AR196 Project in AD2K

[No Dice]

Spear in my back, lay dieing on the floor from blood loss, fading in and out.......in and out...
Arrows to the left of me, arrows to the right..bang a gong.

Fading ever so slow....never to see my...................on floats.

Then Hubba rushes in and makes the best trench macros ya'll have ever considered, I will
not share the info now, BUT his prelims are just nuts.

Now revived somewhat; I attempt to make my way back to the tree.....STAY TUNED

Dave

[smilo]

ah, come on, Dave.
i didn't poke ya that hard.
i was just chasin' ya
and yelling obscenities.

and that was just frustration
from those damned tree lights.
speaking of which,
i need to go up and start swapping bulbs.
oh joy,
i can already feel the fingernails breaking.

[No Dice]

Luv ya dude,
Hope the tree ends up lighting...
I was not Joking about Hubbas trenches, Welcome to WW1 CFS1. Sorry can not tell anymore
BUT they will knock your socks off.............

Back to my tree that is fully lit......LOL

Dave

[smilo]

i went upstairs and fooled with them a bit more.
after pulling out 10 lights,
breaking my thumbnail,
and finding that all 10 bulbs were burned out,
i sat down and told my wife what was going on.
she said,
"this happens every year. i don't know what to tell you."
i said, the hell with it.
i'm going into town tomorrow and i'm buying new lights.

i hate the idea of throwing them away,
but it will give me great pleasure and relief,
tossing the cursed things in the trash.

i wish i could afford to buy leds.
that would be sweet.

better yet, i would love to forget the whole thing,
but the grand daughter would be disappointed,
not to mention, the wife would make my life miserable.

i would much rather be working on the 196

[smilo]

time surely flies when you're having fun.

Christmas has passed and we're back
from our little trip to the Oregon coast.
the trip was very enjoyable.
the weather kicked up a bit,
but that's to be expected.
besides, it made the crashing waves
much more dramatic.

over the past few weeks,
i have done some work on the 196,
but not as much as i would have liked.
there are lots of reasons or excuses,
but i won't go into that now.

now, i'm on vacation for a couple weeks
and hope to put in more time on it.
i am hoping to, finally, figure out
the visual coding sequence
that will make it properly visible in cfs.
we shall see how that goes.

today, i have been attempting to see
the float support frame work in various views
without the pieces over lapping each other.
i started out with just a couple braces
and am now up to four with some success.

jeepers, so far, it's only taken 4 hours to do four!
...only twelve more braces to go.

i figure, if i can get the float support frames to show properly,
there will be light at the end of the tunnel
and i should be able to use the technique to assemble the model.
as i like to say, we shall see.

sorry folks, no pictures.

[Ivan]

Hi Smilo,

You are getting overly detailed with those float supports. You are making each one the equivalent of a AF99 "Component". A 2D brace / support won't look noticeably different with the level of detail that can be seen in CFS.

Just my opinion....
- Ivan.

[smilo]

after all the hours invested,
this is not the best of news.
but, what the hey,
it's all part of the learning process.
right?

at this point, the hardest part
is dumping what i've already done
and starting over.

here's a shot of the current
forward cross member;

[Ivan]

Hi Smilo,

I am not saying you CAN'T do it that way. I am just saying that it is much more detailed than necessary with CFS. Just as an example, the Fokker Eindecker I built has all 2D control surfaces and even 2D pieces of the wings and I don't believe it suffers because of that.

If you already spent a lot of time getting it right, there isn't a need to delete anything. We tend to be much more resource limited with AF99 projects.

- Ivan.

[smilo]

agreed on all points,
with one slight exception.
i delete almost nothing.
i just stash it away in a folder
for future endless searching.

actually, if i decide to cut back to 2D framework,
it should be very easy to change,
since i already have the coordinates.

all of the framework parts are built.
i am currently working on the alignment coding
and the seal plane polygon alignment.
(i think you call them glue)
one piece at a time.
so far, i have the forward and aft cross members
and the right wing struts coded
with no major visible overlapping,
or, as you say, bleeds.

_______________
i'd better stop talking
and start rocking,
lest my manager gets on my case.

[hubbabubba]

Hi smilo
Ivan

The final choice will always be yours, smilo. Ivan's Eindecker was, by his own admission, an "exercise in frugality". In other projects, he's less frugal.

