Posts by aenbacka

Here you can see two examples, taken in opposite runway directions; having the sun coming in directly will display the panel correctly, but in opposite direction the panel instruments are black.

Quote from TomB

Have you tested this with different shadow settings?

Just by using different time of days and takeoff directions.

Quote from Tomfa

Fantastic job bravo!

Just a suggestion, wouldn't it be better to crop the GPS more upwards?, in my opinion I see it too low.

Thanks a lot!😀 Yes I think that should be possible to change. Now the gps is just static, but the placeholder position can be moved.

It seems like the textured areas are completely black when in shadow, when sun is shining on them they look correct. Could this be related to texture format?

Short video of the Carbon Cub cockpit interiors. We have had some texturing issues, some artifact lines visible on e.g., the seats (which are not present on the original textures). What could cause this?

Some progress with the cockpit panel, texturing is however still in progress.

Quote from inflight

Hello,

I use Aerofly FS simulator software to build hardware simulator which recreate full forces on stick in different phase of fly.

For now, I use FS2 version which provide the SDK which allow me to read data ex. airspeed.

I would try to do the same with FS4 but unfortunately it does not work. My dll library try to connect with FS4 when plane start fly (and probably data start send) the erros occurs.

I tryed to find any help and information on Aerofly official forum but nobody could solve my problem.

I would like to ask you for help and information how can I read flying data (like altitude, airspeed, ...) using external dll library (like in FS2).

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It seems some messages have changed in the new version, I also waiting for an updated version to port my current fs2 based plugin over.

Here is a short taxiing demo video

Quote from jayeye2011

Looked at the demo flight, were the ailerons, rudder, elevator 3D control surfaces actually hooked up to the tmd file? I did not see any movement of the control surfaces in the video. Could you make a short video where you taxi around and show all the deflection ranges for flaps, rudder, elevator, and ailerons?

There are still work to be done on those, but rudder is properly animating at least. Yes I can make a short video on the ground as well, and test the different movements. I hope to very soon test out the updated 3d model with some initial cockpit interiors.

Pretty cool landing with the Cub, need to consider that livery too😀

Quote from ApfelFlieger

And here are some small airfields in Brittany for the flyer:

Post

RE: Département Finistère / Bretagne / France - Released

During the alpha test of the new tool, I also created the airfields from this project. Because the result is also still alpha, I am not yet posting it on Flight-Sim.org -- but anyone interested can try it out -- have fun.

ApfelFlieger

March 6, 2023 at 3:55 PM

Nice work, thanks!😀 Will need to take the Cub and explore the area.

Quote from MDIvey

I created a small excel spread sheet that I feed in two points along the axis (3 D co-ordinates from my modelling program) and it gives me the axis and pivot required by the TMD. Your welcome to use it but you do so entirely at your own risk. I used it for the Buffalo and Spitfire and it seems to work ok. I'm working with AC3D and yes it does take a bit of getting used to how the co-ordinates are laid out in that and AFS4... I still get mixed up some times. What I'm calling Z in the calculator is the nose to tail axis, X is the Wing tip to wing tip axis and Y is height up and down. That is how things operate in AC3D. You can easily change the labels in column C if it helps. The TMD co-ordinates X Y Z correspond with my AC3D Z X Y. I'm tired and sorry if I've confused everybody but my aim was to be helpful

KR Matt

ExcelVectorCalculator.zip

Thank you very much, that looks like a very useful tool😀

A short demo video of the Carbon Cub inside Aerofly FS4, did a little flying around

Quote from jayeye2011

At some point the question about how do you determine/calculate the axis of rotation (as a unit vector) and pivot point position, that seems to be needed in the tmd file graphics animation object definitions will come up. Well I don't know the answer. It may well be that 3DS Max can give you this information directly but who can pay for a $5K/seat license except maybe IPACS and Just Flight, certainly not an amatuer hobbyiest. As far as I know, neither Blender or AC3D can give you this information directly either. An additional complication for AC3D users is that the coordinate system (X,Y,Z axis directions for up, front, left) are different from the Aerofly FS aircraft X,Y,Z coordinate system alignment which means a coordinate transformation calculation must be performed on point and vector data that is transferred between AC3D model and the Aerofly FS tmd file.

Yes the axis and pivots will be needed for the animations. Jet-Pack (IPACS) do have some rotation matrix calculation tool which possible could be used to aid this process.

Quote from Tomfa

Excellent if it is provided free of charge for the community, but it is just as valid if it should be paid for.

For me this is a great practise project for future efforts, this is a a great community and I am happy to be able to contribute something here😀

I now got the Blender exporter to work properly with the Cub model, there was some material slot that caused the error. Small progress once again.

