Input Configurator needed
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@Kilstorm I almost never use the mouse for anything in this aircraft, all is bound to buttons... As he said in the previous answer: In the manual is a complete list of LVARs for all the bells and whistles this bird has (which is very handy and a very rare occurrence on other modules). I use Axis and ohs to bind them, but there are other tools like Spad.next and FSUIPC.
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@Black-Square When you say native events, what do you mean? I looked through that section of the manual and everything I saw appeared to be things you'd need A&O or spad.next etc., to use. I've been looking for a way to bind the autopilot pitch control with default MSFS controls.
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@Black-Square 1st and foremost, thank you for these Dukes as they are a highly needed addon for my hangar and I am looking forward to enjoying them for years to come.
At the bottom is a 42 sec YouTube link showing the use and ease of the A2A input configurator. In that short video you will see my simpit which is a more invested build than when most start out but at the same time, its mostly all been built as plug and play.
I do have FSUIPC and I believe Axis and Ohs. While I I dont currently use Axis and Ohs currently, I have no objections in using it to enjoy your addon.
So with A2A their input config as seen in the video makes it very easy to set up a vast amount of switches/button and axis for items custom to that plane that is not available in the MSFS list of control options to assign. Open up the configurator, select a controller from the drop down menu and enable the axis for sliders and for switches is just highlight the action and move a switch on your hardware and its assigned. No need for paying for, and having to learn a completely different addon to enjoy their plane. They also offer an indepth list of Lvars as well that go beyond those in the input config for the hardcore simmers.
I dont know where you use Lvars. I go to the Axis and Ohs page and they have great, short, video clips on how to assign and use their product but offer no demo on using Lvars. So when I try and do a internet search, I get these 30 min videos on how to where the people just talks and talks and never really show a brass tacks clip.
So as an end user who really wants to support your efforts in building and releasing the best of the best, and having watched all your videos (I'm Ident on Avsim and was posting them as there when as they were being released), I would say it would be a great service to make a demo video thats short and custom to your addon on how to turn Lvars into actual actions in addition to the master list of Lvars items.
A quick video using Spad, FSUIPC and Axis and Ohs using your plane and just one Lvars axis and one switch and one button would do. From that the rest would be rinse and repeat for not tech savvy users like myself. I want to be flying your plane not spending hours scanning through youtube and forum post on how to learn to use addons in order to do so and you have shown that you can create excellent tutorial videos for your product.
Many thanks for your time.
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@Rhinozherous Thank you for your reply as it gives me hope that I will be able to get my simpit setup in time. Is there anyway that you could show a demo video of how to assign controllers like you've done? I have FSUIPC and Axis and Ohs...I paid for it at least but currently its not part of my sim use. Just a short demo of how to assign axis and a switch like the rocker switches we use in the turbine to start the engine (fuel/igniter/start/gen etc)
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@Black-Square A picture says a thousand words !
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I just want to scream. This is meant to be customer feedback in hopes that it is taken from the prospective of the user experience. You've built this amazing plane that seems can really only be appreciated by those who are tech savvy or else just fly using a mouse and keyboard.
I've spent all morning trying to answer one question, what am I to do with Lvars? I've downloaded the demo of SPAD.Next and it wants to disconnect FSUIPC, tells me since I didnt that my Satiek might not work right...it works fine. So now I have to go and convert everything over to Spad to assign an axis to control the defroster?! Oh and I have to pay for it?! So now the cost of the Duke has increased another 30 bucks?! I have no issue paying but dont want to have to go and reconfig my entire sim so that I'm at the mercy of Spad.
I've tried adding marcos to FSUIPC to get that to work. It didnt. I've watched videos and videos to hear people just talk and talk about whats new, how this is better and all the great things but not one part where its "you do this to get Lvars to do that."
User experience is not winning any awards with me. Thats just a statement to provide feedback, not to be judgmental. I feel if BS gets feedback like that it could be useful to improve the overall experience/product.
