Alpha F-8 Crusader improvements

[Dumonceau]

I tried the C9 Phantom. Too much stuff wouldn't work to my liking. Have you tried the freebie Virtavia Phantoms? They work pretty good in FSX. I put some fixes and revised panels for them in the library here.

The F-8 panel stuff will be in the library here. I'm working on a Beta *zip for you guys to test. My rig is more than capable @ 5Ghz, but, if it causes a big performance hit for other folks, I'll have to look deeper into some of the code.

If I get the required permissions to include the fine works of other folks(Stuff that I am using in my AS F-8), I'll do the full package...Don

Don,

my rig is running at a steady 5.2 Ghz and I'm running two GTX-560ti's in SLI, I would LOVE to betatest for ya!! And to cater for people who have less than optimal rigs, I can betatest as well on my old Q6600 with 4 Gb's of ram and a GTX8800.

And yeah, I have tried the virtavia Phantoms, especially with the revised panels, but modeling wise they don't come close to the C9 Rhino. And I'm a sucker for the German F-4F!!

Sure hope you get the permissions!!

 

[Navy Chief]

I have the Virtavia Phantom installed. Actually bought it too, when it was AS payware. When I get the cast off of my left arm this Wed., I hope to more flying.... NC

 

[fxsttcb]

Why didn't somebody tell me to **** for the RFN TACAN?
I opened up the *.pdf to see if there was an e-mail addy for one of the "Coders", and, as I scrolled to the bottom, lo' and behold, there it was, a full boogie list of all available L:Variables. ROFL...

Now that I can see what all of those variables are doing, I can create an annunciator, and "link" the data to my Attitude Indicator(Flight Director) AoA Indexer, and other Nav instruments. Yippee!

It's gonna take a while to do all of that, so, meanwhile, here's the panel to date. I included a couple of repaints too.

Critique the tar out of it, any changes or ommisions can be incorporated in the final package...Don

 

[Dumonceau]

Why didn't somebody tell me to **** for the RFN TACAN?
I opened up the *.pdf to see if there was an e-mail addy for one of the "Coders", and, as I scrolled to the bottom, lo' and behold, there it was, a full boogie list of all available L:Variables. ROFL...

Now that I can see what all of those variables are doing, I can create an annunciator, and "link" the data to my Attitude Indicator(Flight Director) AoA Indexer, and other Nav instruments. Yippee!

It's gonna take a while to do all of that, so, meanwhile, here's the panel to date. I included a couple of repaints too.

Critique the tar out of it, any changes or ommisions can be incorporated in the final package...Don

Downloaded and will test now! Thanks so much for your effort Don!!

 

[delta_lima]

Great mod - some feedback ....

Hello Don,

First, great work - a really radical improvement to the VC. I had only about 10 min all told to look, so bearing this in mind,

1) I noticed a small (2 FPS) hit in frames - is to do with the 2 new VC textures being a bit larger (300ish kb vs 250ish?) Others likely won't notice - I'm sure I have the oldest PC on the block ...

2) I didn't get a chance to play with the radar - no comment there. All other new gauges look really crisp and good - on the 2 x repaints you did (see my point below). I was afraid (as with the Pack 1 Phantom update) that some gauges would look really small and illegible - no such issue here, esp with the ASI (really struggled with the Pack 1 ASI).

3) When I tried using this with other repaints, the gauges didn't sit well - somewhat out of alignment - even when the aforementioned 2 VC textures were copied over.

4) The 2D is stretched vertically quite significantly - likely related to the WIP / Beta status.

5) Really like that you've done a VMF-251 repaint - those early Bs don't get much loving - and the Marines even less so. The Corps and unit lettering is razor sharp - but the orange/black flashes look pixelated/jagged, both on the tail and wing surfaces where those flashes appear.

6. Unrelated to your work, but is there a way to adapt other paint schemes onto the F-8B / F8U-1E model? Even after all these years, Carl's texture folder logic has stumped my ability to play with different schemes on different mdls. For example, VMF-235 used the F8U-1E, and it would be nice to use the existing -235 repaint on the the same F8U-1E model you used for the VMF-251.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/my_public_domain_photos/4762447733/

Indeed, for the "RF" repaints, cheesy though the missiles look, better 2x than 4x, as I currently have with them being mapped to the F-8E model. Maybe not - but at least I thought I'd ask.


