deadsmell

Ok you guys i think i finally understand. The lockon track utility enables options that werent available during the actual flight. like if you had the mission set to "no externals" but if you dont disable the externals in the first place, you dont need lotu, you can just use the track editor. jeez louise. Thanks again for all the help you guys. I finally get it.

ok, let me give that a try now. Thanks guys.

ok well i must be an idiot. I cant even access tracks from the mission editor. Damn, it sucks to be an idiot. WTF?! ok well ill keep trying anyway.

ok, maybe thats what i have been doing wrong. i just go to show replays, and watch the track from there. let me try it from the mission editor and ill let you know if that works. Thanks for all the advice. BTW I would really like to make some "machinima" using Arma. I love the game, and im an old ofp fan, but i dont play ofp anymore. Anyway ive been toying around with some ideas, and working on some scripts. yeah, full on scripts. I'm envisioning a pretty heavy dialog for this thing. It's all still just in the planning stage though. Ok so i have been thinking it might be nice to have a "cinematographer/camera man" to help shoot the scenes, help edit the footage and all that good stuff. I am a total noob at movie making, i have good ideas, but not enough experience actually using the tools. let me know if you might be interested in working on something like that. Thanks again.

Hi Kaptein Damli. Where do I find that "video edit" option? Do I leave the track utility running?, or close it after "save"? I checked out your vids, its good stuff. maybe you can tell me, whats the best resolution to record in? I made a video and recorded in 1680X1250, and used fraps and sony vegas, and it looked great until i uploaded it. when i uploaded it, it looked horrible. please if you dont mind, can you go over every single step you use to make the LOTU work? please dont leave anything out. every single little step no matter how insignificant it may seem. There must be something im not doing right. I know im not the only one who has or has had problems figuring out how to use this thing. Yet I cant find any instructions on the web anywhere for how to use this thing.

yeah, that was my third or fourth time trying this thing out. i have downloaded it from jabog and lockonfiles. weird thing though, i just deleted it, and then i went to search my files to make sure that it was completely gone, and i noticed that Lotu had had been installed into "windows prefetch" and when i deleted that, my system restarted automatically. WTF?! I think i remember it installed like that last time, but it didnt cause a reboot when i deleted it. something weird going on here. alright, well im gonna keep an eye on this thread, maybe somebody can shed some light on this. Is Lotu compatible with all versions of lockon? im running 1.12b. until then i dont recommend anybody try it that hasnt already tried it. Thanks for the help Crunch and Viper, I appreciate it.

ok.......I download LOTU from the jabog website. I unrar and extract the files to the desktop. open the folder and launch the .exe. a small window opens, i click the "open" button, another window appears, i select the track i want to play and press "open" on the second window. That second window closes, and now i check the boxes for the views i want enabled and press save. then i run lock on and go to play the track, and i cant use any of the external views. it still doesnt work. it seems like it should be pretty straight forward. either the application does not work or i am doing something wrong. does anyone see anything wrong with the steps im using? ive tried doing it with lock on running, and doing it without lock on running. im getting frustrated.

ok, I will give it another shot. Hopefully it works. I deleted it again, so im going for my third DL with this thing. I will let you guys know how it goes. Thank you for the replies, and the help.

huh, thanks, yeah thats what i was doing, but then when I would go to play the tracks, i still could not use externals. do i need to put the LOTU files into the lock on files? if so can you tell me what file goes where? Thanks.

ok.....?..... I dont think I double posted though.............anyway on my screen, it only posted once.

Hi people, I am hoping someone can explain to me how to use the lock on track utility (Lotu2.0). I tried downloading it for the second time today, and I just cant figure out how this thing is supposed to work. I open the track files with lotu, and then i press save, and then ............????? I've have always enjoyed all the great videos people make, and have recently started dabbling with making my own vids. That's a whole other story though.........but im getting there. I actually finished my first vid today, and I just wish i could have had some better shots, and footage. im sure its just a click or two away from working, but im not sure how it works, or what im supposed to do. ??? anyway yeah, I have no clue on how to use this thing. can anyone help me? Thanks.

yeah, im talking about the english version.

ill fly it for co-op joint operations and stuff, but im not going to try and go head to head with an f-18.

I just want to thank the ED/DCS team for including the 20 something english narrated training videos. I know they said they were going to be in there, but i was worried that maybe they would have cut them out in order to get the product ready faster. anyway according to sim hq review they ARE in there.:thumbup: Those videos really help us get up to speed.:thumbup: Thanks again, i cant wait to buy it.:thumbup:

thanks, ill give it a try. sir.

Do you know if all the mapped button assignments have been named in english on this profile? I could just DL it and check it myself, but id rather know first. Thanks

cool, lot of good ideas in here guys! I was thinking earlier, and I think what I might try to do is rearrange, or reconfigure the keyboard commands alot. I am still not sure if actually looking around and clicking is going to go so well for me, but if i could say set all the buttons on the num pad to operate say a certain section of buttons in the cockpit, or whatever, then i could just use my keyboard as a virtual cockpit thingy, sorry I worded this horribly, but im trying to make dinner and type at the same time. you guys get wha tim saying though right? oh yeah, i wanted to ask how to make the clutch into another shift state? I remember reading that it can be done, but i dont remember how.

