CaptainSpaulding

Infact it doesn't work at all. It's just a crazy thing in the real world. In dieselpunk terms, it's just a crossover between train and plane. Which is, somehow, cool to see. From my point of view, it's just a speculative curiosity... I don't really have any intention of making a plane of that kind. It's just for fun.

Yes, this is definitively a way to go... But what about asymmetrical fuselage? I don't think that there is a way to do that... Infact, a part some artistic painting, I don't even think that a planes with asymmetrical fuselage really exists... Thanks for you suggestion.

Is it possible to do an asymmetric plane in XP? By asymmetric I mean the fuselage, as in this Dieselpunk painting: Or asymmetric wings, as in the Rutan Boomerang: ..or the Blohm & Voss BV-141: ...or BV-111:

This can be a solution:

SmartFlying, an extension to make formation flight using ​SmartCopilot​. View File SmartFlying an extension to make formation flight using SmartCopilot. SmartFlying is a Lua script for FlyWithLua that allows formation flight on X-Plane over the internet, without the need of a dedicated server (like IVAO, VATSIM, ect.). It uses SmartCopilot to establish a connection between two remote users and share the data while it handles X-Plane's AI-Aircraft to show the position of the remotely connected aircraft. Currenty it has been tested on Linux (primary development platform) and Windows, but it should work without problem on MacOsX. SmartFlying uses AMS, an advanced package library for Lua included in the distribution archive, and it has been developed around FlyWithLua because unfortunately Gizmo is not currently available for Linux. Current version: 0.84a (21 Jan 2021) DOWNLOAD the lastest version of SmartFlying here: SmartFlying-LatestRelease.zip DOWNLOAD SmartCopilot from the home page: https://sky4crew.com/smartcopilot/ DOWNLOAD FlyWithLuaNG here: FlyWithLua NG Download page Please read "SmartFlying-Readme.pdf" for installation instructions. GET INVOLVED Do you have experience in programming languages and a basic knowledge of Lua? Do you want to get involved in the development of SmartFlying, AMS and tools for X-Plane? Please contact me (CaptainSpaulding) here on X-Pilot.com Forum LICENSE SmartFlying, an extension to make formation flight using SmartCopilot. AMS, an Advanced Library Package for FlyWithLua. Copyright (C) 2020 Pasquale Croce. This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY ; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/ . Submitter CaptainSpaulding Submitted 01/21/2021 Category Plugins and Utilities  

What about peer-to-peer connections? In your knowledge, are there any plugin for X-Plane that allows to share data between to X-Planes over the internet? Basically the same thing that XP already does for LAN, but over Internet...

Thanks @fehrster for the suggestion. It looks interesting but, unfortunately, it appears to work natively only on Windows, through wine on Linux and not available for Mac. I am on Linux and I must say that I have no idea what to do with the '.msi' file that I've downloaded there. I haven't found where to download the usual '.xpl' plugin for X-Plane.

Formation Flying with other people that are not on your LAN is quite a challenge on X-Plane. To achieve that, in the past I've used many time IVAO and VATSIM servers. If you spawn in areas far from the big airports, like the web of inlet in British Columbia, you can use those server just to see your buddies. BUT... there are couple of problems. A part that it's quite a nightmare to setup, especially if you want to see the right plane, the major problem is that it has become nearly impossible to create an account on those sites. I've had many friend that were not able to sign-up on either. Different problems, starting with "the account already exists" (not true) and ending with a series of complex questions you MUST answer if you want your login on their server. Lukily I didn't had to go trought all of this when I signed up quite a decade ago. I've tired to contact them, even via Twitter, nobody replied. So, I can say that IVAO and VATSIM are not an option for free formation flying. At least not at present, not until they fix their sign-up procedures. Is here any other option out there that can be used for this purpose? Any suggestion? Thanks in advance... Cap.S.

I guess is quite difficult to run Windows on a proprietary ARM Chip even if Win does run on ARM7 and ARM64 Machines... I can understand the excitement, but I remember the adventures that Apple had when decided to switch to an unknown RISC chip called Power. It'a risky business...

My fault. It works as expected indeed. It was just a mistake on my side.

