oakdown

Appreciate the reply, I'll give that a try! Thank you.

Can anyone explain to me, why sometimes when I first launch into the dcs hangar, I'm like 10 feet above the menu (standing above the wing of the jet) if i look down, the menu is at a crazy angle, sometimes I can decipher what's what and click on the icons and make it through. Other times I have to restart and hope the menu is more centered. I thought it might have to do with not having my head centered / looking ahead when starting, but I've kept my head perfectly horizontal /looking forward while clicking the icon and it has still happened. Pressing numpad 5 didn't seem to work on the menus, but does work in game to center the view. Thanks for all the other tips ive been reading in here

So I received mine today (strange purolator delivering on a stat holiday in Canada). In any case as a first time vr owner I've been stumbling through getting it up and running with dcs. Finally got to sit in the cockpit of the a10c 2, and it looks fantastic. Granted I'm on a 970 so it's stagger city. But man I can't wait until I can get a better video card For the veterans of vr just had a question about all the freaking preview windows on the desktop, like wmr previews what I'm seeing then there is the smaller steamvr preview... Is that normal? Or is there a way to stop those duplucates/previews to free up more resources? Or do those windows (being duplicates) not really use to much extra GPU? Any response appreciated. My version of DCS is standalone.

I got invoiced by Pc-Canada and a tracking number to Purolator (that currently doesn't work) today. I ordered Sept 3rd only. So some orders shipping out in Canada I assume. Too bad I haven't been able to update my video card yet!

Noticed that the fuel selector knob, sits in between two of the selections when initially starting in the A10C II. It will still register fuel amounts. but as you click it up and down it stays in the halfway point between the detents. Until you get to the left most selection, then going back towards the right it will all line up and act normally thereafter. Just a minor thing I've noticed, tried it from starting at takeoff, and in the air - same results. apologies should have put this in bugs - moderator please move.

although is a bit off-topic for this thread, I believe what you are looking for barra is here (courtesy of sharkster): http://forums.eagle.ru/album.php?albumid=218 I think what you are doing is assuming cachya will take over mouselook, instead of setting up the cachya virtual joy and running it like that. that's what I initially did wrong myself too. hope that helps.

I wouldn't be embarassed at all, your work looks amazing, and as trigger said - with just the right amount of russian wear. (: look forward to seeing more of your project.

hey trigger cockpit build is looking great, looks like you've lowered it some/cropped the bottom from the initial cad drawing, but that should be good for the actual physical dimensions (not to high up) - awesome to watch this coming along. when you finish that one you can start on this one for the addon pack :P hehe that would be sweet, one of each, side by side for some head to head battles with some buddies. just let me know when you need the cad drawing. ((:

Thought I would contribute this concept to the community, it was initially an idea for a friend to make "sturdy" controls on the cheap. I came across the idea while gazing around my room thinking about it, I looked over at my keyboard stand (for a midi trigger) and thought, hmm not a bad source for a bunch of metal on the cheap. keyboard stands can be had for about 35 bucks such as this one: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/XStdDblLt/ or as shown here: I want to stress that this is "theoretical" I have not made this myself, nor do I actually plan to at this point. The concept isn't finished here, but I could continue if there is interest... I like modeling things. Besides the stand you will still need some other bits and pieces - such as some generic bolts from a hardware store, keyboard stands are usually 1 inch tubular frame so a few 3 inchers, and some 1 inchers, along with some nuts, washers, and if you can find some plastic washers those too. Next you will also need a way to cut up your keyboard stand, a hacksaw would work, but isn't as fun or dangerous as other cutting tools. You should use good practice and get a file, to file any of the places you cut, that way you won't cut yourself later, it sucks to be cursing yourself while you bleed out. Finally you will need the willingness to hack into a joystick, it doesn't have to be your pride and joy hotas setup, it can be some cheapie - as long as it has the ability for throttle and rudder, as you will later be connecting up slide potentiometers for the collective and pedals. anyways on with the show. alternatively in the next image you could mount the pedals on the "inside" of the frame, so it doesn't look like you are giving birth when flying. at this point you are out of your keyboards "metal" supply that means you will have to find other sources for the collective (such as a piece of tube) so that's it for now, I actually had to write this out twice because I goofed up submitting the thread! and admittedly this is a little rushed compared to the first time I wrote it. However I hope this helps someone, I think it would be a pretty clean looking little setup, that could easily be folded (or dismantled) and placed under a bed or couch. as mentioned I can continue if there is interest, or I can let it fade. cheers!

