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SOH A-26 Invader, the story continues ...

I can make a M-117, but I'm a bit distracted by some serious real world issues here, sorry for any delays.

As far as TacPack goes, where's the problem? It would just take a version that has just the hard points, if I understood right. A version with no weapons attached.
TacPacking it would be done by the TacPack guys.

Or do I have a misconception?


Cheers,
Mark
 
Tacpacking the aircraft is easy enough if you have the model of both the aircraft and the weapons. The Tacpack already has a Mk-82 and an M117. Milviz has already modeled a firebomb, so getting that in there is very possible. The SUU-14 is one of the weapons common to both aircraft for another project I'm on, so that would be available. so as for the LAU-3, it shouldn't be that big of a deal. The A-37 historical loadout probably covers the one's missing but needed. But I don't want to burden a project with requirements when I'm not working on it. I have enough trouble keeping up with the ones I'm working on. <laughing>
 
If I understand correctly so are all weapons hard modelled into the aircraft (they are not stand alone objects added to the model by the software)+ they need to be stand alone weapon models which takes over after weapon release. All new weapons need to be approved by VRS and need to be added to the main TP software in an official update (by VRS). And there is coding of the weapon behavior etc. It is far from load and play I'm afraid as it is in other sims. But could be done.

VRS has a wiki page with all the information.

Anyonw with experience with making a weapon 3D model into a working weapon in TP (with knowledge of the coding of the weapon and interaction with VRS)?
 
You are correct.

So, on the model, if for example station weight set to 0 = empty (nothing visible) and station weight set to 100 = a visible M117 will show up on the model for anyone...even if they do no have tacpack. Each type of store has it's own value...which allows you to change the loads.

Up to this point Tacpack has not even been part of the picture and anyone flying the model with a station payload set to 100 will be showing a M117 on it.

I'm simplifying a little bit here....but when you then add the tacpack files, you put the station weight values that the model uses into the ini file.
So based on the example above, in the tacpack ini file, you would add the M117 to the list of weapons for that station and give it a token weight of 100 (since that is what the model uses to display the M117).

Now, since we have added the store weight to the tacpack ini, when we release that M117 it vanishes from the model (because the store weight has now changed from 100 to 0)...
and Tacpack then immediately adds its own M117 model in place of the vanished one...which then falls away from the airplane.

You need to think of Tacpack as something separate from the model...since it can work with any aircraft, whether the aircraft model has weapons attached to it or not.
I have successfully added Tacpack to the Piglet OV-10A, Aerosoft OV-10A, Virtavia A-4E/F, Alpha B-57B and Alpha F-105D.....all without modifying the model.

If, for example, someone were to re-compile the Alpha F-105D that I added tacpack to so that if the payload value for each station on the MER was set to 50 (the value can actually be anything the modeler wants) so that it would show M117's on the MER.... then I could modify the tacpack.ini file I made with the same value (50) and it would then work seamlessly.

The VRS Wiki is a bit daunting and is geared more towards developers creating stuff like the SWS and Milviz Phantoms.

What just about everyone else is using is Corrado's freeware TMAP method. Here is the link to the TMAP files and tutorials.
https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=!AP4nEtqTWxvSE_0&id=4B4745D8612A4C3!827&cid=04B4745D8612A4C3
With it, you can literally add Tacpack to any airplane (or boat) you want.


JensOle said:
If I understand correctly so are all weapons hard modelled into the aircraft (they are not stand alone objects added to the model by the software)+ they need to be stand alone weapon models which takes over after weapon release. All new weapons need to be approved by VRS and need to be added to the main TP software in an official update (by VRS). And there is coding of the weapon behavior etc. It is far from load and play I'm afraid as it is in other sims. But could be done.

VRS has a wiki page with all the information.

Anyonw with experience with making a weapon 3D model into a working weapon in TP (with knowledge of the coding of the weapon and interaction with VRS)?
Click to expand...
 
I agree, but if your building (or rebuilding) an aircraft, and you have both models of the aircraft and weapons, why not have the weapons added to the Tacpack so there is a consistent look and feel? I understand that VRS has to bake them per the SDK to keep them consistent, but that shouldn't be a show stopper.

