Training Question - Just purchased program

[Toasting Aces]

If you just want to play them, I can recommend the VideoLAN media player - http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html

 

This is a nice, basic media player which plays just about everything you can throw at it, including the Ogg video files the training comes as.

 

To Nomdeplume:

 

Well first, I need you to tell me specifically how do I get this videolan media player to work with the LOFC2 training videos? What do I need to do specifically to make this happen?

 

Secondly, this videolan seems to have identified other playable movie files which I've saved in other files on my computer all ready. And I didn't ask it to do so. So, what is up with that? Why has it automatically done this without me telling it to do so?

 

Waiting on your reply.

 

TA

[Toasting Aces]

It's possible that if you install that you'll get a system-wide OGV playing capability and you'll be able to run the training videos from the game. Otherwise, you should definitely be able to view them directly.

 

To Nomdeplume:

 

Please explain what you mean by system-wide OGV playing capability?

 

And, when you say: "Otherwise, you should definitely be able to view them directly." How do you mean that I should definitely be able to view them directly? Directly from what? from the file itself? from my Windows Media Player? from the program's training module? I don't understand what you are referring to here when you say I should be able to view them directly?

 

Please explain what you mean? Thanks.

 

Waiting your reply.

 

TA

[nomdeplume]

It's just occurred to me we have no idea what kind of computer you're on. So, would you mind following the steps for uploading the DXDiag output, contained within this post? This provides information on video and audio drivers, etc.

 

Re: VLC. A quick bit of background. Computer video files are generally identified in two ways: the container they're in, and the codecs used to encode the video and audio information. Container is the most common thing used to identify videos, but it's also in some ways the least informative. Mostly you can identify the container type based on the file extension; common ones are: .avi, .mpeg or .mpg, .mov, .mkv

 

The container is just that: a way of storing the audio and/or video and/or subtitles (and any other information) so that a program that wants to play it back knows where in the file to find each part.

 

A codec is just an algorithm used to store the video or audio information. Generally it tries to compress it, since uncompressed video takes up a lot of space. A good codec will therefore discard information which a human won't really notice anyway, and compress the rest so it takes up less disk space or bandwidth.

 

In order to play back a video on your computer, your computer must understand both the container format -- so it can identify which parts of that big file are video, and which are audio, and which contain 'metainformation' like the title, author, copyright etc. -- and also be able to decode the information in the audio and video sections.

 

The "videos" you can download from the LockOn site are actually executable files, i.e. computer programs. You can identify these on Windows by the ".exe" file extension. This is a common method for distributing software, especially online: you download a single file which contains both the program which installs the data, as well as the data itself.

 

As a quick aside: double-clicking a file in Windows Explorer can do two things. If it's a program, it can simply run it, i.e. read the machine-code instructions present in the file and make the CPU run them. For other types of files, what happens is Explorer looks up a table of file extensions and sees what program you have "associated" with it. For example, if you install the Microsoft Office suite, it will associate files with a .xls extension with the Microsoft Excel program, and files with a .doc extension to Microsoft Word. When you double-click such a file, Windows actually runs the associated program, and tells it to open the file you had selected.

 

When you double-clicked the Fighter Weapons School .exe, Windows executed it as a program. This program read the compressed data stored within its own file and extracted this compressed data to a particular location on your computer. These files that it extracted are the video files themselves. If you're familiar with .zip or .rar files, it's the same concept: a single file which contains a bunch of other files, probably compressed. However instead of needing to have WinZIP or WinRAR or similar installed, the compressed file itself is a program which knows how to uncompress the .zip or .rar data. Further, it also knows where it's supposed to go.

 

So, back to the videos. The training videos are in an Ogg Video container, with a file extension of .ogv. Windows Media Player does not know how to open this container type, so can't play these videos. Additionally, the video is encoded using the Theora video codec, and the audio using Vorbis; Windows doesn't know how to decode these. The whole package is part of a somewhat popular suite of royalty-free codecs and containers, which makes it fairly popular with game developers.

 

There's a small program called "ogvplayer.exe" in the FC2 directory, along with "ogg.dll" which together can be used to play Ogg videos - presumably the user-interface simply runs this with the appropriate video.

 

Question is: why is this crashing on your system? The DXDiag information mentioned above might help us to identify that. Also: when it crashes, do you get returned to the game user-interface, or back to your Windows desktop?

 

Alternative: sidestep the issue and use a different media player, such as VLC. You've already installed it by the sounds of it, and it's associated itself with various filetypes it recognises. It does actually offer this as an option, however it's not immediately obvious and it's understandable why you'd miss it. See the screenshots below (click for the larger view) to see where the installer gives you the option of not having it associate with video/audio files.

 

I'm not positive, but I think it only associates with filetypes you don't already have a player for, so it shouldn't be too bad. A lot of media players, including Windows Media Player I believe, will check file associations when they start up, so you might be able to get Media Player to reclaim them just by running it.

