If I were you, I would go check out the FFDS forums since they seem to be the best at helping with this kind of technical shtuff.

Here is a VC tutorial set (one of a series) I created for the SOH Design forums for users of gMax.

http://www.flightsimonline.com/C162/vc1/

http://www.flightsimonline.com/C162/vc2/

http://www.flightsimonline.com/C162/vc3/

http://www.flightsimonline.com/C162/vc4/


You can see the entire set of exercises based on developing a Cessna 162 here: http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php?t=58014

The visual "eyepoint" in the VC is set in the aircraft.cfg using the horribly misnamed entry called...

eyepoint = 48.2, -1.55, 1.9   //(feet) longitudinal, lateral, vertical distance from reference datum

The above is from the default B737_800...

Tried the Virtual Cockpit again.   Big problem!!
I merged the interior model into the file along with the exterior model, and then exported to an MDL.  That worked, and everything showed up, but the scale of everything was all-wrong with the aircraft showing up way too huge.
When I first started this model, I didn’t know about setting up an initial box with the size of the aircraft.  My aircraft displayed way too big in the flight sim environment.  This aircraft only has a 17ft wingspan but the wing dimension in Gmax ended up as 352m.  I made a box 5.18 meters (17FT) across, merged my aircraft and used the Uniform Scale tool to resize the aircraft until it fit.  That worked and the aircraft displayed correctly in the sim.  So far so good.  Problem is that the Object properties for every part are still showing huge dimensions and did not change one bit!
Now, when I export just the exterior model, everything is ok.  Exporting both the exterior and interior together and the scale goes to hell.  I fear the problem is related to the original issue with the dimensions in the properties box.  I have not been able to resolve this issue.  Any ideas.

Harold

Hi Bill.

Well… After a few months of redesigning this aircraft and more low low flying, I’ve tried to do the virtual cockpit again.  Dam – same problem.

I’m designing for FS 2004 with Gmax.  So this is what I did.

I took my complete aircraft and saved it to a new file, then deleted all the parts not visible from the cockpit.  This included the back and underside of the fuselage, the wings (45 degree sweep so you can’t even see the tips), all the landing gear, flaps, and other moving surfaces.  That got rid of most of the parts with the scale issue.

Of the remaining parts, I checked the properties of each one, checking it’s size and renamed it for the internal model.  The parts not sized correctly were than attached to a previously made “sizing box” so it took on the properties of the box.  The box vertices were then deleted leaving behind the corrected part.  Then I also reset the scale from the Hierarchy tab, and linked each part of the virtual cockpit.  I also flipped the Normals of the canopy glass so you would see it form the inside.  I also renamed the top dummy part to “interior”

Next, I opened the complete aircraft again, imported the interior model, saved as a new file, and did the export.  This is where the problem showed up again.  I got a error message,  “The model has an explicit OBED scaling matrix prepended to it.  This is unnecessary and should not be done.”  This error comes up twice and then Make Model exported the aircraft.  This does not happen when I’ve only exported the external model, and I get a good export!  So how do I find out which part has the OBED problem???

When I load the combined exterior/interior model in Flight Sim, the scale is all wrong with the aircraft hundred of feet in size while it should only have a 14 foot wing span, and it is turned clockwise by 90 degrees across the runway.  When you takeoff, it takes off sideways. 

HELP!!!!

And that’s only one of the problems…  Anyone know anything about “all-flying tails”  The sim wants to keep pulling the force feedback stick out of my hand.

Harold
www.dickert.ca/swift   

>#1 Your interior and exterior nodes have their part axes "aligned to world"
Any place with instructions to do that.  The parts I've used all overlap perfectly in GMax, and were effectivley clones of the same parts.

>#2 Your SYSTEM UNITS is set to 1 unit = 1 meter (Customizereferences and see that "System Units Scale"  is set to 1 Unit = 1.0 Meters)
Been there, done that!  and still pulling my hair out.

try giving all your parts a good 'ol 'reset scale'... but be warned there is a proper way to do this... otherwise your animations will go berserk

select your top node, goto hierarchy panel and click Reset scale... then press Pgdown, this will select everything that is one level below in the hierarchy, press reset scale again... keep repeating that procedure until you reach the bottom level of the hierarchy (no new parts are being selected) and that's that... you've reset the scale of all your parts...

that should take care of that error message (hopefully)

and if working with a 1 unit = 1 meter calibration makes the model too small for you (near culling problem), you can work with 1 unit = 0.1 meter, which makes it all more comfortable to work... but make sure your plane has the correct dimensions in Gmax as well (use a box or tape measure object to get a proper reference)

also, check to see if there are any scale keyframes set in the timeline... i can't remember if Gmax follows the same system, but 3DS Max has a color code for keyframe types... red is for position, blue for rotation and green for scale (i think)... if you find any scale keys, delete them, because FS doesnt like scale animation... but be careful when deleting keys because your parts may get stuck at any point of the timeline, so make sure you're on frame 0 and delete them going backwards on the timeline

one last thing, just to be on the safe side... make sure all your motion controllers (found in the 'motion' tab) are linear... FS doesn't like bezier controllers for animation, and Max tends to use that as default

ok last one i promise... it would be a good idea, if you don't have it already, to get MDLCommander and Middleman... these programs sit between GMax and MakeMDL and they allow you to tweak some settings that MakeMDL doesnt even display... they allow you to bypass a number of export bugs

hope this helps

Cheers

HarvesteR

Hi HarvesteR

Success!!!

I completed your instructions, to the end.  The main aircraft parts higher in the hierarchy had already been resized by attaching them to a correctly sized box, taking on the properties of the box, and then deleting the boxes vertexes, leaving the part behind.  I didn't want to go through those steps with the animated parts because I would loose the animation.  That means that  some of the parts lower in the hierarchy and the animated parts are still sized incorrectly.
After following your instructions, those parts properties are still saying that they are way too big.  "???"  Non the less.  I tried the export, and this time it was clean and my aircraft appeared correctly within Flight sim along with the virtual cockpit.
So thanks for your help.  Now I can get a proper cockpit into this thing.

Harold