Curiosity...

[sc7500]

Greetings;

I'm playing with Capt Peter Mercy's modified Alpha B-17D, and have an interesting challenge.

On start-up, the #4 engine turns and starts first, but the exhaust smoke emits from #1; Then #3 starts and #2 smokes.... You get the idea. Where is the start up order found in the AIR file ?????

And [adding insult to injury] the #2 and #3 props are at idle rotation [visually] no matter what the throttle settings are moved to.

Could this just be a bad download ? Or can I tweak this back into line ? :isadizzy:

TIA
SC

 

[Rockster234]

Abacus Flight Dynamics Editor ......or ........AirEd

Abacus FDE

or AirEd

 

[simonu]

record 1002 in the air file is engine locations.
Engine 1 in the airfile equates to engine.0 in the aircraft.cfg and is usualy the left most engine but you can set them up how you like.

 

[sc7500]

No Joy

Tried several iterations of the "Who's on First" theory, not moving....

Could this be related to the MDL file somehow ?

SC

 

[Rockster234]

Could be the model

Yes.........I had trouble with getting 4 engines animated with FSDS vers2.x

So it could very well be the compile

can you say ........Hex edit........or .........scasm

 

[dvslats]

Hi Y'all Are sc7500,
I've banged my head with this one a few times.

If I were you, first open up your B-17D airfile and delete record 1002, the entry the other guys have shown.

Open the stock B-24 airfile and copy to clipboard 1002 and add this entry to the B-17D. This should get the start sequince in line.
For the engine start smoke effect...adjust the numbers, up, down, longitudinal, L and R, the same as you would to get something lined up with a .dp file. It takes some horsing around.

For the animations it very well could be the .mdl. To verify this either way, take a look at this thread between oldwheat and bearcat241. Here

Follow BC's instructions and when your finished you will be able to tell if it is the .mdl.
If you have good prop animation...it was the airfile.
If the props still do not animate properly...it's in the .mdl.

Hope This'll Help You Out,
Dave

 

[Oglivie]

SC,

I am quite sure the Alpha B-17s have reverse engine sequencing (4-1 instead of 1-4) in the mdl, I do not know why this is. It can be changed with MDLC (scasm editing), but I could not get MDLC to work well with this particular model, and gave up on it.

To fudge it, the AIR file engine locations can be changed, but a 4-engine throttle if used is still reversed because of the mdl, Throttle for engines: 1 is 4, 2 is 3, 3 is 2 and 4 is 1 if I remember it correctly. I haven't tried the above B-24 method though, so you might investigate it to see if it works out.

For props 2 and 3 not rotating correctly, check the aircraft.cfg [propeller] section. If there is a rotation= line, then remark it out with a semi-colon or double forward slash at the beginning of the line to remove the command. My stock Alpha B-17D does not contain the rotation= line in the aircraft.cfg and they rotate fine with the stock mdl. So that maybe what is causing the rotation problem. I have found the rotation= command does not work well with some aircraft for some reason.

Here is the AirEd engine locations changed to match the reversed engine sequence:

 

[sc7500]

Animation Headaches

Oglivie, Rockster, DV, Simon...

I tried all of your solutions in turn and together... and have come to realize that I need to learn SCASM for this one.

All iterations of the Engine Placement sequencing [including the 'cut and paste' idea, which is BRILLIANT, BTW !] did nothing to alter the Starboard to Port sequence.... So I'm gonna live with it until I can teach myself some stuff over the Winter.

Thanks for the quick assist - WHEN I find a solution, I will post it here !

Best
SC

 

[Oglivie]

Alpha B-17D scasm, no joy...

This is an excerpt of the offsets in the scasm code:

; 2 Nop (0x02) found.
; 470 Jump (0x0D) found.
; 198 Points (0x1A) found.
; 550 TexPoly (0x20) found.
; 933 Return (0x22) found.
; 32 Call (0x23) found.
; 448 IfVarRange (0x24) found.
; 346 VecPoints (0x29) found.
; 4966 ShadedPoly (0x2A) found.
; 830 RGBSColor (0x2D) found.
; 12 SetScaleX (0x34) found.
; 194 ConcavePoly (0x38) found.
; 334 IfVarAnd (0x39) found.
; 5 RefPoint (0x3A) found.
; 4 PBHCall (0x3B) found.
; 928 Poly (0x3E) found.
; 8 ShadowPosInd (0x40) found.
; 8 ShadowCallVI (0x41) found.
; 414 LoadBitMap (0x43) found.
; 444 TransformCall (0x46) found.
; 3 IfVSize (0x5F) found.
; 1 Perspective (0x76) found.
;12680 ShadedTexPoly (0x7A) found.
; 4 Jump32 (0x88) found.
; 540 Call32 (0x8A) found.
; 1 VFileMarker (0x8E) found.
; 48 Transparency (0x8F) found.
; 2 VarBaseOverride (0x9F) found.
(No Translation Tables, Rotation Tables and Animations are in the scasm list)
; 42 Unknown BGL Opcodes (0x??) found. <--why animations are messed up?

