) Windows Telemetry. I'm not sure if that was the fix, but that's what seemed to work.

Gmax (from FSX disks) install is vanilla on my default C Drive.
3DStudio Max 2015 is default, including current updates.

Win10...everything disabled that is not necessary for dev work. All of the Bravo Sierra peripherals went in the round file...hopefully they will remain there. lol

ESET security, with permissions for Gmax and 3DS Max.

The only Windows tweak apart from that I know of is to fix the UVW Editor mouse zooming:- https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/t...-in-win-10-problem-solved.441965/#post-790221

I’ve used FFG successfully on several models and haven’t tried Bridge. But then, FFG is my own work, adapted from Bobo’s original, with Manfred’s work on the supporting utilities, so you might expect that...

 

[huub vink]

Thanks very much, Gordon ! I'll look into it ! ( as soon as this damn heatwave is over.. )

Cheers,
jan

We are nearly there Jan...... But we must be getting old, as I just learned that in 1976 we had temperatures over 30 Celsius for 17 days in a row........ I can't recall I had a problem with these temperatures in those days!

Cheers and make sure you stay in the shade
Huub

 

[Javis]

We are nearly there Jan...... But we must be getting old, as I just learned that in 1976 we had temperatures over 30 Celsius for 17 days in a row........ I can't recall I had a problem with these temperatures in those days!

Me neither, Huub, and sure about getting old.. ;-) But today turned out a real oven, didn't it !

One good thing though.. It made me buy a doggy-pool.

 

[dhasdell]

It made me buy a doggy-pool

OK, I know this is way OT but what sort of dog and does he like it? Our westie destroys airbeds, but I do wonder about getting him a pool for this weather.

 

[stiz]

OT again, we brought one of those solid plastic sand pits for kids and filled that for our 3 terriers, shallow enough to go halfway up em when they lay down, no complaints yet and we don't have to worry about it popping

 

[Javis]

OK, I know this is way OT but what sort of dog and does he like it? Our westie destroys airbeds, but I do wonder about getting him a pool for this weather.

This is the doggy pool i bought, 1.60 diameter https://dogs.lovetoknow.com/wiki/Dog_Swimming_Pools Quite a fantastic thing, really. (60 euro)

Proofs again dogs are funny guys. First time i had to lure him in splashing around a football. He stayed in for half an hour and loved it. Thought i'd hit the jackpot. Next day, hottest day since 1944 (38 C. ) when i tried the football trick again it took a while before he found a way to get in (he doesn't dare to just jump in via the step i placed. He's a Welsh Gorgi and really loves water and splashing around in it but wants to keep feeling ground underneath his feet, doesn't dare to really swim). Once he was in he splashed around for one minute and then jumped out.... Later i put him in myself but again he jumped out after a minute or so.

Nope, sofar no jackpot or anything... might change though, hopefully.

The funny thing is that i used to have a small pond there at the exact place. When i got my dog he was 6 months old ( replacer ), he's 7 years now, and he couldn't stay away from it. It took him about 3 days to completely ruin my beloved pond by pulling out and destroying each and every plant. During these exercises he frequently fell into the pond but that didn't scare him off. Tried a fench around it but the only thing i got out of that was that the pond became leaky. That was the end of the pond...

Now that he's got his own pond he doesn't seem that interested in it anymore. Probabely because there's just nothing to destroy...

 

[Javis]

OT again, we brought one of those solid plastic sand pits for kids and filled that for our 3 terriers, shallow enough to go halfway up em when they lay down, no complaints yet and we don't have to worry about it popping

Great idea, Stiz !

( if the doggy-pool turns out to really be a misser for my dog i might try that too, thanks for the tip ! ;-)