Has anyone been fiddling with RealEngine?

T

TheGrunt

Charter Member 2016
I've been working today with Piglet's excellent A-1J Skyraider added with RealEngine. RE truly adds nice realism to the otherwise fabulous model. RE is actually quite simple to set up, actually biggest and most tedious work is editing panel.cfg and aircraft gauges to get the model display temperatures calculated by Real Engine's algorithms (in Skyraider's case editing means oil and cht gauges in A-1.cab file). Both of the edits are practically just copy-paste as instructions are quite clear with RE so the difficulty level is low. Then you can adjust engine parameters and cowling/cowling flaps cooling properties and even flaps or landing gear speed limits according to your likeness. You do this simply in the sim using RE's nice GUI: it builds the ini file for the aircraft, so there is no need to edit values manually and you can test your settings on the fly without need to restart the aircraft or the sim.

RE doesn't do anything to the model properties, it uses parameters just to calculate correct values for the cht and/or oil temp and then making possible engine failures if you exceed certain rpm/mp values for certain time or overheat your machine. So, besides the RE settings, I've also edited somewhat aircraft.cfg and .air-file to get the performance more towards the real. Though Piglet's Skyrider is wondeful plane to fly, it is a bit slow compared to the real life counterpart. A-1 should cruise just under 200 mph with rather mild engine settings (31.5 inch 2200 rpm). With default settings this was impossible to attain. I believe original aircraft.cfg file (and possibly .air too) is created with a program called AirWrench which calculates properties based on real physical qualities of the plane and sometimes software like that doesn't hit the goal perfectly and Skyraider is thus somwehat underperforming. So far all this work seems to bring quite nice results and it cruises now more easily without having too much top speed or other fighter/racer like qualities. I will see if I dig deeper into .air and aircraft.cfg files and get engine function also more correct. Based on the information I've gathered Skyraider top rpm is 2900, not 2800 (this is easy to change) and maximum power of 2700 hp should be attained with 53.5 inch at around 9000 ft. I'm not sure how Piglet's model gives the maximum power out as it allows engine to run all the way to 63.5 inch as "emergency boost". Because values for emergency boost in .cfg are so far a bit vague to me and I don't precisely know how Piglet's A-1 delivers its correct nominal 2700 hp: is it at about 55 inch/2800 (redline in the gauges and quite close the real life values) and 63.5 inches is actually boost over the 2700 nominal power (let's say 2900 hp for short time), or does the model deliver 2700 hp at 63.5 inch/2800 which would be clearly wrong? So, I've just so far tried to make performance more correct and adjusted RE to fit real performance values and only TO/MIL power adjusted somewhat suiting better to Piglet's model.

So all in all this has been a fun adventure so far and I will continue tweaking at least for a while. By all means not the least fun part with this was digging in to information to get as accurate as possible performance data so that RE could deliver temperature values as precisely as possible. Google and www.avialogs.com are your friends here. Real Engine is a wonderful addon for quite basic aircraft, which hasn't that deep system or fault modeling, so it really adds touch of "Accusim" to our beloved freeware planes. If I'm completely happy with the final results, I'll share at least my real engine .ini file for others to use with the Skyraider. I'm not sure about the edited gauges, .air file or aircraft.cfg, because I think that I should at least have Tim's permission to do that and he's not around anymore.

You can download RE V1.4 here:
http://www.fs2000.org/2012/09/30/fs2004fsx-realengine-v1-4-aircraft-limitations/
 
If you ever need to contact the Author of RealEngine his name is Gunter, and goes by the handle of
teson1. He hangs out at FlightSim.com and here at SOH. Drop him a PM either her or over there, and he'll respond quickly!

View attachment 91806
 
RealEngine has been around for quite a while. A full set of XML gauges that could be edited to set the parameters for a single aircraft.
It was working quite well, and it has been discussed here and on other forums a few times.

However, the "replacement" is now the "Damage Mod". Does the same, but also handles and saves the wear of the aircraft organs. That's why I call it "freeware Accusim", because your aircraft accumulates the wear and the flight hours (like Accusim, but on a more simplistic way of course).
http://v35bdamagemod.blogspot.de/

Some of the default airplanes have been updated with this mod. Here is how it looks like for the C-208:

daube_image1739.jpg

daube_image1740.jpg
 
Daube said:
RealEngine has been around for quite a while. A full set of XML gauges that could be edited to set the parameters for a single aircraft.
It was working quite well, and it has been discussed here and on other forums a few times.

However, the "replacement" is now the "Damage Mod". Does the same, but also handles and saves the wear of the aircraft organs. That's why I call it "freeware Accusim", because your aircraft accumulates the wear and the flight hours (like Accusim, but on a more simplistic way of course).
http://v35bdamagemod.blogspot.de/

Some of the default airplanes have been updated with this mod. Here is how it looks like for the C-208:
Click to expand...
I quickly looked at one of the default plane "damage mods" and they sure look far more detailed than RE with other systems modeled too. Only thing it looks far more complicated to configure for aircraft compared to simple straightforward task of RE. Beautiful work, though!

