File Name: ai_float.zip
Author: Holger Sandmann
Date of Release: January 2004
Version: 1.00
This Starter Kit provides fictitious AI traffic of three different floatplanes in the San Francisco Bay (Pier 39) and instructions for setting up other floatplanes and additional AFCAD2 water strips anywhere in the FS world. The AI floatplanes - Piper J-3C-65 Cub, Waco Classic Biplane, and Aviat A-1B Husky - have their contact points adjusted so that they are properly sitting with their floats in the water. Custom wake and spray effects are triggered by special settings in the aircraft.cfg file. The Starter Kit also includes three additional floatplane templates for a DHC-2 Beaver, Noorduyn Norseman, and the default C208 Amphibian.
Thanks to Steven Grant and Lynn & Bill Lyons for granting permission to include altered versions of their original model and texture files.
I don't claim copyright on any of the tweaks I came up with myself or in discussion with other designers. In fact, I encourage you to use these ideas for setting up different floatplanes and AFCAD2 seaplane bases of your own and share your work with us. Feel free to distribute my custom effects with your files - acknowledgements are always appreciated ;-)
HOWEVER, please DO NOT re-distribute any of the third-party files included in this Starter Kit: all model and texture files as well as the wacoF.air and cub2.air files are copyright Steven Grant and Lynn & Bill Lyons, respectively. If you want to include any of these files you need to ask the original authors for permission before doing so!
A project as experimental and open-ended as this one will doubtless generate many questions, issues, and ideas. Please do not send any technical inquiries to my personal e-mail address, as I most likely won't be able to answer them due to lack of time or expertise. Instead, post your questions or ideas at one of the online discussion forums, such as avsim, flightsim, simviation, or projectai. Using the forum gives you a much better chance of a response, might stimulate an interesting discussion, and will gradually add up to a public database of knowledge about AI floatplanes. Thanks for your interest and consideration!
This package consists of a single fictitious seaplane base at Pier 39 in downtown San Francisco. Each floatplane has a different type of flightplan: closed-loop IFR, closed-loop VFR, and closed-loop touch-and-go. Other than the tweaks to make them "float" on water, and the fact that they can only be used with seaplane bases, the aircraft behave and can be used with AI flightplans like any other GA plane.
* While the floatplanes may be hard to spot from the air, their neat wake effects are clearly visible.
* Simple adjustments to AFCAD2 files allow for setting up "invisible" seaplane bases on lakes and in oceans.
* Three ready-made floatplanes - Piper J-3C-65 Cub, Waco Classic Biplane, and Aviat A-1B Husky - plus three template folders with tweaks for the FS default Cessna 208 Caravan, John L. Woodward's DeHavilland DHC-2 Beaver, and Brian Gladden's Noorduyn Norseman (see readme_templates.txt, in the Templates folder).
* None of these aircraft were specifically made for AI, so their comparatively high polygon count will have an impact on frame rates, particularly if several of these are in your visible area at the same time. Some aircraft have more of an impact than others. Hopefully, one day we'll have made-for-AI floatplanes.
* AI aircraft taxiing on water are sensitive to any changes in water elevation. If you approach a floatplane quickly or switch to it via Ctrl-W, the FS display engine will often adjust water levels, which may make the aircraft bounce (though they usually don't crash).
* As any AI aircraft in FS9, the floatplanes will get "pushed back" before beginning to taxi. I have set up drive-through parking spots but whether the aircraft will leave the parking spot forward depends on the direction of the active runway.
* It seems that when two floatplanes of the same model are taxiing at the same time only one of them will display all the effects (this is not a problem in this particular setup).
* The floatplanes don't seem to "see" each other and tower doesn't always warn them either. If two planes reach the same hold-short node at the same time, they may end up on top of each other. The usual extra blue node doesn't seem to make a difference here.
* The Piper Cub has gray patches on its wings and tail covering the registration numbers; the patches will disappear when the user selects the same aircraft for flying! I assume it's an issue with the model.
To uninstall, delete the following folders:
FS9\Aircraft\ZZZA Floatplane Aviat Husky
FS9\Aircraft\ZZZA Floatplane CubF Lyons
FS9\Aircraft\ZZZA Floatplane Waco Classic
... and the following files:
FS9\Effects\fx_AI_floatplane_spray-and-wake.fx
FS9\Addon Scenery\scenery\AF2_22CX.bgl
FS9\Scenery\World\scenery\Traffic_floatplanes.bgl
FS9\Flights\other\AI floatplanes... .flt and .wx files (2)
... plus any of the additional ZZZA Floatplane template folders you might have installed.
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Tips and Tricks:
Generally, you should approach these non-standard AI set-ups with a very open mind. Just because some document or person states that something can't be done doesn't mean that is true - go wild and experiment with all available parameters!
1. Additional floatplanes
When selecting a new floatplane for use as AI consider that only those with no gear at all (as opposed to Amphibians, like the default C208) will look good as floatplane AI. Those aircraft with gear will drop it during approach and keep the gear down until after takeoff (see my template for using the default C208). Also, amphibian aircraft cannot be used interchangeably on land and in water because the contact points can only be set up for one specific type of use.