Thanks pal. Of course, I'm coding the other side of the question which is having the plane being able to refuel only in close proximity to the "Refuelling Points". So, if don't carefully plan your flight, you risk to run out of refuelling options. I will soon make a distinction between 100LL and JetA fuel points, so you'll have to find also the right kind of gas for your plane. What you see in the pictures is obtained by scanning the installed Sceneries, so it's always up-to-date with your (sim)world. It doesn't rely on any custom data file.

Hello, I'm using this function with SDK300: XPLM_API void XPLMDrawMapLabel( XPLMMapLayerID layer, const char * inText, float mapX, float mapY, XPLMMapOrientation orientation, float rotationDegrees); ...where XPLMMapOrientation is can have the following values: Name Value Description ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- xplm_MapOrientation_Map "0" Orient such that a 0 degree rotation matches the map's north xplm_MapOrientation_UI "1" Orient such that a 0 degree rotation is "up" relative to the user interface I expect that with 'xplm_MapOrientation_Map' my labels follows the north, meaning that they rotate with the map, while 'xplm_MapOrientation_UI' it does not changes orientation if the map underneath does. The problem is that whatever value I put, the result is always matching the map's north and never the user interface. Of course, if set any value to 'rotationDegrees' the label get rotate correcty. The same applies to the Icons, for the function: XPLM_API void XPLMDrawMapIconFromSheet( XPLMMapLayerID layer, const char * inPngPath, int s, int t, int ds, int dt, float mapX, float mapY, XPLMMapOrientation orientation, float rotationDegrees, float mapWidth); Any idea, suggestion or known bug? Thanks in advance, Cap.S.

Oh, it was nice, back in the old times, to aways load a plane ready for flight and with all tanks half filled... Oh yes, it was nice to be able to refuel everywhere, even in the middle of Sahara desert or on the summint of the Everest... even in flight! I remember with a bit of nostagly those old times when refuelling wasn't an issue, but just a simulator option to trigger. Unfortunately those times are gone. Gone forever. Say goodbye to the "Fuel Anarchy Era". Ciao, ciao...

Hello... This is weird, because the tool has been compiled for Windows64 and tested. Are you using a terminal window? (it is not a GUI utility, it's a command-line tool) Can you send me a screenshot of the error you get on the terminal after running the tool? For what I'm concerned it should work on Win64.

