MSFS - crop dusting - visual effects on the ground

[LateDriver]

hello all, I want to try to recreate the FS5.1 crop dusting missions where you would fly over terrain and the tiles would change color once you hit them with the spray..
So the aircraft bit and the spray are not the problem, that can be easily done with VFX.
I'm more looking for a solution to have the ground react to the spray.. to keep things simple the field could be a dedicated field where I could setup tiles, or scenery objects (plants, crops maybe) that would change color/apperance as the spray hits them.. now it might not be "the spray" but maybe reacting to the plane flying over could be the start of a solution..
Has anyone any clue about how I could change an object/polygon properties by flying over it ? could that be done by a property of the object or maybe a VFX that would be triggered by the fly over ?

any help appreciated, thanks

 

[mamu]

You may want to consider a worldscript, how to is described here

MSFS - Triggering Hangar door animation in SimObject by distance?

I'm trying to figure out how to trigger hangar door animation based on distance. The idea is to play the opening animation once when inside or close to the hangar, and play the closing animation when farther away. I was able to create a normal animation with scenery objects, and a flag waving in...

www.fsdeveloper.com

The animation is gonna consist of hiding the dry plant under the ground and popping the moving wet plant over the ground

Obviously you should add a series of rectangles over your field (doing that per plant is gonna be overkill)

 

[LateDriver]

Thanks, yep I read that hangar animation post, but initially he wanted it to be based on aircraft distance which would have been great for me to detect flyover, but then it ended up the animation being triggered by a cockpit control, being lights or yoke visibility.. nonetheless interesting

 

[LateDriver]

ok, I found in the world scripts "SimMission.ProximityTrigger" that looks very promissing.. now just need to lear the whole SDK to see how I can implement this..
wiki from FSDeveloper

 

[mamu]

The 3d linked above, near the end, contains a sample by me using a proximity trigger

 

[LateDriver]

in the "example missions file" link ?

 

[mamu]

correct, for you convenience here it is again

The trigger is a defined rectagle, in this case in front of the hangar, an trigger a simboject animation (in this case the hangar doors)

 

[LateDriver]

awesome thanks.. looking at it.. started looking into missions also, trying to run through the "SimpleMission" tutorial, so far managed to crash the sim 3 times just doing what the tutorial says.. it's so convoluted uhh.. but I'm like a dog with a bone in its mouth, I don't let go easy

 

[LateDriver]

thanks manu, I was able to basicaly create a cube in blender that rises when I fly over it (that was a steep learning curve, very discouraging) now I'm trying to get 2 cubes to rise, eventualy I'll make a script that produces an XML with an array of say 10x5 cubes.
I tried duplicating the following :
- simcontain - to creat a new instance of the simobject
- simmission.rectanglearea - new offset rectangle area
- proximitytrigger - new trigger based on new area
- playblendtreestateaction - action for new simobject

I changed all the GUIDs and also ContainerId, I put x=10 in LocalOffsetXYZ but I can only see the first cube, can't see the second one, any ideas ?

 

[LateDriver]

noticed I have to completely exit the sim and restart to see any effect of the changes I make to the worldscript.. (working in Notepad++) save project/reopen/clean/rebuild/reopen/reload new flight, nothing seems to refresh changes I make to the XML unless I exit/restart the sim, then I see the changes.. what am I doing wrong ?

 

[mamu]

You are doing nothing wrong, you really need to exit the Sim to desktop and reload

 

[LateDriver]

so finally after a ton of struggling I got something working.. see video
obviously it's not finished yet, still need to add VFX to the aircraft

it's basically a cube that sits under ground and rises as the plane flies over (but within a box that's not very high of course )
I played with the alpha channel, I guess this is very CPU/GPU friendly, versions with more realistic vegetation would be nice but I want a visual cue of the areas that are "validated"
possibly a next evolution would be to transform this into a mission with a time limit.. and lots more cubes.. but as of now adding the cubes is quite time consuming, each has 4 GUIDs, I have a script that copies/paste them and replaces the GUIDs but it's still fidelly..
anyway, back to work

 

[rhumbaflappy]

You are doing nothing wrong, you really need to exit the Sim to desktop and reload

Yep. Asobo doesn't seem to notice the persistance of memory.