7. Also unrelated to your work - related to AB effects. I reinstalled a "new" install, with the latest (Warchild) FDE, new panels, etc. I also added TF's AB effect. Worked great on the first go. Shut down, and then reloaded - now the AB is gone. It's as if all of a sudden, the effect is sitting too far forward? Very weird - never seen this. For ref sake, here's what I'm using:

[lights]
//Types: 1=beacon, 2=strobe, 3=navigation, 4=cockpit, 5=landing
light.0 = 4, 23.00, 0.00, 2.00, fx_vclight
light.1 = 6, -11.00, 0.00, 0.10, fx_ALPHA_F8_exh
//light.2 = 9, -11.00, 0.00, 0.10, fx_Alpha_F8_AB
light.2 = 9, -18.00, 0.00, 0.15, fx_ALPHA_F8_TF_AB

That should be correct, no? confirmed his custom AB effect is in the effects folder - like I said, it worked great on the first try ...

cheers,

Daniel

 

[fxsttcb]

Hi DL,

Thanks for the quick reply.

1) I doubled the resolution on the F8_VC_EarlyF8_Page_01.bmp to 2048x2048 to give me more accurate placement of the gauges.
I really don't think it has that much of a graphical improvement, so, when it's all done I'll reduce it back to 1024x1024 and see.

2) The RADAR is basically a heavily modded default "radarscreen.xml", with all of the switching and mouse etc, put into one gauge.

3) I saw the exact same thing when I pasted the new VC textures into the other texture folders. For the life of me I couldn't get the new texture to show up.
They worked only after I pasted them into the other planes again and did a reboot. Weird.

4) The 2D is 16:9(1920x1080), so, it will be quite distorted on a 4:3 monitor.

5) Yeah, the T-Bolts need some more work. I copied them from an earlier 251 paint job I did. With all of the Rotating, Scaling, and other morphing, they got pretty distorted. I'll do new ones from scratch!

6) The problem with using the paints created for one model is alignment. The fuselage and Tail/Rudder mapping has variations between the models themselves. Close but no cigar.
You really need to check the model in thae aircraft.cfg and look at them in DXTbmp to figure out which texture name(s) goes with which model.
Most of the repaints that I've grabbed have all of the textures included. Not just the ones that were necessary.

7) Your AB coords are the same as mine, so, I'm clueless there...Don

 

[Dumonceau]

Don,

let me start by saying that I am pleasantly surprised by the radar gauge and especially the gunsight!

But here are my remarks:

• Some of the switches seemed to be off on my rig, I mean that I had to search for the clickable area's next to the switches (drawn). My monitor is 16:9 on the same resolution as yours)
• I lost my effects (default flight model, maybe that has something to do with it)
• a readme to use the gauges would be nice

But overall, I am awed by your work. I work in IT, but not coding or anything, but your work is impressive.

Thanks again!

Dumonceau

PS: needless to say that I am looking forward to the full package!

 

[delta_lima]

Hello Dumonceau,

I'm wondering if the loss of AB effects has to do with the new panel.cfg not calling on the light effect properly? I'm away from my sim pc - but am wondering if the two are related in some way ...

DL

 

[Dumonceau]

Hello Dumonceau,

I'm wondering if the loss of AB effects has to do with the new panel.cfg not calling on the light effect properly? I'm away from my sim pc - but am wondering if the two are related in some way ...

DL

Now that seems perfectly plausible!! Hadn't thought of that one! I'll have to look into that more deeply, but these are busy days at work (in the midst of a roll out) and it will have to wait till the weekend! PC time now is strictly leisure and even that is very limited. Long days and not much sleep...

 

[fxsttcb]

Mine is OK:

[lights]
//Types: 1=beacon, 2=strobe, 3=navigation, 4=cockpit, 5=landing
//6=taxi light, 7=recognition light, 8=wing light, 9=logo light, 10=Cabin Light
light.0 = 4, 21.55, 0.00, 0.85, fx_vclight //Bright cockpit
light.1 = 6, -15.00, 0.00, 0.10, fx_ALPHA_CF105_Exh1
light.2 = 9, -18.00, 0.15, 0.15, fx_ALPHA_F8_TF_AB //LOGO Lights
light.3 = 2, 21.50, 0.00, 0.80, fx_vclightDR //Dim Cockpit, Strobe Lights

[TurbineEngineData]
fuel_flow_gain= 0.003
inlet_area= 4.520
rated_N2_rpm= 6400.000
static_thrust= 10500.000
afterburner_available=1
reverser_available=0
ThrustSpecificFuelConsumption=0.53
afterburnthrustspecificfuelconsumption=2.15
afterburner_throttle_threshold=0.95

"afterburner_throttle_threshold" is the FSX trigger for the 'burner. [Vcockpit01] gauge22=F8GaugesDCB-Beta!F8 Afterburner Follower, uses the FSX (A:TURB ENG AFTERBURNER:1,bool) variable to turn on the LOGO Light.

