• Hi Guys

    Just a few shots to let you all know I am still working on the starfighter. Not got around to specular and bump mapping yet so forgive some of the shine and weird colors. Need to get all the modelling out of the way then I can concentrate on better texturing. Glass is proving to be a problem.

    Cockpit is starting to fill up, all switches and gauges from the F104G Fighter bomber, German version are modelled but still lots of work required, strange to sit in a model I have built in VR. Plan to add a Garmin type map in the centre console to replace the Radar of the real aircraft. How all that works is beyond me at the moment but we'll get there.

    At least it's in the sim and flies, not too well but it flies, roll rate is very FAST (thanks to Jan for his efforts)

    Had I known how much effort goes into one of these aircraft I would have taken up golf. <X

    Steve

  • Very nice! Hang in there!

    Devons rig

    Intel Core i5-13600K - Core i5 13th Gen 14-Core (6P+8E) @ 5.5Ghz / G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB Series 32GB RAM DDR5 6000 / GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070Ti GAMING OC 12G / Sound Blaster Z / Oculus Quest 2 VR Headset / Klipsch® Promedia 2.1 Computer Speakers / ASUS ROG SWIFT PG279Q ‑ 27" IPS LED Monitor ‑ QHD / 6x Samsung SSD/NVME's various sizes / Windows 11 Pro 64-bit / GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS ELITE AX LGA 1700 ATX Motherboard DDR5

  • Hi Steve,

    we have a standard model which you can select in the tmc file. But we have a pilot figure that we place in each aircraft to generate the bone positions, which you could do by hand but I highly advice against doing that :D Since I've never done a pilot posture yet, I'm really not sure how you could create one with the sdk tools,, I'll ask tomorrow if I don't forget :)

  • Hi Jan

    Thanks for the reply, perhaps a biped figure of some sort. I plan to add a headless figure in the VR view as I hate sitting in a cockpit and seeing the seat but no legs etc.

    How can I adjust the flaps in the TMD file. The Starfighter flaps are 15 for take off and 45 degrees for landing, ours look to be 60 degrees.. I have experimented with the Map figures in the TMD but nothing seems to adjust things. Need to be 0.2617 radians and 0.785 radians

    Thanks again

    Steve

  • Hi Jan

    Thanks for the reply, perhaps a biped figure of some sort. I plan to add a headless figure in the VR view as I hate sitting in a cockpit and seeing the seat but no legs etc.

    How can I adjust the flaps in the TMD file. The Starfighter flaps are 15 for take off and 45 degrees for landing, ours look to be 60 degrees.. I have experimented with the Map figures in the TMD but nothing seems to adjust things. Need to be 0.2617 radians and 0.785 radians

    Thanks again

    Steve

    This has to be set in several places, tmc, _takeoff.tmd, _landing.tmd

    but the only place that directly affects the physics behavior at one time is the DynamicObjects section in the tmd.

    Here I've rewired the flaps for the correct positions (have not tested it in the sim)

    - flaps mapping now has the flap positions for positions: takeoff (currently position one of two = 0.5) and landing (full = 1.0)

    - flap actuators now have P1 = 1.0 to have a 1:1 correlation of input to output (since input is already correct angle)


    But... if 0.785 is the correct angle my guess of 0.8 wasn't actually that bad!

  • Steve, looking at your beautiful Starfighter brings me really some childhood memories back. In those days (beginning of the 80s) the Luftwaffe was really active and their minumum altitude was just 50 m (1500 ft) AGL. Their flightpath was going pretty often directly over our house. And they were really loud and really low. At the beginning I was running every time to my mother, later I was waiting for them ^^

    The pilot figure and the biped would also interest me. When I look at the standard biped in Max and compare it with the tmd of the DR400, then the names look pretty similar. But at the other hand; for example 3 bones for one eyebrow... That can get interesting..

    Cheers,

    Kai

  • Hi Jan

    Thanks for the flap settings will try these tomorrow.

