• Official Post

    Yes, we plan on updating the wiki further. I'm a bit tied up working on the Florida Keys DLC at the moment but I plan on getting back to updating the wiki further soon.

    IPACS Development Team Member

    I'm just a cook, I don't own the restaurant.
    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, and the rest of the IPACS team, we would all like to thank you for your continued support.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • Hi Jeff,

    I'd appreciate it, too. I have also been working with the Aircraft TMD files for some time. There are already a lot of things in the wiki, but unfortunately not all required information is available. That's why often things only run via trial and error. This is very time consuming and sometimes a bit demotivating especially if it still doesn't work after the fifth attempt.

    A tool with which you can check the syntax (which also contains the latest syntax) of the files would certainly be a great thing and would help the community a lot. Often only a small detail is missing in the code and you search for a very long time during debugging.


    Nevertheless, thanks for your great work and the great product Aerofly Fs!

    Kind regards,

    Thomas

    • Official Post

    Hi Thomas,

    I plan to document the tmd a bit better in the future when I get the time for that. In the mean time, if you have any questions just open a thread in the forum and ask the question. I'm online at least twice a day on average and I'm happy to help and explain.

    We don't have a tool to check the syntax, when you just copy paste you won't have any issues with that anyway. The tm.log file also helps a lot with debugging, if the sim crashes that is the first place you should look.

    What I do have is a custom made editor but that thing is not ready for the public yet. I've been working on that for several years now (in my free time) and I've picked it up recently and got it working again. There are still a lot of things that are broken in that editor due to major refactoring. So that might come available at some point and should help out a lot.

  • From looking at the example aircraft in the SDK am I right to assume no animation is carried out in the 3D modelling program, its all done in the TMD file.

    If so, where do we get the pivots point information, is this from the 3D program or does the convertor do this for us

  • Ok so there is a TMD tool underway. If it comes in a foreseeable future, I'll just hit the brakes with my TMD editor efforts...

    Best Regards

    Balazs

    Ryzen 2700X, HyperX 32GB, 2060 Super 8GB, win10/ubuntu19

    Saitek X52 HOTAS, Logitech G920 pedals

    freetrack/opentrack
    X-Plane 11, DCS modules: A-10C, Ka-50, FC3, Mirage 2000C, F/A-18C, Persian Gulf

    • Official Post

    The axis and pivots are exported in the exporter "tm.log" file, where you can search for the object name and you will find the pivot and axes.

    You can also turn on a tgi.txt in the exporter settings file (located where the plugin is installed as far as I remember). the xxxx.tgi.txt file contains a 4 by 4 "matrix", the 4th, 3rd and 2nd last entries are x, y, z of the pivot. the 1st, 2nd, 3rd should be X0, 5th, 6th, 7th are Y0 and 9th, 10th, 12th entry are Z0 (hope I didn't miscount this...). Basically you have a 4x4 matrix, top 3x3 is the B0 rotation matrix with x0, y0 and z0, the top right 3x1 is the translation (often the pivot)...

    Using this file and my custom editor I can just click on a model and either copy the pivot from the tgi.txt file or I can also manually select to vertices to create an axis and pivot.

    Trust me, this is a lot of work for us, too. But at the moment the animations from the 3d modelling program are not exported and there might not even be a similar structure to achieve the animations among our different tools (3ds max, cinema 4d, ...) so there may never be an export for all of these tools.

    • Official Post

    Ok so there is a TMD tool underway. If it comes in a foreseeable future, I'll just hit the brakes with my TMD editor efforts...

    Don't forget that I'm currently writing this in my spare time and its written in C#, not C++ (which I find easier to do, since I can use buttons, toolbars, checkboxes, lists and so on from the .Net frameweork) and that a texteditor is still required to write the tmd file. The tool I have is just an addition, a tmd viewer if you will, with abilities that far exceed a text editor, like selecting parts of a 3D model, debugging, 2d representations of linear-interpolations/mappings etc. - but its not so much an stand alone tmd file editor and probably never will be.

  • I've been also doing this in my spare time, like the other tool-related things. I have around 2 hours in the game,

    I did not say it would be a text editor.:)

    My plan was/is the following:

    * C++ with wxwidgets, wxshapeframework made with code::blocks -> cross-platform, project template working

    * GUI with visual block editor (+text editor view), editable templates

    * Basic checks (unresolved references, broken signal flow, no inputs etc.)

    * long-term goal: 3D model viewer/marker, question is how to get full ac3d support.

