An Introduction With A Question

[Desert Drydock]

Hello All... It's been a few years since I've worked worked in FSDS but life has smoothed out (a little) so I'm back at it. I'm addicted to LOD modeling using a "Shell" system that allows the next higher level of detail model to be pre loaded within the lower detail shell so you don't get a blurp of the non textured model within the transition. Military aircraft, ships and scenery are my passion within CAD modeling. I'm a life long modeler at age 49. I moved from plastic and wood in the 60's, 70's and 80's to resin and photo etching in the early 90's, then to CAD in the late 90's. Shortly after I moved into CAD I started flight simming back in the Windows 98 days. I found that the two went hand in hand and began learning how to put my models into FS2K. By 2009 I had a large archive of models with many converted to FSDS files but the bad news is... I had a sort of major PC crash, it shouldn't have been a big deal except that shortly before the crash my external backup drive stopped working. I wasn't all that concerned because I had two backup drives in my system, but... When I took it to a PC repair guy he somehow managed to make my backup drive with all of my FSDS files stop reading... Needless to say I was crushed! So I took the drive to a big name PC repair shop who did manage to get the drive to work but it was blank. I tossed it to the wind for a couple years but couldn't stand it after a while so I recently built a new PC with backups for the backups and I'm starting over. It's been years since I configured FSDS and I'm having a few problems. My Airport Design Editor complies BGL files just fine but FSDS doesn't do a thing when I hit the save button. The paths look good but I get no response... Any ideas what I may have left out?

[Desert Drydock]

I figured it out... I believe it's a quirk due to Windows 7. My paths were right but they weren't active for some reason. I stumbled on redoing the path then it worked fine. Also when I put in the file name I have to backspace out of the .bgl and let FSDS add it. I will have plenty of questions as we go... I have my sights set on filling gaps with LOD Military AI. I haven't looked at FSX compatible AI list yet to see which are LOD. I plan on starting with all the AC that would be found at KNFL, NAS Fallon Nevada. I'm sure someone has built all the LOD FA-18s and F5E's and F's by now...

[Victory103]

Welcome, and yes someone has built almost everything you need for a current NAS Fallon. NBAI for all your -18 needs, HTAI for the Vipers, and the JAI for the F-5's. Repaints are out as well for these models. I have the EDAI E-2C but have yet to paint it and in the near future the MH-60's will be out and looking for repaints.

Thats it, unless you want to tackle the "petting zoo" with various older Cold War airframes.

[Desert Drydock]

Thanks Chris, Where can I locate the base NBAI FA-18, I have the NSAWC textures. I haven't looked for the F-16 or F-5s yet. I'm running FSX and I haven't read the MAIW FSX install manual, it looks like a sit down and pay attention tutorial that I'll do when I have a couple hours to do it right... So for now I just want to create my own flight plans if I can locate the AI aircraft and texture files on the net.

I'm currently working on KBAM, an air tanker base in north central Nevada. It maybe of interest to the MAIW community simply due to its location and runway lengths. I'm creating the vast majority of textures from photographs with the scenery designed in FSDS. I've seen this airport a buzz in the summer at the peak of fire season and it gets occasional TNG's from Mountain Home AFB and Fallon NAS.

[Victory103]

Any of the Hornet packages would work, but you probably want the MAIW NAS Lemoore pack, which will give you every version of the NBAI F-18. The paints are on Mark's site in the Links from the homepage for the HTAI F-16, again download it as a single model or just get a package that will have all you need, basically the clean C/D models.

For the install, there is a separate FSX thread on the bottom, but it's a manual install. I have the MAIW installer directed to a temp folder, then manually move folders into FSX. AIFP2 is another must have along with EditvoicepakX.

With AIFP2, you can change destinations for your own AI, pretty easy to do. You only have 7 days of flightplans, so you have to pick/choose which airports you want your mil AI to visit. Look on Ray's site for some OV-10 CDF repaints to maybe populate KBAM, also some AeroUnion P-3 paints out for the JBAI model. I have the DC-10 tanker running around in my sim too.

[Desert Drydock]

These are great but it looks like I'm running out of future projects I just rerouted the MAIW install back to the original folder that was unpacked from the zip file. I transfer folders back and fourth between my two PC's.

I've run AIFP2 quite a bit... Here's what I'm up to with my airport builds, KNFL for instance, I currently have seven airports layered into one. This splits taxi ways and runways in to two lanes for all runways. When the aircraft leave the tarmac they move to the taxi ways and taxi side by side to the runways and hopefully arrive at the hold short node at about the same time. With a lot of timing manipulation the side by side aircraft will light the burners on the runway at the same time. It's really cool to see four FA-18s or F5s take off at the same time from the two runways. The big problem is that for some reason every time you introduce a new AI to the mix the timing on almost every other aircraft has to be changed and AIFP2 does not allow me to use seconds it only uses minutes so the AI have to be manipulated around the tarmac to hit the taxiways at the precise time. Not bad with six or eight aircraft but twenty plus will boggle the mind when trying to time them. One of the other great features is that the aircraft leave the airport then return to it without having to fly to another airport first but if you check TNG they stay on the first flight path and they will never land for some reason. I know it sounds a bit nuts but it works... If you do a setup like this, plan on hours of moving aircraft around the tarmac to specified parking spots while keeping them situated with their squadrons. Now with my new found AI, I have to start all over but I'll get great frame rates because I've been using some regular FS aircraft along with a few AI that I've picked up.