    Looking at the oil pressure mapping for the mb339 I see the following

    (0.0 0.0) (700000.0 5.0891) (1400000 10.178)

    I assume the latter figure in each of the group is bar's but could you explain the rather large numbers, only thing I could think of was these are the pressure's at a given RPM but 1400000 is very high for a turbine

    Is there a list of what units FS2 uses

    Thanks, Steve

    Hi Kai

    A biped figure would certainly help but I am a long way off from that, still making all the endless parts for the cockpit and trying to animate the gauges. Will keep in touch

    Steve

  • (0.0 0.0) (700000.0 5.0891) (1400000 10.178)

    That would be the mapping of the pressure gauge. For 1400000 pascals the angle is 10.178 rad or 583.15 degrees.

    This is the maximum reading on the gauge, so yes that is a high pressure :)

    These mappings work as linear interpolations, first figure is a tick on the input scale, second number is the output value for that input.

    So for an input of 0.0 output is also 0.0, for input 700000.0 output is 5.0891 and so on.

  • Hi Jan

    Thanks for the explanation, I always thought pascals were what you sucked when you have a sore throat :D

    Tried you flaps amendment. Results were the same as mine, no visual change.

    I have managed to get a better visual by changing the last mapping value to .5 from .7

    Does this impact on the flight characteristics or is it a visual thing. If so we need another way to change the visual as .7 looks like the flaps would act like very big air brakes with some crazy angle of 75 degrees or more, similar to a Harrier.. If I ever want to install the wing fuel tanks, (so Ray can transit the Atlantic without in-flight entertainment), they would cut through this tank

    Thanks again, Steve

  • HI Jan

    Yet more TMD questions whilst taking a break from vertices pushing

    I managed to get the Vario to work so pushed on with a simple gauge, or so I thought. Have I mentioned I hate programming and the TMD file X(

    This is the entry you placed in the TMD file for me.

    <[output][EngineFuelFlow][]

    <[string8][Input][Engine.OutputFuelFlow]>

    >

    I added this entry in the GraphicObjects section after the vario entry but the needle remains much like me, fat-dumb-happy and refuses to move

    // Fuel Flow

    <[graphics_input][FuelFlowInput][]

    <[uint32][InputID][FuelFlow.Output]>

    >

    <[graphics_mapping][FuelFlowMapping][]

    <[string8][Input][FuelFlowInput.Output]>

    <[tmvector2d][Map][(0.0 0.0) (45.3 4.188) (90.71 5.759) ]>

    >

    <[hingedbodygraphics][FuelFlowNeedle][]

    <[uint32][PositionID][Fuselage.R]>

    <[uint32][OrientationID][Fuselage.Q]>

    <[string8][GeometryList][ FuelFlowNeedle ]>

    <[uint32][InputAngle][FuelFlowMapping.Output]>

    <[tmvector3d][Axis][ -0.9659 0.00000 0.2588 ]>

    <[tmvector3d][Pivot][ 6.0680 -0.2487 0.3323 ]>

    <[float64][AngleMax][1.00]>

    // <[string8][InputIllumination1][InstrumentLighting.Output]>

    // <[string8][InputIllumination0][PanelLighting00.Output]>

    >

    The flow is 45.3 kg/min at 4.188 radians and 90.71 at 5.759 ( fill afterburner I assume)

    I can follow what should happen but no idea where it all breaks down

    Steve

  • Does this impact on the flight characteristics or is it a visual thing.

    It does, yes. We believe that the physical deflection should equal the optical deflection, everything else would be unrealistic. If you want less lift at the same deflection, there is a parameter for that. If you want more drag at the same deflection, there, again, is already a parameter for that.

    If you want to change just the visual angle you can do so with the AngleMax parameter. But if you look at your flaps from the side and actually measure the flap angle with like a triangle you should see a proper 45 degree angle. It might look too much but 45 degrees is a lot compared to other aircraft!

    <[uint32][InputID][FuelFlow.Output]> needs to be changed to EngineFuelFlow.Output since the name of the output is not "FuelFlow", its "EngineFuelFlow". You could of course also rename the output object to just "FuelFlow".

