FLAi2UTL - Anyone?

[Egbert Drenth 250]

I need advice...

Currently only repaints of FLAi are used to replace the UTL repaints.
However I also could extend this to include other packages (WOAI, Aplha-India etc)

Basically I'm only interested in the aircraft.cfg (title and atc_parking_codes).
The textures and all other files I don't need.

Besides the FLAI aircraft folder, I could search also in another custom folder (lets call this: Misc-Repaints)
This Misc-Repaints folder could contain additional repaints, like:

/Misc-Repaints
	/B738-WoA_FAIB_FSX_B737-800_W
    /B737-AI-Whatever-Repaint
    /B744-And-Yet-Another-Repaint
    /etc

Those folders only need to contain a copy of the aircraft.cfg
The original installed package containing all files and used in FSX/P3D resides somewhere else on the system.
One 'only' needs to manually copy the aircraft.cfg and create an appropriate folder for it in the 'Misc-Repaints' folder.
A requirement is that these custom folders should always start with the aircraft identifier (B738, B744, etc)

In the FLAi2UTL settings per model could be defined which repaints should be included, like:

{
    "UtlCode": "738",
    "ModelCodes": "B738;B737",
    "SearchIn":  "Flai;Misc" 
},
{
    "UtlCode": "744",
    "ModelCodes": "B744",
    "SearchIn":  "Misc" 
}

Is this something that will work?
Technically it will work, but is it not too tedious: Creating a folder and copy the aircraft.cfg for each additional repaint one would like to use?
The advantage is that I can leave the original repaint folders as is.

Please ventilate your thoughts.

[fluffyflops 1,857]

On 11/4/2018 at 2:48 PM, pmb said:

I hope F1 will pay you (and FLAI) well, you would deserve it.🤣

Kind regards, Michael

They wont.  They have once again promised updates without delivering  and lied about power pack for 2 years. 

That's right 2 years 

[Egbert Drenth 250]

I have extended the functionality of the UTL model injector/replacer

It is now also possible to automagically inject, besides FLAi models, also other models (WoA, Alpha-India,...) in Ultimate Traffic Live.
Also can be set for each UTL model type, to search/use only FLAi repaints, only the 'other' models or both.

I hope to send the next beta version this weekend to the testers.

 

 

 

[simbol 5,819]

23 minutes ago, Egbert Drenth said:

I have extended the functionality of the UTL model injector/replacer

It is now also possible to automagically inject, besides FLAi models, also other models (WoA, Alpha-India,...) in Ultimate Traffic Live.
Also can be set for each UTL model type, to search/use only FLAi repaints, only the 'other' models or both.

I hope to send the next beta version this weekend to the testers.

 

 

 

In that case I suggest to change the name of the Application to AI2UTL Injector since it can do many other packages :)

Regardsm
S.

[duckbilled 310]

Would it be possible to build in a check for V4 compatibility? That's one of the biggest unities for updating AI - making sure you have a compatible model. I believe there are also issues with night textures, but, I'm not sure what that is all about.

[Egbert Drenth 250]

1 hour ago, duckbilled said:

Would it be possible to build in a check for V4 compatibility?

If you tell me how.

[duckbilled 310]

1 hour ago, Egbert Drenth said:

If you tell me how.

I don't know how, but I do know how to identify them, in general. I used a program called TumbnailExporterX to scan the FLAI folder. I goes through and checks all of the mdl's. If they are "MDLX", they should work. If they are MDL8, they probably won't. I also see types like PV20 - I'm not sure what those are. I removed them.

Anyway, if you could figure out a way to read the model type, that could do it. I'm sure there are many ways to do this, and I bet the folks at AIG have a lot more information.

[RamonB 449]

3 hours ago, Egbert Drenth said:

If you tell me how.

Hello Egbert.

I wrote an app years ago to explore FS9 & FSX MDL files, very first thing it did was to determine the model type.
Basically you have to read the MDL Header (first few bytes) to get the version (After RIFF...)
Can't remember exactly, but If I recall correctly models could be: MDLX, MDL9 or MDL8.
Let me see if I find the code and perhaps I can include detection for P3D MDL's.

Cheers.
 

 

 

Edited November 8, 2018 by RamonB

[Egbert Drenth 250]

On 11/8/2018 at 1:54 AM, RamonB said:

Let me see if I find the code and perhaps I can include detection for P3D MDL's.

Hi Ramon,

Thanks for your offer, but I managed to read the header and recognize the model. The model code for P3D = PV20

I do have a question though: Can P3D V4.x also use FSX(MDLX) models or only PV20 models?

 

 

[simbol 5,819]

4 minutes ago, Egbert Drenth said:

Hi Ramon,

Thanks for your offer, but I managed to read the header and recognize the model. The model code for P3D = PV20

I do have a question though: Can P3D V4.x also use FSX(MDLX) models or only PV20 models?

 

 

Check in FSdeveloper.com, Arno wrote a guide about how the .MDL files are structured.

Regards,

Simbol 

[d.tsakiris 418]

Most of the models I use are from FSX.

By the way, I'm also interested in your great tool. Would like to run it against the BVAI collection, which has only a few FS9-models, if I recall correctly.

[Pete Dowson 558]

53 minutes ago, Egbert Drenth said:

I do have a question though: Can P3D V4.x also use FSX(MDLX) models or only PV20 models?

Both.  Most FSX models are compatible with P3D even through to P3Dv4. At least I've no found one yet which isn't, and I run MyTraffic6, TrafficGlobal and UTlive at present -- not all at once, mind! :-)

Pete

 

[RamonB 449]

4 hours ago, Egbert Drenth said:

do have a question though: Can P3D V4.x also use FSX(MDLX) models or only PV20 models?

Simbol, Dimitrios and Pete beat me to it.

Aside from base MDL types there might be some subtypes)
I also believe that P3D v4 can use all/most FSX models. I'm using MyTrafic 360 without problems. Also have Traffic Global, but currently not enabled as it is still under development.
Just bear in mind that while they might work with P3D v4, those FSX MDL files (be it planes or scenery) won't be taking advantage of the benefits provided by the P3D v4 SDK and might not be compatible in the future.

Edited November 9, 2018 by RamonB

[flyblueskies 143]

Just curious if this is far enough along to allow the general public (me, of course) to download and try. I'm interested in replacing/updating UTL models with the FLAI models...

[ComSimPilot 623]

18 hours ago, flyblueskies said:

Just curious if this is far enough along to allow the general public (me, of course) to download and try. I'm interested in replacing/updating UTL models with the FLAI models...

Same here..can't wait to replace the default UTL models with the FLAI ones..