Giving up FS

[Kevin Firth 114]

As of right now I'm giving up FS, the constant chasing of my tail trying to get FSX and now P3D2 to behave is making me distraught and angry and impacting on my family. the final straw has been trying to model something in GMAX which is nigh on impossible. There is nothing, NOTHING out there in terms of resources which in any way explains any of it in comprehensible detail to me so I am departing to grow vegetables in my spare time, which I hope will be somewhat less stressful....

[Christopher Low 63]

Wow, and you were surprised by my message, Kevin! Nevertheless, I can completely understand your feelings. Flight simulation can feel more like hard work at times, particularly if you are a perfectionist like me.

[Kevin Firth 114]

No it was serious Chris, I can't get my head around GMAX at all, its the most user unfriendly program I've ever had the misfortune to try to use. Its impossible to work out how to change simple things without years of research. I'm done with it really, for now at least. I have failed miserably just trying to find out how to set the bloody thing not to snap vertices to the grid in the background, there just doesn't seem to be an option to change it. I've spent hours trying to figure out the materials editor without success, couldn't find any accessible resources that explained how to use it. Why am I ploughing my time into this still I just don't know. It's time to admit defeat and leave these things to people obviously far cleverer than I will ever be....

[Christopher Low 63]

I boosted your "Thanks" quota to 50 to make you feel a bit better

[hifly 925]

Now Kevin, Do not be too hasty here, sit down with a cup of tea and think about the hours of pleasure that you've had with FS. Just because you've hit a wall with GMax, (whatever that is), ask yourself, Can I live without it?. Have to admit that I get frustrated with the computing side of FS but that's because I'm computer illiterate so being pragmatic I have to keep things simple. Accept the limitations of GMax and move on, but not from here. Hang in there.

 

Besides, growing veg has its problems. Onions can be bitter and potatos a bit chippy.

[mutley 4,498]

Hey Kevin, instead of trying to be the trail blazer, sit back and enjoy the work of those who get paid for it. You have a young family along with the commitments that come with it and it's what your family deserves. Obviously, from your post, we can see that this has really gotten to you.

Take a few weeks off to regain your sanity, then, and only then, come back and fly your favourite aircraft in your favourite scenery and recapture the magic of flight sim. Forget development until you feel good about getting your toes wet again, and if that doesn't happen, what the hell, enjoy virtual flying.

All the best mate and keep us upto date with your regeneration to Super-Kev!

Cheers, your friend, Joe

[ddavid 149]

Kevin, I commiserate, Bach! Funnily enough, I was saying more or less the same thing earlier today to my Pam. My problem is that I have to re-learn virtually every 'app' each time I use them. For example, livery editing - I have to look at a simple tutorial on dxtbmp each time I need it. gmax is another 'app' that I struggle with as I only use it occasionally. Again, there's a simple tutorial that helps. If you like, I can dig it out - if I can find that other simple tutorial for finding things like simple tutorials!

 

Anyway, as Joe says, give it a rest for a couple of days. Things'll settle down, guaranteed.

 

Cheers - Dai.

 

[MyPC8MyBrain 273]

you’re going there again Kevin?

it’s funny you can’t see the big picture

you’re getting frustrated with things not working

when it’s a product in development; you are coming to it with base expectation to be at least as good as FSX

and it will be; it just takes time to embed all this into code

you know what it is; it’s like a little genius child

he can resolve complex math in split seconds and he is fast as any

but when his mom yells at him; he will start crying

as he is still a young child

thats P3D for you; stop yelling at our genius and let him grow

[allardjd 1,853]

If you like, I can dig it out - if I can find that other simple tutorial for finding things like simple tutorials!

 

 

Now that's funny, if it weren't so true.  

 

Kevin, just wait until you get old - things get worse.

 

John

[Captain Coffee 2,030]

After breaking my FSX attempting to reinstall everything this morning...I can totally relate to frustration with managing this thing at times.

I really can't imaging NOT flying a FS, so...ya, any advice to get me back up and fixed in the FSX threads would be appreciated.

 

But I am at this very moment considering giving World of Warcraft a Trial revisit right now...at least there don't have to fight with addons, you only have to ignore morons.

[MyPC8MyBrain 273]

ooh yes frustration; inseparable part of the trade

you need to learn to let it go at some point and get back to it later (takes practice)

anyway why don’t you educate yourself instead of getting frustrated

here is a little tutorial i wrote a while back

don’t just focus on the steps needed to complete; rather the big picture of what I’m presenting there

http://forum.avsim.net/tutorials/article/83-movingallocating-individual-folders-from-within-fsx/

if i can find the time; ill make a new tutorial for setting up a new pc for fsx

[mutley 4,498]

Hey Chris, that is an interest post which I need to read in more detail, thanks for posting the link!

[Bruce (a.k.a. brian747) 142]

Hi Kevin!