I yesterday further tweaked Skyraider. It has now working water injection (the original actually lowers your MP and is thus unboost system :icon_lol:) which should provide +10 inches for (63.5 inches maximum) and simulates thus the over 3000 hp the real one produces when used (I may still change the boost value). With RE I have configured the maximum boost level too at 63.5 inch and you can use it for 5 mins without damaging the engine. I'll probably lower that value in the future, but for now it suits for testing fine. Maximum MP is now 53.5 inches @ 2900 rpm for 30 mins which is based on actual POH data I have for both the aircraft and RE settings (there are actually two RPM levels for real Skyraider @ 53.5 inches, 2900 and 2600 RPM for low/high blower settings). Maximum continuous is set to 45 inches @ 2600 rpm, also like the real one. After some .air file tweaking I get pretty close the real performance now, it is now little bit too fast, but I think I can easily manage it so, that it cruises pretty much like the real one and attains top speed of 272 knots at 18000 ft. I'll test more today. I still have to tweak cowl and cowl flaps cooling properties in RE to get it yet challenging, but not overheating too easily. This is quite fun, dammit!

About the cowl flaps, does anyone know how to model cowl flap drag with the plane which has spoilers (like Piglet's Skyraider)? I know cowl flap drag is quite easy to model so that it is done with invisible spoilers (there are gauge examples for that in fsdevelopers), but it seems to be tricky if your airplane already has those. In that case, using cowl flaps causes spoiler animation to kick in and it looks quite silly. With invisible spoilers, it could be something that I could at least try with my experience, but I have no clue how to do that with spoiler equipped plane. It is probably something way out of my skills, but hey, you never know without asking.
 
At the moment, there are two kinds of Damage mod:

- the "classic" kind is specific to an aircraft. There is a package for the Carenado V-35b, one for the default C-172, one for the default Baron, one for the default C-208 and finally one for the default R-22. The ones for the C-208 and for the R-22 have better interfaces and additonnal features compared with the oldest ones. They can all be found on flightsim.com or simviation.com if I'm not mistaken. I'll try to find some links for you.

- the "new" kind is supposed to be generic, 'one-for-all' mod, with just a specific config file for each aircraft, just like AccuFeel for example. This one is not available yet, it's still in developpment and should bring even more new features, as you can read on the blog.


EDIT: here is the link with all the mods on Simviation:
http://simviation.com/1/search?submit=1&keywords=Ismail+Hakki&x=0&y=0
 
Dangerousdave26 said:
Real Engine is also in our library

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforu...-FSX-RealEngine-Aircraft-Limitations-v1-4-zip

Daube

The blog for Damage mod does not say where to get it. I did a quick Google search and it only takes me back to the blog. Where can it be downloaded?
Click to expand...

It appears it is a WIP in progress. The entry for Friday, May 10 says "Some WIP Screenshots of the FSX Aircraft Inspection Mod (old name: Damage Mod) on several Aircraft Models. (Sorry, no release date yet)"

 
A-1J performance is pretty much there now and with proper A-1H/J model charasteristics I used, it seems to be pretty much there. Many values I mentioned earlier in the thread were mostly AD-4 and it is actually faster than AD-7 (A-1J). Still, original was too slow, but now it performs pretty close, IMO.

After dealing with RE, I decided to edit gauges a bit. First my intention was only to add markers to RPM and MAP gauges according to performance parameters given to Real Engine using similar style markers you can see in some real A-1 cockpit shots (blue, yellow, red). Then I decided to try something new and tried to give gauges a bit glassy reflection and shadows. Effect is of course completely static with cockpit reflections and shadowing as gauges are 2D, but it brings a bit life to the gauge surfaces, I think. I've so far done just those few that you can see in the picture (speed, altitude etc. are original in the pic), but rest of them should go pretty quickly. I may still adjust reflections and shadows a bit on the ones I've made, but you get the idea with these...

gauges.jpg


It is nasty, when you start to do something like this. I haven't practically flown for days because all the spare time I have has gone to first RE and FDE tuning and testing and after that I started to fiddle with the gauges, which are of course itself already completely fine as they are :mixedsmi:
 
Never messed with RE, but looks like a good start on Piglet's trusty Skyraider, pulling her out of the hangar now for trials.
 
Thanks,

This has been a fun task so far and my first "larger" edit for any aircraft. I even haven't used Photoshop for this kind of job before this. I sent email to Piglet to ask about his permission to upload modifications here when I'm done. Dunno if he replies anymore, but you never know without asking. In the readme he doesn't forbid modifying, but I'd like to do this the right way. My concern is mainly uploading the files, even though it would be happening only here at SOH. Upload would include all the modified files including gauges (probably two gauge .cabs with glass reflection effects and one's with only new markers, so you can choose which set to use), RealEngine configuration, air file and both aircraft and panel cfg files. I plan to include to the package also a short (and l mean short) "POH" where proper use and A-1J engine operating envelopes are explained to the best of my knowledge and also some performance charasteristics is given to get the picture how the plane operates and should be handled also outside the model that RealEngine is capable of and thus fly it "by the book". Don't take your hopes too high as this will be no Accusim A-1, but I think it still might bring something new for this fabulous model. It may take some weeks more to finish this depending on the spare time I have. Uploading of course requires that I'm happy with the end result, but this is the plan nonethless :wiggle:

By the way, these gauge edits don't interfere with Piglet's A-1H if you have installed that. I have already created a separate .cab file for the edited A-1J (that is A-1J.cab). Normally, both Piglet's Skyraiders would use the same A-1.cab file.
 
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