2. AFCAD2 design
I suggest you start by looking at the features and settings of the AFCAD2 that comes with this Starter Kit; also, reading Lee Swordy's detailed documentation will be of great help.
* Setting taxiway and/or runway type to water does not work with this system.
* Setting taxiway and runway widths to 1ft or less makes them invisible, including the hold-short lines.
* You can use unconnected (wide) taxiways to simulate docks; different surface textures are available.
* Make sure that "airport" and runway elevation match the actual water elevation (in the San Francisco Bay, the average water level is -6 feet!), otherwise the effects may look broken and the aircraft might bump around.
* Unfortunately, it seems that the AI floatplanes don't "see" one another. If they approach a hold-short point at the same time they may end up on top of one another. I have tried to minimize the chance of this happening by keeping the taxiways separate as long as possible.
3. Effects design
Sorry, I can't explain all of the parameters here. However, a good start is the MS Special Effects SDK document at http://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimulator/fs2002_downloads_sdk.asp, hopefully soon updated for FS2004. Also, see this thread for a commented fx file: http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=143&topic_id=18623&mesg_id=18623&page=2
Generally, comparing different effects, e.g., the small wake with the long wake, will help with understanding the key parameters.
* I made a custom effect for the AI floatplanes called "fx_AI_floatplane_spray-and-wake.fx". It is mapped to the "concrete=" parameter in the [EFFECTS] section and triggered when the aircraft moves faster than about 5 kts. The effect combines some waterspray with a narrow and short-lived wake.
* In general, one can map an effect in the aircraft.cfg either to the [EFFECTS] or the [LIGHTS] section. For the former, only the concrete and touchdown settings work reliably with AI traffic. "Concrete=" is a continuous effect that starts at a certain speed of movement (~5kts) and stops when the aircraft slows down. "Touchdown=" is a single effect that gets triggered when the aircraft bumps on the taxiway and at touchdown. In the [LIGHTS] section, the choice of light type determines the beginning and duration of the ON state of an effect. For example, mapping an effect to the beacon light will keep the effect active as long as the engine is running whereas an effect mapped to the strobe light will only be active from the time the AI receives take-off clearance. An advantage of using the [LIGHTS] section is that it provides control over the X,Y,Z start location of the effect, whereas the effects mapped to the [EFFECTS] need to have their start location hard-coded in the fx file.
4. Aircraft.cfg setup
There are three main parts of the aircraft.cfg that need to be changed; I placed all the sections I have tweaked at the beginning of the aircraft.cfg files so you should be able to spot them quickly. Also, I copied and commented out (//) the original values. If you don't know the meaning of specific parameters you can find commented aircraft.cfg files (for FS2002) here http://perso.wanadoo.fr/hsors/FS_Soft/fsdocs.html and here http://www.jetdoc.com/HLP/helpfde1.html.
The contact points are the crucial settings for making the aircraft "float". Actually, the floatplanes drive on (invisible) wheels on the concrete AFCAD2 taxiways and runways and the additional "floats" provide the trigger points for some of the water effects. Looking at the aircraft.cfg files for my AI floatplanes you'll notice that the floats (Class 4) sit approx. 0.2 feet higher than the wheels (Class 1) and that I have removed any scrape points (Class 2).
Since adjusting contact points can be tedious, I suggest you start by copying the entire contact point section to your new AI's aircraft.cfg and try those as is. If that doesn't work you can start adjusting the X/Y/Z coordinates of the points until the floatplane sits steady at the desired water line. One important parameter to watch out for is the center of gravity in the [WEIGHT_AND_BALANCE] section (empty_weight_CG_position). If the datum and CG position are different from zero you'll have to adjust the X coordinates of the contact points accordingly. A few more pointers can be found here: http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=143&topic_id=13302&mesg_id=13302&page=
* Thanks to Mike Hill and Lynn and Bill Lyons, the authors of the floatplanes featured in this Starter Kit, who granted permission to include their model and texture files.
* Thanks to John L. Woodward and Brian Gladden for their excellent DHC-2 Beaver and Noorduyn Norseman floatplane models.
* Thanks to Hugo and Edrick, of the AVSIM Bush Flying Unlimited forum, for some of the key ideas that allow us to make AI ships and floatplanes splash around.
* Thanks to Lee Swordy for his indispensable freeware utilities and their well-written documentation.
* Also, many thanks to everyone in the Flight Simulator community for providing such active, diverse, and helpful discussion forums.
* As usual, thanks to J for her blank but simpatico stare at my time-consuming 'hobby' ;-)
This file package is released as Freeware. As an End User you can do whatever you want with these files. For redistribution on storage media or via the Internet (which I encourage), a number of conditions apply:
1) The archive must be distributed without modification to the contents of the archive. Redistributing this archive with any files added, removed, or modified is prohibited.
2) The inclusion of any individual file from this archive in another archive without my prior permission is prohibited.
3) No charge may be made for this archive other than that to cover the cost of its distribution. If a fee is charged it must be made clear to the purchaser that the archive is freeware and that the fee is to cover the distributor's costs of providing the archive.
4) I request a brief email notifying me of the website and/or procedure used for redistribution.
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