SOH Team Project - Grumman Tracker, Trader, Tracer

[nigel richards]

now we're getting somewhere.

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TK, I think you've hit it; B-17 and Canadair CL-215 with landing lights replaced with searchlight fx.

Milton?

 

[Milton Shupe]

What did you change specifically?

I can add teh landing light and set it so that it projects well out front instead of down at a close angle.

It still uses the landing light texture in th eeffects/texture folder so the angle spread is standard landing lights.

Your effect will be only what is projected from the search light source, not what hits the ground.

In fog, your search light would look like a landing light dispersion IOW.

We still need the beam for realism; we simply cannot make the beam light up scenery AFAIK.

Meanwhile, until I can get the change to you, test with those aircraft.

 

[Tako_Kichi]

As far as I know, only the landing lights can affect scenery.

I will add a landing light to the search light as necessary but there is no way to affect that which hits the ground except by changing the default landing light texture. We do not want to do that.

The only effect that your fx will have is to shoot the beam as it will not light up the water or scenery AFAIK. Your very neat effect as placed does look nice. We just need to get the beam think going. You may have to get that luxbeam thing working.

Doesn't the landing light ground texture get called in the Attach Point dialogue box in GMAX? If so could Nigel (or someone else) make a new, more narrow/focussed, texture and then provide you with the texture name to plug into GMAX? The searchlight should then use the new texture rather than the landing light one. The .fx file he made is only for the visual look on the aircraft (and just in front) and will not show on the ground.

 

[nigel richards]

What did you change specifically?

I can add teh landing light and set it so that it projects well out front instead of down at a close angle.

It still uses the landing light texture in th eeffects/texture folder so the angle spread is standard landing lights.

Your effect will be only what is projected from the search light source, not what hits the ground.

In fog, your search light would look like a landing light dispersion IOW.

We still need the beam for realism; we simply cannot make the beam light up scenery AFAIK.

Meanwhile, until I can get the change to you, test with those aircraft.

The only thing I changed was the searchlight fx in place of landing light fx of the two particular aircraft.

 

[Milton Shupe]

Doesn't the landing light ground texture get called in the Attach Point dialogue box in GMAX? If so could Nigel (or someone else) make a new, more narrow/focussed, texture and then provide you with the texture name to plug into GMAX? The searchlight should then use the new texture rather than the landing light one. The .fx file he made is only for the visual look on the aircraft (and just in front) and will not show on the ground.

Not sure for gmax1.2 and FS9 that one can assign a texture to the land_light.

The AttachPoint documented in the gmax1.2 SDK refers only to scenery.

However, I will assign a texture to see if it will take it.
Typically for landing lights, one specifies only a color.

 

[Milton Shupe]

The only thing I changed was the searchlight fx in place of landing light fx of the two particular aircraft.

Okay, you will need to have that effect use a texture with a beam like is used with luxbeam.

I will map that texture name to the landing light to test.

 

[MaddogK]

IIRC the landing light only needs a vertex (in the model) with the correct label (and axis orientation) for the game to attach the landing light projection texture. There should be a description in the aircraft container docs with the proper tag name.

<edit> sorry, it's in the makemdl docs- part tag should be 'c_gearlight', but I seem to remember l_gearlight and r_gearlight also working. There is also an animated tag named 'Landing Light' that prolly works with a switch regardless of gear posit. Worth a look.

Man it's been too long since I did this.

 

[mgr]

Marcel,

I tried your numbers and got an extremely unstable approach and touchdown culminating in the aircraft's tail burying in the ground and going ballistic. The MOI is an inertial value and you're quadrupling the aircraft's weight in some axis inertia value. As with any inertial value this is the value you have to overcome to start movement and counteract to stop. The aircraft in flight became difficult to control with my having to counteract control movements as every control movement, once the aircraft started moving, had severe reactions. Especially in the slower flight regimes. This does dampen the static vibration when the brakes are locked but creates other, IMO severe issues.

I also tried applying them to the S2F-3 with the same results. Did you have this result?

Dave

Do not have the effects you mention, also did so changes to the air-file itself, maybe they work together. Just to be sure i only test it in FS9, results in FSX can be very different.

Attached the files i use at the moment: http://garfield.home.xs4all.nl/zips/SOH-E1B-airupdate.ZIP

Marcel

 

[nigel richards]

Okay, you will need to have that effect use a texture with a beam like is used with luxbeam.

I will map that texture name to the landing light to test.

Milton, I'm back to a variation of luxbeam2...with, I'm afraid to say mixed results...

View attachment 50026 View attachment 50027

...still can't figure out how to get the end of the beam emitting from the scource.

 

[Milton Shupe]

IIRC the landing light only needs a vertex (in the model) with the correct label (and axis orientation) for the game to attach the landing light projection texture. There should be a description in the aircraft container docs with the proper tag name.

<edit> sorry, it's in the makemdl docs- part tag should be 'c_gearlight', but I seem to remember l_gearlight and r_gearlight also working. There is also an animated tag named 'Landing Light' that prolly works with a switch regardless of gear posit. Worth a look.

Man it's been too long since I did this.

LOL No problem.

