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RAF Bruggen OPEN BETA

Post and discuss what YOU are working on. This is the place to preview and/or discuss your modern day military AI projects.
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TimC340
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Re: RAF Bruggen OPEN BETA

Post by TimC340 »

It's fine, Manschy. I've written a plan to just throw loads of stuff at the airfield. It's fun!
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Re: RAF Bruggen OPEN BETA

Post by Manschy »

Bora wrote: 30 Dec 2020, 17:15 I seem to have found a way to have the aircraft at the flightline always parked in the same direction with their nose towards the runway, also after arrival they taxi behind the flightline and then park with their nose towards the runway... It's like a "drive through" parking. Also the pushback is cut to a minimum !

Still doing a bit of testing but the first results look promissing !
Eric - sorry for ignoring your last post! The reason is I start writing my response to Tim and had a longer delay before sending. So I sent it without any further look back to the thread.

This sounds absolutely great! Did you try it by using the plumbing methode? I did it that way on my Harrier Hides where the Harrier did take very complicated paths - but at the Hides area there are very short paths, so that was done with an acceptable effort.

Looking very forward to your result - that could be a real icing on the cake in the scenery.
Regards, Manfred.
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Re: RAF Bruggen OPEN BETA

Post by Bora »

No problem Manfred !

Yes the plumbing method... It only required a small bit of plumbing and it works perfectly so far:

Image

Bit more testing to do with some other aircraft types and then I can send you the file...

By the way, I noticed some ground crew in your screenshot of the flightline, similar as you had with the Gutersloh scenery for FS9. Could it be that you forgot to include these with the Open Beta files ? :mrgreen:
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Re: RAF Bruggen OPEN BETA

Post by Manschy »

Hi Eric,

hmm - (think...think....think.... :idea: ) not really. All the ground crew being used at Gütersloh are self made 2D planes, but these at RAF Brüggen are from the 3D-people-library, a 3rd-party addon.

But you made a good discovery 8) : The people from the screenshot had not been part of the current BETA version and I did not tell you the download site inside the readme indeed.
Okay, so here is the download link for the 3D-people-library to get some ground crew at Brüggen:

https://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?D ... atID=fsxsd

Please do treat it like a normal scenery addon (paste it into the P3D scenery library) and it should work fine.

Eric, this flightline is superb. I would really appreciate this to include it into the Brüggen AFCAD. Thank you very much.
Regards, Manfred.
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Re: RAF Bruggen OPEN BETA

Post by Bora »

Okay... after a lot of testing the plumbing method for the flightline parking works just fine ! The aircraft parked at the flightline when starting up the Bruggen scenery are all nicely parked in a straight line. However some of the arriving aircraft were parking in an angle and not in a straight line, see these Buccaneers for instance:

Image

Being a perfectionist myself I could not bare with this so I tried to solve this issue. First by changing the AFCAD by adding nodes, making the taxi path just before the parking spot a bit longer, but it all didn't help. After some searching on the net I found that by making a small change in the aircraft.cfg of the particular aircraft you can make it possible for the aircraft to make sharper turns... It's not necessary for all aircraft, John Youngs Harrier and Jet Provost for instance have no problem at all with the sharp turns. John Youngs Buccaneer and especially the Phantom are not really good in making sharp turns while taxing in P3D, see this shot of the Phantom FGR2... The green line is the route it's supposed to follow but it can not make the sharp turn and does the red line instead which results in parking next to the parking spot in a disturbing angle:

Image

After making a change in the "Contact_points" section in the Aircraft.cfg the Buccaneer and Phantom FGR2 now park perfectly in a straight line:

Image

This is a screenshot of what I changed, this is the aircraft.cfg of the Buccaneer and I changed the 17.8 into 14.8. Decreasing the number further down brings the nosewheel of the ground which doesn't look good obviously. For the Phantom I had to change it a lot more, from 11.61 to 2.61 even, but the nosewheel stays on the ground so no visual disturbance here.

