posted 06-14- 06:54 AM               

It seems OPS V1.3B still can't handle Pilot/Crew .sm files. It kills the RopePts etc. Or did I something wrong - is there a trick to keep pilot.sm files working with OPS ???

posted 06-14- 07:24 AM               

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posted 06-14- 08:20 AM               

Be carefull, dont kill the PilotSit.sm -original, it is used for the most planes/pilots in SDOE.

One strange thing is that I firts thought it works now in V1.3 but later (dont know what and how I changed) it was the same "bug" as in the older versions of OPS.

I hope you can find the reason !

posted 06-14- 10:22 AM               

If you preserve a "good" pilot model, you can hand-edit the .asc or .sm file with the section containing the RopePts and restore that function to your modified pilot model (this is why the Corsair and Dauntless and new Mustang pilots can open the canopy and still have a good chute when they bail out)

It's a bit tedious tho Change pilot in OPS. Extract pilot. Edit .asc file. Build pilot. Rename pilot. Test pilot. I vote we blame the D-VII guys. If it wasn't for Dirk we wouldn't be messing with the pilots anyway

posted 06-14- 12:02 PM               

quote:

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you can hand-edit the .asc or .sm file with the section containing the RopePts and restore that function to your modified pilot model

---

I would say it is a damn hard shit to edit pilot.sm's as long I don't know the exactly parenthesis/syntax for the .asc or .ol format

And NO (said it somewhere before, seems no-one believes me), these ropePts are NOT the only thing, a "buggish" pilot.sm has also wrong inertia/weight props.

I.e. The Pe starts still 5 feet above the ground, I set up the gearstrut-dofs that they brake easy (i.e. when the plane falls from 10 feet to the ground, they will break), OK - I messed around with the crew.ol/asc for the rear-gunner (about 1 hour), I can't get the dof for the body-part to work (it works before !) and somehow now the gearstruts break ! Same was with the I16 -> "buggish" pilot file --> "buggish" FM - Sht !

Is there a tut/doc for the asc/ol format out there ?

As long as I can't "fix" the Navigator/RearGunner I can't release anything

LK

posted 06-15- 11:40 AM               

To fix it, I only know one way, and that's using Hippie's Builder/Extractor. First I find a "good" pilot figure somewhere. The US pilot in PlanePack 5.3 is "good." I extract that file. The only part I care about is the .asc file. I save that somewhere. Then I make my changes to MY pilot figure in OPS (make his arm wave, change his uniform, whatever). When I save MY pilot in OPS, his parachute will be kaput. Then I extract my "bad" pilot file. I'm going to keep ALL the parts of this one, but "fix" the .asc file. I open the "good" .asc file in Notepad, and find the property lines for "obRopePts." I copy the whole obRopePts section from first parenthesis to last parenthesis from the "good" .asc file, and REPLACE that section in the "bad" .asc file. I have no idea exactly WHAT error is being corrected, but when I then Build my new pilot.sm file back together, the parachute works properly.

I would think that the same principle would work on the pilot's inertia properties or other areas that are somehow screwed up. Just don't ever open that "good" pilot file in OPS and save it there, or you're hosed

And here's a weird idea for the plane starting in the air: Open the .sm in OPS. Select the part tool, and the movement arrow. Select the main fuselage part, and MOVE it DOWN about 5 feet. Might do nothing I guess, but I think even the parent part of the .sm has an origin in space where it's positioned. I notice that the Corsair drops a foot or two, and I recall moving the orientation of the parent fuselage when I first built it.

You can also check all the body vertices and the wheel points, but it sounds like you have those right, since the plane "hits" the ground when it drops.

posted 06-15- 12:15 PM               

The Wheel Pts are not the problem here. I didn't know a perfect way to get the co-ordinates for them, but no problem at all.