Getting a landing light to work is not the problem. That works.

The issue is having another light (search light), light up scenery like only the landing light does.

I can make the search light work as a landing light ... no problem.
The issue is that gmax makemdl requires the material and the texture.bmp names to be light_land and the primitive (triangle, whatever) be named light_land.
So, if you change the texture (light_land) to be a beam, then the landing light will use the same texture as the search light.
I can use any texture appropriately named and put it in my texture folder, but it changes both lights.

Yes, the Z axis points in the opposite direction of the beam.

The gear lights function is only to turn on/off the light after deployment or during retraction. You still must use light_land as described.

 

[Milton Shupe]

Milton, I'm back to a variation of luxbeam2...with, I'm afraid to say mixed results...

View attachment 50026 View attachment 50027

...still can't figure out how to get the end of the beam emitting from the scource.

Well, the emitter is the origination point. From there, you can send the beam in any direction or in all directions.

Once you get that, then we can change the beam to give it a proper dispersion angle.

EDIT: I do not know if we will be able to move the effect like we can with a landing light. Maybe we should just work on using the landing light as the effect will have to be static. ??

EDIT2: I sent an update model and texture via email.

 

[fliger747]

Automixture must be on to have the aircraft maintain power with altitude. The injection carbs used on these engines normally were operated in the auto rich/auto lean modes.

T

 

[Lazerbeak]

Experimental top secret death ray weapon?

 

[MaddogK]

LOL No problem.

Getting a landing light to work is not the problem. That works.

The issue is having another light (search light), light up scenery like only the landing light does.

Sorry, missed the part about this being about the searchlight.
... I'd think if reference to an attach point is in the makeMDL docs (attachtoolGmax.ms) then certainly I'd assume that a library object can be attached to that point- theres quite a few props, drop tanks, etc shown in the reference table included with the BGLCompsdk.
Carry on.

 

[Milton Shupe]

Sorry, missed the part about this being about the searchlight.
... I'd think if reference to an attach point is in the makeMDL docs (attachtoolGmax.ms) then certainly I'd assume that a library object can be attached to that point- theres quite a few props, drop tanks, etc shown in the reference table included with the BGLCompsdk.
Carry on.

Yes, library objects can be attached.

Just reading the SDK again and it repeats "Scenery Only".

Here is the whole spiel indicating that XML XFILE extensions can be used to use the attachpoint feature:

XML XFile extensions
MakeMDL understands the following XFile template that is used to enable new features that create attachpoints (with the potential to attach other objects), suppress crash on portions of models, and add platforms to models. These extensions are only for scenery objects and will not operate on aircraft. Attributes are applied on a per-part basis and are automatically generated when using the AttachToolGmax.ms script available in the GMax AttachTool SDK. The following reference can be used to create extensions to other tools that output .X files for Flight Simulator:

template PartData {
<79B183BA-7E70-44d1-914A-23B304CA91E5>
DWORD nByteCount;
array BYTE XMLData[ nByteCount ];
}

PartData {
141;
60, 63, 120, 109, 108, 32, 118, 101, 114, 115,
105, 111, 110, 61, 34, 49, 46, 48, 34, 32,
101, 110, 99, 111, 100, 105, 110, 103, 61, 34,
73, 83, 79, 45, 56, 56, 53, 57, 45, 49,
34, 63, 62, 32, 60, 70, 83, 77, 65, 75,
69, 77, 68, 76, 68, 65, 84, 65, 32, 118,
101, 114, 115, 105, 111, 110, 61, 34, 57, 46,
48, 34, 62, 60, 65, 84, 84, 65, 67, 72,
80, 79, 73, 78, 84, 32, 110, 97, 109, 101,
61, 34, 97, 116, 116, 97, 99, 104, 112, 116,
95, 98, 101, 97, 99, 111, 110, 34, 62, 32,
60, 47, 65, 84, 84, 65, 67, 72, 80, 79,
73, 78, 84, 62, 60, 47, 70, 83, 77, 65,
75, 69, 77, 68, 76, 68, 65, 84, 65, 62, 0;
} // End PartData

This extension is a binary encoding of the following XML (an attach point named ‘attachpt_beacon’):
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <FSMakeMdlData version="9.0"><Attachpoint name="attachpt_beacon"> </Attachpoint></FSMakeMdlData>


The following is a sample representation of the available XML structure. A brief description of how these elements operate follows. See the BGLComp SDK for more information about using XML in Flight Simulator:

<?xml version=”1.0” encoding=”ISO-8859-1”?>
<FSMakeMdlData version=”9.0”>
<!-- turn off crash for a part -->
<NoCrash/>

<!-- specify that this part is a platform and define surface type -->
<platformName=”PlatformName” surfaceType=”CONCRETE” />

<!-- specify that this part is an attach point. -->
<!-- Note: The geometry for this part will not be exported -->
<!-- It is possible to attach library objects and effects to this point -->
<Attachpoint name=”attachpt_beacon”/>
<AttachedObject>
<LibraryObject name=”4a5ceec84f2a9e27f12ee7a40f0c856c” scale=”1.0” />
<Effect effectName=”name” effectParams=”params”/>
</AttachedObject>
</Attachpoint>
</FSMakeMdlData>

