Posts by jayeye2011

What about the 'Blade' parameter in the DR400?

Quote from Jet-Pack (IPACS)

Added collisionhull parameters NoCrash - contact of the collisionhull does nothing
Added collisionhull parameters InstantCrash - contact immediatly stops simulation and shows options to reset aircraft
Removed collisionhull parameter CrashOnContact

Does that mean that any aircraft that has a tmd file that uses CrashOnContact will cause a CTD?

If I want to prevent this in a non IPACS model (like Mr Kaniewski's) do I do something like this:

replace

<[bool][CrashOnContact][false]>

with

<[bool][NoCrash ][true]>

Also could you explain more about the deprecated 'Blade' parameter? What is it replaced by? (it is used in the SDK DR400 tmd file)

Approximately how long is the beta period expected to last?

Quote from Jet-Pack (IPACS)

We're constantly working on new features in the background and already have announced the development of a 737 Max and showcased some early development on pushback.

More airline planes? Wrong direction. I would much more prefer a small general aviation aircraft focused DLC multiple aircraft pack even if it costs $40 and more regional HD scenery DLC. Australia and New Zealand (with appropriate elevation mesh, cultivation, and airports) would be great since finishing the USA seems to have no support at IPACS HQ.

Quote from Overloaded

I am quite sick of dessert desert dry bake colour.

The USA southwest is desert and mostly covered by the existing USA HD DLC. It's the rest of the USA that is not desert that is not covered by IPACS USA HD DLC.

Quote from IZ0JUB

As the USA is a gigantic area for any one to make in photo scenery would you be so kind to indicate on a map which areas you are interested in developing, thank you in advance.

Eh, I think you are misunderstanding my comment. It's not that I want to claim some region that I want to develop scenery for, just wanted to know if IPACS is considering finishing the USA which I gather they are not. I admire the work of volunteers like you who are putting together better orthophoto scenery tiles. However, I remember AFS2 where there was HD scenery tiles for USA Washington and Oregon states but no cultivation. In AFS4 the rest of the world outside of the HD DLC areas, besides having extremely low res tiles have no cultivation, so even if someone like you makes good orthophoto textures from Bing or Google maps, there are no buildings or airports. I think that even if IPACS cannot get licensed access to satellite/aerial photos, it would have been nice to at least have the cultivation available for non DLC regions so that volunteers like you could combine it with your orthophoto work.

Yeah, I am pretty bad at proper grammar and syntax even though English (USA) is my native language. I am writing as if I were speaking contemporaneously which is also why I am not much of a conversationalist either . I gather that nobody really cares much about USA scenery one way or the other.

I am wondering if IPACS is even considering completings it's USA HD Scenery DLC. Right now it only covers parts of the western states, some northeastern seaboard areas, and the southeast tip of Florida. All of this was pretty much a carry over from AFS2 with the only difference being cultivation added for 2 western states (WA and OR) and transfer from paid dlc to free dlc. AFS4 offered up all of Western Europe as free DLC where before in AFS2 it was just Netherlands and France and Switzerland as paid DLC. I sorta understand that since IPACS, unlike Microsoft and Laminar Research is based in Germany and it makes sense to show some priority preference to its European customers. However the population of Western Europe is estimated to be 197 million (https://www.worldometers.info/world-populati…urope-subregion ) vs 336 million in the USA (https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/us-population ). So even discounting the idea that there are a higher percentage aviation enthusiasts in USA than Western Europe, just looking at potential game purchasers as a fixed and equal percentage of population it seems to me that there would be a lot of good for IPACS (game sales) that would come out of prioritizing finishing the whole USA scenery coverage. While it would be nice if this could be done as an update to the existing free USA DLC, even a separate payware USA Part 2 & 3 (to maintain the 80GB storage requirement per DLC) DLCs would be acceptable as long as it completed the USA scenery coverage in total.

If anyone else agrees with me do a thumbs up to let IPACS know where you stand (or a thumbs down if you hate the idea)

About all that IZ0JUB aerofly fs 4 scenery posted at flight-sim.org, does any of it come with buildings and trees and airports or is it just orthophoto tiles without any cultivation?

General question on static aircraft from someone who knows nothing about airport creation, are there static F/A 18 aircraft models provided by IPACS that could be used for US Navy airfields like KNID China Lake, CA? Asking because my understanding is that the F/A18 is copywrite protected somehow?

Apparently Blender can use many different types of maps, who knew? What each does, your guess is better than mine. Does AFS4 use them, again your guess is better than mine.

How do you generate them? Find a youtube video (a lot are done with gimp or similar programs)

Just a wild guess, is there a normal map defined for the instrument panel and glass surface of instruments?

