posted 10-13- 12:35 PM               

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I was cruising through ebWorld and spotted FS Designer Pro for $30 and decided to bug them about supporting other file formats. Unofficially, there is a Fly! plugin for the product. This leads me to wonder how good is MDL2DXF when it comes to FS Designer planes? I know someone once pointed out that they had had varying sucess with .mdl files.

AC3D is great, but I do like to keep my eyes open for other tools.

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posted 10-13- 02:31 PM               

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Some of the models convert well. Some just don't at all. From what I can gather, some of the .mdl files created by some of the packages just do not work. Also, if you import a model from this program, several things ave to be done. First off, the vertices need optimising to reduce what looks like two surfaces on everything. It's quicker to remove surfaces and re-build. After all that is done, most of the CFS models I have looked at were low on detail. Oh yes, and they ae about 20 times too big! But apart from that, they make a good outline to get proportions from!

Also, there is an MDL2DXF3 which I can mail to you Monday ( it's on my machine at work ) or search for the link in the thread. It works better than 2.

I can send you some samples Monday too, showing good bad and ugly examples!

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posted 10-13- 03:51 PM               

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From my experience, in a lot of situations it would be faster to start from scratch than to base your model on an imported MDL, due to (mainly) normals problems that take AGES to fix.

However, the imported MDL can be used as a guide when modelling complicated parts. Having an imported D.520 model did help me, for example I borrowed series of vertices from the rear cockpit windows and windscreen - but not whole parts. But maybe that's because Jean-Marie Mermaz's CFS D.520 was designed with Aircraft Factory 99. The MDLs produced by this program import only with MDL2DXF3, and always with a lot of problems.

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posted 10-13- 03:55 PM               

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Also, sometimes a model wont convert under v2 and will under v3 (and the other way around so keep them both handy...)

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Snickers
=FC=

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