mue

11 hours ago, OlWilly said:

But what I say is that Strike Fighters game engine does not take this into account

Of course the game engine's FDM does take this into account.

11 hours ago, OlWilly said:

You can move CGPosition= wherever you want without changing a single parameter in horizontal stab, and aircraft will fly just fine.

CGPosition= does not do what you think it does.
The cog inside the FDM is fixed at 0,0,0 (in the FDM coordinate system). CGPosition= then positions the FDM in relation to the 3D Model by moving the FDM (cog) to the given position (in 3D model coordinate system).
If you want to change the cog position in relation to the aerodynamic surfaces inside the FDM you have to change the x coordinates of the aerodynamic surfaces instead by altering the Xac*TableData.

11 hours ago, OlWilly said:

Now let's look at F-16. We know that it has CoG behind the CoL, so horizontal stab produces lift.

But I don't see any fundamental differences between stab parameters of F-100 and F-16. In fact, I just copied stab data from F-16 to F-100. It should pitch down instantly, but it doesn't.

Since the (real) F-16 is aerodynamic unstable and requires a FBW system, and the game engine does not simulate FBW, I assume that the FDM is adapted to be more aerodynamic stable instead.

10 hours ago, OlWilly said:

Notice that when you use elevators, the entire aircraft doesn't go up or down - it affects only the pitch, so you have tail going down but nose going up.

Of course does the elevators contribute to the total lift force. It's basic rigid body physics (keyword: equivalent force systems): e.g. an upward force at the elevator is equivalent to the same force applied to the cog and an additional moment around the cog with moment = force x cog-elevator-distance. Sure, the lift contribution from the elevators is nearly neglectable compared to the main wings, but it's there.

10 hours ago, OlWilly said:

The rolling moment is generated by different airflow over both wings. With right yaw, the right wing generates less lift, left wing generates more lift and you get the right hand roll - Cldc.

But that is rolling moment due to slip angle beta Clb (of the wings) and not Cldc (of the rudder).

10 hours ago, OlWilly said:

And lastly, the yaw causes relative wind to hit the side of the aircraft, which turns it right and generates a substantial amount of drag - Cydc

That would be drag due to beta Cdb. Unfortunately this coefficient is indeed missing in the SF games.

I tested a side slip maneuver with the F-100A: full rudder and opposite aileron to keep the wings level. And indeed the heading doesn't change.
That means that either Cydc (of the rudder) is too big or (the absolute value of negative) Cyb (of the fuselage and tail) are to small, or both. Therefore you can try to decrease Cydc of the rudder (maybe until 0.0) and/or increase the abolute value of negative Cyb (of fuselage and tail).

On 13.4.2024 at 9:51 AM, OlWilly said:

Cydc is the side force caused by slip. It should be in negative as aircraft will slip in the same direction as rudder applied. Curiously, original file had it positive and aircraft tried to slip in the opposite direction. This is the reason for lack of slip!

Cldc is the rudder roll caused by different airspeeds over inner and outer wings during slip and thus, different amounts of lift. Likewise, should be in negative as aircraft rolls in the same direction as rudder applied, and once again, in original file it was positive.

Here you got it wrong.
Cydc is the coefficient of side force due to control surface (rudder) deflection. E.g. when applying right rudder the rudder generates 'lift' at the tail in the left direction and therefore 'pushes' the aircraft to the left (the original positive Cydc is correct, but maybe too high).
Since the tail is behind and above the cog additionally a rolling moment (counter clock wise) and a yawing moment (tail to the left, or front to the right) is generated. Both moments a defined by Cldc and Cndc.

I think the coefficient you are looking for is side force due to slip angle beta: Cyb. Main contributors are fuselage and tail. You can try to increase this coefficient if you think the side slip force is too low.
 

