Henrik Nielsen's Global AI Ship Traffic for MSFS

[bernd1151 5,825]

13 minutes ago, captain420 said:

For those of you with the MS Store version of MSFS. Dragging the layout.json file over MSFSLayoutGenerator.exe doesn't seem to update the layout.json file for me. They're encrypted. How do you get around this?

I would just use another Layout.json then. I used one from an add-on livery. Works fine.

[sal9000 210]

For me too

[captain420 3,099]

That's not the problem. The problem is no matter what layout.json I copy over, they're all encrypted. and when attempting to drag the file on top of MSFSLayoutGenerator.exe it won't update the layout.json file for me since it's encrypted.

I figured out a workaround. Just extract the Global Traffic Ship V2 to your desktop and then copy over your manifest.json and layout.json and MSFSLayoutGenerator.exe to there and then do it from that location. Once it's done, just zip up the entire Global Traffic Ship V2 folder and then extract it back into your Community Folder.

UPDATE: Nevermind. somehow my layout.json file is corrupted and won't even open in notepad++ or any other app. Even LNM won't recognize it.

 

Edited December 2, 2020 by captain420

[sal9000 210]

I think you got your MSFS on a different drive as C:\ ?

Then the drive you got will crypted.

 

[captain420 3,099]

What's the filesize you guys have for your Layout.json file? Mines like 1002kb

[Waldo Pepper 1,952]

layout.json = 1001kb

[sal9000 210]

1000 kb straight

[captain420 3,099]

Okay so mine's right then, and all is working now. Thanks everyone. The oceans are alive again! I love and miss this add-on so much!

But I heard that some files needed to be converted to DDS so that textures show up? Approximately how many files? I have Photoshop and NVIDIA's DDS plugin.

Edited December 2, 2020 by captain420

[bernd1151 5,825]

Don't worry too much about it, you'll have 364 ships in your AI ship folder, some 10% still have BMP textures and won't show up. All the rest has DDS textures and will work fine. If you have nothing to do, you can skim through your ship folders and check, which ones still have BMP textures. Most of the tall ships appear to have BMP textures. If you like to have them in your sim, look for them first.

[Waldo Pepper 1,952]

The models that have missing or broken textures are typically the models which show up in the CVT folder.   CVT folders are folders which the sim itself makes when you install and run content created for FSX.   That is to say, if the models are fully FS2020 compatible and don't have issues they won't show up in a CVT folder.   So look in,  "global_ai_ship_traffic_v2_CVT" to know which ones to fix in "global_ai_ship_traffic_v2" non CVT.   After you make any fixes in the non CVT folder you should delete the CVT folder and let the sim recreate it.

Earlier in this thread I explained how I got the Calypso working.

I've also been playing with the HMS Bounty.   The Bounty shows up in the sim,  but the hull textures don't render for me.   I've tried playing around with different formats with no luck.   I opened the bounty in "ModelConverterX" and found that the model calls for textures which are missing in the mod.   A glass texture,  and a texture named "Mackenzie".    I replaced the glass texture with another found in the shipping mod,  but "Mackenzie" is the missing texture of the helmsman.  You can see this helmsman anomaly visually in modelcoverterX.  I really don't know much about any of this,  so I went to google and found this,

https://www.fsdeveloper.com/wiki/index.php?title=Missing_textures

Quote

Overview
Missing textures for aircraft / scenery will impact on the simulator's performance, possibly resulting in a render-stall.

Depending on your PC's currently available resources,
the symptoms of which are, one or more of -

• Objects rendered as transparent.
• Objects rendered as disassociated components.
• Screen artifacting
• Reduced FPS.
• Illegible fonts on main and context menus, ATC window, kneeboard page titles, cockpit tooltips, multiplayer-chat window etc..

 

The above issues can be caused by, (or further exacerbated by),
if the -

• texture file is missing.
• texture.EXT called by the model, differs from that present in the repaint folder.
• texture is of a non-DXT format.

 

Modeler's particularly should note -
During build of your model, if you delete any part(s) that call textures unique to that part(s),
the related call to that texture, will still exist in your compiled model, (use a hex-editor to check).

On loading your model in-game, the model will still call that now "orphaned" texture, (even though the part(s) no longer exist).

Which makes me think that "Mackenzie" might be causing this.

I think it's the model's "MDL" file which calls for the textures.   Not really sure though.

One other texture anomaly worth noting,  before the last FS2020 update this shipping mod displayed ship wakes.   The looked ok from a distance,  but had weird artifacts up close.   Those wakes no longer display at all after the last update.   Not sure if it's worth mentioning or not,  or even related.

Edited December 3, 2020 by Waldo Pepper

[dobee51 346]

I just did a batch conversion of all the ship textures to DXT3 using ImageTool but now I'm hearing (reading) that the images or alpha channels need to be flipped.

Can anybody clarify?

Also I read in a thread here or elsewhere that MSFS 2020 supports the FSX legacy EXE.xml  usage. I tried installing and running AI Carriers with the Nimitz add-on. The program was running in the background, and right click on the tray gadget said it was attached to Kitty Hawk, which I believe was the default FSX aircraft carrier.

Hot key command SHIFT-J was supposed to bring up a menu, but that didn't happen. Any ideas, caveats?

[johnbla 31]

On 12/3/2020 at 4:04 AM, sauviat said:

@jimcarrel In your "Linker" in the right hand column for Community folder it will give the full title - which you are not telling us. If it is global_ai_ship_traffic_v2_CVT and with a grey background, then you will be able to sleep tonight!

Leave it there it is not doing anything. In fact if you have ported over anything from FSX it will end with CVT. But don't delete the one with the green background.

Martin

 

Martin

In Linker I have Global_AI_Ship_Traffic_V2 and that seems fine. Underneath that I have global_ai_ship_traffic_v2_CVT and the title says "could not read the manifest.jason file". 

If it does not matter, I am not worried by it. As long as I get the ships. Just wondering what it means. Thanks in advance.

John

[sauviat 137]

@johnbla  John, I don't know what part of the process that produces the CVT file, but I do know that everything I port from FSX has the file file ending with CVT.

Martin

[johnbla 31]

Tks sauviat.

[sauviat 137]

13 hours ago, dobee51 said:

I just did a batch conversion of all the ship textures to DXT3 using ImageTool but now I'm hearing (reading) that the images or alpha channels need to be flipped.

Can anybody clarify?

Also I read in a thread here or elsewhere that MSFS 2020 supports the FSX legacy EXE.xml  usage. I tried installing and running AI Carriers with the Nimitz add-on. The program was running in the background, and right click on the tray gadget said it was attached to Kitty Hawk, which I believe was the default FSX aircraft carrier.

Hot key command SHIFT-J was supposed to bring up a menu, but that didn't happen. Any ideas, caveats?

@dobee51 Yes I read, I think @Waldo Pepper, who mentioned DXTBmp and to use it to flip bmp files. Yes it works on the file he discussed. However, if the vessel/plane has umpteen bmps, you will need to spend a lot of time to flip them! Now if you want to portover something from FSX, then use MSFS Legacy Importer and it does everything for you = almost!

I was looking at Ai Carriers and wondered if it was possible. My cfg has 114 vessels, none mentioned as Kittyhawk.

I will be looking at this very soon.

Martin