Well here's the deal as far my experience. The SST tools are easy to use once you get the hang of it, but there is a serious bug in the program where if you start making changes to the profile after it has been created, the profiles starts to get corrupted, and wont perform anymore. It has happened to me several times. So what you need to do is be patient, and really think about how you want things to be on the stick, and you will have to create newer more evolved profiles, as you go, because your gonna have things you want to add or change. as far as setting the thumb slider for your zoom, its simple. just change its function from axis to buttons, and then split it into 1\4 sections (it has a function to split them evenly) then program the top two sections as * and the bottom two as /. you will figure it out.

hey guys, great thread. I thought i saw a something about a mod for fire and smoke effects the other day, but now I cant find it. I have looked on lock on files and on jabog, and I dont see it. did I imagine this mod?

@Cat I was wondering for a while why you have an 850W PSU. Now I know. :) I thought I was cool when I took an old lawn chair, and mounted some boards on the arms to put my hotas on. You guys should get together and start a business. It would be nice to see an affordable pre-fab cockpit finally. it cracks me up how the guys that make stuff like this to sell actually think its worth more than a new car sometimes. I cant imagine that they have many buyers. you guys should design the ultimate compact, affordable, pit, and get it into production.

Kuky, LOL you are 100% correct. 1680x1050 is what i should have said. Ratel, yes my rig runs everything I throw at it at high settings. Lock on runs very smooth at high settings, and so does everything else I play.

hey guys, I am glad to see that there is some open discussion going on over first impressions of DCS black shark. Now I am not going to go into a huge in depth review, simply because I cant. :) But I just want to say, Black Shark is amazing. It is totally awesome. I cant wait to see how the series evolves over time, with upgrades and new modules. However, I have wanted to ask, and I havent seen anyone else post on it, so here goes nothing. I cant seem to run DCS at 1680X1250. There is a noticeable hit to the framerate, that bothers the heck out of me at that resolution. I turned the "in-game" settings down to like 1280 by 1024 ( I think ) with the computer settings still at 1680, and that definitely smoothed things out, however obviously I would really like it to be played in full 1680. On another note, for those of you (myself included) that do not have rudder pedals, you are going to want them A.S.A.P rudder control is much more intensive with the black shark, and is essential if you really want to master the controls. If you are using a twist rudder (on stick), you are gonna be in for a rough flight. Its gonna blow your mind the first time you realize that your rotor blades just flew off because you overstressed the aircraft! Got Pedals!? I also want to acknowledge all of ED's awesome effort into this project. You guys are awesome, keep up the good work. so as far as not being able to run 1680X1250, my specs should be more than good enough. 3.0 GHz core 2 duo 8600 gt gpu 2 gigs o' ram Is this a known bug? Looking forward to purchasing the western version when it comes out.

Everybody just calm down and breathe for a second O.K.

Interesting question. Generally publishers wont greenlight production unless they feel they can sell at least 300,000 copies. Thats kind of their bare minimum too. That is one reason why it is hard to get more flight sims produced. The publishers dont want to touch them. I had read somewhere that ED is publishing DCS themselves, which is awesome, and I really respect that. Publishers destroy the industry. ED's decision to do that keeps alot more money in their pockets as well. I am assuming that they are still publishing themselves, but I am not sure, because I read something about 1C publishing, but it might be only in Russia? as far as the 20.00 dollar expansions Yes I low balled the prices there, but it was just to offset those that think that DCS should cost 300.00 bucks. Just so ya know I just bought flight sim X deluxe gold edition for 49.99. soo...... and yes, it just so happens I am a Zombie on crack I dont know everything, and I dont pretend to. However I should have known better than to post in a forum! :smilewink:

umm yeah, there are some interesting thoughts on what the price should be in here. I just want to say, that anything over $70.00 Dollars (U.S.) would be too much. In fact it should be cheaper than that in my opinion. more like 50-60 bucks. I know alot of people want to make sure that ED makes enough money to continue on making great stuff, but I am sure that they will. Plus you are going to get to spend more money on new modules once or twice a year for the next couple of years too, so I think ED should be O.K. the truth is, even if there are a few of you who would gladly spend 800 dollars or whatever for black shark, the vast majority of the people would not. I know you all are excited for black shark, but theres no need to take your pants off and bend over and say "give it to me, and I dont care how hard you do it!" Remember when DCS releases its only going to have the one flyable aricraft. You will have plenty of opportunitys to shell out more money when the expansions come out. lets see: dcs black shark: $50.00 A-10 module: $20.00 Apache module: $20.00 F-16 module: $20.00 so just right there that $110.00 bucks per person over the life of the game. so lets say they sell 500,000 copies worldwide. (I hope they sell more, but its a nice average number for the purpose of this little comment) 110.00 X 500,000 = $55,000,000 If you ask me 55 million dollars is nothing to sneeze at.