Modifying Weather Themes

[OMGBBQ32 12]

I almost thought that picture was another screenshot you took from Flight. ^_^

[Moe 6]

Well I considered this. I wanted to kill off the winds in each weather theme. However once I saw how much work with little room for for error using the cmd lines, and that those errors could lead me to require a reinstall. It wont be worth the risk. Since reinstall is iffy as well at this point. If it had been as simple as just editf the XML or a cfg then yes. I will be sitting this one out. Odd you can't just edit the xml.

 

Moe

[majuh 14]

I've been trying to create new weather themes instead of modifying the existing themes, but I've run into problems. This is what I'm doing:

• Taking an existing weather theme including the meta file and renaming it
• Assigning a new GUID to the meta file
• Changing the name and the description of the weather theme

When I take these two files and insert them into the original CoreContent1.pak, the new weather theme shows up correctly in the menu and also works fine ingame.

When I create an addon containing these two files, the new weather theme shows up correctly in the menu, but the physics ingame are horribly broken.

 

Why is this? Am I missing some dependencies?

[stonelance 136]

Can you post the .flightAddon, or the source files along with the .addonSettings?

 

Also, are you using Non-GFWL mode, or GFWL mode?  They load addons in a slightly different order.

[majuh 14]

Can you post the .flightAddon, or the source files along with the .addonSettings?

 

Also, are you using Non-GFWL mode, or GFWL mode?  They load addons in a slightly different order.

 

Here is the flightAddon: http://www.mediafire.com/download/sq6564hnd3dyrya/Weather.flightAddon (bugged, for testing only)

 

I'm using NonGFWL mode.

[stonelance 136]

It looks like something is wrong with the weatherTheme in the addon.  The values for speed etc are massive.

 

<WindLayer>

 

<Altitude>2.695882E+08</Altitude>

 

<Speed>2000000</Speed>

 

<GustSpeed>3000000</GustSpeed>

 

<Direction>1.875033E+08</Direction>

 

<Variance>2E+07</Variance>

 

<TurbulenceLevel>LIGHT</TurbulenceLevel>

 

</WindLayer>

 

What did you use to generate the binary files?

[majuh 14]

I was using the AddonBuilder to export the .flightAddon. I guess it's a problem with floating point numbers since my system is using decimal commas. I think it would be best if the compiler ignored the locale settings and always used decimal points.

 

On another note, I was unaware that the AddonBuilder generates binary files out of the .weatherThemes. The original .weatherThemes are XML files so I guess it shouldn't be necessary for them.

[stonelance 136]

Yeah, it converts simprop to the binary version to improve load speed in Flight.

 

Ok, so your weatherTheme xml has the floating point numbers with decimal points, but your system is set to decimal commas?  Or do you have decimal commas in the xml?

[majuh 14]

Ok, so your weatherTheme xml has the floating point numbers with decimal points, but your system is set to decimal commas?

 

Exactly, my weatherTheme XML looks like this:

 

<WindLayer>

<Altitude>269.588226</Altitude>

<Speed>2.000000</Speed>

<GustSpeed>3.000000</GustSpeed>

<Direction>187.503265</Direction>

<Variance>20.000000</Variance>

<TurbulenceLevel>LIGHT</TurbulenceLevel>

</WindLayer>

 

Compiling this results in the .flightAddon I posted above, probably due to my locale settings.

 

 

When I use the SimPropCompiler to convert SPB files, entries like these appear in the resulting XML:

<WorldPosition>21,5786833332914,-158,208286111111,19,6200092946451</WorldPosition>

 

I assume it should actually look like this:

<WorldPosition>21.5786833332914,-158.208286111111,19.6200092946451</WorldPosition>

 

In this case compiling the XML again fails because of the ambiguous commas:

 

Unhandled Exception: System.IO.InvalidDataException: Float was not the expected size

   at FlightToolkit.Property.ReadXML(XmlTextReader xr)

   at FlightToolkit.PropertySet.ReadXML(Symbols symbols, XmlTextReader xr)

   at FlightToolkit.PropertySet.ReadXML(Symbols symbols, XmlTextReader xr)

   at FlightToolkit.PropertySet.ReadXML(Symbols symbols, XmlTextReader xr)

   at FlightToolkit.XML.Read(Symbols symbols, Stream inputStream)

   at FlightToolkit.SimProp.ReadFromXML(Stream inputStream, Symbols symbols)

   at FlightToolkit.SimProp.ReadFromXML(String input, Symbols symbols)

   at spb2xml.Program.Main(String[] args)

[stonelance 136]

Awesome, thanks for the detailed description.  I'll try to look into this over the weekend and hopefully have a new version out with a couple other fixes.