AI traffic in P3Dv4

[Fall_guy 1]

Hi there,

Apologies if I've posted this in the wrong forum.

Can anyone tell me how AI flight plans are used by P3D.  (which folder do I place them in P3D)  or If anybody can point me in the direction of a good tutorial for AI traffic.

I'm struggling to find good information on how I can get AI traffic into my P3Dv4 world.  

Having purchased several FSP AI aircraft from Sim market.   I've installed these along with several Liveries into P3Dv4, but I'm not quite sure how to get these aircraft working.  I know I have to find a flight plan and install it, but I don't know what format it has to be in or which folder it goes in within P3Dv4.

Any help or guidance will be very appreciated.  (pity there's not a section here on the Avsim for AI traffic)  As you can probably tell I'm a bit of a novice regarding AI traffic, have always used UT2 in the past with FSX.

Thanks for your help

[Jim Young 2,356]

I use MyTrafficX (AKA MyTraffic6).  Instructions came with the product.  AVSIM is not the support forum for FSP AI aircraft.  I did some research and the following link is the support site for FSP AI - https://www.facebook.com/FSPXAI/.  I could not find much information there on how to install the product(s).  I would be very careful buying products that have no instructions on how to install the product or lacks an installer.  Is the product compatible with P3DV4?  Simmarket shows it only compatible up to V3.  Maybe the payware products are compatible with WOAI?

I did a search in this forum for FSP AI and found very little info on how to install but here's one link - https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/517276-fspainter-payware-ai-models/#comment-3689255

Hopefully you can find some help for FS Painter's!!

Best regards,

Jim

[Ian S 214]

I strongly recommend you head over to the Alpha India Group and open a free account. Their forums are a wealth of knowledge and tips.

To get your plane going though, first of all decide which airline you want. Over on AIG in the "announcements" section, virtually every airline has a flightplan released. Select and download the plan you want, put it in a folder you can identify easily "AI flight plans". 

Then add your aircraft into the your SimObjects folder , I prefix all mine with a Z ie Z_FSP A380 etc. Then then are all grouped together. Then find the livery you want relevant to the airline. Sites such as Flying Carpets, Juergen Baumbush, AVSIM and FlightSim.com have lots of liveries. These are added just like flyable aircraft.

You will then need to download some free software called AIFP3 http://stuff4fs.com/open.asp?Folder=AIFP&JS=TRUE . 

Open the software, import your flightplan from the file you downloaded, and you will see a columns of information, about the routes, airports and most importantly what aircraft apply to each route.

These will be on the right hand column in red, you then need to click on those and assign the aircraft. It will open up a search box and you will point it to the aircraft in your Airplanes folder. To assist with this I rename the title of all my AI aircraft, starting with the Airline name, so in the search filed all the different variants for that airline are grouped together and easy to find. Once you have substiuted all your red aircraft and the letteirn is black, it means you have assigned aircraft to all your routes. You'll see at the bottom the "compile" button. Point to to the scenery/world/scenery folder in P3D, hit "Compile" and it will generate a .bgl file. This will contain the route, timetable and aircraft. If all works correctly, the planes will then show up at the relevant airports.

Hope this helps.

 

[Fall_guy 1]

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the reply,  The post/link you highlighted is how I got started on this journey.  I thought I'd buy the A380 and give it a go.

Hi Ian,

Have just joined the sites you recommended and I will download AIFP3 and see if I can follow your instructions.

I'll report back my progress.

You've both been a big help, thank you

Kind Regards

 

[Ian S 214]

7 minutes ago, Fall_guy said:

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the reply,  The post/link you highlighted is how I got started on this journey.  I thought I'd buy the A380 and give it a go.

Hi Ian,

Have just joined the sites you recommended and I will download AIFP3 and see if I can follow your instructions.

I'll report back my progress.

You've both been a big help, thank you

Kind Regards

 

No problem, if you are going looking at the A380. I'd start with finding an Emirates flightplan, for a number of reasons - 

- they have a small variant size, just the A380, 777-300ER and 777-300. The 777s have been converted to P3D and are freely available over at AIG, or there are some payware 777s if you want. Some other A380 operators such as China Southern have about 20 different aircraft when you include all their different variants and special liveries etc. Not all of which have been converted to P3D yet (they are in the pipeline though)

- you'll find the Emirates textures are readily available on those sites I mentioned.

- Emirates, as you know, are all over the place so you'll soon find a plane in your sim and see if it is working okay.

If you want to just get the hang of it, you can assign A380s to all your emirates routes, and go back and install the 777s later and create a new .bgl when you've got your head around it. Fell free to PM if you get stuck

 

[Fall_guy 1]

G/day Ian,

Have now joined AIG and downloaded a British Airways flight plan Summer 2016 and saved it to a folder, along with, Airports and Aircraft files: -

Flightplans_AIG_BritishAirways_Su16.txt

Airports_AIG_BritishAirways_Su16.txt

Aircraft_AIG_BritishAirways_Su16.txt

 

However when I open AI Flight Planner v3.2.09 and choose files/open Flight Plan File (.txt or .zip) ..................... I receive the following OPTION with YES / NO / CANCEL choices

 

Day-encoding scheme of "Flightplans_AIG_BritishAirways_Su16.txt" is not
specified.  Is day-encoding 0=Sunday, 1=Monday,...6=Saturday? (i.e., for FS9)

YES      NO      CANCEL

Whether I select YES or NO, ....... I receive a unhandled exception has occurred in your application ERROR MESSAGE.  (STATING Invalid character in the given encoding.  Line 2.  position 1.