Sorry if I sound like an advocate of VRS, I'm not, but from a solution standpoint, it seems a lot easier to share the weapons and let everyone benefit from the exceptional quality of the weapon models. This is such a small community compared to the commercial airliner, GA, etc, side of things. It just makes sense to me at least. Single quality control point, consistency of textures, etc. A bomb is a bomb, a rocket is a rocket, a projectile is a projectile; they don't vary much from the drab colors and finish that is characteristic of Western ordnance. One of the things that bothers me (probably because I'm a fanatic when it comes to realism) is when the ordnance hung on a SimObject doesn't look like what I remember being on my aircraft during combat...or hauled around in the bomb dump before I was on an aircrew.

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Besides, I can't imagine a Nimrod without the proper loadout to go along with the aircraft! Ok, off soapbox, back to coding.
 

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Before the Tac Pac days I worked on the flight dynamics of a wide variety of weapons for another project. Yes they all need flight dynamics to control the flight of the guided ones and especially the powered ones.

Yes some centralization of the process has advantages.

Cheers: T
 
Some have said that they are afraid that the weapons will not be shared. Of course they will, historically accurate weapons will be included in the model to be controlled by the weight menu. So it will be weapons on the K. the future will show if the can be fired.. Not on the initial release as it looks now.
 
JensOle, and others,

I'm not afraid of them not being shared, just trying to help. And since it appears (I use that word very very cautiously) that there may be other issues of just getting the basic aircraft model ready, I asked my modeler if he could help you. He said he would be glad to help, but we would need the model source file(s) and need to understand what issues your having.

He also said we could create the weapons listed above:

SUU-25 flare dispensers
LAU-3A rocket pods
CBU-14 cluster bomb units
500 lb BLU-23 or 750 lb BLU-37 finned napalm bombs
M31 and M32 incendiary clusters
M34 and M35 incendiary bombs
M1A4 fragmentation clusters
M47 white phosphorus bombs
CBU-24, -25, -29, and -49 cluster bomb units


General-purpose bombs such as the 250-lb MK-81, the 500-lb MK-82, and 750-lb M117 we already have either in the Tacpack or in our model repository. Getting them added to the Tacpack is really where (for my project anyway) the work stalls or stops related to the weapons loadout, either VRS doesn't have the bandwidth or has other project work that takes priority, and of course, life gets in the way at times. I'll keep working with them to see what we can do to help on that front.


Also, In a corny kind of way, it would be us payware folks participating/helping in a freeware project to repay you all for all the hard work you have done for us in this community and the enjoyment of flying aircraft like the B-26 and other aircraft you guys have so graciously given us.
 
Model Information and update;

I was down with that gnarly bug, and it went into pneumonia for a short while...wasn't able to work as much as I would have liked to. That said.....


The model that I contributed is the updated K variant exterior and new VC. There are two models...one with only hard points, which should be perfect for further weapons applications. The second model has weapons hard coded in. I assume that the primary interest is in the hard point only model from what I am following on the thread.

I think that the model, at its current stage of development will be suitable for Dave and JensOle to start getting ready for their initial beta and release.

:encouragement::encouragement::encouragement:
 
I'm just trying to make sure I am correct in understanding everything correctly.....
when you say "hard coded", do you mean that the weapons visibility cannot be controlled by payload station weight?

If this is the case, then the pylons only model will work, but someone will need to be able to modify it so that weapons show up before they are dropped.

For Tacpack purposes, a model needs to be configured so that a given station weight will display a particular payload. This can be any value, as it does not need to be the real weight of the object. The tacpack.ini then uses those values to match its object to the models object.

I can handle configuring the tacpack.ini and aircraft.cfg and also the 2d stations selection panel (it's very similar to the B-57B I'm already working on), but I haven't figured out how to merge weapons to the models yet, so someone will have to take the pylons only model and merge the appropriate weapons to it. There are a couple of tutorials that explain how to do this, but my understanding of MCX is too basic right now for me to be able to do it.





gman5250 said:
Model Information and update;

I was down with that gnarly bug, and it went into pneumonia for a short while...wasn't able to work as much as I would have liked to. That said.....