    If you guys have what we could use (no support, use at own risk etc.), why not put on github?

    Cheers

    Balazs

    Best Regards

    Balazs

    Ryzen 2700X, HyperX 32GB, 2060 Super 8GB, win10/ubuntu19

    Saitek X52 HOTAS, Logitech G920 pedals

    freetrack/opentrack
    X-Plane 11, DCS modules: A-10C, Ka-50, FC3, Mirage 2000C, F/A-18C, Persian Gulf

    • Official Post

    Well, I've spend literally thousands of hours on that project, even implemented the 3D view and rendering engine using OpenGL and pretty much the basis for my own 3D modelling software (I could make this editor into a modelling software, pretty much everything is in there from clicking on a vertex, moving its position with the mouse, connection to graphic card, etc.). I've written code to import several 3D object file types, too, so I'm not just going to publish the code for all this for free.

  • I've interpreted your post about that tool not yet ready for public as something to be published at some point, possibly in the sdk. Then I'll just keep entertaining myself with my pet project.

    Best Regards

    Balazs

    Ryzen 2700X, HyperX 32GB, 2060 Super 8GB, win10/ubuntu19

    Saitek X52 HOTAS, Logitech G920 pedals

    freetrack/opentrack
    X-Plane 11, DCS modules: A-10C, Ka-50, FC3, Mirage 2000C, F/A-18C, Persian Gulf

    • Official Post

    I've interpreted your post about that tool not yet ready for public as something to be published at some point, possibly in the sdk. Then I'll just keep entertaining myself with my pet project.

    Yes, but not the source code, just the editor :)

    I do plan on finishing the tmedit tool though, its quite far in progress but some of the broken features need to be repaired yet.

  • Yes, but not the source code, just the editor :)

    I do plan on finishing the tmedit tool though, its quite far in progress but some of the broken features need to be repaired yet.

    I see. :) Sorry for the confusion, for me github is not necessarily code (e.g. opencv libs prebuilt for mingw is on a github repo).

    Best Regards

    Balazs

    Ryzen 2700X, HyperX 32GB, 2060 Super 8GB, win10/ubuntu19

    Saitek X52 HOTAS, Logitech G920 pedals

    freetrack/opentrack
    X-Plane 11, DCS modules: A-10C, Ka-50, FC3, Mirage 2000C, F/A-18C, Persian Gulf

  • So will this editor be free ://///either of them

    If IPACS want developers to publish aircraft they really need to support us. The modelling/texturing is fairly easy, my DH98 is progressing nicely, the rest is rocket science and will stop developers in their tracks

    Steve

    • Official Post

    So will this editor be free ://///either of them

    If IPACS want developers to publish aircraft they really need to support us. The modelling/texturing is fairly easy, my DH98 is progressing nicely, the rest is rocket science and will stop developers in their tracks

    Steve

    Not sure if the editor is for free, have not decided this. It would benefit the community, that is for sure.

    There are a few key elements in the tmd you need to understand, the rest is just a lot of content and not really difficult. So its just a lot and not difficult but when you just look at a tmd you probably don't know where to start.

    I was hoping the Carbon Cub project could become an example project that I can make into a tutorial of sorts. I really hope that Jay gets back on his feet :)

  • So will this editor be free ://///either of them

    Steve

    Whatever my editor project will be capable of, it will be free.

    Best Regards

    Balazs

    Ryzen 2700X, HyperX 32GB, 2060 Super 8GB, win10/ubuntu19

    Saitek X52 HOTAS, Logitech G920 pedals

    freetrack/opentrack
    X-Plane 11, DCS modules: A-10C, Ka-50, FC3, Mirage 2000C, F/A-18C, Persian Gulf

  • Not sure if the editor is for free, have not decided this. It would benefit the community, that is for sure.

    There are a few key elements in the tmd you need to understand, the rest is just a lot of content and not really difficult. So its just a lot and not difficult but when you just look at a tmd you probably don't know where to start.

    I was hoping the Carbon Cub project could become an example project that I can make into a tutorial of sorts. I really hope that Jay gets back on his feet :)

    oh yes, is Jay still in the forum ? Any hope to see him back to work on his fabulous CarbonCub project for AF2 :)?

  • So, back to the TMD file. I was playing around the other day, just trying to teach myself how things work. I decided as a learning experiment to modify the flaps on a plane to make them rotate further than standard (No particular reason why, I just wanted to pick 'something' and that's what I settled on). The TMD file seemed the logical place to do this. Was I on the right track?