I'm doing KBAM the same but it's only a few layers (no side by side taxi and runways) so the aircraft leave from normal parking on the first morning flight then the come to the slurry tanks on every landing until they stop at sundown. This will be a much easier task...

Where can I get VFC 13 textures for the F-5E's and F's and of course the infamous Mig 28 "No one has been this close!"

Thanks for all the info... When I get reasonably finished with KBAM I'll set up a test package if we want it here. I don't think I can do it with KNFL (with flight plans) because the timing changed when I put it on my other PC so I had AI on top of AI but I can package the airport with instructions for patient folks who want to take the time and set it up on their individual PC...

[ahs06]

Battle Mountain? Drove through twice and rather happy I didn't make a stop. Only way I knew there was a community was the c-119 and the BM on the side of the highway.

[Victory103]

Disregard the NAS Lemoore package and get the MAIW Gladiators pack that will also give you the models needed for the Hornets and Tigers, those of VFC-111. Search on here, you should find VFC-13 repaints and flightplans, one of the F-5F's, "Bort 20" is all black w/red letters. The MAIW Top Gun pack will give you T-38's paint black if you want to go that route.

Would love to see pic of these multi-layers AFDs for your AI. I would just be happy to get them to do the break, or at least a curved ILS like I have implemented at KLAS, section approaches would be cool too.

[Desert Drydock]

Thanks Chris, I have the NAS Lemoore and the Gladiators both, the Gladiators didn't have all the flight models but was close, I just had to grab a couple from the Lemoore package. Nice AI but I can't find the VFC-13 textures after several different searches...

You mentioned an E2C AI, I'm not having any luck finding it also, I'm using the Abacus E2s right now but would love a lower poly version...

As far as a pic of the multi layer AFD's, what are you looking for? I would be glad to post a pic or two, even a video once I get my new AI established. I just gutted my traffic files to start over with all AI specific aircraft. My big hope is that they are less quirky, for instance, I set a flight to leave at 8am and it doesn't start to move on its parking spot until 8:00:53 and another one starts moving at exactly 8am and another at 23 seconds after. The only way to do it right is to get every aircraft you're going to use all on the tarmac and see who moves when, then move them around until they hit the taxi ways at the appropriate times. I'm programing four airports that are layered on top of each other to hit the two major split runways at the same time, a little off timing and you have jets passing through jets. It takes patients and it will get frustrating when all of a sudden one of the aircraft decides to change start up time from out of the blue...

Not sure what you mean about the curved ILS, maybe you can point me to what you're talking about..

[Desert Drydock]

On another note, I've been searching the forum for VFC-13 textures and the E-2C AI but I can't find a search bar on the regular website anywhere...

[mikewmac]

Desert Drydock,

I can't speak to FSX since I haven't tried to convert any of my FS9 packages containing 2 ship formation takeoffs over to FSX yet, but I found in FS9 trying to adjust ETD times in flight plans and/or parking locations in AFCADs to achieve well synchronized multi ship formation takeoffs was way too time consuming and gave quite inconsistent results.

I have a number of FS9 AI packages released using unique, invisible overlay AFCADs that for me at least are a lot easier and quicker to create and give more consistent, although not perfectly reproducible 2 ship formation takeoffs due to the imprecision of the FS9 AI engine in reproducing ETD times.

If you are interested in seeing my approach in action and determining if it might be easier and/or work better for you, my latest FS9 package utilizing these techniques was the Military AI Works 6th Anniversary AI Airshow Package package released in August, 2012 and available under Special Releases on the MAIW Homepage. This package works great in FS9 and I would recommend that you test it in FS9 first. I have not tested it in FSX yet, so I am not exactly sure how it might work. FSX has a built-in AI tube liner bias and its consequent priority on push backs might pose a problem since all of my AFCADs are set up for drive through parking and straight out taxiing. As you probably know there is an ADE workaround technique to overcome the FSX pushback priority, but getting the placement of the extra node in the identical relative location for all the parking spots involved in 2 ship formation takeoffs in order to maintain the identical length of time to taxi out of a parking spot might be a challenge.

However, just to whet your appetite a bit, below are some screenshots I took of the Blue Angels performing at the Military AI Works 6th Anniversary AI Airshow and my signature at the bottom has a couple more screenshots of 2 ship Blue Angel takeoffs:







If those screenshots aren't enough to whet your appetite, below is a link to some more great screenshots of the Military AI Works 6th Anniversary AI Airshow in progress taken by Bismarck:

http://www.militaryaiworks.com/newforum ... ow#p124098

[Desert Drydock]

Yes Bismark, I'm very interested... I would like to know all about it. The flight plans didn't seem to work but I have played around with some of the models and I can see lots of new ideas. I'm considering an animated formation instead of a welded one and on and on...

