Taxiing Aircraft

[mongoose]

Well that's good to know. thanks for putting me straight! BoB could have some Blenheims and early Beaufighers? Maybe the odd Defiant? All of course werre used in the night fighter role in that era.

[Daiwilletti]

Here is an update of the taxiing aircraft project.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/znzwwm...aft_2.mp4/file

The airbase_dual_1 facility is still being used. Now the b 26 taxis beside the "notakeoff" runway.

[mongoose]

Looks good. I thought you had changed your QC so the enemy was far away; sounded close there!

[Daiwilletti]

Well spotted James, for some reason this game.xml version does not have a big friendly radius. And in any event, there seems to be a bug with friendlyradius. Whilst friendly facilities are created within that radius, enemy ground spawns are created too. I want to experiment a bit to see if I can discourage enemy formations from spawning within the friendly radius, perhaps with judicious use of flags in the ground spawn files or similar technique.

[wiekniera]

David,
Can we make spawn for interceptor from nearby airfield if we're into enemy airspace? like we can still see them on runway and taxing

I like seeing aircraft taxing which makes the airfield not so empty without activitiy

[Daiwilletti]

David,
Can we make spawn for interceptor from nearby airfield if we're into enemy airspace? like we can still see them on runway and taxing

I like seeing aircraft taxing which makes the airfield not so empty without activitiy

Hi wiekniera, there are quite a few of that type of spawn set already in existence. Charles Simpson made a number for his DC Diary install; also he worked on the D-Day payware, so it may also have some enemy takeoff spawns. However, if you take a look at the spawn sets for the stock operation Bodenplatte, you will see a good example is available even in the stock setup. My efforts to rewrite these spawns for general use is a bit hit and miss - you need to add the spawns = parameter to the airbase facilities.

I will rummage around in my toolbox when I'm there.

[Daiwilletti]

I set up a ju88 taxiing vehicle.



As you can see, unlike tricycle undercarriages, a "tail dragger" poses some problems when used as a taxiing vehicle!

[mongoose]

Just a side point. Do you ever use a jeep to look around an airbase? That's what I did when building Deelen.

[wiekniera]

Ah those d-day expansion, i have that but the cd is broken and it can't read anymore on my dvd drive
btw i've a bit annoying with the enemy spawn near my airfield, it's slowing the mission..do you know which spawn makes the enemy appear in our airfield during mission start?

[Pat Pattle]

As you can see, unlike tricycle undercarriages, a "tail dragger" poses some problems when used as a taxiing vehicle!

If you particularly want a JU88 David then we have the SDK one so I could knock something up. Other than that it looks like you need the gmax source to create taxiing ail draggers.

Or....if the .cfg file is still valid you could alter the contact points perhaps?

[Daiwilletti]

Ah those d-day expansion, i have that but the cd is broken and it can't read anymore on my dvd drive
btw i've a bit annoying with the enemy spawn near my airfield, it's slowing the mission..do you know which spawn makes the enemy appear in our airfield during mission start?

Is it a scripted mission? It will either be a spawn file created for the mission, or a spawn triggered by a facility. You should be able to see what spawn is triggered by looking in the mission's xml file. Unless the spawn is written in at the top of the airbase facility's xml file where it will sit at the top, next to the Flags= entry.

[Daiwilletti]

If you particularly want a JU88 David then we have the SDK one so I could knock something up. Other than that it looks like you need the gmax source to create taxiing ail draggers.

Or....if the .cfg file is still valid you could alter the contact points perhaps?

Well I'm not bothered about having a ju88 particularly. But when you look at the German aircraft which have a tricycle undercarriage, they are thin on the ground - Do 335 anybody? I might have to go take a look at Airfighter55's German aircraft as vehicles, they are probably modelled differently so all wheels sit on the ground when taxiing.

One left field idea is to try and exploit an orientation feature available in xdp files. One parameter tells the object whether it is "normal" to the substrate. I think there are other orientation settings available - some stock vehicles have X, Y positions in their xdp file. I need something like the "pitch" provision used in the gunstations. Tried pitch under the "General" section but made no difference. May not be doing it right.

OR, on the cfg issue, some stock vehicles have a vestigial cfg file. I could try a set of contact points in a vehicle cfg file. Doubt it will work - the few stock vehicle cfgs around seem to be unimplemented.

[Daiwilletti]

Just a side point. Do you ever use a jeep to look around an airbase? That's what I did when building Deelen.