The following is a description of the XML elements:

NoCrashThis element specifies that the associated part should not be added to the crash octtree. An example is

Platform
This element specifies that the associated part is to be treated as a platform for landing. The surface type is required to be one of the following: "CONCRETE", "GRASS", "WATER", "GRASS_BUMPY", "ASPHALT", "SHORT_GRASS", "LONG_GRASS", "HARD_TURF", "SNOW", "ICE", "URBAN", "FOREST", "DIRT", "CORAL", "GRAVEL", "OIL_TREATED", "STEEL_MATS", "BITUMINUS", "BRICK", "MACADAM", "PLANKS", "SAND", "SHALE", "TARMAC", "WRIGHT_FLYER_TRACK".

When specifying that a part is a platform it is implied that the part also has the <NoCrash> attribute. Note: platforms cannot have an animated part at any point in its parent hierarchy.

Attachpoint
This element specifies that the associated part is to be treated as an attach point. All of the geometry for this part will be removed and only the root point of this part will be retained. The root point will be treated as the attach point where other object can be attached. The name is can be referenced when placing scenery objects to attach objects to one another. See the BGLComp SDK for more information. Note: A part that is decorated with TICK18 cannot be used as an attach point. The TICK18 part can be made invisible (with 100% opacity) or extremely small and used as a parent node for an attach point to create attach points that move.

AttachedObject
This element specifies that there is another library object or an effect attached to this object. The intent is to allow attaching effects such as hazard lights, or library objects such as generic rotating radar dishes. It is not necessary (nor recommended) to attach all animated objects. Only attach objects that are true ‘library’ objects that were created to be placed in multiple locations. A good example of when an attached library object should be used would be creating a marina object and attaching boats from a boat library.

Any ideas that would move this effort forward is appreciated so I appreciate your interest and questions. Keep'em coming. Or if you wish to jump in and try some things, I will send you te necessary stuff.

 

[p3aewguy]

Do not have the effects you mention, also did so changes to the air-file itself, maybe they work together. Just to be sure i only test it in FS9, results in FSX can be very different.

Attached the files i use at the moment: http://garfield.home.xs4all.nl/zips/SOH-E1B-airupdate.ZIP

Marcel

Marcel,

Thanks! That worked a lot better. Still seems to require large control inputs but is much better, stability-wise. Was able to fly and trim for fairly smooth approaches and landings. I also didn't get the violent bounces that I experienced before. I think you're on to something!

Dave

Edit: Smoothie, Hope you don't mind the collaboration. I finished the tail fins for the Texture in the paint kit, At least for my own use! Will you have the new mapping fuselage templates done soon? Dave

 

[mgr]

Marcel,
Edit: Smoothie, Hope you don't mind the collaboration. I finished the tail fins for the Texture in the paint kit, At least for my own use! Will you have the new mapping fuselage templates done soon? Dave

Very big LOL , i did too....

Also painted the wingtips red.

Marcel

PS
Good to know the mod on te airfile work now

 

[mgr]

Hiya Milton,

The fuselage and attached parts have been remapped to a higher resolution on 2048 at 8 meters instead of 12 meters. I could not get down to twice the pixels (half of 12 meters) as I could not fit even a fuselage half on it. And then had to move the inner door facings to their own map.

Do you have the exact ratio with which you enlarged the textures? Did a quick test seems to be bit more then 150%.

Regards,

Marcel

[EDIT] Nevemind found it, it's 175% duh. ;-) btw Milton this is a very good improvement in resolution!

[EDIT2] Is it possible to fix fuse1.bmp, the bottom mapping to move 3 pixels to the left (based on 1024 pix) to get it exact alignment with the right and top fuselage?

Also for making repainting more strait forward is it possible to mirror/flip on fuse2.bmp the bottem and upper texture part? This way you get a better alignment as well. See below what i mean.

 

[nigel richards]

EDIT: I do not know if we will be able to move the effect like we can with a landing light. Maybe we should just work on using the landing light as the effect will have to be static. ??

EDIT2: I sent an update model and texture via email.

Thankyou Sir, the model is now updated and texture installed.

Re; moving light.
For what its worth, this would be something which I personally would rarely, if ever use and thus find it surplus to requirements.
The powerfull searchlight beam effect alone is adequate for me.

 

[gaucho_59]

Just keeping in touch...

Hiya Milton,



Do you have the exact ratio with which you enlarged the textures? Did a quick test seems to be bit more then 150%.

Regards,

Marcel

[EDIT] Nevemind found it, it's 175% duh. ;-) btw Milton this is a very good improvement in resolution!

[EDIT2] Is it possible to fix fuse1.bmp, the bottom mapping to move 3 pixels to the left (based on 1024 pix) to get it exact alignment with the right and top fuselage?

Also for making repainting more strait forward is it possible to mirror/flip on fuse2.bmp the bottem and upper texture part? This way you get a better alignment as well. See below what i mean.

Just a little Hi... I've been doing some preliminary work to practice on my skinning... thought you might like to see
what I have done so far... it still needs weathering... Do you think it can be up to the high standards you have set?

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