I'll have a go at question number 2, but take my answer with a grain of salt as i'm not a professional modeler. smoothness is mainly achieved with good modeling technique, which means your mesh flows appropriately, vertices terminate properly and connect properly. With applications such as 3ds max, one is able to put a "turbosmooth" or "meshsmooth" (more intensive) modifier on their model which increases the mesh density... however... it's not wise to slap that on your model, and then "convert -->poly/nurbs/etc" your mesh to this new higher density because that increases your workload - as obviously now you have many more vertices to fudge with however sometimes it helps or is required. the normal procedure would be to keep that event procedural, so that you can "toggle" the meshsmooth on and off, but always return to a less dense model to tweak. (same as using symmetry so you don't have to model the whole thing :P) that being said there are some problems with just slapping a meshsmooth on your model if you require really exact straight lines (the cockpit windows on the ka50 would be a good example), if you don't provide the extra mesh density around these items the meshsmooth will give your object a "melted" look. and the windows (as an example) would become more round. usually you can overcome this by spacing a repetitive mesh very close to the object that you want to maintain it's shape. a little confusing to explain. overtime one's model can get a little overworked, and vertices don't align etc etc down a fuselage this can look a little bumpy, it's important to learn all the tools available in programs such as 3ds max, because at the sub-object level it is possible to align vertices according to x y or z coordinates which speeds up manually placing each one in space - which has the fudge factor. another useful tool is constrain - when you can move vertices but constrain them to an edge etc. in any case a GREAT tutorial on solid object modeling is digital tutors automotive modeling in 3ds max. I know you don't use that app, but just the technique the guy uses could be used in any application. You will see him make good use of symmetry modifiers, as well as turbo smooth and mesh smooth, while adding line/mesh density to maintain structural shape. I hope that helps!

hey I was bored today, so I tried giving the front end a go (modeling not building!) hopefully it might come in handy for you, I've got a .dwg file of the front end. not going for any modeling awards here, so it's pretty bland... figure you could export pieces of it in panels and figure out what you are going to build... I noticed you did your front console in autocad, so perhaps the best solution is scaling this model, until it fits your autocad model of the front console(?) should give you buildable dimensions. I rendered it with a shell, but the shell is removed for the autocad file, lots of vertices for you to play with... modeling wise, I was lazy, so it IS a symmetry meaning the right hand side also has a door, you'll have to tweak that... I didn't model the really aerodynamic portions that envelope under the front door either.. figured that would be hard to build from wood, and I tried to keep the floor as flat as possible, and didn't model all the way out to the end of the nose... anyways the pics. or in your case maybe more like: You'll notice i didn't crop the top of the side window properly (woops) might want to tweak that. using these as ref (provided if you want to tweak some more) and of course the model you can get at: http://www3.telus.net/public/jlevicek/misc/ just browse for the ka-50.dwg file I can't link it directly my isp don't likey. anyways good luck, I enjoy reading your thread.

no bulkheads but perhaps these images still help....http://www.airwar.ru./other/draw/ka-50.zip there are a lot of 3-ways (tehe) at http://www.airwar.ru i'm sure you've come across that site and even this ka50 image!, but just in case you haven't... hope it helps with your build. if you just take the ka-50.zip part out of the http address it's much easier to navigate their full list of aircraft from the root structure \-:

don't know if it's good for anything, but I thought I would post it here for consideration and in response to your post bad crc.... I played around in the start--->control panel--->accessibility options... in there, there is an option entitled "filterkeys" and you can go into the settings of it - of which there is an option to ignore repeated keystrokes. no, this doesn't give a "key off" indication unfortunatley, but it does seem to alter the way the toggles work in the sim (time delay/slower switching required) - and oddly even with filterkeys ON, you can still pan the cockpit via keyboard(?) which makes no sense because obviously that's a repeated keystroke...it's easy to test, you can alt tab back to windows and simply select filterKeys off or on, and see the result while you toggle switches. this was all in xp btw. like I said I don't know how useful this is, but I thought I would post it - I came across it, looking for cheap ways to wire up a dismantled keyboard as a usb controller for switches (without the relay/capicitor or transistor trick), even if I can't end up doing toggles there are enough push button switches to get use out of a 10 buck keyboard wired to push buttons.

i have cachya but I don't have vista 64... but the cachya virtual joy should show up in "game controllers" in the control panel... if it doesn't getting it to show up there would be your first step! perhaps the game controller can be added like they can in XP? I don't have that much experience with vista...

what is definetley "worth" checking out is cachya, me and a few other users use it with great success in black shark. 1 DOF is free, 6 is 15 dollars. and all you need is a webcam - and it is smooth. you can see it in action here: http://vimeo.com/1772534 and another user (sharkster64) has made a youtube video of it in action with blackshark However I must digress at this point because the cachya website is currently down!, however if you have time before your purchase it's definetley worth checking out the 1 degree of freedom trial to see if you like it.