The model that I contributed is the updated K variant exterior and new VC. There are two models...one with only hard points, which should be perfect for further weapons applications. The second model has weapons hard coded in. I assume that the primary interest is in the hard point only model from what I am following on the thread.

I think that the model, at its current stage of development will be suitable for Dave and JensOle to start getting ready for their initial beta and release.

:encouragement::encouragement::encouragement:
Click to expand...
 
awstub said:
I'm just trying to make sure I am correct in understanding everything correctly.....
when you say "hard coded", do you mean that the weapons visibility cannot be controlled by payload station weight?

If this is the case, then the pylons only model will work, but someone will need to be able to modify it so that weapons show up before they are dropped.

For Tacpack purposes, a model needs to be configured so that a given station weight will display a particular payload. This can be any value, as it does not need to be the real weight of the object. The tacpack.ini then uses those values to match its object to the models object.

I can handle configuring the tacpack.ini and aircraft.cfg and also the 2d stations selection panel (it's very similar to the B-57B I'm already working on), but I haven't figured out how to merge weapons to the models yet, so someone will have to take the pylons only model and merge the appropriate weapons to it. There are a couple of tutorials that explain how to do this, but my understanding of MCX is too basic right now for me to be able to do it.
Click to expand...

You got it correct.

The K model with hard points will be suitable for Tacpack purposes.
The K model with the baked in weapons is for people who want weapons to display, but don't necessarily want "live" payloads.
 
@Mark, thanks! If you can PM me we can get those added to my request to VRS.

@awstub, if you can't find someone to mate the weapon models to the B-26, I'm pretty sure the modeler on my team can do it. He does his work in 3DSmax and has tools to convert to and from gmax if that is the tool the current development team is using. I would be glad to do it, but for now, I'm just learning the modeling while I contribute to the T/A-37 project with C/C++ and XML coding of the systems. And a B-57B! Sweet! Another one of my favorites! I was reading an Osprey publication of B-57 units in the Vietnam war and was severely impressed with the guts those guys had to do the work on the Ho Chi Minh trail, at night, taking out trucks. I have the ALPHA B-57B which is tacpacked and I tried to do that in the FSXA and P3D V3 without a gunsight ... after scraping myself off the side of hills and off the ground in Laos, I finally was able to take out a few trucks!

@gman5250, I had that damn gnarly bug during Christmas last year and got it again in late January. Yesterday the doctor said my lungs were "clearing up nicely." Pneumonia is tough to get over!
 
With hard coded/modelled weapons I meant that the weapons are part of the aircraft model (visibility are controlled with the weight menu. My point was that Tac pack does not add weapons to a model, all the available weapons needs to be allready part of the model. Tac pack does just remove the visibility (weight) of the weapon and show a separate model of the store moving away from the aircraft. TP does not work as most combat sims where the akrcraft model is clean and pylon and stores are separate models added to the aircraft.
 
That's great news, since I am, at best, in the "baby steps" stages of modeling.

The B-57 has always been a passion of mine, since By dad flew it during his first SEA tour.
I have been able to attend a few 13th Bomb Squadron reunions with him and the stories I have heard about what they did are just amazing.
The 13th flew B-26's during the Korean war and also in Japan before moving to the B-57B and they are very proud of that heritage.
So much so, that their association magazine is called "The Invader". Formed in 1917, the 13th now flies the B-2.


docjohnson said:
@Mark, thanks! If you can PM me we can get those added to my request to VRS.

@awstub, if you can't find someone to mate the weapon models to the B-26, I'm pretty sure the modeler on my team can do it. He does his work in 3DSmax and has tools to convert to and from gmax if that is the tool the current development team is using. I would be glad to do it, but for now, I'm just learning the modeling while I contribute to the T/A-37 project with C/C++ and XML coding of the systems. And a B-57B! Sweet! Another one of my favorites! I was reading an Osprey publication of B-57 units in the Vietnam war and was severely impressed with the guts those guys had to do the work on the Ho Chi Minh trail, at night, taking out trucks. I have the ALPHA B-57B which is tacpacked and I tried to do that in the FSXA and P3D V3 without a gunsight ... after scraping myself off the side of hills and off the ground in Laos, I finally was able to take out a few trucks!