Does the indicator above the RMI light up? It uses the variable, not the logo light...Don

 

[expat]

What [tail hook] entries are you finding work best ? I managed to mess mine up so that the plane wants to roll over and crash catching the wire. I have some with a value of 1.00 and another with 2.00 (feet? Meters?) but neither now seem stable.

 

[delta_lima]

Hello Don,

Yes, AB light comes on, and the data is as below. Note, I have used the Warchild FDE, so some numbers are a bit different than yours - but the threshold is the same ....

[TurbineEngineData]
fuel_flow_gain=0.002
inlet_area=7.23
rated_N2_rpm=8200
static_thrust=11400
afterburner_available=1
reverser_available=0
ThrustSpecificFuelConsumption=0.75
afterburnthrustspecificfuelconsumption=1.61
afterburner_throttle_threshold=0.95

Where is my AB effect gone ...?

Mine is OK:

[lights]
//Types: 1=beacon, 2=strobe, 3=navigation, 4=cockpit, 5=landing
//6=taxi light, 7=recognition light, 8=wing light, 9=logo light, 10=Cabin Light
light.0 = 4, 21.55, 0.00, 0.85, fx_vclight //Bright cockpit
light.1 = 6, -15.00, 0.00, 0.10, fx_ALPHA_CF105_Exh1
light.2 = 9, -18.00, 0.15, 0.15, fx_ALPHA_F8_TF_AB //LOGO Lights
light.3 = 2, 21.50, 0.00, 0.80, fx_vclightDR //Dim Cockpit, Strobe Lights

[TurbineEngineData]
fuel_flow_gain= 0.003
inlet_area= 4.520
rated_N2_rpm= 6400.000
static_thrust= 10500.000
afterburner_available=1
reverser_available=0
ThrustSpecificFuelConsumption=0.53
afterburnthrustspecificfuelconsumption=2.15
afterburner_throttle_threshold=0.95

"afterburner_throttle_threshold" is the FSX trigger for the 'burner. [Vcockpit01] gauge22=F8GaugesDCB-Beta!F8 Afterburner Follower, uses the FSX (A:TURB ENG AFTERBURNER:1,bool) variable to turn on the LOGO Light.

Does the indicator above the RMI light up? It uses the variable, not the logo light...Don

PS: Ex, I'm in the same boat (no pun intended) as far as hook settings. I tried my Rollus hook settings, but they're almost no improvement, so I won't bother posting them. Weird, because they work great on the Rollus - I guess there are far different FDE's at work between them.

 

[expat]

Don,

Absolutely love your panel mods! What a difference. Like the style - as on the AS F-4 and RA-5C - of the pop ups. This is a great addition! Have not even tried the v4 TACAN yet but will do and report. Have a serious non-trapping Gunfighter to fix first . .

DL,

PS: Ex, I'm in the same boat (no pun intended) as far as hook settings. I tried my Rollus hook settings, but they're almost no improvement, so I won't bother posting them. Weird, because they work great on the Rollus - I guess there are far different FDE's at work between them.

Hmm, I switched over as well to Pam's FDE and now I get no traps using Accel. A-B tested with the AS Phantom (Don's panel, of course) and she catches the wire just fine. I liked Pam's improvements - she is less twitchy but now a bit harder to slow down - but will roll back to my previous FDE/air.cfg and see if that helps (I have so many installs of this bird I will have to have a rumage).

Carl's texture folder logic has stumped my ability to play with different schemes on different mdls.