hey thanks for the replys guys regarding softth, I gotta wait until I step into the pciE video card realm before I take that jump, but it's great to see that it is working well with that app. cachya and soffth, simple and cheap solutions, great for the end user.

don't mean to jack this thread, but while we are talking on the triple head to go thing I was curious if anyone actively uses this with Blackshark? http://www.kegetys.net/SoftTH/ how would the performance compare to th2g? anyone tried both? just curious. seems like a great solution for those with an extra pciE vid-card lying around

I wanted to add another persons vouch for cachya, I have it working here as well (the registered 15 buck version), if it wasn't for sharkster i probably wouldn't have figured out the virtual joy thing as initially I was trying to simulate mouse look with it. My computer is way behind the times for blackshark,being an amd 2600, with 2 gigs of ram, and unfortunatley my ati x1650 ate it a few months back, and being that i'm currently unemployed (and can't make the switch to a PCIe till i upgrade my whole comp), i'm on a radeon 8500 believe it or not! however I wanted to add that I can get playable performance with cachya and this setup, I would say the cachya end of things is quite smooth. I should also mention my webcam is an ancient discontinued 3com "homeconnect" device, that doesn't even have official xp support drivers. I do have these problems that perhaps other cachya users can vouch or not vouch for. On initial launch, if I have cachya open first, it will crash, I have to alt-tab out and restart it. not a biggie, and seems to only be on the first time I launch a mission? odd. Cachya doesn't retain some settings on loading even though I save them as a profile, namely the Xrotation defaults back to "yaw", this means everytime I have to go back in and set it to "pitch" minor bug but annoying. Also those tiny scrollable windows to adjust those settings are stupid. Finally I have also tried networking cachya, it works well, but has inherent network lag... that makes it well.. not as good as running it on the same machine you launch BS from, it was smoother though - but likely that kinda thing would be rectified with a computer upgrade lol. anyways for 15 bucks it suited my needs perfectly and thanks to sharkster for the headsup, and desktop snaps he provided of settings. I should probably write this out on their forums, but as was mentioned it's pretty dead over there.

great work oakes (and trigger if you reading in this thread) just curious about the opencockpits IO cards as opposed to just hacking an old keyboard apart ala (you have to make it past it's long annoying intro): you can use multiple usb keyboards on the same computer, so I guess the switches allowed would be almost infinite, plus would allow for you to still have your (unhacked) keyboard connected for ingame chat. what would be the main drawback to a hacked keyboard system? because it's "input only?", or that you have to add more componentry (relays etc/capacitor) to create a mometary switch out of a toggle? i'm just in the dark a bit, as to why you want to go through all the programming when you could switch directly to a key function as it exists in a disassembled keyboard. ref: http://home.planet.nl/~schre010/fs/toggle.html any advice and tips appreciated (;

hey thanks on the flight device comment - picked up a while ago, but until now has only had limited use. I wanted to thank you as well though.. it seems that through your post (mainly the screen-cap) I solved my issue.. you see I wasn't in the submenu for axis controls.. I was on the "all" page and the parameters I was clearing and re-entering was "cyclic left" ---> left "cylic right" ----> right, etc etc... I would clear all those for the saitek x45, and then get frustrated when i'd boot the game and the controls were still enabled.... where clearly the axis page is something different, specifying only the x and y axis....not a left right up down thing. In any case, I have the two sticks playing nice now, so all is good and sorted. cheers!

hey thanks for the help. I tried what you suggested. the cyborg I saved to a profile called "cyborg3d" the saitek x45, I cleared it's list and made sure left/right/up/down info wasn't there for the cyclic control, then setup the throttle quad. I saved it, to it's own profile "saitekx45" however when I loaded the game, the cyclic still fights itself.. returning to 0. it's odd I would have hoped removing left right up down info from one controller, would have removed it's ability to have an effect in the game...seems like they still like to fight each other however. thanks for the suggestion though.

hey, I'm curious if anyone has come across this situation. Basically I have two saitek controllers, One is an older saitek x45, and the other is a saitek cyborg 3d gold - built into an older version of this thing: http://www.simcontrol.co.uk/newheli.htm they are both plugged in usb to my comp... they both show up, Individually in the control setups.. one list for the cyborg (mRVC heli controls), and the other list for the saitek x45... great! I can map buttons to the x45 throttle quadrant hats.. etc.. I can remove the "left, right, up, down" designators for the cyclic control from the x45... BUT... it seems it doesn't actually remove them. the cyborg will fight with the x45, (ie: you bank right, it will pop the cyclic back to center, because the x45 is sitting at center). I've messaged saitek about it, but I was wondering if anyone else has an easier method of disabling the x45's x and y axis output. really I just want to use the x45's throttle quadrant for some extra buttons/hats. but it doesn't have it's own usb input, rather plugging "thru" the joystick part of the x45. any help appreciated.