posted 01-17- 09:13 PM               

I then edited the loadout to fix the naming and improve the "story" considerably.

Then I used Hippy's tools to extract the .sm into a bunch of files.

Then I used OPS to do some minor editing on those files (cleaned up some items, renamed parts, etc. - nothing interesting).

Question 1: did I have to use Hippy's tools to use the .sm with OPS?

Then I re-compressed all the files back into the .sm, once again with Hippy's tools.

Then I copied the entire he100d folder into my media folder.

And nothing happened. I get the older version still.

Question 2: The folder should override the par file version right?

Question 3: Where did I go wrong? Any ideas?

posted 01-17- 09:44 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by ArgonV:
[B]To edit a planes SM file in OPS, you do not have to use hippies tools at all

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Ok, that's good to know.

The problem I was having was a dumb one - two loadout files. Duh.

Anyway lots of problem now. I guess that the plane was pretty "hacked up" from the Fw 190, as the guns are now floating in space and pointed the wrong way! Should I move these in OPS, or is there some other way with the .sm file?

All the controls are munged too - stick side motion controls the rudder for instance. Where to I start to look for this part?

posted 01-18- 11:37 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by ArgonV:
Those guns floating in space should be deleted. (I did delete them a long time ago on my SM file)

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I started over last night with a fresh copy from PP6. So far I've added the new loadout file, and removed all the various hardpoints from the wings and fuse. I know this doesn't have a huge effect, but still seems worth doing.

The controls now work fine, I must have mashed something with Hippy's tools. However my Z-axis doesn't control the rudder, which is interesting.

I removed the extra guns again, and then I moved the MG's out of the "cockpit" group and down into the wing groups. This seemed to work fine. I also renamed them from gun1 and 2 to leftGun and rightGun.

Question 1: I also renamed these guns in the loadout, but they won't fire. I assume there's another "link" somewhere, but where? How does the loadout's name get mapped into something in the .sm?

I also tried moving the remaining cannon out of the right wing (it's cannon1) and into the engine group. Now this is interesting, because it's when I do that that the cannon suddenly pops up and to the left, floating in mid-air over the right wing, and pointing the wrong way.

Any idea why that happens? Is there a relative coordinate set that I don't see somewhere?

If I can get the guns worked out and someone's willing to do a little (I do mean little) cleanup on the skin, I'll add the sliding canopy and retracting radiator. That should be enough to get it back into the PP. After than I'll start work on the FM, and lastly the DM.

Hey, why can't you rename groups in OPS? This really annoys me, is there any reason I shouldn't remove them and re-create them as "parts"?

posted 01-18- 03:38 PM               

The original He-100 model had the guns at least working, so don't mess with that, at least at first. To "move" a gun, just move it in OPS. Don't rename it, just reposition it. You can delete it, of course, if you just don't want it. But you can also just set its ammo load to ZERO in the loadout.ppf

You can also just "swap" the ammo info to change a cannon to a machinegun or vice-versa. The F4U-4 has 4 cannons, but its loadout.ppf is basically the one from the Mustang, with some "machineguns" set to zero ammo and others changed to cannon ammo and cannon sound.

When you select a "gun" object in OPS, all you should see is an arrow. That represents the "gunblast" you see in the sim. That's the thing you need to move around in OPS. There may also be a physical model there, which may or may not be attached to the gunblast. If you see something called "gun1," or "cannon1" and its properties are "CGun," that's a "gunblast" object. You don't want to change its name, until you understand which lines in the loadout.ppf affect it. If you see something called "leftGuns," that's probably just a physical model. Its name and position have nothing to do with where the gunblast will appear.

As for Hippie's tools vs OPS, they're kind of apples and oranges. Hippies tools are primarily for "deconstructing" an .sm file so that you can MODIFY the SHAPES or TEXTURES of the individual PARTS using some other 3D program. You CAN reposition parts in your 3D proggie, and Hippie's tools WILL save that info, but you can't judge the changes until you run the sim or look at the .sm in OPS. OPS, OTOH, can't do anything with the shape of a part, but you can move all the parts in real time, and change all their properties.