I also am not expecting this to become a priority from BS but they need to know that from a user experience point of view, I feel like I have this great addon that is system rich and in my sim that is ready with all kinds of available switches and axis to be assigned but for that to happen, I need to buy additional software, learn how to code by watching ridiculously not useful videos until I find the one that will eventually lead me to guessing at what I need to do and give up how I was using my sim in order for this new software to work.
Once again, would love to be a BS fanboy because I know the product is great but the user experience to use it could be exceedingly better with its own input configurator or as second best to that, a tutorial video showing how to use an addon bridge (that doesnt want the user to have to undo their currently well working sim in order to work) to make use of this Lvars list.
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That's mostly down to the limitation of the simulator. The vast possibilities of inputs are hard to manage and there comes the Simconnect API to the game. But in order to use it, the hardware producers could bring up tools for that like some have done so, and/or the aircraft producers could also do that and a little few had done this too.
All this would result in using a different software for every piece of hardware and/or every aircraft we use.
The golden solution to that dilemma is software like SPAD.neXt or AAOs with a extremely user friendly interface for configuring a huge pool of different hardware in one place.
Believe me, these tools are worth every penny. We spend hundreds if not thousands of bucks on our cockpits that would be worth nothing if we not have these amazing aircrafts from BS and A2A and the tools like SN and AAOs to connect us to these complex machines. -
Thank you all for sharing the way this is done with the Comanche. I might also add that your home cockpit looks like a setup I could only dream of. I don't know if the map at the end of Nantucket is your usual stomping ground, but I spent my first 6-7 years of aircraft ownership in New England, and flying to the island was one of my favorite excursions.
As I suspected, this is only possible because the Comanche operates a bridge between the broader Windows environment and the simulator, while my aircraft operate only in the simulator. It is not possible to access raw hardware data from within the simulator's javascript context, so a configurator of this nature is not possible in my aircraft. Developing a tool that ran externally to the aircraft would be possible, but this is not different from what any of the other tools for hardware control binds do, so it is absolutely not something that we need Black Square specific software for.
As for the user experience, I am happy to have your opinion, as nearly all features I've added to my aircraft since their debut have been at the recommendation of my users. When it comes to things like the tablet, I absolutely swore that I would never make a tablet for my aircraft, but once I got started, I am so happy that I did, as it is now one of my headlining features. I have my users to thank for that.
When it comes to control assignments, however, I have tried to make things as easy as possible with the Dukes by providing L:Var inputs for every control in the aircraft that are not just native inputs, and enumerated them in the manual. I even provide output information for every annunciator in the cockpit and avionics information so that people can create their own hardware RNAV computers and engine monitors, as some have already done. Once the community has access to this in the manuals, I immediately see profiles generated for all the popular hardware binding utilities, and entries in crowdsourced databases, like Mobiflight. While there might be a hiccup or two in places where the information in the manual is out of date upon release, or a 0-100 where there should have been a 0-1, this has been more than enough for most users to create any hardware setup they can imagine.
As I've long told my users, there is one thing I can promise you with my aircraft when it comes to hardware, and that is "anything is possible". There is absolutely nothing that should stop you from creating any hardware setup you desire with my aircraft, and everything you need to do it is either in the manuals, or in profiles that have already been published online. In addition, am have a particular soft spot for home cockpit builders, so I am more than happy to send you custom coded solutions for any extra feature that you want for your home cockpit.
I hope that explains a little bit of what goes on behind the scenes with these different aircraft, but also reassures you that everything and anything is possible with my aircraft for hardware builders. Please let me know if there is anything else I can to do help you have the best home flying experience possible with my aircraft.
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@Black-Square said in Input Configurator needed:
Please let me know if there is anything else I can to do help you have the best home flying experience possible with my aircraft.
Loving my Dukes but like the vast majority of simmers I don't have a lot of controllers, I don't use SPAD or AAO, and I only use the in-sim controls. The most common question I've seen from people like me is what sim commands do I assign to buttons to make the autopilot pitch up and down.