22 hours ago, mysticbrave123 said:

Yes my saved games folder is on my G drive and it put North Atlantic in there but no others

Yes, as I wrote, (because of a bug) the other games ignore the non-default saved games folder location on drive G and put the mod folder always in the default saved game folder location, i.e. C:\Users\<your user name>\Saved Games\Thirdwire\<game name>.
If you want the mod folders of the other games also in the non-default saved games folder location, you can use a workaround by modifying C:\Users\<your user name>\Saved Games\Thirdwire\<game name>\Options.ini:

[Mods]
Directory=G:\<path to non-default saved games folder>\Thirdwire\<game name>

After running the game, a new mod folder will be created at the new location. At the old mod folder location you only need to keep Options.ini and Version.ini, all other files can be deleted here.

22 hours ago, mysticbrave123 said:

I put it on C drive everything works ok apart from when i run the game it does not put the mod folders in my saved games folder, but strangely it puts the North Atlantic in the save folder but none of the others

Is by any chance your saved games folder in a different place than the default location (c:\Users\<your username>\Saved Games)?
North Atlantic will create the mod folder here, but (because of a bug?) the other games will create their mod folders in the default saved games folder location.

Always nice to see FlightGear mentioned here on this site.
I'm a big fan of this open source flight simulator and I already tried to combine my love for the Thirdwire sims with my love for FlightGear: https://combatace.com/forums/topic/93840-strike-fighters-2-meets-flightgear/.
I'm still working on and off on a tool that in the end should be able to automatically convert SF2 (and FE2) aircraft into FlighGear aircraft (with a JSBSim flight model).

22 hours ago, Wrench said:

I do have a question ... how DOES one import the solid and alpha objects? Just the stock ones for now, so I can experiment. I read the readme, but it only seems to want to bring in outside objects (I'm dumb at this, so bear with me!!! :) )

Yes, you first have to load objects (*.obj, *.3ds or *.lod) into the TOD editor with File->Object Manager->Load Objects... . Then you can place those object with RMB -> Add or by pressing 'A' onto a TOD.
As a 'workaround' to use 'stock' TOD objects you can load a TOD with 'stock' objects, select an object and save this object with RMP -> Save Object. Then you can later load that object as described above.

The info box in the corner shows KIAS.
If you enable debug output with DisplayDebug=true in HUDDATA.INI, then you get a lot of additional infos, including KTAS. You can circle with ALT-D through the various display modes.
I assume that TK implemented a model of the standard atmosphere that gives the air density at any given altitude and from there IAS is calculated.

You can also try to increase the Cldc coefficient (Roll moment due to control surface deflection). That coefficient is usually in the [LeftAileron] and [RightAileron] sections.

If anyone experience the same problem as Sundowner did (TODEditor freezing after opening/saving some TOD files):
I uploaded a minor update (version 0.1.2) of the TODEditor. It now uses the native Windows file dialog. That should fix the freezing issue.

On 3.1.2024 at 10:07 PM, Sundowner said:

Does anybody have issues with the TOD Editor "freezing" after editing 3 or 4 TODs ?

I haven't experienced any problems on my system yet.
What graphic card do you have?
Does it always happen after editing 3-4 TODs?
When does the freeze happen: after loading, after saving or while editing?
 

On 28.8.2023 at 5:35 AM, orsin said:

Well, better ask for a project that is open source and provides compatibility to the huge library of lod files here, than dreaming TW will invest in something that will never reward them. 

I can relate to that: https://combatace.com/forums/topic/93840-strike-fighters-2-meets-flightgear/
I'm still working on and off on this project/experiment: currently working an a script that automatically converts SF2 flight models into the FlighGear (JSBSim) flight models.

I'm still not sure what do you want to achieve or what do you expect?
Where do the input parameter coming from?

Your numbers are consistent regarding the drag force equation. Therefore I think one or more of your input parameters are wrong.
Since you want to calculate air density I assume the other parameter are the input. What seems odd with your input parameters is a drag force of 34 kN on an area of 0.46 cm^2 (=0.000046 m^2).

