USS Arizona for FSX

[TARPSBird]

...I also remember choking on the stack gas hurling out profusely from the stacks, and the soot getting all over my nice whites. I do remember the smoke they made.

Been there, done that. Ruined a set of whites while manning the rail leaving Pearl Harbor on Coral Sea. Damp morning with light drizzle, everybody from amidships aft got soot on them. One of those "not fun" things you remember from your deployments.

 

[Butcherbird17]

Bookman,
Are you converting these ships to FSX native? NCGent who made the Arizona also did the USS North Carolina and in there
native sim (fs9) they run smooth, but in fsx they really put a hurting on the fps. So just wondering if that's what you are doing.

Joe

 

[Bookman1960]

Arizona - Spotlights - Test-1

First test of installing the mast and uper decks spotlights...not perfect but definitely progress. Tomorrow evening I hope to install running lights and adjust the bow splash and the wake.

I've also replaced the .cfg and .air file with a solid heavy ship which makes this gun platform solid as a rock!

 

[TARPSBird]

Bookman,
I'm impressed that you can manipulate the effects so well. I just wasted three hours trying to figure out the FSX Effects SDK (never could get the FX Tool to appear in FSX), then tried to add effects with ModelConverterX and got a bunch of errors. If you know of a good tutorial for effects I'd like to check it out. I don't want to create new effects, just make use of existing ones like you're doing with the Arizona.

 

[Bookman1960]

Bookman,
I'm impressed that you can manipulate the effects so well. I just wasted three hours trying to figure out the FSX Effects SDK (never could get the FX Tool to appear in FSX), then tried to add effects with ModelConverterX and got a bunch of errors. If you know of a good tutorial for effects I'd like to check it out. I don't want to create new effects, just make use of existing ones like you're doing with the Arizona.

The easiest way I know is to use notepad and trial and error. Believe it or not, it's not difficult -- just tedious. I simply look at other effects created by designers and re-edit, combine and otherwise make suitable for my uses.

If you PM me, I'll try to gather up some of my discoveries and send you some of my notes. I should probably work up a set of instructions for others, especially as teaching is my profession - so no excuse for not being able to share...hh

BTW, what I can share quickly is:

• Effects are different for player ships vs ai ships
• Effects can be edited using notepad.exe
• Effects can be combined

I still need to learn how to create from scracth but to this point, I've not really needed to do so, I simply rework and "build on the shoulders" of others, after all, isn't that the beauty of this hobby?

Bookman

 

[Bookman1960]

Bookman,
Are you converting these ships to FSX native? NCGent who made the Arizona also did the USS North Carolina and in there
native sim (fs9) they run smooth, but in fsx they really put a hurting on the fps. So just wondering if that's what you are doing.

Joe

Joe,

I'm not sure what "...converting these ships to FSX native..." means? Can you clarify?

I agree that many design in the sims can be a drain on computing power -- hence my reason for building a super machine to let me enjoy FSX at it's very best. Yes, both the North Carolina and the Arizona (and some other various models) put a drain on the memory but they're worth every bit. But, I'm working more with simpler models lately. I'm trying to create Atlantic Convoys and Fleet Exercises formations more than anything else.

I'm just thrilled that I was able to use so many of the well-crafted CFS2 models to great effect in FSX. The water look in FSX and the ships have really allowed me to enjoy what I want from simming "virtual travel" and 'virtual history". I've been enjoying flying seaplanes in the Pacific with appropriate anchorages and ai. I've been following developments here at SOH for a number of beautiful WWII projects etc.

This is an amazing hobby and its made more so by the many talented people who share their creations and learning to the benefit of others.

Bookman

 

[DaveB]

Hiya Guy's

Just in from work!! The smoke fx I used for Arizona is smoke2 which I think came from the Flying Stations Ark Royal.

The only thing I've ever manipulated in MCX are Sketchup models.. import the model in sketchup format.. change the bmps/jpgs to dds format then recompile as an FSX model so this was a first for me. Fortunately.. it held in one piece!! As I mentioned early in the thread, the FR's were killing my pc.. I can't run at 6-7fps so first off, I thought of converting just the textures but while there.. decided to go the whole hog and even though it has a fair few 1024 textures, it now runs with nominal drop on FR's.. well, no drop in fact. This could go pear shaped when more ships are added (can't have her sailing alone!!) but on her own.. she now gives no frame hit at all.