@gman5250, I had that damn gnarly bug during Christmas last year and got it again in late January. Yesterday the doctor said my lungs were "clearing up nicely." Pneumonia is tough to get over!
Click to expand...
 
Do any of you have any ideas if it is possible to replicate the LAU-3a with the frangible nose cone with TP? It means the pod has the frangible nose cone until first rocket fired will splinter (remove) it.
 
I need to check, but I'm thinking there might be a way to do it by using the Tacpack "RocketPodPseudoSingle" store name.




JensOle said:
Do any of you have any ideas if it is possible to replicate the LAU-3a with the frangible nose cone with TP? It means the pod has the frangible nose cone until first rocket fired will splinter (remove) it.
Click to expand...
 
I'm not sure about TacPak, but I have a list of co-ordinates for the pylons I'll use to mount the weapons Mark's made for the final package. All will visualise via the payload menu so if all you need is a specific TacPak model loaded, that can be relatively easily done. However you need to be aware that MCX can corrupt a model quite easily, particularly when adding visibility conditions. Also there are limits to the number of loadout variations I would want to add, which is why I want to keep to two or three commonly used and historically verified ones.

DaveQ
 
Here's an update, if we agree that these listed below are the historically accurate weapons load for an A-26A/B-26K, here's where we stand...

SUU-25 flare dispensers - Needs Development, LUU-2 Flares are possible, as a simple effect [yes the effect has to created as no one has done it as far as I know] anything else the hit on FPS would be prohibitive.

LAU-3A rocket pods - Started development for this yesterday. I believe we have an excellent model that was posted here on this thread, it would speed things up if we didn't have to create it from scratch.

CBU-14 cluster bomb units - it's basically an SUU-14 dispenser and if I remember right someone has already created the model. The difficult part is how much realism can you live with in terms of the weapons effects. There are two payware developers (SWS and Milviz) talking to VRS about how to pull off the bomblets in a way that won't choke the sim in terms of FPS.

500 lb BLU-23 or 750 lb BLU-37 finned napalm bombs - These already exist in the form of a Mk77, finned and unfinned, they just need to be added.

M31 and M32 incendiary clusters - We have basic drawings, no model, and this one would suffer the same problems as most CBUs - FPS hit. And creating a special weapon effect.

M34 and M35 incendiary bombs - We have basic drawings, no model, and this one would suffer the same problems as most CBUs - FPS hit. And creating a special weapon effect.

M1A4 fragmentation clusters - We have basic drawings, no model, and this one would probably not suffer the same FPS problems as most CBUs, they are individual bombs on a rack (think of a smaller basic version of an MER)

M47 white phosphorus bombs - I have the basic drawings, the model. This is just a bomb, but the dissimilar effects are what is needed, a GP bomb explosion now is very simple, this is a 100lb WP bomb, so the effects would need to be white smoke instead of black, and the fire effects.

CBU-24, -25, -29, and -49 cluster bomb units, This is just an SUU-30 dispenser, if I'm not mistaken we already have a model, and again the effects are the issue. There was a Cluster Bomb Effect done for another project I have the effect and its ok as far as effects go. But as you can see, the effects are the main issue here, how to create an effect that is somewhat realistic. This is one of the problems a special effects guru(s) to figure out. otherwise we will just get a standard explosion like we always see in the sim now.

Finally, I read through this article:

http://napoleon130.tripod.com/id386.html

It contains historically accurate A/B-26 weapons information.

I saw that there is interest in appropriate covers for the LAU-3. While those were certainly used, I have seen photo's and loaded aircraft with rocket pods with not canards. That being said, Virtavia did an LAU-3 (I think) for the A-4 Skyhawk, it has canards that can be removed to simulate a fired pod.

So that's it. Like I said before, I have to create most if not all of this for a payware project. And I have talked to people here at SWS and we have no problem "donating" the required weapons for free to a freeware project as long as SWS is credited for the "donation." And we already have the Mk-82 in its various forms in the Tacpack. As well as M117 and Mk-84. These GP Bombs are "assets" VRS provides per the EULA under the Tacpack SDK.


 
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