It seems that that right now the answer is that I have to buy and learn a whole new piece of software so I can do it with lvars. How about for the next update finding a couple of obscure sim keybinds for things that nobody would be using for the Dukes - helicopter specific controls maybe - and make those control the pitch knob ? It's almost certainly the most used autopilot control, it seems crazy that there's no way to assign buttons to it with just the in-sim commands.
Thank you for your amazing planes, I think I have all but one of them, 80% of my sim time is in either the Comanche or your TBM :)
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I'm glad you're enjoying the aircraft. Here is something that might work for the next update to make that specific control easier to navigate. You can make a similar change right now on your end, if you would like to test it.
I will provide an option in the tablet interface to determine whether the pitch knob controls the autopilot pitch, or whether you control it externally. If done externally, you will use one of the three following native commands:
K:AP_PITCH_REF_INC_DN K:AP_PITCH_REF_INC_UP K:AP_PITCH_REF_SET (-16384 and 16384... so one degree of change is 1,092 units of change)Here is the change you can make locally to test this. In PistonDuke_INT.XML or TurbineDuke_INT.XML, search for the line...
(>K:AP_PITCH_REF_SET)...and delete it. This will relinquish control of the pitch knob, which should allow you to use the native commands. The knob won't move yet (I can give you that code when I have it), but the autopilot should respond accordingly.
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@Black-Square said in Input Configurator needed:
Here is the change you can make locally to test this. In PistonDuke_INT.XML or TurbineDuke_INT.XML, search for the line...
Brilliant thank you, climb speed now controls with throttle quadrant buttons, that's exactly what I was after, and even with the commands I last tried so the buttons were already set up :)
For anyone else who's keen to have a go the file (for the piston / grand dukes) is here :
Community\bksq-aircraft-pistonduke\SimObjects\Airplanes\bksq-aircraft-grandduke\model.base -
@Black-Square Thank you very much for your post explaining why it works for some developers and not so much the same with BS and others. I now get it. I was really running hot today and it was mostly because I felt and feel that for using AAO or SN that it would be something simple to do if I could just find a tutorial that would show me just what I needed to know and not all the other bells and whistles and finally at the end of the day found a post that has me moving in the right direction before I had to head out for the evening.
As mentioned, love the product and what Black Square is doing for the community so my I'm glad to see my post was taken in the manner I meant. Yeah the tablet is a great tool and I have your tablet now showing on my tablet in the sim and am enjoying using it for a learning tool as I get familiar with the Duke.
I havent done a real flight yet as right now as its all about working to assign controls, see how the plane works as to what to expect that makes it shine in all these great systems and features and lastly for Air Manager Gauges to be made by someone to add the final touches for best use of my simpit.
Yes I live on Nantucket for almost half my life now as I come into my 25th year working here. I even got my PPL here back in 2019. The simpit is new as of December and I didnt hold back on this build which is about my 5 simpit build over the 20+ years of simming. I spent like 12k on the sim with almost half that being the tower along and then got the trailer, or hangar as I call it, for another 7k to create a nice man cave.
This is a genuine offer but I work in the hospitality business where we get friends and family deals and if you ever wanted to return to the island, I'd love to host your visit. I've done it for Bill Womack when he was making his ACK scenery and theres a few others who might come out this summer from the New England area. Open offer just reach out to me if you and your family ever think of coming over. Plus I have a nice boat to get out on the water with.
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Excellent! I'm glad that extremely simple change is working for you! Thanks for testing it out!
For anyone else following along, I have already made the change for the next version of the Dukes. You will be able to enable a tablet option called "Control AP pitch with native bindings", and then this will work (and move the wheel in the cockpit) flawlessly. Sorry this wasn't a feature from the beginning. I'm not a avid cockpit builder, so it's very hard for me to predict what people will and won't easily be able to do with the various hardware binding tools. Sometimes I get feedback about that from my beta testers, but this was not one of those times.
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@Kilstorm Thank you so much for the response, and for explaining what you were looking for out of my aircraft. That really delights me to think of my tablet running on physical hardware in such an impressive setup. I hope the change I spoke about above will be exactly what you're looking for. I also happen to know that Air Manager panels for the Dukes are well on their way already, so I hope you are able to enjoy them soon.
