Okay.  In Gmax, what does the cursor position read when you put it directly in front of the forward bumper?

The Forward bumper object is named as Text05 [this is intentional]. The Y axis = 2.2m when viewed on the LEFT viewport and the Z axis = -0.35m. These are the numbers that show the 2D-position of the mouse cursor in the Left viewport.

When the bumper is grouped with the rest of the Exterior model, the same object is shown as "[exterior]text05" (without the quotes).

Thanks man. That kind of info helps a lot.

Keep your System Units Scale at 1 unit = 1 meter. It is the ONLY thing that counts when you export.

Remember, you model in REAL WORLD UNITS.

If you know the dimensions of your vehicle, max height, max width, max length, set your Units to what ever your known dimension system is. Like 15 ft long x 7 ft wide x 5 ft high so you'd use Decimal Feet. I use Decimal Feet any way because dimensions can be used directly in the aircraft.cfg file.

Make a box with these dimensions. Select all of the parts of your vehicle (NOT the box) then use the Uniform Scale on the icon bar or right click on it for a type-in box to scale up or down as necessary till it fits in the box.

Now lets say you don't know the overall dimensions of the vehicle. There are a couple of parts that are pretty standard, the tires and wheels. The wheels are probably 15 or 16 inches in diameter. The tires are of a standard size so you can find the dimensions of the tires on any number of websites that manufacture or sell tires for cars. Armed with the overall tire diameter you can determine the percentage to scale up or down the project. Example: the dimensions of an old F70-14 tire, quite a common size in the 60's muscle car days, is 26.24" overall diameter with an 8.30" cross section and mounts on a 14" rim. If my models tire has a diameter of 29" I can divide my target size of 26.24 by 29.00 and I find I need to scale the tire by 90.4% or 0.904. So, assuming the whole project looks in scale I would scale the whole project by that factor of 90.4%.

One other thing, you may need to apply an XForm Reset from the Utilities panel to your tire and collapse its stack before you can get accurate dimensions from the parts Properties box. Be sure your pivot point is where you want it before you apply the XForm Reset.

Lou

The XForm Reset makes the current object as if it were original made in its current state and erases all that parts history. You can observe how this works by making a simple 3' cube. After you have it made, look at the Object Properties. It reads dimensions  of X 3', Y 3' and Z 3'. Now scale the cube by 50%. You know that the cube should now have dimensions of X 1.5', Y 1.5' and Z 1.5' but in the Object Properties, it still reads the 3' dimensions. Now apply an XForm Reset and collapse the cubes stack and chech the Object Properties, it now reads dimensions of X 1.5', Y 1.5', and Z 1.5' as it should. Also experiment with the pivot point. Move it and rotate it. Then apply an Xform Reset and collapse the stack.The pivot point will be set to its current position and aligned to the world axes.

Lou

People, I need help here.

I am still stuck with this problem and I can't seem to escape from it.

I still have 1 Unit = 1 Meter already setup and I have scaled UP and scaled DOWN the visual model in Gmax for over a thousand times already and i have exported the model for over a thousand times as well. STILL no success.

It seems that no matter how big or small the Porsche is in Gmax, it will always show up in FS as the size of a learjet. Not only that, the edges on the visual objects [literally ALL objects of the car] appear jagged when they are next to another object. ???

I have done vitually everything that my MIND can think of. I have even gone as far as to reinstall Gmax TWICE and I still have this problem.

I am doing something wrong, I know. But what is it that I'm doing wrong?

So far, only two people have given me ideas, but their ideas back-fired on me.

I have already figured out that problem. However, I ran into another problem.

Since the SDK version of Makemdl.exe uses a measure of at least 1 unit as 1 meters [Grid = 10m], I am forced to shrink my Porsche down to the size of an ant in Gmax so that it can come out as the size of a car in FS.

However, during the export process, a message tells me about some OBED or Scale-Matrix somthing that has been applied or found. My model can still export, but the animations don't won't in FS after exporting.

I then tried to us the FS2002 version of Makemdl.exe because that version a measure of at least 1 unit = 1 inch. This allows me to export the model without having to shrink it in Gmax [thus avoiding the OBED error]. However, this comes at a price. The price is that some of the vertices in the FS model tend to be misplaced [causing jagged edges].

Then I went back to the SDK version of Makemdl.exe and the problem was fixed. But now I have to put up with the OBED error when exporting a pint-size car from Gmax.

I tried to set different units like 1 unit = 0.03 meters [Grid = 0.3m]. With this measure, each unit is about 1 foot.

But still. After exporting with these measure, the model appears in FS as if the measures in Gmax were Grid = 10m. ???

I'm now using Mdlcommander and Middleman because I found out that they are NOT involved with these problems.