Author Topic: iFly 747-400  (Read 18801 times)

Slayer

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iFly 747-400
« on: December 06, 2014, 02:53:54 am »
Anyone customise GSX for this yet? The jetways go into the aircraft and need some tweaking. I've never tried editing these before but if no one else has done it I can give it a shot.

virtuali

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Re: iFly 747-400
« Reply #1 on: December 06, 2014, 10:37:18 am »
Anyone customise GSX for this yet? The jetways go into the aircraft and need some tweaking.

As explained many times on the forum, and of course on the GSX manual, NOTHING in GSX is related to jetways. GSX doesn't control, affects or is affected by, anything related to jetways. They will continue to work (or not) as they were, regardless if GSX is installed or not.

And, nothing in the GSX airplane configuration utility has any relationship or any effect on jetways.

Jetways are configured using the [Exits] section in the AIRPLANE.CFG, and are animated by FSX itself. Nothing in GSX affects or change this.

boilerbill

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Re: iFly 747-400
« Reply #2 on: December 14, 2014, 02:19:04 am »
I believe I have worked out the internal names of the important doors from the iFly 744's .MDL files. The exact positions and angles may not be perfect, but they looked good to me. That goes for the de-icing paths as well. While the default keystrokes Shift-E, 1 open the Main Door (1R), you must use the open/close commands found in the SIMU > DOORS page of the CDU for all of the other doors, including the cargo holds.

The gsx.cfg file is attached; copy it to your %AppData%\Roaming\Virtuali\Airplanes\iFly 744 directory. Here are its contents if you'd like to study them...

[aircraft]
nosegear = 23.57
refueling = 0
wingrootpos = 5.47 6.43 0.83
wingtippos = 28.51 -13.51 0.82

[exit1]
pos = -2.86 21.83 0.95 5.00
code = (L:iFly_744_Animation_Door_Entry1_L_VAL,bool)
name = Door 1L

[exit2]
pos = -3.06 12.49 0.95 0.00
code = 0

[exit3]
pos = -3.18 -9.50 0.93 0.00
code = 0

[exit4]
pos = -2.30 -23.80 0.96 -10.00
code = (L:iFly_744_Animation_Door_Entry5_L_VAL,bool)
name = Door 5L

[service1]
pos = 2.86 21.84 0.97 -5.00
code = (L:iFly_744_Animation_Door_Entry1_R_VAL,bool)
name = Door 1R

[service2]
flip = 4
code = (L:iFly_744_Animation_Door_Entry5_R_VAL,bool)
name = Door 5R

[cargo1]
pos = 1.40 18.02 -1.32 0.00
code = (L:iFly_744_Animation_Door_Cargo_FWD_VAL,bool)
name = Forward Cargo Hold
uldcode = AKC

[cargo2]
pos = 1.40 -13.78 -1.32 0.00
code = (L:iFly_744_Animation_Door_Cargo_AFT_VAL,bool)
name = Aft Cargo Hold
uldcode = AKC


EDIT: The last line in the [cargo1] and [cargo2] sections have been changed per Umberto's suggestion. The attached gsx.cfg file has also been updated with the same changes.
« Last Edit: December 15, 2014, 01:17:33 am by boilerbill »
Stu

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virtuali

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Re: iFly 747-400
« Reply #3 on: December 14, 2014, 02:14:59 pm »
Very good, thanks for sharing it.  It would be perfect with the ULD Code set as AKC, which is the typical ULD used on 747s.

boilerbill

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Re: iFly 747-400
« Reply #4 on: December 15, 2014, 01:38:36 am »
Thanks for the suggestion, Umberto. I've made the changes in my post above and in the attached gsx.cfg file.

I do have one question about the process. In the .MDL files for the iFly 747-400, the variables assigned to each door are defined as 'number'-type variables instead of 'bool'. For example, (L:iFly_744_Animation_Door_Cargo_AFT_VAL,number). From my previous programming experience, I assume that a 'number'-type variable can have any integer value within some predefined range, while 'bool'-type variables can only be 0 or 1. As I looked at other gsx.cfg files that are available on this web site, I noticed that a couple of gsx.cfg files used 'bool' instead of 'number', so I did that myself. Does it make any difference whether I had used 'number' instead of 'bool' since the bool variables (0 and 1) are a subset of the set of values a number variable can have?
Stu

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virtuali

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Re: iFly 747-400
« Reply #5 on: December 15, 2014, 10:05:57 am »
Does it make any difference whether I had used 'number' instead of 'bool' since the bool variables (0 and 1) are a subset of the set of values a number variable can have?

Keep in mind that this is not really a GSX question, but rather a generic question on how XML expression works in FSX, GSX simply pass them to FSX as they are.

What you should use, it really depends on the airplane and how the animation is made. Some developers use a variable as a bool ( hence 0 or 1 ) and define an animation with a given number of frames, for example 100. In this case, their definition might look like this:

(L:MyVariable, bool) 100 *

Their gauge code will set the L: variable to either 0 or 1, and the animation will playback at the speed defined by the <Lag> parameter in the modeldef.xml, because the variable will change from 0 to 1 immediately, but the animation will catch up with it later, following by the <Lag> parameter. This is fine for linear animations.

Some developers would like to have more control, for example having a non-linear animation, one that starts slower and ends faster. In this case, they would not just set the variable to 1 and let FSX doing the rest, but they could control the variable going from 0 to 100 using their own timings. In this case, their modeldef.xml bit will look like this:

(L:MyVariable, number)

There will be no <Lag>, usually, and the gauge code will set the variable from 0 to 100.

This 2nd case sometimes might be interesting to known for GSX customization because, if allows you to write a custom door check expression this way:

(L:MyVariable, number) 90 >=

This means that GSX will wait until the variable will reach 90 ( let's assume the animation ends at 100 ) before considering the door to be open, and this might prevent the vehicle clashing into the still opening door, which might have happened if you just checked for being "not zero", so the GSX vehicle would move immediately after the first animation frame.

boilerbill

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Re: iFly 747-400
« Reply #6 on: December 16, 2014, 09:11:45 pm »
Thank you for such an informative answer to a question that isn't quite within the scope of this forum. I didn't know where else to ask it. It never occurred to me that these number-type variables could actually control the animation in some way, but I've never used much xml programming. (The last programming language that I felt really comfortable with was C, which I taught at the high school level, and we never wrote any type of graphics programs with it.) If customers only knew how many thousands of lines of code it takes to make graphical simulations work, they would be a lot more understanding when things aren't perfect.
Stu

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nbl5370g

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Re: iFly 747-400
« Reply #7 on: January 21, 2016, 05:05:12 am »
this works great even in P3D V3. I just followed the instructions and hey presto no more messages saying open exit 2
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Letti

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Re: iFly 747-400
« Reply #8 on: February 01, 2016, 07:36:02 am »
Hi there

Ive tried to locate the gsx.cfg in the appdata folder... But the folder "airplanes" doenst exist o_O
tried a reinstall with an completely new downloaded installer

can anyone help me please?

virtuali

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Re: iFly 747-400
« Reply #9 on: February 01, 2016, 10:35:42 am »
Ive tried to locate the gsx.cfg in the appdata folder... But the folder "airplanes" doenst exist

If you never customized any airplane with the GSX editor, it's normal that folder wouldn't exists.

You can create it, and create a new sub-folder inside, named *exactly* like the name of the airplane folder itself, under the FSX\Simobjects\Airplanes folder.