Is there a 3D Model Viewer?

[Bullethead]

In another thread, Pol told me to do this:

Make cfs3.exe desktop shortcut. Properies, Target : "x:\OBDSoftware\CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields\CFS3.EXE" -m3dview

I'm guessing that the command line parameter emphasized above brings up a 3D model viewer? Is that correct?

Anyway, this didn't work for me. When I tried this, I got a slew of error messages about ImguiX being unable to load various fonts and BMPs, after which some partial version of CFS3 came up visible only as a small, tan rectangle on my desktop. It didn't show up in the Task Bar or the Task Manager, but my computer thought CFS3 was running, and the only way out of this was to reboot.

So, is there really a 3D model viewer? Is the above how you access it? If not, what is the above supposed to do? And what do I need to do differently to make it work?

Thanks.

 

[Siggi]

What you need to do is take a large hammer, smash it onto the top of your PC and scream SHOW ME THE 3D MODELS!!!

I haven't tried it on my rig so I can't gaurantee it'll work.

 

[Polovski]

Yes there really is and that's how you do it.

I copied it from my icon on the desktop. Drag CFS3.exe there, change that line to point to the correct location! ie. X = your drive, and the rest of the path.. is your path.
The quotes are important.

 

[Bullethead]

Yes there really is and that's how you do it

How 'bout that! It actually worked this time. Musta made a syntax error the 1st time. Thanks!

OK, I can now load up any stock airplane with its skin, but I can't put my skin on an airplane to look at in this viewer. How do I do that?

Thanks in advance.

 

[sandbagger]

I think I'm correct in that the only way to view a skin is to view it 'in-game'. The easiest way to do this is to go to the Campaign/campaign data/skins folder and locate the skins of the aircraft type your are creating. Copy an existing pilot named DDS file name, then rename it to your skin (just the pilot name - nothing else). Name your skin with this and drop the DDS file into the skins folder.

Then fire up OFF and in QC mode, select the aircraft type and then your named skin (which should appear in the skins drop down menu). If it does not show, you've named the file incorrectly.

 

[UK_Widowmaker]

A good tip with finding skins (amongst a load of them in QC) is to name your new ones with LARGE WRITING
easier to spot as you go down the list

 

[UK_Widowmaker]

I appear to have missed the original thread..on the -m3dview

can someone please post the original link??

thanks

 

[Bullethead]

I think I'm correct in that the only way to view a skin is to view it 'in-game'. The easiest way to do this is to go to the Campaign/campaign data/skins folder and locate the skins of the aircraft type your are creating. Copy an existing pilot named DDS file name, then rename it to your skin (just the pilot name - nothing else). Name your skin with this and drop the DDS file into the skins folder.

I just invented a new name for my skin that was 1st alphabettically before all existing skins for the A/C in question. Thus, in QC, it's always 1st when I open the list of skins .

I appear to have missed the original thread..on the -m3dview can someone please post the original link??

Here ya go, from my thread "QC-Only Pilots?":

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php?t=11828

But I wouldn't bother with it. As far as I can tell, the -m3dview thing is completley useless for skinners. It will never show your new skin, but always shows a default skin. It's purpose, as far as I can tell, is to tweak damage boxes and such, not to look at skins.

This is too bad because otherwise it's a pretty cool thing. It has the following features:

• All that comes up is a patch of sky and a little command box which lets you select the file you want to open and what options you want (if any) to see on it. You'll probably have to move the sky box over to get to the command box because the sky box is drawn on top of it.
• You select a MODEL file from one of the \CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields\aircraft\(specific aircraft folder)\models and it appears in the sky box.
• You can rotate the view with the arrow keys and zoom in/out with the [ and ].
• With the little command box (which becomes as big as the sky box once you open a model), you can even deflect control surfaces to see if you've drawn their hinges in the right place, turn the prop, and apply damage. All very nice for skinners.

Problem is, as noted above, I haven't been able to figure out how to display my skin in it. I created a whole new aircraft\ folder tree for the plane I'm working on by copying one of the existing ones for that plane and giving it a new name. I also renamed all the files within its model, texture, and sound subfolders to match the name of the top new folder, and also changed the file names specified in the aircraft.cfg file. This included filling in the blank like for "Texture=", to no avail.

In the texture folder, there are always 2 skins shown. One is named Default_t.dds and the other has the same name as the top folder. From experimentation, it apeared that stock planes use the one named after their folder. But in my case, even though I used my skin with both names, it always used the original skin, never mine.

There are several files in my new folder tree that I coulnd't open. These are the .air, .bdp, and .xdp files in the top folder, and the .mos file in the models subfolder. Perhaps that has something to do with it.

So, after playing with this for several hours trying to make it show my skin, I've decided it just won't do it. Thus, while the 3D viewer is potentially very useful for skinners (very quick, very easy compared to running the game), it's useless to me now .

Am I missing something? Pol? Anybody? Is there a way to make this thing show my skin instead of some default?