Common error: use Hippie's tools to break down a .sm. Modify some parts with AC3D. Rebuild the .sm. Open in OPS. Change a bunch of stuff in OPS. Decide to "fix" some part in AC3D. Rebuild the .sm again. OOPS!
All your OPS changes are gone! Hippie's tools produce a group of parts, but they do not modify the .sm until you rebuild it. OPS modifies the .sm DIRECTLY, producing a NEW .sm, but NO new parts. So if you attempt to "rebuild" the .sm using Hippie's tools, it will use the OLD parts and create the OLD .sm again! Any time you modify the .sm in OPS, you MUST break this new .sm down into its NEW parts before working on any individual parts.

If all you want to do is move things around, you can USUALLY do it just with OPS. Occasionally OPS will upchuck tho, and you may be forced to move the individual part in the 3D program by trial and error.

posted 01-18- 05:06 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by jedi:
When you select a "gun" object in OPS, all you should see is an arrow. That represents the "gunblast" you see in the sim. That's the thing you need to move around in OPS.

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Ahhhhh, I'll bet this has something to do with it. There were a whole bunch of arrows in the game when it started - do bomb position points and such have them too? Now there seem to be less, so perhaps I deleted them by mistake.

I also see an arrow when I select the flaps, what does this represent?

If I click on one of these arrows, what should become selected in the model list (on the left of OPS)? Anything?

quote:

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There may also be a physical model there, which may or may not be attached to the gunblast. If you see something called "gun1," or "cannon1" and its properties are "CGun," that's a "gunblast" object.

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There's definitely a physical model too, because the Fw has the guns sticking out of the wing (and thus needs it). In the He 100 these should be removed because the guns are completely internal.

But when you say "attached" what exactly do you mean? Do you mean that the physical model would be a child object of the gun? If so, this is not what I see in OPS. All I see in OPS is the thing that _looks_ like a gun (ie, black metal with cooling holes). It has no children and is not the child of anything obvious.

quote:

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You don't want to change its name, until you understand which lines in the loadout.ppf affect it.

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Well isn't this a no-brainer? I mean if I see "gun1" in the OPS and "gun1" in the loadout, I'm assuming they are referring to the same thing, right?

quote:

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If you see something called "leftGuns," that's probably just a physical model. Its name and position have nothing to do with where the gunblast will appear.

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Ok, but what DOES? When I selected the thing called "gun1" it appeared that the physical model was selected - and I couldn't see anything else unless it's unnamed.

quote:

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If all you want to do is move things around, you can USUALLY do it just with OPS.

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Yeah, and that looks like all I want to do for now...

But why would the cannon move simply by removing it as a child of a wing and making it a child of the fuse?

posted 01-18- 05:39 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by jedi:
OK, "leftGun" and "rightGun" are just names of the object in the model. They don't necessarily relate to the gun properties in the loadout.ppf. I don't FULLY understand the way the guns are set up, BUT, the little section of the loadout.ppf that has the "gun chains" in it is pretty important.

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I should have RTFM'ed (I didn't know there was a new OP doc!). Here it is...

"Gun objects must be named as gun1, gun5, gun12, etc... to be recognized and function."

Well, I guess I'll fix that when I get home. :-)

Maury

posted 01-18- 07:46 PM               

A gun can have a LOD, or it cannot have a LOD. A LOD object can be a child of the "gunblast" You could make your gun look like a tail of a cow if you wanted to. Or you could just make an object that looks like a cow tail and make it a child of the actual "gunblast" It all depends on the builder.

OPS has a strange way of moving objects. If you copy/cut/paste an object from the root down to the child level, it will stay in the same spot. But if you copy/cut/paste an object thats a child up to the root level or to another object, it will move. Why? I have no clue. All I know is that which I said above.

posted 01-19- 03:10 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by ArgonV:
The guns can be named anything you wish. The name of the gun in OPS must be the same name thats in the pilots 'gunList' and also the same name that is in the loadout.ppf file.

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Well that's what I did, and it didn't work. Maybe I did something else wrong too, but I couldn't see it. Repeating the same steps but NOT changing the name left the guns working. I guess tonight I'll change then and see what happens.

quote:

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A gun can have a LOD, or it cannot have a LOD. A LOD object can be a child of the "gunblast"

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But does it _have_ to be a child? In the He 100, it appears that is is not a child, but a LOD applied directly to the gun itself.

quote:

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OPS has a strange way of moving objects. If you copy/cut/paste an object from the root down to the child level, it will stay in the same spot. But if you copy/cut/paste an object thats a child up to the root level or to another object, it will move. Why? I have no clue. All I know is that which I said above.

