FSX WW2 Pacific Fleet - Woes

[roger-wilco-66]

I've been working on a project "FSX WW2 Pacific Fleet" for almost three months now, that is converting CFS2 ships to assemble a PTO fleet so we can use them as ai or static (mooring) ships in PTO scenarios. The fleet has over 80 (!!) different ships, many of them japanese, but also US Navy, australian, british and contemporary civil vessels. The ships are complete with bow waves, smoke, dds textures and multi-LODs and would make a stunning addition to the PTO scenario.
I'm about 80 percent done with it, and this was/is a lot of work.
The nearer the possible release comes, the more I'm plagued by second thoughts. Most of the ships are from Usio no Ibuki ( --> http://www.geocities.jp/usio_no_ibuki/ ). I'tried to raise him by mailing my intentions to him many times, but never got any response. I even offered to him that he could release the package under his name. My main intention is that I'd like to see these superb creations in FSX. For all other non-Usio ships in the package I already have the authors permissions.
What I've done does not really violate Usio's terms of usage, according to the written statements that come with the ships, but I still feel terribly uneasy about that and thought about abandoning the project, despite all the efforts that went into this until now.

I write this to this forum because I'd like to hear some comments or thoughts of the community here on that issue. Of course, I'm not seeking some sort of "permission", just some thoughts that maybe broaden my viewpoint on that.

Cheers,
Mark

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[AndyE1976]

Mark,

I think that as long as every effort is made to contact him and credit is given to him then there isn't any more you could have done and you needn't feel bad about releasing it.

I'd post on all the major forums and put his name in the thread title so that it is clear that you're trying to contact him and also try Google and Facebook.

I don't know how someone can object to releasing an updated version of their work if they couldn't be contacted through the address that they provided in the readme or through reasonable effort - especially if credit is given.

I wish the people who ripped off my website a few years ago had made as much effort as you have!

Andrew

 

[dogfish]

usio's ships

As You have said, You are not violating the terms of usage, and the thing that I think is great about Your efforts to make these ships usable in fsx, is that they will live on as a testament to great designer Who settles for nothing less than total accuracy, and with ship detail that goes all the way down to individual chain links, You cant, but be amazed when You look at these ship's. I have have looked at screenshots of His ship's in formation, and there are quite a few, so I think that Usio will be delighted to see His ships sailing in formation in a much more realistic enviroment many years after He originaly designed these ships. The Imperial Japanese Navy of that era was a very modern and powerful fleet and sadly not one example exist today, but now We will have the opportunity to see some if not all of these ships, and of course there will be many other possibilities if these ships are available, so I hope that You do finish Your project, I know there are alot of Us who will be greatly appreciative, and I think Usio will be one of them.:salute:

 

[YoYo]

Wow. Need this Please to do a fleet for AI carriers 2 too. It will be very useful. :salute:

 

[whitehawk_2009]

Try the CFS2 forum, someone there might have his contact info.

WH

 

[roger-wilco-66]

Thanks for your thoughts, guys. I tried so many times to contact him in different ways that I think it's enough.
I decided to pick up my work on FSX WW2 Pacific Fleet again and finish it. I just hope this doens't backfire in an unpleasant way once I release it.

Cheers,
Mark

 

[jagl04]

Looking at the images you have uploaded I suppose you have used modelconverterX to transfer the models to FSX. If so, I´m afraid the carriers won´t have landable decks. The last time I had a look at that software the tool to place landable decks was not available. I discovered a possibility to add landable decks to AI ships based on imported models. I have tried it with the USNS Mercy model available at 3Dwarehouse and works fine. Tell me if I can help.

 

[fliger747]

Mark:

I hope all of this works out, ships have so many possibilities in fsx. The Guadalcanal scenery you did was excellent and an area that I use for test flying many planes, such as the Tigercats.

I remember enjoying the Yanko midway and coral sea fleets in FS9. Was a great test place for the now ancient d-ware SBD.

Best wishes and keep up the great work.... Tom

 

[roger-wilco-66]

Looking at the images you have uploaded I suppose you have used modelconverterX to transfer the models to FSX. If so, I´m afraid the carriers won´t have landable decks. The last time I had a look at that software the tool to place landable decks was not available. I discovered a possibility to add landable decks to AI ships based on imported models. I have tried it with the USNS Mercy model available at 3Dwarehouse and works fine. Tell me if I can help.

Hey that would be great! That's right, part of converting the ships is done in the ModelconverterX (SCASM code to FSX mdl conversion, assignment of texture properties, et cetera). You're also right about the problem of not being able to land (or start) on these carriers.
I thought that assigning the right property to the carrier deck surface would require to penetrate the 3d models with GMAX, and without permission, I wouldn't do that under any circumstance. That's one step too far.
In MCX, I only can add the attachment points to declare certain variables necessary for the carrier deck (vectors for cables, deck size and orientation). I can't declare the deck surface as landable, therefore FSX treats it as a normal scenery object and you crash when you try to land on it.
If you have a method for that assignment, please let me know! It would be a blast to land on all those carriers (and converted carrier battleships).

Cheers,
Mark

 

[Vietnam War Project]

Hello Mark,

Some great news, thanks for all the hard work you've done, and for the hard work still in progress !

Cheers, and long live to the Pacific theater

Xavier

 

[jagl04]

Hey that would be great! That's right, part of converting the ships is done in the ModelconverterX (SCASM code to FSX mdl conversion, assignment of texture properties, et cetera). You're also right about the problem of not being able to land (or start) on these carriers.
Mark

The first step is to remove the crash code from the object. You can do it in MCX, options, exporter settings, noCrash. It has to be "true". Now you cannot land on the ship, but you dont´crash when you are near or over the deck.