Congratulations on your pilot's license, even though it's been a few years now. I think 2019 was the last time I flew to Nantucket, actually. I was coming from central Massachusetts, so Martha's Vineyard was the more convenient stop. Soon after I got my pilot's license, I couldn't resist flying into ACK, since Wings is one of my all time favorite television shows, for obvious reasons.
Your offer is definitely the most generous I have received through this business, which really means a lot to me. Unfortunately, I don't find myself in the Northeast much anymore, but if I do, I will always remember that I have a customer and a fan on the Island of Nantucket.
Interacting with my dedicated customers on this forum and through email is one of my favorite parts of this business to tell the truth. I receive pictures of airplanes, home cockpits, eastern European cities, amateur radio equipment, cats (often my favorite), so feel free to share what magnificent vessel you captain on the North Atlantic. Us airplane guys are so often boat guys, myself included.
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@Black-Square said in Input Configurator needed:
Here is the change you can make locally to test this. In PistonDuke_INT.XML or TurbineDuke_INT.XML, search for the line...
(>K:AP_PITCH_REF_SET)
@Black-Square I think there's something else going on with that edit - when I engage the autopilot on the turbine duke in HDG/ATT with that line commented out the plane consistently starts diving. I'm not sure how steep it would go, by 4,000 fpm it's approaching vne so I have to do something. It responds to the ap trim knob but it's hard to know how much to crank, by the time the nose comes up towards horizontal I've commanded it so far up the plane goes into a steep climb. Disengaging the ap and trimming for level flight then re-engaging the ap in hdg/att just gets another nose dive.
If I follow the exact same steps in a turbine duke with an original file and engage the autopilot in HDG/ATT it just keeps doing what it's doing, working as intended. The grand duke wasn't as dramatic but I've only done one flight in it and odd things did happen when I engaged the ap.
Next I tried engaging the ap on the ground once the turbine duke was ready to taxi with a target altitude set - the vanilla duke just slowly wobbled its elevator trim wheel, probably towards nose up. The edited duke steadily cranked the trim wheel back. I'm not sure how this translates to a nosedive in the air.
Maybe it's time I had a proper look at SPAD or AAO :)
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@Black-Square said in Input Configurator needed:
@Kilstorm Thank you so much for the response,
So I was able to get Axis and Ohs to assign the axis but I keep hearing the sound of the lever being moved as seen in this clip. Any thoughts on what I'm doing wrong?
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@Kilstorm This is an unfortunate byproduct of how some of the sounds were implemented in this aircraft. I asked my sound developer not to do them this way, but I was told that doing them the most elegant way was too time consuming. You might be able to stop this from happening on your end with deadzones at either end of the levers travel, but for positions in between, it would require some level of hysteresis that I'm not sure many of the 3rd part binding applications have.
I'm sure you could code them yourself with their scripting tools, but that requires a little programming knowledge to do correctly without hitting your head against a wall. The problem is that the sound plays every time the lever is moved, even by the smallest amount, which is often within the noise of most hardware input. Let me know if you want to attempt a software solution to this on your end, and I would be happy to help. In the meantime, I will point this out to my sound developer and see if I can convince him to do the more elegant solution in the future.
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@Kilstorm AAO has some filtering possibilities for noisy inputs. Try to play with "filter strength" value in the axis assignment window, or, depending on what the value is, maybe rounding to integer values could also help a bit.
If that doesn't help, there's always the possibility to write a custom script to filter the value :) -
@Randolf said in Input Configurator needed:
@Kilstorm AAO has some filtering possibilities for noisy inputs. Try to play with "filter strength" value in the axis assignment window, or, depending on what the value is, maybe rounding to integer values could also help a bit.
If that doesn't help, there's always the possibility to write a custom script to filter the value :)Thank you Randolf as that did the trick by adding a filter.
I made a video to show how I used Axis and Ohs to assign the Cabin Heat, Air and Defroster. I tried to keep it short and focused only to the Duke and Axis and Ohs.