 

[Frosty]

As a non-OFF'er (my comp can't run it and I don't dig flying on setting 1), I just happen to see your post.
I can't comment on how the OFF crew set up their rebuild of CFS3 but have you tried going through one of the stand-alone tuts that should be around on the web? From your description I gather that you made a good effort but since the syntax is very precise, you might have made a slight mistake - something that the CFS3 syntax doesn't allow for.
I have had many occasions where my model wouldn't display up to the moment when I was inclined to use the aforementioned hammer - until I cooled down, searched again and finally found the tiniest mistake...

Unless the OFF crew has done something different for the models/skin thing, a stand-alone should do it. I use it all the time for my ETO work because, as you say, it's faster than loading the whole game and finding the model you're working on...

 

[Bullethead]

Unless the OFF crew has done something different for the models/skin thing, a stand-alone should do it. I use it all the time for my ETO work because, as you say, it's faster than loading the whole game and finding the model you're working on...

Can you recommend a stand-alone viewer that works for CFS3 (and so might work for OFF)?

Thanks for the tip.

 

[UK_Widowmaker]

Can you recommend a stand-alone viewer that works for CFS3 (and so might work for OFF)?

Thanks for the tip.

I was hoping that 3d viewer in the Nvidia plugin for photoshop might be the Holy Grail...but it turned out to be the Unholy waste of space!!

We await with hope, the coming of the 3d Skin Viewer!..If I find one, I will post it Bullethead :ernae:

 

[Frosty]

Can you recommend a stand-alone viewer that works for CFS3 (and so might work for OFF)?

Thanks for the tip.

Oops, must have been my phrasing. What I meant was that I understood that OFF has some sort of skin manager/swapper or something. I was refering to that when I wrote about the OFF model/skin thing. I don't know how they accomplished this (as I said, I don't have OFF) or if they did anything special to make that work.

I simply use the standard modelviewer that you get when you edit the CFS3 command line and it does work, providing you create a good stand-alone. That's why I recommended finding a stand-alone tutorial and following it to the letter.

Sorry if I raised your hopes ....

 

[Bullethead]

Oops, must have been my phrasing. What I meant was that I understood that OFF has some sort of skin manager/swapper or something.

From within the game, you can use whatever skin you want on a given plane. There are drop-down boxes that contain them all, including yours. If you carefully chose a name for yours, it will appear at the top of the list.

This method works fine, except 1) you have to load the whole game, which is time-consuming, and 2) unless you have the global setting for pilots never dying turned on, you have a fair chance of killing your pilot when you exit, meaning that you have to start out next time going through the whole pilot creation process before you can see your latest skin iteration.

I simply use the standard modelviewer that you get when you edit the CFS3 command line and it does work, providing you create a good stand-alone. That's why I recommended finding a stand-alone tutorial and following it to the letter....

What exactly do you mean by "create a good standalone", and where would I find any info on that? And if you know how to do this, why don't you tell me? .

Right now, at least in my experience, the -m3dview thing will only show the default skin for a given model. The only thing that viewer will load is a model file, not a texture file, and there's no way within that viewer to specify which skin to use.

 

[Frosty]

...What exactly do you mean by "create a good standalone", and where would I find any info on that? And if you know how to do this, why don't you tell me? .

Right now, at least in my experience, the -m3dview thing will only show the default skin for a given model. The only thing that viewer will load is a model file, not a texture file, and there's no way within that viewer to specify which skin to use.

You are correct that the model viewer only displays the default skin. That is exactly why you need to create a stand-alone. You could try and search the SOH for a tut, I am sure they're around. But basically it involves copying an aircraft that you want to make a standalone of and renaming all the files to one of your choice, while keeping the exact number of characters of the original name. Your new texture file then replaces the original one. You have to (hex)edit the .M3D file and the .cfg to reflect the new file names and finally delete the .bdp.

You could try and see if the file below has a tutorial:
http://www.combatfs.com/index.php?loc=downloads&page=info&FileUploadName=Foute Man&FileID=11725

And then again, some CFS3 repaints also contain instructions how to create a stand-alone. Look around in the CFS3 download section...

If it's different for the OFF manager, you might try and ask the developers for help and I stand corrected :d

 

[Bullethead]

...basically it involves copying an aircraft that you want to make a standalone of and renaming all the files to one of your choice, while keeping the exact number of characters of the original name. Your new texture file then replaces the original one. You have to (hex)edit the .M3D file and the .cfg to reflect the new file names and finally delete the .bdp.

Well, that's basically what I did on my own, short of hex-editing the .M3D file and deleting the .bdp. I used the same number of characters, I tweaked the .cfg, and all that.

Geez, I haven't done any hex hacking in lo-these-many-years. I think the last time I committed that sin was when EBCDIC was still vying for dominance with ASCII .

You could try and see if the file below has a tutorial:

Thanks. I'll give that a look and see.

If it's different for the OFF manager, you might try and ask the developers for help and I stand corrected :d

I'm hoping one of them will jump in here and clear up the issues. I'd think they'd want to make it easier for folks to make skins for their game, and obviously they know how to do this for their own purposes .