 

[LateDriver]

Now, my current worldscript has a 10x5 array of (container/rectangle/trigger/animation - 4 GUIDs) expanding the array is time consuming to replace each GUID, making the script quite big too .. there has to be a better way..
ideally the script for rectangle/trigger/animation should be part of the simobject so I can just make a scenery and drop my objects like M&Ms on the floor and not have to worry about GUIDs..
any ideas ?

 

[LateDriver]

model.cfg - behavior - node - visibility - simvar - Marshaler aircraft distance
might be onto something here..

 

[LateDriver]

ok.. I added a visibility behavior linked to the stall warning, just to see if the process works, it works but it's not refreshed i.e. :
- If I set visibility = stall warning, I start the flight, the aircraft is not stalled, stall warning = false so visibility = false => object not visible
- if I set visibility = NOT(stall warning), I start the flight, the aircraft is not stalled, NOT(stall warning) = true so visibility = true => object visible

but once in flight if I get the stall warning it doesn't change the object visibility.. I checked with the behavior tool, I can see the value change there..

 

[LateDriver]

Can a simobject access its own global lat/long position ? so I could code in the model XML the required comparison with the aircraft lat/long..

 

[LateDriver]

ok I used Simvar Watcher to investigate more, so my cubes simobjects can indeed access their own lat/long position with the "PLANE LATITUDE/LONGITUDE" simvars, however I haven't found a way to access the airplane's lat/long from my cube object to compute the distance..
Is it possible within the XML to read simvars from a different simobject ?
otherwise one way to do it would be to create a L:VAR, that the airplane will write its position to, then my cube simobject could read that..
another way would be to have an external module do the job, but I think it's cleaner to keep it all in the sim..

 

[LateDriver]

ok I've added the following to the aircraft model XML :

        <Component ID="Update">

            <UseTemplate Name="ASOBO_GT_Update">
            <FREQUENCY>100</FREQUENCY>
            <UPDATE_CODE>
                (A:pLANE LATITUDE, RADIANS) (>L:pB4CROP_PLANE LATITUDE, number)
                (A:pLANE LONGITUDE, RADIANS) (>L:pB4CROP_PLANE LONGITUDE, number)
                (E:SIMULATION TIME, SECONDS) (>L:pB4CROP_DEBUG, number)
            </UPDATE_CODE>
            </UseTemplate>
        </Component>

I can see the new local simvars, but only 3 digits after the decimal, whatever data type of the LVAR I tried (SDK says number), 3 digits doesn't give me enough precision to detect proximity..
I searched and found LVARS are supposed to be doubles data types, so technically up to 15 or so decimals..
where am I loosing precision ?
or is it just the "behaviors" debug window only displaying 3 digits..

 

[LateDriver]

success.. simobject managing its own visibility based on relative distance to plane :

<Visibility>
                <Parameter>
                    <!--
                    A = airplane pos (PB4CROP_PLANE LONGITUDE/LATITUDE local vars set by the plane's model.xml)
                    B = cube pos
                    r = 6371km =6371000m
                    d = r.arcos (sin LATa.sin LATb + cos LATa.cos LATb.cos(LONa-LONb))
                    d = r.arcos (sin LATplane.sin LATcube + cos LATplane.cos LATcube.cos(LONplane-LONcube))
                    then if d < 10m return true else false
                    -->
                    <Code>
                    (L:pB4CROP_PLANE LONGITUDE, NUMBER) (A:pLANE LONGITUDE, RADIANS) - cos (A:pLANE LATITUDE, RADIANS) cos * (L:pB4CROP_PLANE LATITUDE, NUMBER) cos * (A:pLANE LATITUDE, RADIANS) sin (L:pB4CROP_PLANE LATITUDE, NUMBER) sin * + acos 6371000 * 10 &lt; if{1} els{0}
                    </Code>
                </Parameter>
            </Visibility>

now just need to add altitude criteria