Image

I can not post any files here, so Manfred can I send you the AFCAD with flightline plumbing ?

Eric
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Re: RAF Bruggen OPEN BETA

Post by Manschy »

Looks outstanding, Eric! Great work so far.

But we have to reflect about something:

Only the user who will take RAF Brüggen for his home air base will use or alter AI traffic (thus changes inside the aircraft.cfg) to get live on the flightline. Like you, he try to make the scenery as perfect as possible.
For this users the plumbing methode and also the aircraft.cfg changes are the icing on the cake, the best possibility to get the traffic as real as possible.
You and me, maybe some few other excited people will watch the visitors come and go, will be delighted how they perform on the ground.
But most will notice some jets parking on the flightline and they are satisfied. I am not sure, if they will stay long enough on the air base to see some visitors arrive or parking on the flightline.
Not to mention the effort they will have to make changes inside the different aircraft.cfgs of the visiting aircraft to get this fantastic result.

So currently, we have several alternatives:
- Using the most simple methode, returning or visiting jets will park opposed to the other aircraft (I got managed that they are parking halfway the same line like the others...)
- Using your plumbing methode, no matter if the returned aircraft are not matching the correct place
- Using your plumbing methode, no matter if the returned aircraft are not matching the correct place AND adding a small tutorial how they can alter the aircraft.cfg file
- Adding two different AFCAD files, with plumbing without plumbing (this option I would not prefere because this will confuse more than it improves anything...)

How are you all are thinking about?
Regards, Manfred.
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Re: RAF Bruggen OPEN BETA

Post by Bora »

You got a good point there Manfred !

Although I believe changing the aircraft.cfg could also benefit other sceneries in P3D with sharp taxi turns but like you said it's probably only worth while for some specific users looking for perfectionism... And totally perfect it will never be unfortunately.

I will send you the AFCAD file in a PM so you can at least try it out and then it's up to you if you use it or not for the release of this fantastic scenery.
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Re: RAF Bruggen OPEN BETA

Post by Manschy »

A perfect taxi behaviour would be the refinement of RAF Brüggen. We should try it absolutely. Thanks for effort in advance.
Just another thought:
For my Harrier Hides I also used a plumbing method which works great to get the Harrier into the hides. A hard work because their turns several times need more than 90 degrees to place them exactly. And they have to pass the rods of the Hides with less than 50 centimetres.
For that, I made a little bigger radius that let the Harrier move a little away from the hides before they turn into them. Not sure if this may be a solution to also let jets with bigger steering lock move on their parking lots without an aircraft.cfg alteration.
...just a thought...
Regards, Manfred.
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Re: RAF Bruggen OPEN BETA

Post by TimC340 »

Manschy, are the trees round the base autogen? Sometimes they're there, and sometimes not! This may be a peculiarity of my P3Dv4 installation (which also seems to insist that all the airfields in Germany without a photoreal background use winter textures in July!), but I think yours is similar to mine, so I'd be interested to know if you've experienced it.
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Re: RAF Bruggen OPEN BETA

Post by Manschy »

Tim, I tried to adjust my seasons to the P3D default seasons (not quite real for Germany, but never mind...).
So I used ModelConverterX v1.5 to make my polys textures seasonal. My settings are as follows for you to compare (day of the year, start - end):
Spring 47 - 171
Summer 172 - 263
Fall 264 - 354
Winter 355 - 365
Heavy Win 1 - 15
Winter 2 16 - 46

It's extremely unreal to have a heavy winter straight from the 1st of January until 15th, but I have to adopt it.

What do you mean with "sometimes"? Does it mean they are not visible at some days? Or do you mean some of the trees are green also in heavy winter?
In that case, the green trees (firs, I think...) are P3D default trees which you can also recognize when you have ORBX LCEurope or GermanyNorth. Many white trees, but several green in between. That looks more real to me indeed. Therefore, I left several vegetations on Brüggen (high grass, scrubs) in a bright green colour to give it a more real appearance. No vegetation is only white winter...
But I will check again the seasons changes to make sure my changes are at the same time...