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Ahhhhh, ok, that solves that one. Ok, now for one that should be obvious, how do I rotate it and move it back? I can't seem to do it with any of the tools, nor do I see anywhere to input the values numerically.

I'm missing something painfully obvious, aren't I?

posted 01-19- 03:33 PM               

A LOD can be applied directly to the gun or it can be a child of the gun. It does not matter really.

The only way you can move something back in OPS immediately is by clicking on Edit -> Undo. Its too late for that now however. Now you have to click on the gun and then click on that camera looking icon and a list will appear. Then click on the yellow looking icon. Then look for a 4 way arrow icon and click on that. You will now beable to move the gun with the keyboard arrow keys or your mouse. To make small movements, hold down Ctrl and then hit the arrow keys on the keyboard.

posted 01-19- 03:40 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by ArgonV:
Maury, as I said above... to fix the gun problem you are having, you have to update the planes loadout.ppf file with the new gun name AND the gunList on the pilot of the plane with the new gun name. This will solve your problem.

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Ahhh, I only did the former. Where "is" the pilot? I can't see anything obvious in the parts list.

quote:

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Now you have to click on the gun and then click on that camera looking icon and a list will appear. Then click on the yellow looking icon. Then look for a 4 way arrow icon and click on that. You will now beable to move the gun with the keyboard arrow keys or your mouse. To make small movements, hold down Ctrl and then hit the arrow keys on the keyboard.

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Youch! Well I guess it wasn't obvious after all!

How do I rotate, is there a similar icon? Geez, I gotta print out the docs!

posted 01-20- 11:05 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by ArgonV:
In the parts list, in my He100D, the pilotview is named cement.

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Found it. Renamed it :-)

Any idea why there are two pilots inside? Or to be specific, two Groups that contain the same set of items?

quote:

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For rotating, theres a circle with an arrow icon. Click that.

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That just rotates the view though, right? How do I rotate the item itself?

posted 01-21- 10:10 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by ArgonV:
If you have the yellow part icon selected, it rotates the item. Those buttons up there have double, triple, and quadruple (I know I spelled that wrong...) functionality

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Ahhh, ok. That's weird but I guess it makes sense.

Any idea on the "two pilots" issue?

Also, I tried moving the pilot out of the cockpit group and into his own, CDT. Does the pilot have to be in a particular place in the .sm, or is there something pointing to the pilot that I didn't change?

posted 01-21- 10:23 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by ArgonV:
If you have the yellow part icon selected, it rotates the item. Those buttons up there have double, triple, and quadruple (I know I spelled that wrong...) functionality depending if you have camera, DOF, part or inertia selected.

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Oh man, this is hard to use, that rotate tool is diabolical! I got the gun into the right area on the model, but rotating it into place is almost impossible.

Is there a way to do this manually by entering numbers?

posted 01-21- 11:32 AM               

The two pilots I think are software and hardware pilots. But Ive deleted the second pilot on a few planes and see no difference. I would leave the pilot exactly where he is. Hes referenced from the Media\pilot folder and moving him really doesnt help anything at all.

posted 01-21- 11:44 AM               

Hold down the Ctrl key and press one of the keys will give you Micro movement. Hold down the Shift key and press one of the keys will give Macro movement.

posted 01-21- 01:59 PM               

I think the DOF bug you mentioned was mentioned by Bryan, it happens when the model part that you are applying the DOF to is extremely rotated. I think the suggested work-around was to rotate the actual mesh to avoid the over-rotation that causes the DOF bug.

posted 01-21- 04:17 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Raider:
Yes use the arrow keys to move and rotate. They move forward, back, up and down, just above them use the Home and End keys to move left and right.

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Thanks guys. How do you guys get the guns to harmonize, simply keep trying until it looks right?

Ok, next question: the gear on the He 100 are actually closer together and more vertical than on the Fw, so I'd like to fix this next. How do I rotate the gear, simply use the existing rotate? Is there anything in the DOF I have to change?

Maury