The Long E-Z has "Tinkerbell" following it around!

[Guest spenik]

If down loaded the Long E-Z not too long ago and have discovered a missplaced navigation light. Particularly the one that would be on the tail.My sister thought it looked like Tinkerbell, and I had to agree :-)How would I go about fixing that?Thanks all!

[Guest Fly II Pilot]

Here's a tutorial on how you can figure out what could be wrong and on how to correct it.The first thing you want to do is get an idea of the model's dimensions and coordinates, so the first thing you want to do is open the Fly! II's Keyframe Editor by holding the CTRL key while double-clicking on the Fly! II icon. Keep it pressed until you see the editor menu. Then select Keyframe Editor...Once in the editor (DOS style), select 1. Load Model and select the .acm for the Long E-Z. Then select 4. Spin Model and you should now see the model. Use the arrows (not the ones in the keypad) plus the SHIFT key to rotate the model, and arrows plus the CTRL key to move the model around. You can also use the Q and A keys to move the model up and down and the , and . keys to cycle through the animation frames. Finally, use the P key to go from part to part and the letter X key to cycle through a part's scrape points. As you keep pressing the P key, you'll notice that a little X navigates around the model. As you do this, also look at the bottom left of the screen, you'll notice a part name and coordinates for the part. Write down several points such as the wing tips, nose and tail tips, etc. to get an idea of the model's extreme coordinates. To illustrate this, let's use the red navigation tail light, which the 3D modeler called l_nav.Navigate until the X is over the red tail navigation light. You can confirm that is the right part by looking at the name. In this case, the first scrape point for l_nav is located at (x,y,z) -0.09,0.84,-3.74 so to place the light perfectly centered we could take a look at the rest of the scrape points (with the X) and interpolate to find the part's center, or we could just use the first scrape point. In case you're not familiar with Fly!II's axis, X represents the left-right axis, Y the up-down axis and Z the front-back (forward-aft) axis. All of these coordinates are relative to the model's center.Next, unpod the long.elt file from the longez.pod file. Open the long.elt file with a text editor and look for the tail's navigation light, in this case the entry (the second set of BEGIN OBJECT and END OBJECT lines) has the same name. You'll notice that the coordinates under (_loc) are the same. So, this light is correctly placed. Also notice the (polr) entry, this sets the range, pitch and heading for the light. (Notice that I've replaced the greater-than and less-than signs with parenthesis to avoid HTML conflicts).Now let's troubleshoot the problem you mention. The "phantom" light is way back, past the model's extreme coordinates so you should be looking for a Z value that's greater than the rear-most value that you found for the model. If you look at the first entry, you'll notice that the light's coordinates are 0,4.22,-18.33 and if you look at your notes, you'll figure out that the -18.33 can't be right. You can either reposition it or simply delete it. Since most Long E-Zs don't have lights, you can place it wherever you want. It may not be a bad idea to put it on one of the winglets...Now that I looked at the file, I noticed that the taxi light is also wrong. Let's see if you can figure out what's wrong...Hope this helps...Alejandro AmigorenaCheshire, CTFly! II Beta Team MemberAthlon XP 1800ABIT KR7A-RAID768Mb RAMMSI GeForce4 Ti4600 8xAGP 128MBSB Audigy GamerCH Flight Yoke USBCH Pro Pedals USBhttp://www.avsim.com/hangar/fly/dfdg/banneraa.jpg

[Guest spenik]

Wow thanks, I had no Idea the keyframe editor existed before. I unfortunetly was not able to get the x,y, and z values for the parts I selected and could only tell which part I had selected by alternetly hiding and showing it.I was also unable to un-pod the lonez.elt. How I do so is beyond me.I do have a question though, Is the keyframe editor a dos program? If so, could I run the beta panelmaker.exe through fly? Just a thoughtRobert

[Guest Fly II Pilot]

Robert,First load the model (option 1), then spin the model (option 4). Within the model viewer, press the P key to go from one part to another and the X key to cycle through the part's scrape points.I think you were using the parts status editor instead.If I said longez.elt then I meant longez.pod so just open the pod file with podviewer and extract the long.elt file from the pod file.I don't think the keyframe editor is a DOS program, I think it just uses that kind of display. Panelmaker is a stand-alone product that can't be ran through Fly! What are you trying to accomplish?Regards,Alejandro AmigorenaCheshire, CTFly! II Beta Team MemberAthlon XP 1800ABIT KR7A-RAID768Mb RAMMSI GeForce4 Ti4600 8xAGP 128MBSB Audigy GamerCH Flight Yoke USBCH Pro Pedals USBhttp://www.avsim.com/hangar/fly/dfdg/banneraa.jpg

[Guest spenik]

I tried to use pod viewer before, but it is a .exe just like panel maker.As to what I a trying to acomplish, I wanted to try out panel maker, but it is a .exe which I being a Mac user can't use. If though keyframe editor is a dos program I thought I might be able to use fly to open panel maker.Thanks for your help Alejandro :-waveRobert

[Guest Fly II Pilot]

Robert,I didn't realize you were a Mac user.Well, here's the solution. Save this attachment as long.elt and place it in your world folder (create one if you don't have one already). That should take care of the ghost light.Do Mac users have a tools folder? If so, what do you have in the tools folder? I thought TRI had also created an unpodding tool for Mac.Take care,Alejandro AmigorenaCheshire, CTFly! II Beta Team MemberAthlon XP 1800ABIT KR7A-RAID768Mb RAMMSI GeForce4 Ti4600 8xAGP 128MBSB Audigy GamerCH Flight Yoke USBCH Pro Pedals USBhttp://www.avsim.com/hangar/fly/dfdg/banneraa.jpg

[Guest spenik]

No, I can't find a tools folder, must be just a PC tool.I read a post from Ken about a pc emulator for mac that would let me run a .exe so I will look into thatThanks for your help with the Long EZ :-waveDios te bendiga!Robert