But the Pilot thingy is driving me crazy, I cant get this damn dof to work and I dont find out why ther inertia/weight settings are screwed up. Hmmm - Bryan said its easy for him to fix it - I hope it !

posted 06-15- 03:52 PM               

Would be good if Hippie could release a small documentation for dummies like me !

posted 06-16- 07:26 PM               

LK

posted 06-18- 07:16 AM               

Should I be trying something else? i.e. some operation in OPS?. If you have got a .ol of a dud one send it over for me to look at.

posted 06-18- 02:00 PM               

[quote]The only other difference in the file were some groups and matrix stuff but thats normal and shouldn't cause any probs.[/qoute].

It causes at least that the chute does not work after opening and saveing a pilot.sm file in OPS - and it causes that the I16 turns from flying normal (with a "fresh" pilot.sm) to "wobling" at high speed (with a "opend&saved" pilot.sm). And it causes some nerve-problems in my head :[

I dont understand group and part hierarchy and matrixes, so I don't know how (and what) to fix. So the Pe2 is still on the hold

Anyway I looked again at the two files. it might be that [quote]except for the (obProto 'CCrew obClass 'Pilot) list which OPS slits into
(obProto 'CCrew) (obClass 'Pilot) but this wont cause a problem[/qoute] this does'nt changes anything. But what about this stuff:

"obFunc (Flyboy (airSection "CYL" airK 1.0 airAR 5))
(plus (phyBoxInertia 14.1906,14.1906,9.59401 phyCG -0.0129757,-0.195725,4.797 ))
(obRopePts (verts 6.99438,-6.63385,-0.1672 4,0 6.81494,6.85167,-0.1672 3,0 -6.65355,7.03873,-0.1672 2,0 -6.9499,-6.70399,-0.1672 1,0 ))"-->working pilot.sm

"(obFunc (Flyboy (airSection "CYL" airK 1.0 airAR 5 (plus ( phyBoxInertia 14.190600,14.190600,9.594010 phyCG -0.012976,-0.195725,4.797000 )))))" -->buggish pilot.sm

As you can see some brackets changed their postion and the line with the ropePts is gone. In the opend&saved .sm the inertia thing is moved into the function "flyboy" - so it does not work longer when the pilot is in the plane. Could this be the "bug" (or one of..). I hope this is the problem here, cause changing some brackets is easy, but matrix and group stuff is cruel (for me). I don't got the time to do tests today

Bryan ? What would you say ? Is it right what I found or not ? Would it make sense to look for wrong placed brackets or not ? What's going wrong here (maybe a bug in OPS's func handling ) ???

But hey - thanks for looking at the files, I hope my "investigation" helps to fix something, if there is anything to fix. So thanks again Bryan.

Jedi - thank you too, it's good to know that I'm not alone here

LK

posted 06-18- 02:04 PM               

Sorry for my "wrong" quoting.

posted 06-19- 10:56 PM               

And copying and pasting file references like the pilot corrupts my plane file.

posted 06-20- 07:48 AM               

Anyway, I beleive that this particular piece of Proplist is a structural error error, well according to my interpretation of the OpenPlane spec anyway. The obFunc is not actually part of a prop list i.e. it does not exit in any set of '( )'s. If you look at all of the other obFuncs they are.

That said however, since SDOE works that it the ultimate judge so I made a small change that I think has fixed it. When I get around to upping it somewhere I'll send Laika and Jedi a mail with the url so you can test it for me (if you want to that is) I hope it hasn't screwed anything else up.

Bryan

P.S I take a little look at the copy file ref thing as well

posted 06-20- 08:53 AM               

Or could I do all my stuff with prop-parsing unchecked ? What would be the change ?

And, finally, great to know what causes the problems !!!

BIG THANKS !

posted 06-22- 05:28 AM               

Jedi ? Did it work for you ??

posted 06-22- 12:00 PM               

I got 2 emails from Bryan. On the first one, his link went to the wrong place. On the second one, he misspelled "squadron" in fightersquadron.com, so the link doesn't exist If you enter the link manually, you should get there. I haven't tested the pilot figure with the new version yet.