Quote from jayeye2011

I would double check on what 3D CAD software you need in order to work on your group's Carbon Cub model. From what I can tell reading the threads, 3ds Max is what IPACS is or was using internally, but they can afford to pay the tens of thousands required for a multi-seat group license. Also, kai503 who seems to be the original source of your model said he is using 3DS Max as a commercial developer so it's not Maya. I believe both 3DS Max and Maya are all old time 3D CAD animation products from the 1990's that eventually got bought by Autodesk. As long as someone in your group is willing to let you use one of their licensed seats to work on the Carbon Cub project that's one thing, but if you have to pay $5K out of your own pocket then man, I would just create a new aircraft model from scratch using Blender.

Edit: Looking at the dr400.blender file from the AFFS4 Aircraft SDK, I don't see any blender animations defined, it is all done in the dr400.tmd file.

Well as it now seems clear that the animations are indeed defined in the tmd file, it will be no problem to do all the work in Blender, even though some stuff has been done in Maya (will just be imported into Blender together with the rest of the model which is already in Blender)😀

Quote from jayeye2011

What documentation are you referring to? If its this https://www.aerofly.com/dokuwiki/doku.…craft:modelling then as far as I know everything on the aerofly wiki is for Aerofly FS2 and it has not been updated for FS 4. Jet-Pack (IPACS) would have to answer the plugin question, maybe IPACS has up-to-date 3ds Max, Maya, AC3D plugins in house that they would provide on request (most likely not unless they use that CAD program for in-house product).

Yes that is the docs I am referring to. Best would of course be to use Blender, I use that one with msfs as well. But the animation system is a little unclear, should animations be done in the 3d app or not?

Quote from jayeye2011

aenbacka Just to clarify things, is the Carbon Cub project something that is intended to be released as a commercial payware product?

Nope, free it will of course be😀 But I investigate the best tools to use for any forthcoming projects😀

Quote from jayeye2011

You should check with Jet-Pack (IPACS) but my impression is that IPACS is only updating the Blender plugin going forwards, it's certainly the only one that they make available publicly on their developers website. Also maybe I am wrong, but I was looking into Aerofly FS's method of animating moving parts which I originally thought was done via their plugin in the 3D CAD program assuming it to be like hoow X-Plane's Blender plugin works. But it turns out that the X-Plane OBJ8 format which is generated by the it's plugin contains both the vertices data and the animation data. X-Plane's plugin does not use the native key frame animation system of Blender, it provides its one interface for this in the plugin. However, the Aerofly FS 4 blender plugin is just a straight vertices converter. My current understanding is that the aircraft tmd file is where you must manually write in the parts animation code that is tied to a specific graphic object is defined in the tgi file, so the 3D CAD program's native animation system is not used at all.

Some Examples from Kaniewski's Cub Special tmd file:

Code

            <[rotatingbodygraphics][Spinner][]
                <[uint32][PositionID][Fuselage.R]>
                <[uint32][OrientationID][Fuselage.Q]>
                <[string8][GeometryList][ Spinner ]>
                <[uint32][AngleID][Propeller.RotationAngle]>
                <[tmvector3d][Axis][ 1.0 0.0 0.0 ]>
                <[tmvector3d][Pivot][ 1.718 -0.0058 -0.3018 ]>
            >

            <[hingedbodygraphics][LeftElevator][]
                <[uint32][PositionID][HorizontalStabilizer.R]>
                <[uint32][OrientationID][HorizontalStabilizer.Q]>
                <[string8][GeometryList][ LeftElevator ]>
                <[uint32][InputID][Elevator.Output]>
                <[tmvector3d][Axis][ 0.0 -1.0 0.0 ]>
                <[tmvector3d][Pivot][ -4.4849 -1.5959 -0.0113 ]>
            >

            <[hingedbodygraphics][AirspeedIndicator][]
                <[uint32][PositionID][Fuselage.R]>
                <[uint32][OrientationID][Fuselage.Q]>
                <[string8][GeometryList][ AirspeedNeedle ]>
                <[tmvector3d][Axis][ 0.9947 0.0 -0.1028 ]>
                <[tmvector3d][Pivot][ 0.6099 0.1089 -0.1362 ]>
                <[string8][InputID][AirspeedIndicatorNeedle.Output]>
            >

            <[hingedbodygraphics][RPM][]
                <[uint32][PositionID][Fuselage.R]>
                <[uint32][OrientationID][Fuselage.Q]>
                <[string8][GeometryList][ RpmNeedle ]>
                <[string8][InputID][RotationSpeedNeedle.Output]>
                <[tmvector3d][Axis][ -0.9941 0.0 0.1083 ]>
                <[tmvector3d][Pivot][ 0.6127 0.2223 -0.1366 ]>
            >

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Have to admit I am not so familiar yet with the tmd animation handling. Does this mean that all objects should just be created statically in Blender, and all animation stuff is in the tmd?

All the documentation in the wiki refers to the 3ds max plugin, there is not mention about the Blender plugin.