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?

Another great alternative for anyone thinking about creating their first aircraft model for Aerofly FS 4 would be the CMF Shadow. I would recommend the wide body Shadow DD rather than the Star Streak since the DD is considered an ultralite rather than an LSA, as it has a bigger wing and flies a bit slower and so is more ideal for low and slow sightseeing. The really great thing is that pretty much everything you need data wise is available at one web site. This includes specs, flight test, pilot manual, service manual reports, UK CAA Type Approval certificates, and dimensions. The only thing I did not see was an official Shadow D-D specific 3 view line drawing.

SHADOW + STREAK

Online Library of Technical documents, Factory Manuals + other Information for the record-breaking CFM Shadow and Streak microlight aircraft series

cfmshadow.weebly.com

Also CFM creator David Cook's web site

David Cook Aviator

Here is an interesting video and tool for creating accurate airfoils in blender. Not sure how well it would work for simulator model development as I have not tried it myself.

EDIT: I don't think this is useable after all. While I can create an airfoil object in Blender 3.3 LTS, when use it as a replacement for the Box object in template.tgi and run the converter, the airfoil does not show up and the preview_template.tif is just a black picture.

EDIT2: Okay, it actually works. I just goofed up being a total newbie to 3D stuff. What I did not understand was the idea that a complex shape needs to be manually unwrapped for the UV texture mapping. I found a video on Youtube about Blender UV unwrapping to be very informative. Note that I did figure out that the outside pointing normals for the airfoil object that I created from the AirfoilToolsBeta plugin's flat face object had to be generated.

AirfoilToolsBeta plugin (description says Blender 2.93 so not sure if it would work with new versions).

github

GitHub - Fritkot99/AirfoilToolsBeta: Blender addon to import and generate airfoils

Blender addon to import and generate airfoils. Contribute to Fritkot99/AirfoilToolsBeta development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

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.

Another old fs2 thread link with some info which may or may not be current for FS4

Post

RE: Aircraft TMD Self Help Group

This file is quick look through the Starfighter and TMD again threads, 99.9% is attributable to Master Obi Jan Kanobi

Steve

larrylynx

July 17, 2019 at 3:19 PM

For anyone who is thinking about making an aircraft model for Aerofly FS 4 for the first time and finds the SDK DR400 to be too big a first step, I adapted the Aerofly FS 2 SDK 3DS Max blue box template for Aerofly FS 4, this time with a AC3D version 9 and Blender 3.3 LTS version instead of 3DS Max (if you have 3DS Max than you are a professional and already know what you are doing). This should let you experiment trying to get a basic shape into the simulation.

revised (includes config.tmc needed by converter I guess)

template_fs4_v2.zip

For AC3D v9 I used the x64 plugin from here:

plugin_ac3d_9_x64_20220718.zip

Post

RE: Aerofly FS 4 SDK - Now Available

Matt, again, the old FS 2 AC3D plugins just work fine and we have supported 64 Bit AC3D for a long time. Again, we will publish the plugins again soon. Attached is a version for AC3D Version 9 for you to try, in case you want to use the latest AC3D version.

admin

July 18, 2022 at 4:43 PM

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.

Here is an informative (but necro'd) forum thread from way back when people were hoping for commercial devs jumping into Aerofly FS2 aircraft addon market, in this case FlyingIron Simulations (a X-Plane 11 payware dev) trying to find out more about Aerofly FS2 aircraft development.

Thread

Aircraft Development

Hi all!

I've recently purchased Aerofly and have fallen in love with it. The VR is top-notch.

I'm an aircraft developer for another Flight Sim and I am doing some RnD to assess the viability of porting my aircraft over to AFS. If it's something that is achievable (within a reasonable amount of time), I will seriously consider porting all my future aircraft over as well.

I'm wondering if anyone has any tips with bringing an aircraft into AFS? It'd be great to get both the developers perspectives,…

Donny

January 26, 2019 at 1:00 AM

From my reading of his travails, I am pretty sure all animations are defined in the tmd file, not the cad program.

The only place I saw someone mention using 3ds Max for animations was in a thread about having animated people in an airport scenery for Aerofly FS 2.

Further confirmation read this thread

Post

RE: Using AC3D to make Aircraft for AF2

Jeff, may I correct you a bit?

The animations aren't done in Max (or any other modelling program). They are all done within the TMD file. Yes, it's tricky and much more complex, compared to FSX/P3D. At the other hand, you have much more possibilities and basically all the freedom you want.

Kai

kai503

January 12, 2019 at 8:27 PM