I know that I've done things that took me hours, days, even months... but went unnoticed when released! It is a bit frustrating sometimes but, when you think of it later, you realize that one of your goal was to "make it look easy". So why complaining?

Keep it funny for you, smilo. That's the only advice I can give you.

[smilo]

Hi smilo
...................................
Keep it funny for you, smilo. That's the only advice I can give you.

"Lecture au dela de la fin de fichier."

is this French for,
Are you having fun yet?
somehow, i doubt it.

after working for most of the day, yesterday,
i got this popup message on my screen.
with no choice, except to close the popup window.
of course, closing the window removed the work.
oh yeah, now we're having fun!

ad2k offers two ways to build.
you can build in a master assembly
or just in an assembly.
after being compiled, a master assembly
creates a mdl which can be seen in the sim.
a plain assembly can not be seen in the sim.
BUT, a plain assembly can be inserted
into a master assembly.
here's an ad2k tutorial quote;

An assembly is a part of the model which is stored in a separate file.
Using assemblies brings some advantages :
When your model is a complex one, or a very detailed one,
using assemblies helps you keep a reasonable size of the files you are working on.

a master assembly is stored in a .3DM file
and an assembly is stored in a .MD1 file.

i know this system works, because i used it
way back when i was working on the A-20.
but that was way back when.
the master assembly/assembly selection process
is very simple, just one check box.
but now, ad2k will not build or even see a .MD1 file,
except when, in ad2k, i try to open a file
and click the file of type: Tous fichiers option
(i am guessing this means all types of files)
if i try this, i get
Lecture au dela de la fin de fichier.
and loose the contents of the file.
DRAT!!!

i have been up most of the night
trying to figure this out with no success.
i have even tried older versions of ad2k
and tried it on other machines,
but they are all running xp service pack3.
at this point, i have a sneaking suspicion
that some security update maybe the cause,
but i can't be sure.

unless i take an other machine,
and reinstall xp without the service packs.
now, that sounds funny!

[hubbabubba]

Sorry for you, smilo. You have all my sympathy...

"Lecture au delà de la fin de fichier." Simply means "Reading beyond the end of the file." Now, that's what it means in French, but what it really means in computer geek lingo, I simply have no idea. I will take a pot shot; the file is erased and trying to read it makes you go "beyond". Anyway, not much of a consolation price, I know... as you often say; DRAT!

Happy New Year... nevertheless...

[smilo]

thanks hubba,
that's the translation i got googling it.
except it was some musician
that lost a night of composing.
apparently, French program creators
like to use that phrase,
what ever it means.

i'll just say, so it goes,
start over and continue to muddle along.

i tried to install ad2k on an old me machine,
but gave up when it didn't want to read my usb drive.
maybe i'll try harder later.
i really don't need any more frustrations right now.

it's not a big deal, really.
it's just part of the game.

on the bright side,
i did find a file with all the frame work templates,
but not the coding.
the templates are a jumbled mess,
so i've decided to organize them
in a manageable order.

onward through the fog

[smilo]

with a very large dose of cautious optimism,
(yeah, i know it's out of character)
i want to report that i might have found
a workaround for the MD1 file issue
i eluded to above.
without going into to much detail,
the solution involves an inordinate amount
of file saving, compiling, renaming and more saving
and then recompiling the 3DM master assemble file
that i want to convert to a MD1 assembly file.

i have been able to work on a 3DM file,
convert it to MD1 and then insert it
into the main project file a few times now.
going back to rework it is a bit convoluted,
but i have done it successfully a few times today.
i am also saving and storing files out of the way
to what, at times, seems an extreme.
but it's easier than redoing them if i have another snafu.

the coding process for the wing to float to fuselage framework
is coming along rather nicely,
although, i still have a few overlaps to work on.
at the risk of being overly optimistic,
i am feeling pretty good about the progress.

[smilo]

---------------
after many hours and even days
of dinking around with the coding sequence,
i've finally had a breakthrough.

of course, this, by no stretch of the imagination,
means that i have mastered the process.
but i do feel that i have made major progress
and that i am definitely on the right track.

fortunately, i am on vacation
and have been able to devote
the many hours required for this task.
all this in spite of being a bit under the weather
with my annual holiday bout with a cold.
the cough induced headache is a real bonus.