Anyone with a vague knowledge of MCX can do this.. I'm living proof!

Agree that the amount of smoke from smoke2 could be considered a little ott but it's nice and grey.. not black and seemed to fit an old girl of this age well. Funnels always kick out soot along with the heat haze so they're never completely clean.. especially on the old oil/coal burners. This makes her easier to see at a distance too though there's no worries about 'landing on' I was a Radio Operator (Radioman in USN parlance) so always kept clean anyway.. except when it came time to change the wire aerials. Then.. it became immediately obvious just how clean our engines weren't!

ATB
DaveB

 

[dc10boy]

Is anyone planning on posting these great mods anywhere?It truly makes a great ship even better!

 

[TARPSBird]

I wish I could figure out how to use ModelConverterX for all the functions it is capable of. I've never used it for anything other than viewing a mdl file in 3D with the measurement grid for adjusting contact points, or launch bar and tailhook positions on carrier planes. Anything else I attempt gives me errors, usually "System Out Of Memory" which I can't figure out since MCX is the only program I have running when this happens.

 

[DaveB]

Yeah.. I have it throw 'funnies' sometimes and the only way out is to close the program. In fact, I've just noticed that the conversion to FSX native didn't go according to plan either. One of the rear turrets is facing fwd (which isn't a problem in itself) and the other is facing aft but the barrels have turned 180 and are embedded in the turret So close and yet so far I could live with one turret facing fwd but having the aft turrets barrels the wrong way round and embedded inside the turret is too much now I know that's what's happened. OK in the distance to make up the numbers but not suitable for close scrutiny. Damn, damn and treble damn!! You win some.. you lose some
I know someone who might be able to fix it. We'll see.

EDIT: Hold the press!! Had a good dig around in MCX and found an animation editor. I suspected the reason for the rear turrets playing up was that they're animated and this appears to be the case. I killed the animation then recompiled and I have all turrets where they should be. I've tried adding fx_wake_bow_Zu too but I'm not sure. This looks great when the model is going but at full stop.. it looks more than a bit odd.
ATB
DaveB

 

[gray eagle]

Hiya Guy's

Just in from work!! The smoke fx I used for Arizona is smoke2 which I think came from the Flying Stations Ark Royal.



ATB
DaveB

Dave,

I sent you a PM about that smoke2 effect. I did not see it in the effects folder for the ark royal.


"Butch"

 

[gray eagle]

I noticed that the sim.cfg for some of the other ships (carriers) do not have a smoke effect added yet they produce a smoke effect from the stack. Must be in the MDL file.
I wanted to try some other smoke effects from the other ships that do have that effect and noted that there wasn't any fx_smoke effect listed.

 

[TARPSBird]

If I understand effects use with the AI ships (and that's a really big if)... There are effects that are attached to the ship's .mdl file like Bookman's night lighting (see above) and there are individual smoke and wake effects that are called out on the "wake =" line, and there you're limited to only one effect. So if you have a wake effect that looks good but there's no smoke effect with it, or vice-versa, you're out of luck. I only got curious about this stuff when I dropped the Arizona into FSX, now it's making my head hurt.

 

[DaveB]

Yup.. that about sums it up to the best of my limited knowledge. I had to add smoke and bow wave fx using MCX then re-save the model. Models with no animations are straight forward but those with animations really need to be decompiled in MCX and saved as Gmax/3DS objects whereupon the user has to re-animate the animations in Gmax/3DS and take it from there. This is way above anything I can do. The alternative is to kill the animations in MCX then save to stop bits misbehaving.

I'm not sure why this model is so heavy on FR's in FSX but heavy it is. I had another look last night while trying to fathom how to get the turrets back to normal and FSX shot straight to 8fps when the model was in view This urged me to have another shot at converting it. Anyone with MCX should give this a try. If you don't know what you're doing.. no problem.. as long as you keep a backup of the original. I'd not done anything like this before and after a couple of days trial and error, I've managed to convert an FS9 model to FSX native and learned how to add effects to an mdl file.

ATB
DaveB

 

[Bookman1960]

...effects that are attached to the ship's .mdl file like Bookman's night lighting (see above) and there are individual smoke and wake effects that are called out on the "wake =" line, and there you're limited to only one effect. So if you have a wake effect that looks good but there's no smoke effect with it, or vice-versa, you're out of luck....