On 1.8.2023 at 1:22 AM, Wrench said:

little (ok, NO information) on that FB page as to what's to be accomplished taht I could find

I too have difficulties to understand what he is actually doing.
But what I noticed is, that in one of his posts he provides a google drive download link to a (I assume pirated) full version of Strike Fighter 2.

14 hours ago, orsin said:

Is it possible to add a function, such that when an element is selected in the model, the viewer shows the X Y Z axis and the base point of the individual element?

It's already there: View->Show Pivot Points of Selected Nodes (or via the icon in the toolbar)

Regarding adding edititing functionalities: I don't plan to implement any of that.

On 16.7.2023 at 11:25 AM, muhammad said:

well i couldn't find any discussion about it using the search bar so, i'm sorry if i'm asking the topic for another time.

No problem. Sometimes it's not easy to even know the proper keywords to search for. For your problem it would be e.g. "draw distance". Sometimes I use Google to search in combatace.com, e.g. with "draw distance site:combatace.com".
I remember I already wrote something about extending the drawing distance:

TL;DR
in options.ini set ObjectsFade=false and
in flightengine.ini increase DetailMeshSize
If you want the fading effect (now for longer distances) re-added then apply the shader mod from the above post.

TL;DR
To extend the draw distances of target objects (e.g. airbases, ...) you must for each object
in <terrain>_types.ini increase MaxVisibleDist and
in <targetobject>.ini increase (LOD) Distance

RIP NIELS.
My condolences to the family and loved ones.

Apply Scale to all objects before exporting the model.

59 minutes ago, dtmdragon said:

THANK YOU! Found it with your CATExtractor search feature. They are in Cat001 of all places

BTW, @Menrva already posted that info in his post above.

9 hours ago, dtmdragon said:

I know and I have tried!!! I searched every cat with the cat extractor and they are not there???

With my CATExtractor you can search for files in all CAT and DLC files at once without open every CAT/DLC file separately:
https://combatace.com/forums/topic/98056-stock-decals-and-insignias-extrection/?do=findComment&comment=803209

Thank you guys for the compliments. It means a lot to me that some programs and tools I wrote are appreciated by you modders.

But back to topic:

Quote

This thread is to thank our long time community member, modeler, and a great friend 'Logan4' 

I second that too.
Logan4 helped me a lot by providing me with numerous specific LOD file examples, so that I could investigate the LOD file format in more detail and was eventually able to create the LOD exporter plugin for blender.

With the CATExtractor from Mue's Toolbox you can search for files (in all CAT and DLC files at once) by applying a filter, e.g. "insign*tga":

5 hours ago, wasteboy said:

When adding mods to SFNA I found that the new mod folders were being established directly in "C:\Saved Games\Thirdwire" and NOT in "C:\users\myname\ Saved Games\Thirdwire"  as they should. However, all other games mod files are established in the "C:\users" file as they are supposed to.

The "Saved Games" folder is one of the Special Folders in Windows:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_folder.
It's default location is %USERPROFILE%\Saved Games, but it can be changed by the user: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-move-default-user-folders-new-drive-windows-10.
I assume in your case that the Special Folder "Saved Games" is located in C:\Saved Games. And SF2NA creates the mod folder there.
Unfortunately all other SF2 games (SF2 Europe, SF2 Vietnam, ...) seem to use an incorrect implementation of how to retrieve the location of the Saved Games folder. They always use the default location %USERPROFILE%\Saved Games.

The *.ini files will not be created automatically in the SF2 install directory (at least it didn't do that on my system). You have to create a copy manually. Just as the install instructions for the Korea mod you already quoted say:

5. Mod specific .ini configs
a. In your SF2 installation directory where all the game .exe resides, make a copy of StrikeFighters2 Israel.ini (or any other similar ini) and rename it StrikeFighters2 Korea.ini. ....