I sincerely feel for you, especially having seen so many of my friends going through the same syndrome over the years

AFAIK the best advice is to walk away for a little, small the coffee / taste the wine or whatever, and spend a little time with the family.

GMAX isn't FSX, and most people find that they have to resort to asking the community for help in lots of situations. This is normal.

So relax and take a bit of time out. Then wait and see whether the itch returns, and if it does is it for FSX or for your GMAX project?

Or if it doesn't return at all, then (in this context) that's a winner, too.

All of which reminds me of an old saying about human relationships (but I think it's applicable in this context, as well):

If you love somebody [or in this case, something] - let it go.

If it returns to you, then you know that all is well.

If it doesn't, then you never really had it anyway.

;-)

All the best,

Bruce

a.k.a. brian747

[MyPC8MyBrain 273]

excellent advice Brian

Thank you Joe

your pc install resembles what i like to refer to as "raw egg"

some like it scrambled, some like it hard boiled, some like it sunny side up etc

that’s your pc right after you finished installing it; a raw egg

now you make it how you start setting it up the way you want it

the manufacture in this case Microsoft

tries to ship their platform preconfigured in such way that it will apply to the widest audience

it’s some sort of features average and settings most will use; so in a way they already made a little mix of their own

but it’s designed to give the average user the least configuration to get him going

with that in mind

I’ll go little back in history mainly for dramatic effect and extenuating the circumstances

back 10 years ago; (this also goes into vista and win7)

the average home user had a 56k modem (yes remember those days)

a 14-17 inch tube screen; and mainly did word processing and web surfing

with average of 32-128 ram

so xp when initially designed to accommodate this level of average pc hardware

this meant everything was preconfigured to this average

if you bought and installed xp 10 years later; the preconfigured environment is still the same

but we now have high speed internet; and much faster transfer rate

and we have way more ram to use, and so on

our raw egg unfortunately; doesn’t know this

unless we tell it manually about all these changes

so out of the box xp is still optimized to perform over 56k modem

it’s still optimized to use only 256 ram and put everything else on to page file

but wait, we use 4gb ram now etc...

ooh well, it makes no difference

its not the movies; the computer has no idea unless you instruct it

or re optimize it to know about these added features and who and how can utilize them and when

im using this simple example with xp and one specific area to illustrate the big picture

there are many areas that unless our raw egg is told to act differently; it wont

only with win8 and later they really started to factor all the new hardware and capability in the platforms logic

[Jess-b 420]

Hi Kevin,

Man I know what it's like to have days like that. Sometimes, all you need is time away from things. When you come back things don't seem so bad. As for gmax, yeah it's a bitch. However, you can learn it. I started using sketchup back last October. It's great, very easy to use and makes 3D modelling a doddle. Then I thought I'd have a bash at gmax. It just about killed me, but I've pushed though and now I'm using 3ds max to model my first building. (3ds max is the big brother of gmax). If your stuck though, I recommend a vpfew you tube videos from a guy called Austin sass. He makes great videos showing how to model in most program's. Here a link to one of his videos using gmax.

Best wishes,

Jess B

[britfrog 180]

Kevin, i tried to get my head around GMAX a few years ago, as I mistakingly thought computer programs would be logical. Like you I gave up, but it does beg the question why do we put up with rubbish like this? why doesnt someone come out with a better , easier way of doing things?

I taught myseld autocad 14 which is a humongous program that can do 50 trillion more things than GMAX, in a very short time, but I cannot draw a pencil in GMAX

[jaydor 345]

Hi Kevin.

 

I have been feeling the same way about FSX over the last few months, that's why I have not been around.  But I have as yet, not abandoned FSX altogether, just having a good rest.

 

I read Brian's input above and agree with him.  If it's love; then it will come back.  If not, then I will go from there.  That will be a big sale...  

[Christopher Low 63]

I have had moments like this, including very recently after deciding to switch to P3D. Everything seemed to install fine with the Estonia Migration Tool, but then I suffered CTDs whenever I wanted to load a saved flight, the water didn't look right, the rudder and nosewheel on my Beechcraft Duke were pulled hard over to the right, some Scotflight buildings appeared to be invisible, there were no buildings displayed at ACG RAF Coningsby, I couldn't see any autogen buildings after installing ES AutoGenesis 6-1, and my UT2 schedules and added AI planes didn't seem to be working. Problems tend to frustrate me very easily (which might make you wonder why I bother with flight simulation at all), so all of this combined made me wonder whether it was all worth it.

 

Fast forward a couple of weeks, and most of those problems have been resolved (or at least worked around).....

 

Those CTDs were caused by my Airplanes_AI folder. I have a separate folder for AI planes within my SimObjects folder, and this had grown in FSX to a massive 15.2GB, with nearly 30,000 items. Since P3D is less forgiving than FSX with respect to errors, it was apparently picking up some things that FSX chose to ignore. Amazingly, after a process of trial and error, I pinned the CTD problem down to a single missing "=" sign in one of the aircraft.cfg files!