    To make your life easier you can also rename that "FuelFlowInput" object in the graphics section to just "FuelFlow" (but also rename all occurances in the graphics section like FuelFlowInput.Output)

  • Hi Jan

    Once again thanks for the help

    I now have working RadAlt, Oil pressure, EGT, FuelFlow (sort of as it jumps from 50% to 100%), N1, Nozzle position and VSI. Just fuel and hydraulics and that's the simple stuff done.

    It's very frustrating, time consuming and dis-heartening not knowing what units the gauges work in and how little information there is available, for instance, fuel flow seems to be a percentage going from 0 to 1. I would have thought this would have been in kgs/hour or Kgs/min. Is this why the sim fails to record fuel used as it doesn't know what units to use. There was very little wrong with the code but even after inputting your correction it still failed to work until I saw it just move at full power, after much time and effort I finally realised it was a percentage. Lots of time wasted

    I would also like to access N2 rather than N1 as N1 seems to give strange values but the sim fails to find N2. The idle speed is currently 10% when it should be 65%, don't see any way to adjust this. Engines in fast jets don't have N1 or N2, that's the domain of bypass and free turbine engines, they just have %RPM

    Steve

  • All units are SI units, which is a good thing, because you don't need to remember "ah fuel was in this or that uni". No, all is SI:

    Fuel Flow is kg/s, 0.01 means 0.01kg/s or 0.6kg/min or 36kg/h (just converting seconds to hours here)

    n1 is fraction from 0.0 to 1.0, multiply that by 100% and you get your typical n1 readouts in percent... 0.7 would be 70%

    Fuel used is not a physical property of the aircraft, that is why there is no fuel used per default. If you look into the a320.tmd you will find an integral that sums up the fuel flow over time to give you the fuel used. With the fuel flow being in kg/s and the time being in seconds this gives you fuel used in kg (which we can only do because of the SI units! otherwise we would spend all computing power on unit conversions)

    Vertical speed would be in m/s,

    Altitude in meter,

    Speed in m/s,

    Ground speed in m/s,

    Rotation speeds in rad/s

    Rotation angle in rad,

    Mass in kg,

    Fuel in fuel_tank in kg,

    All lengths in m,

    Area in meter squared,

    Pressures in Pascals,

    Time in seconds,

    Power in Watts,

    Thrust in Newtons,

    Voltage in Volts,

    Amperage in Amps,

    Resistance in Ohms,

    Heading in rad measured from E going counter clockwise (mathematically positive direction),

    Use <[float64][IdleFraction][0.01]> to change the idle percentage, e.g. <[float64][IdleFraction][0.65]>

    But then it may start rolling =O

    Our engine model may not be flexible enough for that but we plan to change the engine model once we tackle engine start.

  • Hi Jan

    Once again your help is much appreciated.

    KG/sec was the only one I didn't try.....;(

    Until the sim fully supports engine performance as we don't start from z eroI have decided to cheat with fuel flow and N1, I simply moved the needle to the idle position and recalculated the smaller steps in Radians. Still have jump in fuel flow when the afterburner kicks in and the nozzle needle position seems to lag behind. Changing the idle factor to 0.65, which I had already tried causes the aircraft to move without power as the brakes cannot hold it and the N1 remains at 10% anyway. More for a rainy day.

    The MB339 does use N2 but I couldn't get this to work, is this an older system.

    Steve

    PS must remember to use the 4.014257 Radians approach next time I use the ILS into EGCC, I believe that 230 degrees in old money;)

  • Hi Jan

    Would there be any chance we could have a mini tutorial on how to do a HUD, materials and modelling mainly, TMD entries not required yet. This is a big drawback of TTX files and no backwards converter, we don't have a clue what you guys have done.

    Also when I run the aircraft converter it refuses to convert a color map even though it is used. It will convert the spec, bump etc just not the color. Report.txt says the texture hud_color.bmp is not used. When running FS2 there are no errors and it runs ok just doesn't show the object with the material, namely the hud glass.

    Glass does seem to be a problem to me in general. It can be seen from the outside so I know its there but the preview doesn't show any. Have applied a shader as instructed in the wiki.

    Thanks Steve