Yes James, I've got driveable vehicles, my favourite is the Sherman tank so I can shoot things when I get bored . But, there is a tiny snag when testing taxiing aircraft. Way back at the start of this thread I mention that the airbase spawns don't always trigger straight away when sitting on the runway. Think back to the start of a campaign mission. One of the quirks of CFS3 is that when you start your aircraft on the runway, the airbase is often devoid of moving vehicles. And the ground.spawns don't always trigger straight away either. It is often only after you pull up from the airbase, into a turn, when ground spawns and airbase vehicles appear and start chuntering around the place.

So for testing taxiing "aircraft as vehicles", the same problem occurs, whether in QC mode or campaign mode. If you start in a driveable vehicle (which is really still an aircraft to cfs3.exe), you often don't trigger the airbase vehicles and ground.spawns in the surroundings, at least not for a while. I find that the most reliable way of triggering the moving airbase vehicles is by starting QC at 2500 feet above the airbase, and if I need to get down close I have to land. Hmm, maybe Boreks Flugelrad would be good....

[Mixxer]

Ah those d-day expansion, i have that but the cd is broken and it can't read anymore on my dvd drive
btw i've a bit annoying with the enemy spawn near my airfield, it's slowing the mission..do you know which spawn makes the enemy appear in our airfield during mission start?

Im pretty sure that if you still want the enemy aircraft to spawn but not whilst you are on the ground preparing to takeoff and it is caused by the stock air spawning system (air.spawns file) you can add the parameter LowAgl="xxxx" (x=meters) to the spawn control line which will mean it wont trigger until you are above the trigger height you've set.

[Daiwilletti]

Im pretty sure that if you still want the enemy aircraft to spawn but not whilst you are on the ground preparing to takeoff and it is caused by the stock air spawning system (air.spawns file) you can add the parameter LowAgl="xxxx" (x=meters) to the spawn control line which will mean it wont trigger until you are above the trigger height you've set.

Ah my bad, I think you are right, Mixxer. I thought the issue was spawning aircraft taking off on the runway in front of you. Ie takeoff spawns. But you are talking about general air.spawns. If the unwanted spawns are enemy air spawns near your airbase, you can add Flags="enemy" to the first waypoint line in the spawn xml file. In stock enemy air spawns triggered by the air.spawns file, they tend to add that Flag. But others (including me) have a sneaky habit of removing the flag from some enemy spawns just to keep you on your toes.....

[Mixxer]

Ah my bad, I think you are right, Mixxer. I thought the issue was spawning aircraft taking off on the runway in front of you. Ie takeoff spawns. But you are talking about general air.spawns. If the unwanted spawns are enemy air spawns near your airbase, you can add Flags="enemy" to the first waypoint line in the spawn xml file. In stock enemy air spawns triggered by the air.spawns file, they tend to add that Flag. But others (including me) have a sneaky habit of removing the flag from some enemy spawns just to keep you on your toes.....

Yep I do the same thing with my own air spawn set, just so you can never relax.

[Daiwilletti]

Given the other thread on spawning issues, it has shed some light on why taxiing aircraft as vehicles sometimes do not appear at an airbase. The trouble is, the nationality is assigned to the airbase on a random basis in campaign mode. So if the taxiing aircraft is assigned a British nationality for example, and the airbase is assigned a US nationality for the campaign mission, then the taxiing aircraft will not be used. fixed or parked vehicles called for by the facility will appear regardless of the nationality assigned to the airbase, but moving vehicles will not.

IIRC Clive also reports patchy results for getting taxiing aircraft to appear.

Here is an extract from the MAW guide posted on the spawning issues thread:

"For example, at an airbase, facility spawns are responsible for generating all the parked aircraft, the A/A guns, the cars and trucks that move around the service roads and so on.

There's are a couple of important rules to keep in mind about facilities which affect their spawns. The primary rule is facilities are assigned a random nationality from the appropriate Alliance based on the player's flight...."

[Daiwilletti]

Back to one of the main issues in this thread. It took me ages to work out how to mask an object in the texture sheet for an aircraft. Last night when rummaging around in my toolbox I found an excellent guide to alpha masking, as it is called. I wish I had found it ages ago! Perfect for doing this work and may encourage me to do a few more taxiing aircraft for airbases - getting rid of those stationary props if they are shown on the texture sheet.

I've uploaded the link to the guide in the Knowledgebase sticky. Unfortunately the author of the guide, Sopwith Camel, does not show up in the private messaging address list.