 

I installed REX Essential Plus, and upgraded the water (and other textures). This makes a big difference to the water textures (and also sky colouration etc), but the water is still not as good as I would like. The texture seems to fade out too quickly a short distance beyond the nose of my plane, and so the rest looks like smooth glass! I want to see texturing all the way to the horizon, but displayed realistically (unlike the "static sheet" effect that default P3D water exhibits).

 

Installing FSUIPC 4.934f solved the rudder/nosewheel problem on my RealAir Beechcraft Duke.

 

Scotflight is currently being given the "P3D treatment" by the developer, so I will wait patiently for that.

 

All 3D objects at ACG RAF Coningsby are now being displayed just fine (along with military AI planes), although I am not sure what I did to correct that!

 

The install procedure for ES PhotoGenesis/AutoGenesis did not correctly add the AutoGenesis buildings and other 3D objects, so I had to add them manually. This solved the problem, although the current contrast between PhotoGenesis and PlayHorizon Scotland is rather annoying. I guess I will have to wait for the other PhotoGenesis volumes to arrive before I can solve that.

 

I was not seeing any AI planes at all after adding the Airplanes_AI folder initially (the BGL versions not connected with UT2), but this was due to a schoolboy error. I had forgotten that unzipping folders with my WinZip utility created a "folder within a folder". In other words, I had another Airplanes_AI folder inside the main Airplanes_AI folder, and therefore P3D was not "seeing" any of the planes. It took seconds to correct, and suddenly my AI planes appeared as if by magic!

 

Amazingly, most of my UT2 airlines, planes and schedules appear to be working now, even if I did forget to save the UT2Interface.db file from my FSX installation. It seems that UT2 is aware of these updates, even though the correct models are not shown as associated with the respective airlines in the "AI Repaints" section of the UT2 utility. This may be because I have copied my old repaints.txt file across from my old PC, and so they are still registering. I will need to do further testing to see just how many of my addon schedules are working, but there seem to be a significant number of AI planes at the large airports.....

 

This steady progress has rekindled my interest. In fact, I am enjoying doing simple take off, circuit, and landing tests at the more detailed airports and airfields in my RealAir Beechcraft Duke. Two failed before I had even started moving, but I noted that this was when UT2 was loading aircraft, so I think that one or two models are causing problems when P3D attempts to load them. I will have to solve this once again with a process of trial and error with respect to the Airplanes_AI folder, but my renewed enthusiasm has made this feel more like a challenge than an obstacle

 

I have also noted one or two minor errors during my tests, and these will be rectified (if possible) after the first phase of testing is complete. Simple stuff like misalignment of runway centreline lights with the centreline itself (presumably because the rendering engine has been tweaked, resulting in a slight offset between one or two elements when compared to FSX).

 

So, I can't wait to resume this process when I get home from work tonight. My next stop is EGNS Isle of Man Ronaldsway (part of the sublime ES Isle of Man package). I expect to see a small amount of spiking here (due to my very high detail settings), but hopefully there shouldn't be any other problems. We will see what happens....

[dodgy-alan 1,587]

All I ever do is plug in the addons and play. I wouldn't have a clue as to reprogramming something etc, so I don't try. If something works, then fine, if not it gets deleted. The only time I got stressed with FS was when the sytems refused to load after the PC was changed. Howevern ow that is more or less sorted It works for me. I use FS as a means to keep my brain active and my co-ordination normal. The fact that I can virtually fly anywhere in the world to me is a bit of fun when I've nothing else to do. If it ever got to the stage where it was affecting my moods etc then I'd simly leave it alone for a while. At the end of the day its a bit of entertainment. It's NOT reality!

[Christopher Low 63]

I can see that you need additional training, Alan

[J G 927]

Kevin, sound like you are giving up on the whole thing for the sake of GMAX.  It sound like you should have a rest from building and chill out with some nice relaxing flying.

 

I would strongly advise you not to give up, have a rest, well yes, but go cold turkey on FSX and P3D. Man don't do it unless you have a lot of support and a good therapist .  You will live to regret it.

[dodgy-alan 1,587]

I can see that you need additional training, Alan

I know, I just looked at what I tryped! the spelling is terrible, It proves a point though, you should never go near a flight sim after a couple of pints of strong cider! LOL

[hifly 925]

 

I can see that you need additional training, Alan

I know, I just looked at what I tryped! the spelling is terrible, It proves a point though, you should never go near a flight sim after a couple of pints of strong cider! LOL

 

 

And never post when p*ssed.

 

[dodgy-alan 1,587]

[Christopher Low 63]

It hasn't escaped my attention that Kevin has visited this site quite frequently (according to the stats at the bottom of the front page) since his intention to "give up FS". I guess it's a lot harder than he thought