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Old 11th November 2005, 01:34 PM   #1
captainpeter
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Default Some observations

First of all I must admit that I'm used to working in Blender to create X-Plane OBJ files.

With the advent of OBJ8 format, AC3D was for some time the only app with an export plugin. Therefor I had to move a huge project from Blender to AC3D.

The project in Blender consisted of 4x20 different layers and it obviously took a while to get all correctly imported - that was to expect.

I'm now working on this very project for more than a month in AC3D now and would like to suggest a few features which would certainly help everyone building complex geometry.

First of all LAYERS!
It would be awesome to have an easy way to switch on/off certain geometry in a layers palette, mark certain layers as 'template only' so they don't get exported.
It should inlude functions to re-order layers (not only to abs. top or bottom) and allow collapsing the display of certain layers in the list to just a one-liner.

In addition, the pop-up in the hierarchy which is opened by CENTER-click is a really important one and obviously a bit hard to access for Mac users with one mouse-button. It works nicely with MightyMouse btw.
The current state of layers should furthermore be saved in the AC3D file upon exit.


SECOND
I missed a 'select by texture' command. I know X-Plane's texture support is limited to 1(2) per object but what if I build a complex area which will later consist of multiple obj files.


THIRD
A way to customize keyboard shortcuts.

Those are the primary issues I have with AC3D which keep me from using it exclusively for x-plane work.

Oh, and would it be possible to use the scrollwheel for zoom and, with modifier key for pan? MightyMouse can scroll left/right as well....

Other than that I must admit that I only had positive experiences with AC3D.

cheers
Peter
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Old 11th November 2005, 02:52 PM   #2
Dennis
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If you were on Windows or Linux, there are Layer, Select-by-texture, and other plugins here that you may find helpful.

http://bellsouthpwp.net/a/t/atomicd/ac3dplug/index.html

For Mac, however, if anyone has access to a Mac compiler, I'd be glad to assist in getting these plugins to compile/link. The source code is freely available from the above site.

The layers plugin isn't that robust to include what's in your notes, but it at least provides the basic layer functionality, and can save the layer data with the document.

Dennis
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Old 11th November 2005, 06:57 PM   #3
captainpeter
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Dennis,
I had a look at these plugins and already wondered what would be necessary to compile them.

I do have access to a Mac compiler (Apple Dev tools, Xcode 2.1) and already downloaded the source code of these plugins.

I read somewhere that I would need the SDK as well which I didn't request it yet.
Maybe with your help I'll be able to compile them.

What are the prerequisites?
Do I need the SDK from Andy?
I figure if it works on Linux it should work on MacOS X as well.

cheers
Peter
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Old 11th November 2005, 11:47 PM   #4
Dennis
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Unless it's different for the Mac version, the only prerequisite should be the SDK, which you will need to get from Andy.

I'll be more than happy to help if you run into any issues compiling these programs, and I can host the Mac compiled plugins (I've been hosting the Linux compiles AJ MacLeod has been doing). I have no experience programming on a Mac, but hopefully it will be an easy conversion - I'm sure we can work through any issues that arise.

I'll PM you my email address, so feel free to contact me if you have any issues.

Dennis
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