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When the solution to a problem makes you feel stupid

U

UnitedExpress4180

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us-colorado
Just curious, what are some simple issues that you have worked on for hours on end, only to realize that the solution was insanely obvious and simple?

Today I spent four hours trying to figure out why a model wouldn't display in the sim, checking texture settings, re-exporting to different places, attaching to a different model...and then I found out that the problem was because I hadn't copied the texture files over to the project folder. I about smacked my head against my keyboard.
 
In CFS3 there is a game-generated file with a .bdp extension for each model. I have tried all sorts of sound file formats, ways of exporting, utilities and eventually an entirely new sound file editing suite to no avail: the sim remained silent. All it needed was to delete the .bdp file, CFS3 made a new one and the cannons dispensed noise as well as destruction like I wanted 'em to!

One thing came out of that, I prefer Adobe Audition over Audacity but it took three days' grief to get there.
 
I spent hours to find out why I didn't get my car models in the parking lot. Then I found that I saved the wrong name. The name of the texture is ***cars.dds but I saved as ***car.dds. Only one "S" missing made me lost two hours to find out what was wrong.
 
Oh - I can't even begin!. The worst recently was trying to add some code to ADE to create a drag delay so that folks don't accidentally drag something when they click it. I tried all sorts of clever stuff including hooking into the windows core to catch mouse movements - nothing worked. Then some kind soul pointed out to me that the graphics engine I use has a nice little property called DragDelay. And there we are - just stick a number after it and..... Two days of trying and it would have taken seconds if I had RTFM!!!!!! :yikes:
 
Quote "Oh - I can't even begin!" unquote (haven't figured out how to do this on this forum in another way ).
And I even won't begin either:(.
 
Roby, the simplest way is to manually type the {quote} and {/quote} (using the square brackets!) before and after what you want quoted...

...or, if you are using the "full editor" click on the "Insert" icon in the toolbar after highlighting what you want in quotes.
Click to expand...

Now, in the spirit of this thread, here's my latest embarrassing episode of "Fr. Stupid Strikes Again..."

Several months ago I updated my custom sound engine to use with Milviz's latest projects to allow for more flexible features. As a result of those changes, builds for FSX and P3Dv2 are slightly different. Most recently I've created installers for update both the C310R and the B55 for those who wish to use the Flight1 GTN gauges and/or the Mindstar GNS gauges.

However, these installers are both using the new sound engine, but I spaced out and didn't take into consideration that these might be installed in a system that still uses the "old" sound engine.

The net result is that neither of these installers will actually work... :oops:
 
Last edited:
Q: Why aren't my changes to modeldef.xml working!
A: Because you compiled the .x and .xanim files with the wrong version XtoMDL.exe, Fr. Stupid!

Explanation: I have three "SendTo Shortcuts" that appear whenever I right-click on any .x file:
  • Compile FSX Model
  • Compile P3Dv1 Model
  • Compile P3Dv2 Model
Each of them of course point to their respective SDK folders, so if I mistakenly choose the wrong one of 'em, it will use the (un) edited version of the modeldef.xml file! :banghead:
 
While painting a plane I would drop the .mdl into MCX to preview my work. In MCX everything look great.

I spent more time than I will admit to trying to figure out why the new livery simply wasn't available in FSX.

After many, many attempts I finally realized that I had added the new livery to my backup of FSX and not the working copy. :banghead:

cheers,
Lane
 
Lane, similar to what you've described, I've had multiple Explorer windows opened, and more than once found myself looking at the Prepar3Dv2 ..\Airplane folders, while making changes to my sim's FSX ..\Airplane folders... :rotfl:
 
Why doesn't my animation show up in the Animation Manager?!
- Because you forgot the header line and a new GUID, dummy.


My animation doesn't work?!
- That's because your animation looks for a certain value from a certain L: var and your animation controller doesn't set it. Neither is the animation tag broken nor is FSX broken nor have you run into the code block length limit for your controller gauge nor are there any malicious remains in your RAM from previous FSX sessions.
 
OK - here is yesterday's nonsense. Why is that information not showing up? Because you wrote some code that specifically turns it off duh!
 
Here is my first ever foray into xml coding from this morning:
"WHERE THE @$#! ARE MY RUNWAY LIGHTS?!"
An hour later: *suddenly realizes my altitude units are supposed to be in feet; the lights are a mile underground*
 
UnitedExpress4180 said:
Here is my first ever foray into xml coding from this morning:
"WHERE THE @$#! ARE MY RUNWAY LIGHTS?!"
An hour later: *suddenly realizes my altitude units are supposed to be in feet; the lights are a mile underground*
Click to expand...

Ah the unit conversion gremlin is one of my favorities. The other one is the decimal separator (dot or comma) - that give hours of fun to the unwary toiling programmer ;)
 
I'll share one.....
Q: Why don't my scenery elements display
hours later
Because I coded the export to "extremely dense" and my visibility setting in FSX was only set to "dense".
 
wow....in life generally everything I do this rears its head. Why wont my car star? because I didnt grab my keys from the night stand.
 
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