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong.  In the mean time I'll search the internet for any related info.

Many thanks

John

 

[honanhal 1,420]

Hi John,

You want to open the whole .zip file from the choose files/open Flight Plan File menu item, not the individual flight plan in the zip. That should solve it, hopefully.

James

[Fall_guy 1]

Hi James,

 

Thanks for your suggestion. 

I tried to open the whole zip file which I downloaded:   AIG_BritishAirways_Summer_2016.zip  via AIFP3/files/open Flight Plan File (.txt or .zip)

I receive the same "unhandled exception has occurred in your application ERROR MESSAGE.  (STATING Invalid character in the given encoding.  Line 2.  position 1".

Thanks for your advice though.

John

 

p.s.  forgot to say I'm running W10 just in case that has any bearing on the problem,  (but AIFP3 appears to open and work OK)

[mazelda 124]

Hi

I'm at work just now, but i can send you a little  tutorial i made up for p3dv3 which works fine also for v4 ,but not the way lockheed want you to install addons.

Bare in mind that there are several ai models that are not yet compatable with v4,having said that lots of them are.

The way i have mine set are, i have 2 folders 1 for plans and 1 for ai models that all work in fsx,p3dv3 and v4 by just pointing to them via each sim

Hope that makes sense  if you want the tutorial pm me 

[Ian S 214]

Hi John

Hopefully you are up and running and that Mazelda's tutorial has helped. As stated above, just click on the unzipped file and AIFP will sort the flighplans, airports etc.

re British Airways - if you haven't already worked it out, go to FAIB and download Ezra's brilliant models http://fsxaibureau.com/manufacturing/  Then add the BA textures. When using the models, particularly the FAIB models you'll see there some attention to detail needed as there engine variations (IAE/CFM for airbus and RR/PW/GE for the 747s) as well as sharklets and non-sharklets in the Airbus range and winglet/non-winglet in the 737 range, so make sure you apply the right texture to the right aircraft. The 787s are freeware. This site has a lot of useful links to find the models http://www.skycolors.com/ai_aircraft_models_list_fsx_fs2004.htm

Unfortunately FS9 models don't work in P3Dv4. Over at AIG a number have been updated and now work fine. You'll need the original base model then apply the update/fixes as provided on the AIG site.There is a bit of faffing about updating textures from bmp to dds but it is easy once you've done a couple.  The 777s, Dash 8 and ATR range are converted, as are a number of smaller aircraft. Hopefully the 330/340s will be completed in the not too distant future, but it is a complex process people are doing in their spare time.  The AIM 767s haven't been done, as Ezra at FAIB is releasing a new and updated 767 model soon. So with regard to BA, you won't be able to add 767s at the moment, but you can assign a 787 in its place just to get it working then change it later when the new models are out.

One word of warning, this process can be slightly addictive - once you have the hang of it you'll want to keep on adding and adding more airlines. The visual product is a lot better than the pre-packaged commercial models/repaints.

 

[honanhal 1,420]

10 hours ago, Ian S said:

There is a bit of faffing about updating textures from bmp to dds but it is easy once you've done a couple. 

Ian, I haven't switched to P3D v4 yet, but is that true? You need to switch BMPs to DDS? In FSX models that are made with the FSX SDK (e.g. the updated ones on the AIG forums) run quite happily with BMPs. Are you saying that in v4 BMPs won't work as textures for AI aircraft?

James

[Ian S 214]

37 minutes ago, honanhal said:

Ian, I haven't switched to P3D v4 yet, but is that true? You need to switch BMPs to DDS? In FSX models that are made with the FSX SDK (e.g. the updated ones on the AIG forums) run quite happily with BMPs. Are you saying that in v4 BMPs won't work as textures for AI aircraft?

James

I am not sure whether its the case that they don't work, but dds textures work better and more efficiently. The FAIB models work exactly as they come, no problem. Those models converted by the AIG team, namely TFS Dash 8s & 777 series, plus OSP's ATR series, plus some smaller aircraft such as Saab's generally come come with an updated lightsplash dds file and alpha. The alpha is to get the landing lights to work. If the texture you have is dds, just import the alpha file. If the texture you have is BMPs, the instructions state you should add the alpha, flip it, and save as a dds file. If there is a BMP_L file, just replace it with the _L dds file provided. It's very straightforward once you get going. I haven't tried not importing the dds files, but know that if you don't apply the alpha channel correctly you don't have problems with the landing lights.

 

cheers

 

Ian

[jason99vmi 157]

As Ian brilliantly stated AIG has taken on the grand task of updating models and alpha channels for ai model developers who are no longer around like The Fruit Stand (TFS) and AIM, etc. 

If you download the AIG flightplans for v3 you are fine but if you download them for v4 depending on the flightplan some of the models will not show up if they still use the FS9 model. 

Currently they are reworking the TFS A330 and 340. 

Most of the commercial airliners will show up with the exception of the ones i mentioned and I think some 767s that Ian mentioned.  Also EMB 145s will not show up since AIM made those. 

They have a handy list of what works in v4 and the link at the bottom takes you to a handy page that has links for download. 

http://www.alpha-india.net/forums/index.php?topic=25472.0