Thanks for the great work! I spend about 90% of my sim time developing, I'm sure that's a close normal for a lot of us here. It looks like what you and he crew have done will make my time spent a lot more productive...

[Desert Drydock]

Hello Mike, Unfortunately the smoke doesn't work in FSX, it's a cloud of semi transparent black squares for each color. I haven't worked with smoke and con trail files yet but I'm sure it's not a tough fix. FSX just doesn't like the transparency of the FS9 file. I have lots of $$ in FSX goodies so I'll stay with it. I haven't messed with FS9 since FSX came out and I burnt all of my FS9 stuff was lost in my PC crash...

Simpler is better so I defiantly would like to see what you're doing. It's obvious that most of the work goes in to additional design of your airshow AC before hand. Nick Black has built some awesome models and filled my head with ideas on animation and formation welding. Now to learn the low level flybys and two ship take offs...

[Victory103]

Same on my set up with the MAIW 6th Airshow, black smoke squares for all formations, but the formations and traffic did perform as advertised, very cool and opens up lot of ideas for future AI movement.

[mikewmac]

Hello Mike, Unfortunately the smoke doesn't work in FSX, it's a cloud of semi transparent black squares for each color. I haven't worked with smoke and con trail files yet but I'm sure it's not a tough fix. FSX just doesn't like the transparency of the FS9 file. I have lots of $$ in FSX goodies so I'll stay with it. I haven't messed with FS9 since FSX came out and I burnt all of my FS9 stuff was lost in my PC crash...

Simpler is better so I defiantly would like to see what you're doing. It's obvious that most of the work goes in to additional design of your airshow AC before hand. Nick Black has built some awesome models and filled my head with ideas on animation and formation welding. Now to learn the low level flybys and two ship take offs...

Desert Drydock,

Hopefully there are FSX airshow smoke effects that can be substituted for the FS9 ones that I used.

The AI aircraft models and most of the textures that I used in my FS9 Military AI Works 6th Anniversary AI Airshow Package were created by other MAIW members and a few others who are all listed in the documentation. I only created the AI FDE's, flight plans, AFCADs and a few textures myself.

Yes, the creation of the welded AI formation models and the animated models certainly took a lot of work by some clever AI modelers, but the creation of the invisible ANPA and BNPA AFCAD overlays used for the 2 ship formation takeoffs and landings along with the creation and testing of the flight plans for these, the airshow demo flights and the airshow flybys took a lot of work also. Getting the correct timing for all the multitude of AI flights relative to one another was a bit of a challenge.

[mikewmac]

Same on my set up with the MAIW 6th Airshow, black smoke squares for all formations, but the formations and traffic did perform as advertised, very cool and opens up lot of ideas for future AI movement.

Vic,

Hopefully you can find some FSX AI airshow smoke effects to substitute for the FS9 ones that I used and if not, you can simply disable the FS9 AI smoke effects in the appropriate aircraft.cfg files.

Did you use the extra node workaround to prevent the FSX push backs prior to the Blue Angels taxiing out and if so, how did it work?

[Victory103]

Mike,
Will have to go back and actually check, but I don't remember any major issues besides the smoke on my FSX set up. All the fly-bys look spot on and I was surprised since I didn't look at every model during the install. I am using a modified FSX KNPA scenery, but had a separate scenery folder for the 6th Airshow.

DD, on the home page in the links, go to Owl's Nest and his AI reference menu. The E. Dantes E-2C with NP2k props should be on there.

[mikewmac]

Mike,
Will have to go back and actually check, but I don't remember any major issues besides the smoke on my FSX set up. All the fly-bys look spot on and I was surprised since I didn't look at every model during the install. I am using a modified FSX KNPA scenery, but had a separate scenery folder for the 6th Airshow.

DD, on the home page in the links, go to Owl's Nest and his AI reference menu. The E. Dantes E-2C with NP2k props should be on there.

Vic,

I just checked my ANPA and BNPA invisible overlay AFCADs and it looks to me like even if the Blue Angels push back in FSX, they may then taxi out forward and takeoff in 2 ship formations, but then I can't really be sure of that without testing it.

[mikewmac]

Guys,

If you really want to drive yourself nuts, try creating a 3 ship formation takeoff like the RAF's Red Arrows perform. When you create 2 ship formation takeoffs there are only 2 possible formations, with either ship 1 or ship 2 in the lead. However, when you try to create a 3 ship formation takeoff you quickly learn that there are 6 possible formations and getting the one you want can be a bit of a challenge.

[bismarck]

Guys,

If you really want to drive yourself nuts, try creating a 3 ship formation takeoff like the RAF's Red Arrows perform.

Alredy tried Mike Almost a nightmare...
Someone remember my post http://www.militaryaiworks.com/newforum ... ms#p126299?
Not yet perfect as in your sign, but good results, I didn't release it to the public so, when I was bored to test, I left it not so perfect

About smoke effects, I also had squared effect and changed the effect file used, with another one (I'm on FS9)

Giorgio