AVSIM Online - Flight Simulation's Number 1 Site!

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AVSIM Online - Flight Simulation's Number 1 Site! The FSXME Voices menu. You can choose any voice you have on your system (but I'd stay away from awfulsounding Sam!). FSXME will write a printed script of all your text. Then you can replace the computer voices with human talent. Of course, the best voices are human ones. You can record your own dialogue and easily import it into your Mission with FSXME. FSXME will also generate a script that you can print out for your voice actors that includes all of the dialogue text in your Mission. Strangely, I was limited to using the Windows Recorder that is built into XP to do all of my recording. FSX has certain strict limits regarding what sort of audio it can handle, so depending on whether you use XP or Vista may affect how you record the voices. I believe that you can put the voice files through another audio mastering program to sweeten the sound file (and you'd probably want to, if you want the best sounding voices), but the original recording had to come from Windows Recorder. FSXME will also play audio cues on command; you set them up in much the same way that you import your voices into the Mission. That way, for example, if you wanted the sound of an engine blowing up due to a bird strike, you could easily include that just before you trigger the engine failure and smoke trails in your Mission. Debugging. FSXME largely does its debugging in real-time as you work. If you make some massive error, the affected node gets an obvious red box. A cautionary orange box appears around nodes that could potentially cause confusion in the Mission, typically when you have incomplete information in the node. A pale blue box surrounds nodes where you are making a style error. Style errors don't usually affect the Mission. More than anything, to me they indicate a certain sloppiness or lack of obsessive organization within the node structure. I've created three error conditions. FSXME hunts down bugs pretty much instantly. The red box is a critical error that will prevent your Mission from running. The orange box is cautionary: the Mission should run, but any event belonging to that node probably won't work. Blue boxes represent a style error that usually has no effect on the Mission, but instead highlights a possible inefficiency in the code. If you import a Mission, you can ask FSXME to debug it. You can also fly the Mission in FSX and ask FSXME to analyze the Mission for bugs using SimConnect (which is built into FSX). That way, you can find errors in your triggers that look correct on paper, but for whatever reason just don't work in the Mission. For those really big Missions with hundreds of triggers, this feature can really help save time and effort. Mission packaging. file:///E|/AVSIM/Reviews/FSX%20ME/FSXME.htm (10 of 16)21/02/2009 11:03:42 AM
AVSIM Online - Flight Simulation's Number 1 Site! If you are like me, you are happy if FSXME puts the Mission into the right location for FSX to use it. In XP, that's not so much of a problem, but in Vista there are problems when you write Mission data, as FSX keeps its Missions in Vista's protected folders. Jim Kier provides clear instructions for how to avoid problems here. If you have the urge to share your Mission, then you have more work ahead of you. A Mission must be packaged so that other people can use it. This can be tricky, as more advanced versions of FSX have features the older versions do not. For example, Acceleration has an aircraft carrier that you can launch from, and FSX Deluxe Edition has flyable aircraft like the Maule Orion, whereas the Standard Edition does not. If you create a Mission that has features that are more advanced than the destination copy of FSX (for example you include the carrier, but your audience doesn't have Acceleration), then that Mission will not work properly. Packaging the Mission with the OPT is a real chore. Using FSXME, Mission packaging can be largely automatic. It generates default briefings and endings that are fully customizable. The user will have to edit the HTML files, but since the briefings and endings are already properly formatted, all you really need to do is replace the default images and text with your own, if you want to. You can also automatically set the difficulty level of your Mission and generate custom Rewards for the ending. The core of the Mission packaging system is called the MSI Creator. A MSI is an executable file that contains all of the Mission data: if you want to share your Mission, all you have to do is distribute the MSI file, which should then install itself automatically. Sim captains who receive your MSI file are not required to have a copy of FSXME to run the Mission. The MSI Creator will allow you to share your Missions with other sim pilots. The MSI Creator is easy to use, but it's finicky. Also, if you use it incorrectly, it is possible to corrupt your copy of FSX! The MSI Creator has a straightforward interface, but it does control some very powerful functions. I must warn you that you must understand completely how the MSI Creator works before you attempt to run any advanced set-ups. It is possible for the MSI Creator to corrupt your FSX files, making it unusable! Making your own MSI file involves three basic steps. The first is to create a SPB file. From what I can tell, a SPB file is a compressed version of the XML code that FSX needs to run a Mission. FSX reads SPB and XML equally well, but SPB loads faster and isn't as easy for most humans to read. The next step is to create the MSI file. In many cases, this is a straightforward operation, but you can try advanced techniques like adding custom Mission resources, or compiling more than one Mission into the file. I did not try any file:///E|/AVSIM/Reviews/FSX%20ME/FSXME.htm (11 of 16)21/02/2009 11:03:42 AM
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