WAMA Static Aircraft and FSUIPC

[777-Pilot 0]

Hi all,

I am really enjoying WAMA for placing static aircraft at my favorite airports! Unfortunately, I stumbled across a problem: I am using the FSUIPC AI Planes Limiter (set to 50) to reduce the amount of AI planes around me to get better performance. Unfortunately, the limiter not only removes my AI planes but also the WAMA static airplanes and my saved aircraft positions. Is there a way to "tell" FSUIPC not to remove those? Maybe flag the static aircraft placed by WAMA not ais AI planes but as scenery objects? Or by configuring FSUIPC so that it excludes the WAMA aircraft from removing?

BTW: I am using the "create aircraft as objects" option.

 

Thanks!

David

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

Hello David,

this question has come up before, and I thought that people found a way to set the parameters in FSUIPC in such a way that it leaves the WAMA objects alone. But I have never used that feature, so I don't really know anything about that.

I do not know how FSUIPC works, but the options that a SimConnect based program has to detect AI aircraft are limited. In case of FSUIPC I am assuming that it is either monitoring all object creation events and then checks if that object is an aircraft, or it reads the simobjects "by type" - which returns all aircraft as well - no matter how they ended up in the sim.

So there is nothing I can do against that as a creator of objects. It would be up to FSUIPC for example to expand the selection parameters by "ai traffic state". That way FSUIPC could decide if an object is an actual AI following a plan or not (excluding possibly UT 2/Live created aircraft).

The only way to trick current FSUIPC into leaving them be is to replace your parked aircraft with objects that aren't aircraft to the sim. Off the top of my head I would suggest this:

• create a copy of every aircrafts' folder that you are using in WAMA
• rename the aircraft.cfg to sim.cfg
• change all title= tags in the cfg (for example "title=Commercial Airliner Paint2" becomes "title=Commercial Airliner Paint2_WAMA" - or whatever expansion you like)
• finally set category=SimpleObject in the [General] section of the sim.cfg, instead of "Airplane"

When you replace a parked aircraft with an member of that duplicate on the WAMA database editor, then FSUIPC will probably leave it alone - it is not an aircraft any more. 

Best regards

Edited January 5, 2019 by Lorby_SI

[777-Pilot 0]

53 minutes ago, Lorby_SI said:

Hello David,

this question has come up before, and I thought that people found a way to set the parameters in FSUIPC in such a way that it leaves the WAMA objects alone. But I have never used that feature, so I don't really know anything about that.

I do not know how FSUIPC works, but the options that a SimConnect based program has to detect AI aircraft are limited. In case of FSUIPC I am assuming that it is either monitoring all object creation events and then checks if that object is an aircraft, or it reads the simobjects "by type" - which returns all aircraft as well - no matter how they ended up in the sim.

So there is nothing I can do against that as a creator of objects. It would be up to FSUIPC for example to expand the selection parameters by "ai traffic state". That way FSUIPC could decide if an object is an actual AI following a plan or not (excluding possibly UT 2/Live created aircraft).

The only way to trick current FSUIPC into leaving them be is to replace your parked aircraft with objects that aren't aircraft to the sim. Off the top of my head I would suggest this:

• create a copy of every aircrafts' folder that you are using in WAMA
• rename the aircraft.cfg to sim.cfg
• change all title= tags in the cfg (for example "title=Commercial Airliner Paint2" becomes "title=Commercial Airliner Paint2_WAMA" - or whatever expansion you like)
• finally set category=SimpleObject in the [General] section of the sim.cfg, instead of "Airplane"

When you replace a parked aircraft with an member of that duplicate on the WAMA database editor, then FSUIPC will probably leave it alone - it is not an aircraft any more. 

Best regards

Thank you for your super quick reply! I will try that tomorrow and report back.

[777-Pilot 0]

Ok, I have done some testing now and your method works great, Oliver! The only problem is, that the aircraft (wich the simulator now handles as objects) are displayed in their flying state, i.e. gear up. Is there any way to edit the config file in such a way, that the default state for the aircraft is to be displayed with the gear extended?

Thanks!

David

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

Hello David,

these animations are usually encoded in the MDL file. You would have to edit the corresponding partinfo in the modeldef.xml inside the MDL to make it show the gear.

You could also try other categories, like Helicopter or GroundVehicle, hoping that FSUIPC will ignore those too. With P3D V4 helicopters can be AI too, so it is uncertain what FSUIPC will do.

Best regards

[777-Pilot 0]

Thanks for your answer, Oliver. I will experiment a bit further with the categories.

I might also look into ModelConverterX. From what I have seen it is fairly easy to use and can convert bgl files which can then be placed using ADE or SimDirector.

[777-Pilot 0]

Ok, I figured it out. For everyone, who wants to use static aircraft injected by WAMA you have to do the following:

1) Do the steps as provided in Olivers post above

2) Download the latest version of ModelConverter X (https://www.scenerydesign.org/development-releases/) 

3) Import the .mdl file of the model you want to use and use the "animation editor" inside of ModelConverterX to lock the landing gear of the airplane in place in the extended position (refer to MCX manual).

4) Export the model to an .mdl file and replace the .mdl file inside the folder you created in step 1) (do not replace the .mdl file in the original folder of the model!)

Now your static aircraft will be displayed with gear down and will not be removed by the FSUIPC traffic limiter. 

 

Cheers

David

 

P.S.: Do you think you could add an option into WAMA, so that step 1) is done automatically, Oliver? This way the user would just have to replace the .mdl file with the edited one and would not have to do all the renaming and .cfg changing manually.

Edited January 7, 2019 by 777-Pilot