Military AI Works

I've produced a basic FSX version of the Mighty Hunter MR2 and as expected with my first AI model I've hit a couple of snags. I wonder has anyone seen these two problems before.

The engine blanks, pitot covers and chocks appaear as planned on a cold stationary aircraft and disappear normally on start. All well and goos but Jim Rodger who was testing watched the model taxi to the runway and when the aircraft halted on the runway the items re-appeared again. Conditions at that time was four running engines but aircraft on ground. The condition controller I use to make these items appear on a parked aircraft are 1. A/C is on the ground 2. Elec power is off 3. Hyd pressure below 100.

The second problem is flap settings. The aircraft has a full range of flap settings specified in the cfg but chose full flap for take off.

As I said this is my first AI project so any ideas?

brianf51 wrote:I've produced a basic FSX version of the Mighty Hunter MR2 and as expected with my first AI model I've hit a couple of snags. I wonder has anyone seen these two problems before.

The engine blanks, pitot covers and chocks appaear as planned on a cold stationary aircraft and disappear normally on start. All well and goos but Jim Rodger who was testing watched the model taxi to the runway and when the aircraft halted on the runway the items re-appeared again. Conditions at that time was four running engines but aircraft on ground. The condition controller I use to make these items appear on a parked aircraft are 1. A/C is on the ground 2. Elec power is off 3. Hyd pressure below 100.

The second problem is flap settings. The aircraft has a full range of flap settings specified in the cfg but chose full flap for take off.

As I said this is my first AI project so any ideas?

Try using the beacon as the start and end condition.

I'll certainly try that, thanks Mark

Beacon is on any time the engine is running, so that one light does the same thing as all those other parms you were using.

Brian, nice looking model.
For the flaps what xml code are you using?

Hi Steve,

I'm using the main model standard of l_flap_key_percent & r_flap_key_percent

which use

<PartInfo>
<Name>l_flap_percent_key</Name>
<AnimLength>100</AnimLength>
<Animation>
<Parameter>
<Sim>
<Variable>TRAILING EDGE FLAPS LEFT PERCENT</Variable>
<Units>percent</Units>
<Scale>1</Scale>
<Bias>0</Bias>
</Sim>
</Parameter>
</Animation>
</PartInfo>

I'm assuming that AI uses something different?

What a nice looking model, Brian.

Flaps have to be treated differently for AI because the AI engine is a lot simpler than the main engine.
For take off it will use 0 flaps. What a lot of modellers do is dump the default anim for xml controlled flaps. This way you can get it to operate exactly as you want it, including take off flaps.
What I am talking about here is the visual application of flaps, you still need the coding in the cfg file for the actual application for the AI engine.

You use various parms available to you to alter the flaps, including lights, speed, height etc.

I was thinking that the code that Jake used for the P-3 or that Mike used for the C-135 series may be most appropriate for you to start from.

Hopefully one of these guys will see this and come to your aid.

I remember seeing the UKMIL MR4 AI model flying in FSX with "ground support" units hanging off the side. I haven't seen it since, so I can't remember if I did anything to solve the issue....

Yep, looks nice ! But will there be a FS9 version as well ?

Yes there will be an FS9 version. Had to dig out my FS2004 and the SDK then try to remember how to use it all. I haven't made anything in FS9 since the Skysim Vixen in 2008!

brianf51 wrote:Yes there will be an FS9 version. Had to dig out my FS2004 and the SDK then try to remember how to use it all. I haven't made anything in FS9 since 2008!

Don't think AI aircraft use SIM ON GROUND

You can use LIGHT NAV (ac active) or LIGHT BEACON (ac ready to taxi) instead.

One remaining problem I'm having is that when the aircraft is on approach the elevators are showing as fully deflected nose-down. The parts are named elevator_percent_key. Is ther an alternative part which does not display this behaviour?

Brian

How is things going on your model Brian, have you made anymore progress?

Now that's a nice looking bird!

I'm also interested in how you over come your issues with the flaps and flags, etc.
cheer's,
Mark

I've tied the blanks, flags & chocks to navlights_off

This is a non-geometry part set up in modeldef.xml as

<PartInfo>
<Name>navlights_off</Name>
<Visibility>
<Parameter>
<Code>(A:LIGHT NAV, bool) 1 == if{ 0 } els{ 1 } </Code>
</Parameter>
</Visibility>
</PartInfo>


Flaps are now a part called ai_flaps set up in modeldef.xml as

<PartInfo>
<Name>ai_flaps</Name>
<AnimLength>100</AnimLength>
<Animation>
<Parameter>
<Code> (A:TRAILING EDGE FLAPS LEFT PERCENT, percent) 0 > if{ (A:TRAILING EDGE FLAPS LEFT PERCENT, percent) } els{ (A:LIGHT LANDING, bool) (A:GEAR CENTER POSITION, percent) 99 > && if{ 40 } els{ 0 } } </Code>
</Parameter>
</Animation>
</PartInfo>

These may not be the best solutions but they seem to work for me.

This is also not the most elegant AI model being my first and it only has 3 LODS so don't expect too much. I've offset that by the fact that Nimrods were never encountered in great numbers even at Kinloss, in later years usually only one at a time....

If you want to try the FSX version its at http://www.simshed.co.uk/transfer/AI/NimrodAI.zip

Having very bad texture blurring problems with the FS9 version

Brian,

Not sure if this can help you with your blurry issue. John Young posted a similar question at FSDeveloper, and in the back and forth with Arno this lead to a 100% solution for blurry FS9 mipmapped textures.

Superb work Brian, all we need now are some nice repaints of it

Texture blurries.....
Add an alpha channel and set one pixel to black.

You should also be able to remove the 1 == from the chocks flag code.