Oh, one important thing I noticed sometimes that maybe can be in accord to your detections:
When I load some saved flights again and again, sometimes some of my Brüggen objects won't load! This in most case is visible by the missing trees at first...
In most cases it happens when I load "previous flight" to check my work on buildings, textures or polys.
When I end the loaded flight and load some other saved one (or generate a new one...), everything is fine.
Is it this you did notice maybe?
I am not sure, if this is a bug of 4.5 or an issue of the scenery, but I have had no response so far regarding this...
Regards, Manfred.
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Re: RAF Bruggen OPEN BETA

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Hi Manfred, tried your suggestion by making the radius of the parking spots bigger... Actually made all the parking at the flightline double the size of the original size and used your original AFCAD so that the aircraft have a bit of a longer path... Buccaneer parks staight now (even without enlarging the radius) but the Phantom keeps behaving the same way, it can not make the turn sharp enough, taxis through the ground equipment and parks in an angle with ground equipment sticking through the wing:

Image

Image
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Re: RAF Bruggen OPEN BETA

Post by TimC340 »

The winter thing is odd, and is nothing to do with Bruggen (I think). On Germany airfields with the default background, the sim is using the winter (not hard winter) texture in July, but if I move the view to England, it's glorious summer! Here's Wildenrath showing the winter airfield background:

Image

But ignore that; as I say, it's nothing to do with Bruggen - it may be an Orbx problem.

The problem with the (autogen?) trees is this (which may also be an Orbx problem):

On initial view of Bruggen, I often get this:

Image

It doesn't change over time, so it's not slow loading of textures. I can then go away from Buggen and come back ten minutes later, and get this:

Image

Here's a couple more taken a fw minutes apart - the later pictures have the trees!

Image

Image

Image

Image

As I say, I think this may be an Orbx problem. I'm assuming you're using landclass to annotate the autogen. I'm playing with RAF Abingdon at the moment, using a similar technique to place wooded areas, and I've noticed that the tree density seems to be variable from one login to the next. But not as extreme as it seems to be on your scenery!
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Re: RAF Bruggen OPEN BETA

Post by Firebird »

Bora wrote: 04 Jan 2021, 17:18 Hi Manfred, tried your suggestion by making the radius of the parking spots bigger... Actually made all the parking at the flightline double the size of the original size and used your original AFCAD so that the aircraft have a bit of a longer path... Buccaneer parks staight now (even without enlarging the radius) but the Phantom keeps behaving the same way, it can not make the turn sharp enough, taxis through the ground equipment and parks in an angle with ground equipment sticking through the wing:

As a suggestion try increasing the width of the parking links. The smaller the width the tighter the turn. It may be that if you increase the width of the links a bit that it reduces the issue.
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Re: RAF Bruggen OPEN BETA

Post by Manschy »

Tim, that's getting me down!
Never seen that before, neither I got any other report of any other tester so far!
Could anybody else please try to reproduce this appearance?
Just one idea:
Are the bright green trees maybe dynamic 3D autogen enabled inside P3D?
I don't know anything about interaction of dynamic 3D autogen with custom made objects, maybe they do suppress some special autogen objects?
What if you disable them (after all disabling them increases the frames...) and have a look what happens please?
Last edited by Manschy on 04 Jan 2021, 18:55, edited 2 times in total.
Regards, Manfred.
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Re: RAF Bruggen OPEN BETA

Post by Manschy »

Firebird wrote: 04 Jan 2021, 18:37
Bora wrote: 04 Jan 2021, 17:18 Hi Manfred, tried your suggestion by making the radius of the parking spots bigger... Actually made all the parking at the flightline double the size of the original size and used your original AFCAD so that the aircraft have a bit of a longer path... Buccaneer parks staight now (even without enlarging the radius) but the Phantom keeps behaving the same way, it can not make the turn sharp enough, taxis through the ground equipment and parks in an angle with ground equipment sticking through the wing:

As a suggestion try increasing the width of the parking links. The smaller the width the tighter the turn. It may be that if you increase the width of the links a bit that it reduces the issue.
Ahh, Steve, that's a good idea. Eric, will you try this, will this be useful?