 

To the matter at hand though: if you find your Flaming Cliffs 2 installation directory (specified when you ran the installer; if you didn't tell it otherwise, this is probably under C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics) you should have a directory called Training, and under that one called LOP, under that one called "en", and then at least a "Fighter Weapons School" directory, and possibly others if you've installed other videos. There's a set of numbered directories under there, and in each is a .ogv file which is the video for that lesson.

 

Since VLC should have associated itself with .ogv files, you should be able to play the lesson just by double-clicking on it.

 

Alternatively, you can run VLC from the Start menu, and select "Open file" from the "Media" menu and browse to the video file.

[nomdeplume]

I'm not sure how to make the instructions for opening the video in VLC clearer, but in case it's helpful, here's a screenshot which might help you visualise it better. It'll look a little bit different in Windows XP, but it's pretty similar. I installed the game under C:\Games\LockOn Flaming Cliffs 2.

[Toasting Aces]

To Nomdeplume:

 

I spent several hours yesterday on this forum, and I am short on time to immediately follow your recent requested info. I will attempt to pass along the information to you in the near future. That is if I can successfully figure out exactly how to do it.

 

Believe it or not, I am able to follow a lot of what you're recent post talks about. Although, some of the stuff is still a bit over my head.

 

I will make time soon.

[Toasting Aces]

To Nomdeplume:

 

Good heavens to Murg-a-troid! I just played the first lesson video! Yippie yie oh kie aye! [Hey, I might of spelled that incorrectly. But I sure you get the feeling of my success at finding a video and playing it.]

 

Now I've got to study this stuff. Seems like it will take some time to learn. Wow, it's so real!

 

This took all day long. I must have spent close to nine hours today with this forum. All the efforts I've made, finally gets me to the end zone.

 

In your recent post Nomdeplume, I figured out how to find and play the video.

 

However, for now, I'm exhausted.

 

Over and out.

TA

[KnightHawk]

TA ~ I am so happy for you that you can finally see the video. Now, believe it or not, the hard part is about to start :) Now you get to learn how to fly the planes. Of course, that is the real fun of the game also. I am by no means a seasoned sim player - before BS the deepest I ever got was Comanche 4 (which I still love and play today) but I find the tinkering around with learning how to fly just as much fun as blowing up my first bad guy (which of course is a real thrill :)

 

 

edit: Nomdeplume: that was a great explanation of the video player by the way. You have a great knack of making some thing complex understandable. Good job.

[Toasting Aces]

Okay, I've watched Lesson 1 with the A10 Thunderbolt.......

 

Now, I wanna practice some of the stuff in that lesson.

And, since it is a video and not a trac, I could not press ESC to try out what is being discussed.

 

I went to the main menu. I tried to start a mission. Wound up watching a helicopter the first time. The second time I tried, I think I got shot down, then saw than darn helicopter again. Don't worry when I figure this thing out, I'm gonna get even: you'll see!

 

But I've got some questions now:

 

1. What keys are for my control stick? I don't have a separate control stick. Do I need to purchase something like a hand control or something? You know those things with the buttons on some kind of joy stick. I don't know from these things. But I'm gonna find out. (LOL)
   
2. I tried pressing "Quick Start" just to get into the cockpit of the A10 Thunderbolt and fly it around in open air. But I thinks I started a mission or something. How do I just get to fly and practice in the open air without doing a mission?
   

Look, it's been a long work night for me. I had about an hour to get on with this training and try it out.

 

What do I do now?

 

TA

[Distiler]

But I've got some questions now:

 

1. What keys are for my control stick? I don't have a separate control stick. Do I need to purchase something like a hand control or something? You know those things with the buttons on some kind of joy stick. I don't know from these things. But I'm gonna find out. (LOL)
   
2. I tried pressing "Quick Start" just to get into the cockpit of the A10 Thunderbolt and fly it around in open air. But I thinks I started a mission or something. How do I just get to fly and practice in the open air without doing a mission?
   

Look, it's been a long work night for me. I had about an hour to get on with this training and try it out.

 

What do I do now?

 

TA

 

New questions, better new thread or this one will be 1000+ pages long in no time.

 

However, from the single player main menu:

 

1- Go to options -> controls and setup the controls for each aircraft independently (first drop-down menu). Don't forget to setup joystick axis commands category (in blue color) from the second drop-dwon menu. And yes, you need a joystick, for example this is a typical begginer and cheap joystick. You won't enjoy it without one, in fact you'll get very frustrated without a joystick.

 

2- Go to mission and search, for each airplane, the one named "rampstart and navigation" or "take off and navigation", for example "A-10A-rampstart and navigation" missions from the list.

Edited July 31, 2010 by Distiler