• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
    • Questions about aircraft design can be posted in the Aircraft design forum
    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

FSX CAC25 Winjeel military trainer videos

A

Anthony31

Messages
1,126
Country
australia
Here is a video I've just made of the CAC25 Winjeel RAAF trainer that I've been working on lately. This is a demonstration of the battery hoist which raises and lowers the battery out of the belly of the aircraft.

In the lower left is the Animation Manager which I have used in every single plane I have made. This one is the most complete yet though as it is effectively the full POH. On screen is the Pre-Flight checklist. Clicking on the small camera icons on the left of each item will move the camera to view that item. Operation of the hoist is done by clicking on various mouse zones.

First you open the access door, insert the crank handle, change view to underneath the aircraft and unlock the battery tray, then back to the crank handle and unlock it, then wind the handle to lower the hoist. To raise, again wind the handle up, lock the handle, shut the access door, then lock the battery tray.

 
Is this for performing some (charge?) checks on the battery assembly? With the possibility for an electrical systems failure if not done correctly?

And the sim is FSX and the interaction is done from the animation manager, right? (I think P3Dv3 allows clickable exterior models.)

Nice transitions from viewpoint to viewpoint to boot!
 
It's for eye candy. Interaction is done with mouse click spots. The view is the virtual cockpit view which allows the mouse clicks to work but by using the Animation Manager to select camera positions I can easily move the view to the outside of the aircraft. Also the VC camera has a lot less clipping issues than the external camera. I've made a little transitioner procedure which moves the camera around for me. It's actually a bit smoother than in the video as the video suffers from the occasional stutter. The transition from these pseudo external views back to the virtual cockpit view is quite nice. I will post a video of that later when I do a video of a full walk around pre-flight inspection.
 
Anthony31 said:
It's for eye candy. Interaction is done with mouse click spots. The view is the virtual cockpit view which allows the mouse clicks to work but by using the Animation Manager to select camera positions I can easily move the view to the outside of the aircraft. Also the VC camera has a lot less clipping issues than the external camera. I've made a little transitioner procedure which moves the camera around for me. It's actually a bit smoother than in the video as the video suffers from the occasional stutter. The transition from these pseudo external views back to the virtual cockpit view is quite nice. I will post a video of that later when I do a video of a full walk around pre-flight inspection.
Click to expand...

So you've basically expanded on the walk around concept from the T-28 and ship a VC model with all features of the exterior one. Interesting.

Having an operational battery hoist solely for eyecandy purposes feels like a bit of a waste to me. Maybe add a randomly generated broken battery or fouled contacts feature to make it worth?
 
It would be a waste to have a walkaround and have nothing to see or do. As they can already open the engine bay I thought the battery hoist would be a good addition. There will be other functions that the user can do during the walkaround, for example: placing wheel chocks, pitot cover as well as checking and changing the oil and fuel levels. In the video you can see the fuel cap to the right of the battery crank handle. Originally I wanted to make all the access panels functional but that was a bit extreme.
 
Fair enough. It's already kind of amazing how far you can take FSDS' capabilities.
 
Here is my second video of the Winjeel:


In this one we do a brief walkaround of the aircraft which covers the first two pages of the normal procedures (Pre-Flight 1 and Pre-Flight 2). Things you may notice in this video:

1. Blue highlights on mouse click zones. This can be set by the user and should be helpful for learning the controls of the aircraft.

2. On the checklists items in red need attention, green is OK and black is not adjustable.

3. Opening the oil or fuel cap (by clicking on either directly with the mouse) will popup either an oil can or a fuel pump and a little display which allows the user to set either level.

4. Wheel chocks and pitot cover can be set with direct mouse clicks. I think I've mentioned somewhere before that when you set wheel chocks or the parking brake that this will fix the aircraft into place. I use a little bit of programming to firmly root the aircraft in place so no more creeping when doing engine runups. I'm thinking about doing a freeware DLL module so all your aircraft can stay parked when the parking brake is on.

5. Engine doors can be opened and closed with direct mouse clicks.

The next video I will start this little puppy up.
 
Last edited:
This shows how much this project has occupied your attention. Splendid work!!
 
Heretic said:
...

Having an operational battery hoist solely for eyecandy purposes feels like a bit of a waste to me....
Click to expand...


I'd have to somewhat disagree with you on this one .. The performance impact is probably virtually nil, however the fun factor certainly steps up a notch. The T-28 is a big hit in my hangar, and from the looks of it, this CAC-25 will be too. Splendid work Ant. Now we just need to get you on board with Blender!

This walk-around technique is pretty cool! +1

- Joseph
 
Let's hope that the sheer amount of immersion-enhancing features wins over a lot of users (outside of Australia). As the plane is fairly similar to the Provost, it might acquire some fans from Britain.
In any case, all the best for the release and the time beyond, Ant! It would be a waste to see this model tank like other well made niche aircraft like the Stratocruiser.


fsxar177 said:
I'd have to somewhat disagree with you on this one .. The performance impact is probably virtually nil, however the fun factor certainly steps up a notch.
Click to expand...

I never said that the animation and mesh should go, I only suggested tailoring an actual operational feature around it, even if it's just a rarely occurring one.
 
Here is the video of the engine auto start:


The user presses CTRL+E and the Winjeel will automatically step through the Pre-Start and Start procedures. Things to notice in this video:

1. This shows the mouse zone highlighting better. These are the blue boxes around items.

2. Items in the checklist change from Red to Green when OK.

3. I haven't quite tweaked the range for the throttle at 1" open yet so it still stayed red in the checklist.

4. Engine sounds do not use the FSX sound system at all but use a custom sound system I have made. You lose the pan and positional aspects (as we have no way of knowing where the camera really is) but you gain proper control over the sounds so they respond properly to engine RPM and MAP. If I had the canopy open you could also have heard a different tone as I blend the exterior and interior sounds when the canopy and sliding windows are open. Plus, switching views doesn't mess up the sounds. Of course, if people prefer they can set it so the sounds play through the default FSX sound system.
 
The sound system is my own coded into the C++ gauge which is based on the DirectSound source code by Dai Griffiths which itself looks like it was based on the original Microsoft code. It's not really quite as difficult as one would think. Although it's not dead easy either.
 
Still working on it. It's taking an extraordinary amount of time but I should be sending it out for beta testing soon (like in a week or two). At the moment I am just fine tuning all the custom coding for engine temperatures and engine wear.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top