Well, you are far from alone on that one mate! What I think I do is throw all of the paint textures for the F8U - yes ALL of them - into each and ever repaint folder. Then if you have a new paint, e..g., VMF-251, etc you need to rename the paint bmp's (only those that change the exterior fuselage, wings, tail etc that matter) to match the model, e.g. F-8J, you want to mate it with that appears in the air.cfg. Or something like that. The AS F8 folder is HUGE as a result but I don't think it slows down loading a particular repaint as only the textures "called for" need to load. It takes forever though to move my "fulll" F8 folder from my external/hangar drive on to my FSX drive and vice versa. As a result, I have a "short" F8 folder with just the few paints I fly the most.


expat

 

[fxsttcb]

I suffered a system crash yesterday, so, further development is on the back burner.
I'm relegated to my old rig for the time being...Grrrrr....Slower 'n Molassis

My FSX has been on a RAMDisk that uses 48GB of the 64GB installed. RAM Errors stopped FSXA from even loading into the RAMDisk.
Unfortunately that location is my development install and contains almost all of my F-8 notes and WIP mods.
It is, thankfully, "Imaged" daily, so, I'm going to re-locate FSX to an SSD, after I isolate the bad memory.
8 x 8GB sticks at 2hrs per 3 pass memtest at default speed and voltages. Then, repeated with my overclocks in place is going to take some time. 1 bad stick found so far. Hopefully just one is bad. Being a quad channel, matched set, means sending back all 8. Grrrrr again.

Once the running memtest pass is done, I'll see if I can extract the most recent Image. The image is created by the RAMDisk software, but, it isn't capable of extracting it, and won't rebuild the RAMDisk without all 64GB of RAM in place. I hope that Acronis can do the job.

I had been using the RCBO Global option during testing, so, when I'm up to speed, I'll have to do some traps to check my tailhook too...Don

 

[KellyB]

Well, here's a newbie question: I am mystified by the AOA gauge and indicator. Would someone please explain how they work?
I'm in FS9, by the way.

Thanks.

 

[expat]

Don,

Sorry to hear - we all are when it happens - of your system crash. Sounds though like you know what you need to do to get it back. Best of luck.

expat

 

[fxsttcb]

Don,

Sorry to hear - we all are when it happens - of your system crash. Sounds though like you know what you need to do to get it back. Best of luck.

expat

Thanks for the vote of confidence. My plan actually WORKED. LOL! I'm only running on a single 8GB stick of RAM, but, at least FSX doesn't need more.

I don't have the RAM itself all tested and sorted out, but, I have my entire FSX folder extracted from the image.
I stuck it in my big SSD, and I can get it to launch using the fsx.exe. None of the shortcuts work. Small stuff at this point.
Probably destined for a re-install, if I don't re-instate the RAMDisk. Once burnt...twice shy...

I did a couple of traps on the "Big O". When a little fast, 140k+, the ol' gal bounces pretty good, but, it doesn't try to flip over on me.
When I hit the wire(s) at ~130k, she settles pretty good after the nose gear compresses to near the max.
My hook settings are what came in Pam's FDE.

 

[Dumonceau]

Thanks for the vote of confidence. My plan actually WORKED. LOL! I'm only running on a single 8GB stick of RAM, but, at least FSX doesn't need more.

I don't have the RAM itself all tested and sorted out, but, I have my entire FSX folder extracted from the image.
I stuck it in my big SSD, and I can get it to launch using the fsx.exe. None of the shortcuts work. Small stuff at this point.
Probably destined for a re-install, if I don't re-instate the RAMDisk. Once burnt...twice shy...

I did a couple of traps on the "Big O". When a little fast, 140k+, the ol' gal bounces pretty good, but, it doesn't try to flip over on me.
When I hit the wire(s) at ~130k, she settles pretty good after the nose gear compresses to near the max.
My hook settings are what came in Pam's FDE.

Good to hear that you're up and running again Don! Not quite the setup of before, but I'm sure you'll get there! ;-)

Take your time and get your rig back to where you want it. In the meantime, we can play around with the T-28 by Ant!

But as soon as you get to where you want to be, a readme for the panel would be nice! Still having those problems with the swith positions thoug...

Take care!
Dumonceau

 

[delta_lima]

Sorry to hear about your PC troubles Don - while I'm glad you're partly up and running, my hope is you'll be fully "recovered" soon. Thrilled to hear your're planning to update the VMF-251 paint!

Thanks to, Expat - looks like I have a mountain of renaming to do ... But if there's a way to get that stock VMF-235 paint onto the B model, I'm going for it!

Best,

DL

 

[expat]

But if there's a way to get that stock VMF-235 pain t onto the B model, I'm going for it!

Think I may give it a try myself with the Death Angels paint - always liked that one but not with those weapons ..