As most of you are experiencing, the beautiful Cessna 170B made by Carenado-Alabeo has quite a number of problems and bugs. In this post I'm trying to put all the known fixes for them in one single source, that I'm willing to keep updated. Disclaimer. All the following fixes are Unofficial Hacks, made without any relation to Carenado-Alabeo. Be sure to backup your original files before attempting those fixes. Although I am quite sure that those fixes works, there is no guarantee what so ever. Proceed at your own risk. At present they have been tested on Linux, but there is no reason they won't work on Windows and Mac too. Summary of the known problems. Speedometer does not work (only on Linux); Turn coordinator does not work (only on Linux); The spinning propeller texture does not work correctly (only on Linux); The altimeter gives a bad 'baro' reading; Fuel gauges gives a bad reading; The generator switch is missing and the generator itself is set to off, meaning that after about 1 hr. of flight, the battery dies; When switching Land and Taxi light with keyboard's shortcuts, the corresponding pulley on the cockpit does not move accordingly; Instruments lights turns on, even when main power is off; Bus loads are uneven, when the master switch is on and all the rest is off, there is a draw of about 5 amps and switching the light on or off doesn't change it; After some events, the sound of the tires skidding on the ground begins a neverending loop; The static elements, once removed, can't be put be back in place if the plane was flown; Problems on Linux platforms. The problem that are found exclusively on Linux platforms are mostly related to the fact that Unix is case sensitive while, mostly for practical reasons, Macintosh and Windows are not. Thus the problem is to be found in the spelling of some file names; sometimes the difference it's just one single capital letter instead of a lower-case one, or vice versa. By checking the logs, we have found that one files and one directory are spelled in a different way: it looks for 'sharedMathematics.secured', but the file name is 'sharedmathematics.secured'; it looks for files in the directory 'C170_Logic', but it's name is 'C170_logic'; This files are called somewhere from the Lua scripts, but those scripts the can't be edit because, for copyright reasons, they are encrypted. One can easy rename the file, to match the correct spelling, but it may cause problems if other scripts looks for those files with their actual spelling; thus we suggest to make a duplicate, instead of renaming them. You can either copy them, but you'll have double files that are, in general, not a good idea. A good alternative solution is considering the use of the Unix command 'ln' (link). Open a teminal, go in your 'Alabeo C170B_v1.2' main folder (where the files 'C170.acf' and 'C170_Tundra.acf' resides) and enter the following commands: > cd 'plugins/SASLcarenado/data/modules/Custom Module/Global Functions' > ln sharedmathematics.secured sharedMathematics.secured > cd '../Custom Logic' > ln -s C170_logic C170_Logic Be careful to protect the path with the single quote sign, because there are spaces in them. For the file we use an 'hard link', for the directory we use a 'soft link'. In both cases, the result is that the same file or directory can be accessed with two different names. Please refer to your Unix manual for more information. √ [FIXED] Speedometer does not work (only on Linux) √ [FIXED] Turn coordinator does not work (only on Linux) √ [FIXED] The spinning propeller texture does not work correctly (only on Linux) Altimeter and Fuel Gauge problems. The wrong reading from the Altimeter and Fuel gauges can be fixed by editing the 'gaus_obj.obj' file inside the 'objects' directory. Because it is a very large text file, to edit it you need a good text editor able to hande files of such dimension. Luckyly Carenado, very kindly, gave their approval to share the modified version of 'objects/gaus_obj.obj', which includes the fixes to those gauges. You can download it here: gaus_obj.zip √ [FIXED] The altimeter gives a bad 'baro' reading √ [FIXED] Fuel gauges gives a bad reading Generator Switch and other Electrical problems. Incredibly, someone forgot to set the generator always active on plane loading and the C170 has no generator switch(!). This means that after about 1 hour of flight, the battery goes flat. There are also some minor problem of electrical nature (or around them). Those problems have been fixed with a dedicated script written in Lua. The C170 made by Alabeo uses both XLua and SALS. To avoid any interference with the original scripts, I've decided to write a simple aircraft patcher script in FlyWithLua. Thus, in order to make it work, you need to download FlyWithLua (see link below). Download and install this ZIP file: Alabeo_C170B_v1.2_Patch.zip I've included an 'README.txt' file with the instructions, here it's a partial extract: Patch for Alabeo Cessna C170B v1.2 ---------------------------------- This is patch fixes some problems of the Alabeo's Cessna C170B: * missing generator switch (can be configured in different ways, see below) * wrong bus loads (with configurable loads table, see below) * instrument light switch behaviour * Land/Taxi light knob update when activated from keyboard In the default configuration, once installed, the unused pulley on the right the the 'Master Switch' will turn the generator on and off. HOW TO INSTALL -------------- - put the script Patch-a-Plane.lua that you find in 'FlyWithLua/Scripts' in: <XP_DIR>/Resources/plugins/FlyWithLua/Scripts (where <XP_DIR> is the path to your X-Plane installation) - put the entire 'scripts' directory that you find in 'Alabeo C170B_v1.2' in your aircraft directory (where 'C170.acf' and 'C170_Tundra.acf' resides) Relaunch X-Plane and enjoy your patched C170. Check 'Log.txt' if anything goes wrong. Search for '[Patch-a-Plane]' in the log file to check if everything has been loaded correctly. COMPATIBILITY ------------- Patch-a-Plane has been tested under Linux (Ubuntu 19.10) and should run without problems on Macintosh and Windows. Please report any problem or bug. √ [FIXED] The generator switch is missing and the generator itself is set to off, meaning that after about 1 hr. of flight, the battery dies √ [FIXED] When switching Land and Taxi light with keyboard's shortcuts, the corresponding pulley on the cockpit does not move accordingly √ [FIXED] Instruments lights turns on, even when main power is off √ [FIXED] Bus loads are uneven, when the master switch is on and all the rest is off, there is a draw of about 5 amps and swithing light on and off doesn't change it; Problems Not Yet Fixed. We are still actively working on the fixes for this plane. As soon as we'll have some update, we'll post them here. Be patient, stay tuned. If you find any problem or bug, please report it here (and, possibly to me via private message). - [NOT YET FIXED] After some events, the sound of the tires skidding on the ground begins a neverending loop - [NOT YET FIXED] The static elements, once removed, can't be put be back in place if the plane was flown. Useful Links. FlyWithLua NG (for Lin, Win and Mac)

A cushion is often a very simple model, with the shape of a box with rounded corners. It takes maximum 5 minutes to model that in Blender. The problem is that it doesn't look right, the result always looks fake and stiff. This is dued mainly to the lack of wrinkles that are very difficult to model or sculpt by hand. But the good news is that Blender has a strong community that loves to share. After some research, I've found that the best and easiest method (so far) to make a cushion, with believable wrinkles, is the one described by this guy in his "Couch Tutorial" serie: The method is fairly simple and the result can be controlled by two parameters: the mesh subdivisions and the inflation pressure. Following this method, in less than one hour I was able to make good and comfortable cushions for my plane, and that's the result: (Stitches not included) Best, Cap.S.

