Pilots.... well actually Navs and FEs....

[+daddyairplanes]

so i have the following entry

[FltEng]
SystemType=PILOT_COCKPIT
SeatID=3
ShowPilot=TRUE
PilotModelName=PROP_PILOT
SetCockpitPosition=TRUE
Position=0.617,12.275,0.775
MinExtentPosition=-0.615,12.25,-0.770
MaxExtentPosition=-0.595,12.50, 0.780
//SeatModelName=seat_F-15
SeatModelName=
SeatPosition=0.593,16.58,0.249
CanopyNodeName=

is there anyway to turn the pilot so hes face to the right or left via ini edit? and if not, is there a way to change the orientation in Max so the pilot is 90 degrees of the "normal" facing front postion?

looked up EricJ's tutorial and through the KB, and remember there was a thread about this with another bird (facing backwards in this case) just dont remember what the outcome was

[Gatling20]

I remember Mue posting about this a couple of years ago. The short answer was that you can't rotate a pilot figure in the Data.INI, but you can to some extent by hex-editing.

If you open the Prop_Pilot.LOD with a hex editor you will see at offset 6A the entry 803f, and the same at offset 7A and 8A.

If you change the entry at 6A from 803f to 80bf the pilot figure will be mirror-imaged (you can check this by painting a temporary patch over one eye).

If you change the entry at 7A  to 80bf  the pilot will be rotated 180 degrees and facing rearwards, and if you change the entry at 8A to 80bf the pilot will be flipped upside down (this is not very useful, but interesting).

There must be a way of rotating the pilot something other than 180 degrees, but I don't know what that entry would be.

 

Mue has looked into the structure of LODs in great detail, and he may know the answer to this.

 

Edited September 20, 2021 by Gatling20

[+daddyairplanes]

interesting, and suspected.

further, changed to 803x a through f and changed thickness of the pilot.

but when i ran anything in 80xF outside of 3 or b, the model disappeared in lodviewer

Edited September 20, 2021 by daddyairplanes

[Gatling20]

Haha! The flat pilot is about as useful as the flipped upside down one. I wonder if someone can work out how to rotate him 90 or 270 degrees?

[+yakarov79]

you need crew?

send me pictures of the desired outfit (helmet/no helmet/top hat etc...) and will see what I can do. I have a pilot template, a few helmets. Can put some dude together. 

It is about time...that we should have a crew in 'different positions' in the library. 

[+daddyairplanes]

appreciate the offer

currently working with Prop Pilot, although for the birds you can see into (cargo, not typically post WW2 bombers) could go with airline style

and regular air force flight suit style

with headphones for the one working the radios

it actually doesnt need to be anything too fancy, as the pilots flying heavies dont usually wear  a lot of survival gear  like fighter and bomber crews and at game scales and most folks tendency to zoom in, the patches are too small to tell who they are

 

ideal would be a set of five, one pilot configured with headphones, one pilot without, one facing port, one facing starboard, and one facing rear. the left right and rear folks should be positioned more like typing or reaching for a screen than as if flying. sorry, there arent too many good pics of flight engineers on the internet of 2021, these pics are more for general appearance of the uniform than anything else

 

final note, tried changing values in the helopilot01 same as done with the Prop_Pilot

i'd love to report that it flipped him to but there was no noticable change. so the address and/or values change up with each model. damn, i could hope

 

Edited September 21, 2021 by daddyairplanes
break in post, had to walk my dog

[Gatling20]

The bytes you are looking for in the Helopilot01.LOD are at offset FA, 10A and 11A. To reverse this LOD change the entry at FA from 803f to 80bf and the entry at 10A from 7f3f to 7fbf.

The first change mirrors the figure, the second reverses him 180 degrees (if you don't do both the writing on his flak vest will be reversed in the sim).

The reason why the offset address for these three entries if different is that the old Prop_Pilot.LOD has only two parts, named Pilot and Head, where the more complex Helopilot01.LOD has more (20).

So the trick in reversing a pilot LOD is to look for these three entries (803f or sometimes 7f3f) on consecutive lines in your hex editor, and then edit them.

 

[+daddyairplanes]

gotcha, although i will wait on yakarov's potential new crew members. i was tinkering more than i was trying to adjust the helo pilot

that info is good enough to need to find its way into the knowledge base though, as simple reversal would improve many models (tail gunners anyone?)