ANSWERED FTX AI Models in VATSIM/FSInn

[pilotjohn]

I installed the FTX Freeware AI Traffic for a few reasons: one to have representative traffic in NZSI, two to use the AI models as UT2 GA repaints, and three to be able to use the models in VATSIM. The first two things work well. However when I launch FSInn I get errors for most FTX AI aircraft. The error is:

Warning UniqueID Invalid on Aircraft

Does anyone know why this happens, and how it can be fixed so that these models can be used on VATSIM/FSInn?

[pilotjohn]

No one flies on VATSIM and noticed this error? Is there no solution to this problem?

[Wolter van der Spoel]

Sorry that I do not know the answer to your question, our AI expert is Graham, which I'm sure will chime in here to explain the reasons for that

[Graham Eccleston]

I think you will find this is a VATSIM/FSinn issue and you need to go to their forum for help. It would seem that there is a reference field in the aircraft config file which is the same on more than one aircraft or aircraft variations. Is it possible you have some duplicate aircraft installed?

[pilotjohn]

I think you will find this is a VATSIM/FSinn issue and you need to go to their forum for help. It would seem that there is a reference field in the aircraft config file which is the same on more than one aircraft or aircraft variations. Is it possible you have some duplicate aircraft installed?

I searched for this and there's not much information out there available.

I only began having this issue immediately after I installed the FTX AI package.

I will check if maybe the individual aircraft variations in the FTX package share the same title, and if so I'll just modify them.

[pilotjohn]

So I checked, but the titles are unique.

Also it doesn't happen an ALL FTX AI, just a bunch. For example, the Aero Commander doesn't work, but the Aero Grand Commander does.

Warning UniqueID Invalid on AircraftTitle : FTX AI Aero Commander 500S Coastwatchdirname : FTX Aero Commander 500Saircraftfltsim : fltsim.0acheavy : 0IDModel : E15299A9IDTexture : 0acVers : 3acEngine : 0UIManufacturer : CoastwatchUIType : Aero Commander 500sUIVariation : Surveillance AustraliaCSLACICAO :CSLALICAO :CSLACDESC :CSLGeoWingAera :CSLEmptyWeight :CSLGroundAlt :CSLGroundAngle : Error Description :

I found the following thread http://forums.vatsim...t=41389&start=0 which mentions something about the model file needing to be set to allow DXT3 textures:

The problem your system is having is FSInn cannot find [virtually speaking] a texture file that matches your aircraft model [mdl file]. It finds the model ok but when it looks at the liveries it says [no file exists] so it does not write a [Texture ID] for it. [eight digit code number] As stated above I have only seen this when Texture files have been converted incorrectly [from bmp to dxt] or the model has not been assigned to use dxt files. Because you say other dxt texture files work ok for this model it must be [file specific] and I would be looking at who did the livery, how was it converted [from bmp to dxt] and how is it installed [is the installer ok, etc etc].

I converted the Aero Commander textures from DDS to BMP (and left both in the appropriate texture directory) - just in case - but that didn't make a difference.

Any suggestions? Does no one else have FTX AI installed and use VATSIM/FSInn?

[Graham Eccleston]

It would seem that VATSIM/FSinn is creating it's own data base using the aircraft model file. This is probably fine for some of the more recent AI models but the FTX AI Traffic pack uses aircraft models available from all sources and periods. The Aero Commander 500S used in the FTX Traffic pack was modelled in 2005 and is probably one of our oldest. Only aircraft that will work in FSX are used in our pack however we cannot vouch for their compatibility with other add on systems.

We've also converted all the texture files to DDS ones with mips as these seem to perform better in FSX.

[pilotjohn]

It would seem that VATSIM/FSinn is creating it's own data base using the aircraft model file. This is probably fine for some of the more recent AI models but the FTX AI Traffic pack uses aircraft models available from all sources and periods. The Aero Commander 500S used in the FTX Traffic pack was modelled in 2005 and is probably one of our oldest. Only aircraft that will work in FSX are used in our pack however we cannot vouch for their compatibility with other add on systems.

We've also converted all the texture files to DDS ones with mips as these seem to perform better in FSX.

Well FSInn seems to read something but then it cannot seem to find the right texture. I'll see if I can track down what it's trying to read.

[pilotjohn]

I found a solution. Generating BMP textures was the right guess, I just needed to remove the old aircraft DB from the registry first.

Because of the DXT3/model issues, if there are textures folders for the AI that do not have any BMP files, FSInn won't generate a texture ID.

I first tried to convert all DDS to BMP but this corrupted the models (because the - likely incorrectly - converted BMP is used first).

So, I went through all the FTX models and for all texture folders that did not have any BMP files, I placed a dummy BMP file in them.

This fixed FSInn (all FTX AI usable and no errors), and the models continue to work correctly in FSX.

Of course there are many files to add (wouldn't do it by hand) so here's the one-liner script I used through cygwin:

 ls -d1 FTX* | while read i; do echo "$i"; find "$i" -iname "texture*" -print | while read j; do n=`find "$j" -iname "*.bmp" -print | wc -l`; if [ $n -eq 0 ]; then echo "  $j"; cp "../../Texture/256b2su1.bmp" "$j"/fsinn_dummy.bmp; fi; done; done

I hope this helps someone else in a similar situation, or perhaps the package can be updated to, by default, include a dummy - or even unique - BMP for FSInn to use for mapping purposes.