MacOsX version is now available.

Hello everybody, I have some simple questions, useful to setup and organize the work of Plane Making. Triangles: what is the average total number of triangles to make a plane that works also on low-end systems? I've read that it's around 1 million, is it a correct figure? Animations: I've read that animated parts can be demanding in terms of frame rate. Is it correct? Gauges: standing the point 2, is it a good practice to make all the gauges in 3D, using XP's 2D textures only for computers and numerical outputs? Textures: I am on a relatively low-end system, equipped with a GeForce GTX 1650 with 4Mb of memory, thus I have limited capablities with 4K textures. What is the average total number of 4K textures that can be used for a plane? I may add more questions to the list as more as I get in deep with technical questions... Thanks in advance, Cap.S.

OBJ8 to Wavefront OBJ converter View File OBJ8 to Wavefront OBJ Converter for Linux, Windows and MacOsX OBJ8_convert allows you to convert 3D meshes from X-Plane's proprietary format to a standard Wavefront OBJ. This tool converts only the meshes, discarding all the other informations such as: materials, animations, dataref. HOW IT WORKS OBJ8_convert is a command line tool. The syntax is quite simple: obj8_convert <xplanesfile.obj> [<output.obj>] Once converted, the file can be opened in Blender or in any other software that is able to handle a standard Wavefront OBJ file. EXAMPLE Just for the sake of test, let's convert one of the standard objects in the library of X-Plane, the small fuel truck: The file can be found here: Resources/default scenery/airport scenery/Common_Elements/Vehicles/Small_Fuel_Truck.obj Once converted with: OBJ8_convert 'Resources/default scenery/airport scenery/Common_Elements/Vehicles/Small_Fuel_Truck.obj' test.obj ...can be opened in Blender: All the measures in the OBJ8 file are in meters, thus the resulting Wavefront OBJ file uses the meter as a unit base. Infact, is clearly visible from the snapshot, the truck is 6 meters long, meaning 6 squale, thus it is compatible with the real life truck which is 6.12 meter long. APPLICATIONS OBJ8_convert can be used to add extra elements to an airplane. For instance, if one wants to add the pilots (or some passenger) to a plane that is missing them, he can convert the cockpit file and use it as template to place the pilots in the proper position, making sure that the hands are in the right places. The sames applies to additional parts, such as winglets on the tip of the wings. OBJ8_convert can be used to get a reference to make the winglets perfectly fit the wings. Or you may want to model a ladder or a stairway to your plane's door. OBJ8_convert can be very useful also to make the files need by librain. DEVELOPMENTThis tool is under active development and its functionalities may change in the future.The primary development platform is Linux.Special thanks to @xraydelta1 for compiling the Mac version.Feedbacks, reports, suggestions or ideas are strongly welcomed: feel free to send me a message with your thoughts.X-Pilot's forum is the primary and sole forum for support, announcements and new releases. IMPORTANT NOTICE OBJ8_convert must not be used to convert copyrighted material. Please respect all intellectual properties and copyrights. PLEASE DO NOT REDISTRIBUTE DI TOOLS THROUGH OTHERS FORUMS OR PLATFORMS Submitter CaptainSpaulding Submitted 12/16/2020 Category Plugins and Utilities  

Can you send those files to me, so I can check and see where the problem is?

Hello everybody, I need help to indentify the gauge on the picture. At first I've tought that it was a clock (we can see three needles very similar to the one on clocks), but then I've counted the radial sectors and they are 10 instead of 12. Infact we can cleary see the '7' on the left side, meaning that the mid-vertical position is '5'. What instrument has tree needles like a clock but it's divided in tenths instead of twelveth? The only one I can think of is the altimeter, but I don't think that one is an altimeter. Any idea? Thanks in advance.