;Variable Table used by IfVarRange (0x24), IfVarAnd (0x39), TransformCall (0x46), Interpolate (0x9E), IfInF (0xB3)
;uOffset uName
;----------------------------------------
;0x00 Always
;0x06
;0x26 Aircraft Heading
;0x4C Rudder
;0x4E Elevator
;0x50<-- Engine 1 RPM ---Offsets that need to be searched for and corrected in the code.
;0x52 Engine 2 RPM ---Reverse the offsets in the code, Replace all occurances of 0x50
;0x54 Engine 3 RPM ---with 0x56, 0x52 with 0x54, 0x54 with 0x52, etc.
;0x56 Engine 4 RPM
;0x58 Propeller Movement Speed #1
;0x5A Propeller Movement Speed #2
;0x5C Propeller Movement Speed #3
;0x5E Propeller Movement Speed #4
;0x68
;0x6A Ailerons
;0x6C Flaps Up/ Down
;0x6E Gear Up/ Down
;0x70
;0x76 Nav Lights On/ Off <--0x76 offset (in the code) activates gun barrels (L Key)
;0x7A Air Speed
;0x7C Spoilers Extended/ Retracted
;0x7E Interior/ Exterior View
;0x90
;0x07D4

The scasm when compiled to mdl (without any modifications to the code). Most or all anmination is lost and some of the animated parts are visually missing.

 

[dvslats]

My stock Alpha B-17D does not contain the rotation= line in the aircraft.cfg and they rotate fine with the stock mdl.

Hi Oglivie,
Is there another mdl for this bird?
I just assumed that this is the stock .mdl. :ques:

Would this be the one in oldwheat's package? The stock one?

Thanks, Dv

 

[Oglivie]

Hi DV,

Is there another mdl for this bird?

No other mdl exist that I am aware of....

I just assumed that this is the stock .mdl. :ques:

Only the original/stock Alhpa mdl, which is the one I tried to scasm.

Would this be the one in oldwheat's package? The stock one?

The mdl in Oldwheat's (as far as I know) is an original/stock Alpha mdl. The mdls from both downloads resulted the same way when I tried to convert them to scasm. I am going to try to hex edit the mdl later to try to reverse the engine sequence. I should be able to work on it in a few days and I'll post what I can find out.

I checked the aircraft.cfgs, and neither the original or Oldwheat's has the rotation= in the [propeller] section, so either aircraft.cfg should be fine. But if the rotation is inadverntly changed from 1 to -1 (reversing the Alpha mdl prop rotation), the visual props will not show an RPM increase when the throttle(s) are advanced.

Your Very Welcome!

 

[dvslats]

Thanks for that info Oglivie,
I'm thinking that the main prob originated in the air file.
The reason being, I have already done the hex edit, but, when the model was tried in CFS2 it also had a new air file provided to me by sc7500.

So for slips and grins I re-installed the original from Cptainmercy's D/L and the original issue came back again. Bad prop animations.

I'm going to upload what we have so far, but before that...could I send the folder to some others here for testing?

My thoughts are to first try it with the new air file and Aircraft .cfg only.
If it doesn't play right, then add the modded mdl.

Any takers, please send me a pm with the ol' email adderess.

Appreciate It, Dv

PS: the reason I ask this is that sometimes what works fine on my computer, will not on somebody else's. Go figure...

 

[sc7500]

Ah HA !!!!!!

...I checked the aircraft.cfgs, and neither the original or Oldwheat's has the rotation= in the [propeller] section, so either aircraft.cfg should be fine. But if the rotation is inadvertently changed from 1 to -1 (reversing the Alpha mdl prop rotation), the visual props will not show an RPM increase when the throttle(s) are advanced....

This bit o' info just solved MY bit of the Prop speed puzzle !!! :isadizzy:

THANK YOU ! :salute:
SC

 

[dvslats]

Ok guys, I just uploaded the whole kit and kabutle.

Whichever way it goes, you should have a properly working propeller animation. :salute:

Dave