Otherwise, I told you how I did the small radius manage at the Harrier Hides. Here is a shot of my plumbing:

Image
Regards, Manfred.
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Re: RAF Bruggen OPEN BETA

Post by Manschy »

Eric - I just tried to use your AFCAD.
I have a lot of set landclass and airport backgrounds which do not appear in your AFCAD.
Furthermore, I did some minor changes meanwhile like other comms and some few more small exclusions.
Eric, is it possible to just copy your new plumbing part and paste it into my AFCAD? I tried to do it like the copy/paste option in ADE, but only the parking spots appear in my AFCAD.
I have no further idea how to copy the paths as well...
Regards, Manfred.
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Re: RAF Bruggen OPEN BETA

Post by TimC340 »

Manschy wrote: 04 Jan 2021, 18:49 Tim, that's getting me down!
Never seen that before, neither I got any other report of any other tester so far!
Could anybody else please try to reproduce this appearance?
Just one idea:
Are the bright green trees maybe dynamic 3D autogen enabled inside P3D?
I don't know anything about interaction of dynamic 3D autogen with custom made objects, maybe they do suppress some special autogen objects?
What if you disable them (after all disabling them increases the frames...) and have a look what happens please?
The bright green trees are Orbx autogen - in fact, I think they may be 'spring', not 'winter'. I'm not sure if I have Dynamic Autogen active; I'll check. I'll see if reducing the autogen density makes a difference too. Though with the random presence of your trees, it'll be difficult to know what's making a difference!
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Re: RAF Bruggen OPEN BETA

Post by Manschy »

I will also check the appearance of the trees when I reduce the settings of autogen density. As I said, it's really strange because I never have had a detection like that...
Regards, Manfred.
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Re: RAF Bruggen OPEN BETA

Post by Bora »

@ Steve, thanks for the suggestion ! I actually tried that already but tried again... Increasing or decreasing the width of the taxi link has no effect unfortunately... The wide taxi turns also appear during taxiing from the runway towards the parking area:

Image

Image

Image

Maybe because the aircraft was not originally made for usage in P3D ?

@ Manfred, tried increasing and decreasing the radius of the parking spots but this has no effect unfortunately. The Harrier has no problem with making these turns correctly. From the few AI jets that I have tested it is the Phantom FRG2 and Buccaneer that have the biggest problem with taxi turns, however the Tornado as well, all be it a lot less...
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Re: RAF Bruggen OPEN BETA

Post by Bora »

Manschy wrote: 04 Jan 2021, 19:05 Eric - I just tried to use your AFCAD.
I have a lot of set landclass and airport backgrounds which do not appear in your AFCAD.
Furthermore, I did some minor changes meanwhile like other comms and some few more small exclusions.
Eric, is it possible to just copy your new plumbing part and paste it into my AFCAD? I tried to do it like the copy/paste option in ADE, but only the parking spots appear in my AFCAD.
I have no further idea how to copy the paths as well...
Manfred, not sure if I did something wrong... After being away from FS9 for some years I had to find my way around again in P3D, ADE and AIFP. I had a fresh P3Dv4 install with only your ETUR scenery added sofar. What I did is use ADEv176 to "Open Airport from Bgl" to open your ETUR_ADEX_MSN_18122020.bgl file... Only made some changes in the taxipaths and parking spots at the fligthline and then selected "Compile Airport". That's all ! Did I miss something maybe ? :oops:

Eric
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