The second is to create a landable deck with Gmax or FSDS. The deck has to be adequate for the ship and preferably with the textures the ship´deck uses. Dont´forget to remove the crash codes in GMAX or FSDS, but not with MCX: MCX removes the attachment of landable pads. If you prefer, that deck can have the cables and any other attachment (or object, ie static planes) you want to place.

The third and more complicated is to place the exact coordinates of the deck so that if you put it on the ship it matches.

And the fourth is to place the deck on the ship:

4.1.- If you are using the ship as a scenery object, you can create a library with all your decks and place them on your ships with any object placer software, ie instant scenery.

4.2.- if you are using the ship as AI, create a folder with the deck as an AI ship with the same sim.cfg file (changing the title and removing the effects). The create an AI carrier cfg entry as follows:

[formation.44]
title=mercy
unit.0=mercy, 0, 0
unit.1=mercy_deck, 0, 0

Since the coordinates are the same for the ship and her deck, the deck will appear together with the ship and they will move together. This allows you to place anything over any ship used with AI carriers. I do not know if you can programme AI traffic with both AI objects (the ship and the deck) with the same pattern, that would be great also.

All this will be unnecesary when Arno Gerretsen finishes MDX: the placement of landable pads is planned in his great work.

Please keep me informed if this works for you. I have landed on my Mercy AI model several times without problems.

PD.- I have the kind permission of the people of 3Dwarehouse to use their USNS Mercy model, and I will upload it for FSX as soon as I have time to ad some effects I wanted.

 

[Vietnam War Project]

Landable deck

Hi Mark,

There is a very good tutorial, unfortunately in french, to create platforms in Gmax, I used to create the new version of the USS Harnett County, not completed due to texture problem with my ship in Gmax, and not enough time.
Tutorial written by Patrick Renaudin, landable platform page 51, here : http://avalsace.free.fr/Soutienf/GmaxX Scenery 02.zip

Another technique I used, easier, using ADE:
Create a runway with the unknown texture to the elevation of the flight deck (2 cm above)

1 - ADE version, latest one 1.47 ADEX, at start choose : FS9 version (very important because otherwise the runway in FSX version will appear with wrong texture and size (I do not know why, but thanks to Steph.), so you must have installed FS9 or its contents.

2 - Create an airfield at the atitude of the flight deck

3 - Place only the aircraft carrier (AGL elevation = 0) and the runway with right size and the unknown texture and compile.

And that's OK

Best

Xavier

 

[roger-wilco-66]

Jagl04,

thanks very much for your precise informations. I'll give it a try.
For each AI ship there is a static model in a scenery objects library, which doubles the effort. This is going to be a lot of work (20+ carriers).

I wonder, is it possible to use untextured decks or assign transparency to it, so the original texture of the ship's deck is visible? That would save a lot of work and probably trouble, because Usio's decks are a mix of textures and partly just 3d objects with colored surfaces. I know that you can build texture maps out of plain colored 3d objects in MCX, but Usios ships are so complex that when doing this, the vertices in the vertex list rocket over the 65536 mark for a single draw call and can not be compiled into FSX mdls anymore due to restrictions in the FSX SDK compiler. Arno wanted to adress this problem in MCX, but apparently has not done so yet.

If this takes too long to accomplish, I might release the first version of the fleet with non landable carriers and add landable versions as I (or maybe someone who is willing to step in) convert one after the other.

@Xavier:
Hi my friend Seems like I have to polish up my french a bit to read the platfrom tutorial.
The ADE method you described sounds easy and interesting, but I don't have FS9 anymore or any of its content. But for a static solution, this would probably the easiest method.
The only thing I don't understand is how a cable arrestor works with this. I always thought that the cables are defined by attachpoints with certain names that are positioned as single vertices (one for each end of a cable) on the flight deck. I also thought that the flightdeck needs an attachpoint with a given name at each corner at the flight deck, so that FSX knows the orientation of the flight deck and nocrash assignments to small structures on the flightdeck , otherwise they produce unwanted crashes during maneuvering on the deck. But maybe I think too complicated....

Thanks for your inputs, guys, it's much appreciated.

Cheers,
Mark

 

[jagl04]

You can create solid decks without textures. The only question is to place them sligtly lower than the original deck- just a few cm. You can also use the same deck for several ships if they are of similar legth and beam. That will save a lot of time.

 

[expat]

Another technique I used, easier, using ADE:
Create a runway with the unknown texture to the elevation of the flight deck (2 cm above)

1 - ADE version, latest one 1.47 ADEX, at start choose : FS9 version (very important because otherwise the runway in FSX version will appear with wrong texture and size (I do not know why, but thanks to Steph.), so you must have installed FS9 or its contents.

2 - Create an airfield at the atitude of the flight deck

3 - Place only the aircraft carrier (AGL elevation = 0) and the runway with right size and the unknown texture and compile.

Been fairly desperate to try something like this to have a hard decked carrier in the location of my choice. I have ADEX and believe I have now added a carrier.bgl to the library objects manager so now should be able to click and drop it within a newly created airport. From my FS9 days, I am familiar with creating airports on fixed carriers, e.g. the AS Big E, and below them using the necessary "ocean flatten" solution.

What I am not 100% clear on is your step #1 above. Is there, and does one use an entire ADEX utility for FS9? Or within ADEX (I do not have the latest version) do you select - after opening it in FSX - a FS9 option and proceed from there?

Thanks and regards,

expat