Military AI Works

Sophie Marketa wrote: ↑30 Aug 2018, 08:55 Hi Barry, thank you.
I am working on completing Australia's super RAAF Base YAMB for FSX SP2 and P3Dv4
Photo real ground by Laurie Nichols and high end scenery buildings by myself.
I started this with John Tenn and developed a heap of buildings in LODs for FS9 but it never got finished.
Sophie

Sophie, I have a YAMB by Lawrence installed and working in both FSX and P3Dv3. Would you like a copy ?

That would be nice Joe, thank you.

Joe, Lawrence Nichols has strongly hinted to me that he'd like to develop the updated version of YAMB by himself using his own models and textures, etc, so rather than double up, I've moved on to doing my long awaited scenery for my home town region instead which means I'm about to learn how to do photo-real ground. There are some great tutorials on how to get started in photo-real and now is a great time learn.
I've put it off for more than a decade so now is a good time to do it and make it P3Dv4 + compatible.

Henk, did you manage to add the GAI RAAF afterburner effect nozzles to Nick's original Super Hornet models ?
Sophie

Sophie, I did not, imho the NBAI model looks perfect as it is. Also the model is quite demanding in terms of drawcalls, adding animated nozzles would add a whole lot more: 1 drawcall per feather (!) which is bad for performance in FSX/P3D.

Henk.

No worries Henk. I just noticed my previous update to Nicks F model has 149 draw calls with the animated nozzles and a few extras attached. But then this model was for the RAAF version for which at that time only had 24 birds on order so wasn't a real issue in the sim.
Sophie

Happy to say, I found Nick's complete original source files today on an old USB drive.

I recently downloaded the F-18 Hornet family package for FSX but for whatever reason cannot see the aircraft in FSX. As there something I missed? Thank you

md11driver44, do you have the correct flight plans installed? They are not included in the conversion packs, they must be obtained elsewhere in the MAIW download section.
And if you have flight plans for the Hornets, are they in FSX format? It has been said thousands of times before everywhere in these forums, even a single flightplan in FS9 format in FSX will screw up your traffic, period. AI Flight Planner is the tool of choice to hunt down those FS9 flight plans in FSX and convert them to FSX format.

BTW: What about your traffic sliders? For starters, set them to 100% to make sure no traffic is suppressed. From there you can try to lower the setting and see what happens.

And a final check: Do you have scenery installed with parking spaces for the Hornets?

Hope this helps, Henk.

Tonight I installed my first F-18F's into my sim and after I converted the textures the canopy is a silver color in the sim. I converted both Ray Parker's RAAF F-18F's and Daryl Payne's RAAF F-18F's and they both have the silver canopy. What did I do wrong?? (I used imagetool to convert the textures)

Joseph29 wrote: ↑29 Jul 2019, 07:59 Tonight I installed my first F-18F's into my sim and after I converted the textures the canopy is a silver color in the sim. I converted both Ray Parker's RAAF F-18F's and Daryl Payne's RAAF F-18F's and they both have the silver canopy. What did I do wrong?? (I used imagetool to convert the textures)

I replaced a few of the RAAF F-18F's textures with some from the USN F-18F's from the converted package download and those canopies are fine. So I think it has something to do with Daryl Payne's and Ray Parker's original textures?

Joseph29 wrote: ↑29 Jul 2019, 08:22 I replaced a few of the RAAF F-18F's textures with some from the USN F-18F's from the converted package download and those canopies are fine. So I think it has something to do with Daryl Payne's and Ray Parker's original textures?

That is correct, the glass needs an alpha channel in the texture. If the texture does not have the alpha (or a blank white alpha), the glass will be opaque.

Henk.

hschuit wrote: ↑29 Jul 2019, 08:30

Joseph29 wrote: ↑29 Jul 2019, 08:22 I replaced a few of the RAAF F-18F's textures with some from the USN F-18F's from the converted package download and those canopies are fine. So I think it has something to do with Daryl Payne's and Ray Parker's original textures?

That is correct, the glass needs an alpha channel in the texture. If the texture does not have the alpha (or a blank white alpha), the glass will be opaque.

Henk.

Thanks. I guess I will have to delete them from my sim because I don't know how to do the alpha channel that you mentioned.

It is simple.
1. Load up a texture that is fine into DXTBmp.
2. Export the alpha to where ever you want.
3. Load up a texture that has the issue.
4. Import the saved Alpha channel to replace the existing one.
5. Save the amended texture into the correct format.
6. Test in game.

Once you know it works to the same process for all the other schemes that have the issue.

Firebird wrote: ↑29 Jul 2019, 09:00 It is simple.
1. Load up a texture that is fine into DXTBmp.
2. Export the alpha to where ever you want.
3. Load up a texture that has the issue.
4. Import the saved Alpha channel to replace the existing one.
5. Save the amended texture into the correct format.
6. Test in game.

Once you know it works to the same process for all the other schemes that have the issue.

Thank you. I will give it a try.