Posts by GACSavannah

    Jay, a few things I've been thinking about... First, I forgot to answer your question...I always create a new folder in the Liveries area for each repaint that I do. So just as you now have the California_One folder, I would create a folder in the Liveries section, and place all of your layers for your repaint within that folder. Second, could you show us what the .bmp file for the engines looks like before you compile the project? That might provide some clues as to what is driving the issue.

    Jay,

    It is possible that you may have inadvertently duplicated the California_One layer at a higher priority position. If you have, then you would still see the livery even with the standard California_One deactivated. My next step if I were in your position would be to systematically check every layer with a higher priority to be sure that you don't have one hiding..

    When you export the 24 bit .bmp prior to compiling the model, is the California_One livery showing on the exported .bmp?

    I have been working on a few Q400 repaints, and all of them so far have been having the same issues, so I'm reaching out to the community for some suggestions. First, although the engine nacelles, tail, and landing gear seem crisp and clear, all of the fuselages are being generated with jaggy low quality textures, as shown here. I have tried numerous saved source files, and even tried using the basic white fuselage texture that comes pre generated in the paint kit, and all come out the same. I have updated the model.tmc to look for 4096 textures ( <[int32][MaxTextureSize][4096]> ) but it hasn't helped at all. The ext01_fuselage_color.bmp file is saved as a 4096X4096 24 Bit bitmap. The quality reminds me of something with either Antialiasing issues or perhaps mipmaps are being applied. You can see the fuzzy details in the Frontier wordmark, and it is also very evident on the door instruction arrows and fleet numbers on the nose gear doors. Note how clear the tail and engines look however, in comparison.


    The second issue is that the rudder sections are misaligned to one another. The impression that I get is that the texture sections are mapped to the entire rudder sections, including the leading edge portions that are normally hidden, with the part of the texture file that should only be applied to the visible portions of the rudder, which results in the individual sections getting stretched and thus misaligned. This is less evident on the image above , only because there are no straight lines, however on the image below the misalignments are clearly visible.

    Finally, and again I am having the same issue on each attempt that I have tried, is that the preview images have a solid prop disk. The props in the sim look perfectly fine, either static or running, but the previews show an ugly solid disk, as shown below.

    Any help that anyone can offer on solving either of these issues is greatly appreciated!!

    Kerry

    > This technique might work with the Aerofly Dash8 but that's definitely not the way to land this plane IRL.

    IRL (and in the sim) you flare the Q400 like all other conventional aircraft.


    Typically you are correct, however I was presuming based on the initial post that the user was having difficulty landing the Q400. Typically, this is a result of high sink rates from an unstabilized approach, especially in this aircraft (IRL and Aerofly). When experiencing high sink low in the approach, there is little additional pitch available to stop the descent, and adding power as needed, sometimes a lot of power, is really your only recourse, other than a go around.

    Once they learn to get out of those high sink scenarios, they will learn to be able to complete the landings normally, and ultimately learn to keep the approach stable to begin with without having the 'behind the power curve' sink at the end.

    Actually, the proper method for the Q400 is to NOT flare at all, but at the point where the flair would normally be initiated, add about 30% more power than you are currently using, then at touchdown, bring power back to idle before applying reverse blade angle. The extra power wll flatten out the descent, and then just hold what you have until she gently slips to the runway.

    > Actually any new repaints by GACSavannah will be outstanding additions.

    Thank you, Ray. You are much too kind. I am trying my first Q400 at the moment, struggling with a few issues, but am confident that it will all work out. I have some 737 ideas in mind as well once I have the Q400 ironed out.

    I know that on my system, I have a standard 'monitor' on my desk, and an associated flat screen HD TV on my wall also assigned as monitor No. 2. If I drag the window from the true 'monitor' over to the flat screen, or the other way around, either way I get booted out. I am presuming it is due to the differing resolution settings for the two displays. All other programs I can drag back and forth just fine.

    I second the request to be able to use stitched image as the source, but for a different reason than fixing the washout from Bing or Google. I'm thinking it would be great to be able to take the stitched image where two contrasting images exist in the Bing or Google database, and manually blend the contrast to make it less conspicuous. I came across one set of images over Hilton Head Island for instance that clearly have images from two different capture times side by side, with differing lighting and obvious color balance differences. If we could manipulate the stitched image and rerun the application it would help in fixing these type areas. I tried to post an image to illustrate but FLICKR has messed up their service so HORRIBLY that I need to find a new image hosting site. UGH!....

    To everyone offering help...THANK YOU!! All help is greatly appreciated.

    I think I am making progress, because even though I am still failing miserably, the failure is different now. I believe it actually tried to work, but failed during the process, which I believe is a step in the right direction. After removing and reinstalling the converter tool again ( 4th or 5th time) I received the following error. Note that it is a long error message....

    Start Paste ////////////////////////

    0.29:
    0.29: using output folder 'C:/Users/Gipe Family/Documents//Aerofly FS 2/'
    0.30:
    0.30: ====================================================================================
    0.30: converting folder = 'C:/Aerofly FS 2 Content Converter/sav_signature_tgi/'
    0.33: converting geometry file 'C:/Aerofly FS 2 Content Converter/sav_signature_tgi/SAV_Signature.tgi'
    0.33: (type = 'object')
    0.34: ERROR: (unable to load geometry 'C:/Aerofly FS 2 Content Converter/sav_signature_tgi/tower00_medium_blue_ds_05_08_08_virtual_0_obj.tgb' that is given in tsc file 'C:/Aerofly FS 2 Content Converter/sav_signature_tgi//KSAV.tsc')
    0.34: ERROR: (cannot convert geometry file 'C:/Aerofly FS 2 Content Converter/sav_signature_tgi/SAV_Signature.tgi')
    0.35:
    0.35: // ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    0.36: // SUMMARY
    0.36: // ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    0.36: input folder 0 = 'C:/Aerofly FS 2 Content Converter/sav_signature_tgi/'
    0.37: output folder 0 = 'C:/Users/Gipe Family/Documents//Aerofly FS 2/scenery/places/US/KSAV'
    0.37: file types = 'tsc' 'tgi' 'jpg' 'bmp' 'tif' 'png'
    0.41: 0 files copied
    0.41: 0 textures copied
    0.42: 0 sounds converted
    0.42: 0 geometries converted
    0.43: 2 errors

    END PASTE ///////////////////////////////////////////////

    Note that the paths are different than previous attempts. This is simply because I have installed it to a slightly different location this time.

    So, it looks like it tried to run, but failed. I am thinking , and would love input if I am on the right track or not, that the first failure is the result of trying to add a single component to an existing fscloudport airport, when I do not have the source files present for the items that are already included with the airport. I have been trying to add my addition (the signature FBO that I scratch built) to the existing airport, and in doing so I have simply added an entry to the end of the existing object listing in the .tsc file that was included with the fscloudport download. I added the following entry after the existing final element [47] entry:

    <[tmsimulator_scenery_object][element][48]
    <[string8][type][object]>
    <[string8][geometry][SAV_Signature]>
    <[tmvector3d][position][-81.195905 32.122034 0]>

    Being that the existing items included with the downloaded airport are still listed in the .tsc, I am guessing that the program is attempting to process them, however without the source .ac3 files in the folder it is failing.

    I suspect that the second failure, the failure to load my item SAV_Signature.ac, is a result of having the previous failure already in place.

    Does this seem reasonable and if so what is the proper method of adding additional content to an existing airport that you do not have the source files for?