You are only partially correct. If you just use individual smoke, wake, lights effect (.fx) files, your comment is correct. But, the secret to adding smoke, lights, wake, and other effects is to stack them all in one .fx file. I learned this through trial and error. The tricky part for me with simming is that I'm too damned old to keep learning new "tools" so I just used notepad to edit things (or xml, depending on the game I'm trying to mod).

The part of the process, as I do it, is that it requires patience and a lot of' 'trial and error', checking, rec-checking etc. But I'm happy with the results.

What frustrates me is models that use an embedded effect (usually smoke) that I can remove. Argh! Oh we, I can't complain. I've managed to convert hundres of ships and vehicles from CFS2 and FS9 into FSX. (btw, if anyone can offer a tip on how to remove embedded coding that does add smoke etc, I'd sure appreciate advice).

Meanwhile, I'm still working on the Arizona to add, more lights, wake and smoke.

Bookman

 

[DaveB]

Hello Mate..

Re removing embedded fx..

If you don't know the name of the effect being used.. open the model up in MCX and check using attached object editor (you only want the name of the effect). Of course.. if you know the name of the effect, you don't need to do this.
What I do is to use a Hex editor like notepad++. I use this rather than notepad because it doesn't change the format (it's free too). Open notepad++.. find the mdl file of the subject you want to change and using the 'find' option.. type in the name of the effect you want to get rid of. Click on 'next' in case there are any more but with ship smoke and or bow wave.. there will probably only be one instance. It's handy to have a dummy fx file handy (one that doesn't do anything at all) before you do anything else. Having noted the name of the original and found it in notepad++.. edit the name of the original to read whatever you're using for your dummy fx. The number of characters must match the original exactly otherwise you'll kill the model. For example.. if the file is fx.navwhi your dummy must be 6 characters long (eg, fx.dummy1 - dummy1 being the important bit). Select 'Save' and there you go. It goes without saying that you MUST make a backup of the original mdl file first.
This is how I usually change rubbish navlights on aircraft without lights entries in the aircraft.cfg and I can't think of any reason it won't work for a ship model

ATB
DaveB

 

[gray eagle]

Setting up in AI Carriers

I haven't as yet managed to set this up properly in AI Carriers.cfg folder. It's a no show after I select from the AI Carrier menu

I know about the title part, it's what to put after the Unit= that I am trying to figure out.

Here is what I have and so far the title shows in the menu screen but after that, I do see the arizona nor the arizona fx - I haven't tried the Penn yet.

[formation.29]
title=USS_Arizona
unit.0=USS Arizona, 0, 0 <<<<< What should this be?

[formation.30]
title=USS_Arizona fx
unit.0=USS Arizona_fx, 0, 0 <<<<<< Same here.

 

[DaveB]

GE..

The ship title contains underscores which you've not added. The title can be anything but the unit number line must be correct. Arizona is USS_Arizona_BB-39 so your unit entry must show this. Here's the sim.cfg line I have:

[fltsim.0]
title=USS_Arizona_BB-39
model=
texture=

.. and heres my AICarriers entry..
[formation.xx] -- replace xx with next consecutive number
title=USS Arizona -- This line can read anything you want
unit.0=USS_Arizona_BB-39, 0, 0 -- this line has to have the same description as the fltsim.0 title entry eg (USS_Arizona_BB-39)

ATB
DaveB

 

[gray eagle]

GE..

The ship title contains underscores which you've not added. The title can be anything but the unit number line must be correct. Arizona is USS_Arizona_BB-39 so your unit entry must show this. Here's the sim.cfg line I have:

[fltsim.0]
title=USS_Arizona_BB-39
model=
texture=

.. and heres my AICarriers entry..
[formation.xx] -- replace xx with next consecutive number
title=USS Arizona -- This line can read anything you want
unit.0=USS_Arizona_BB-39, 0, 0 -- this line has to have the same description as the fltsim.0 title entry eg (USS_Arizona_BB-39)

ATB
DaveB

I sent you a Pm on your last zip file.

 

[gray eagle]

Okay, Thanks to your explanation, I was able to get the Arizona workable in AI Carriers. I would like the Penn folder files.

should there be smoke coming from the smoke stack - are is that not fixed yet?