I’m pretty amazed that the developer modeled CCRP and CCIP bombing modes with release cues and everything. The depth of this sim is disguised by the graphics…there is a lot going on here. Little touches like the fact that they modeled the position keeping lights on the bottom of the refueling tanker…and gimbal limits for the targeting pod. It is really impressive.
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Psychotic rant about playing and not simming!
Hope you’re following strict NATOPS @BeachAV8R 
NATOPS FLIGHT MANUAL NAVY MODEL F/A-26B 165533 AND UP AIRCRAFT
=============================================================
P 142001Z OCT 29
FROM COMNAVAIRSYSCOM PATUXENT RIVER MD//4.0P//
TO ALL VTOL AIRCRAFT ACTIVITIES
INFO COMNAVAIRSYSCOM PATUXENT RIVER MD//5.0F/4.1//
COMNAVAIRFOR SAN DIEGO CA//N455/N421B//
COMNAVSAFECEN NORFOLK VA//11//
PEOTACAIR PATUXENT RIVER MD//PMA265//
FLTREADCEN SOUTHWEST SAN DIEGO CA//6.2//
FLTREADCENSOUTHEAST JACKSONVILLE FL//3.3.3//
STRKFITRON ONE TWO TWO
DCMA BOEING ST. LOUIS OPS//RDOAA/RDDF/RDDP//
SECINFO/U/-//
MSGID/GENADMIN,USMTF,2008/COMNAVAIRSYSCOM AIR-4.0P//
SUBJ/F/A-26B AIRCRAFT NATOPS PUBLICATIONS INTERIM CHANGE//
2. SUMMARY.
A. THIS MESSAGE ADDS MISCELLANEOUS CHANGES TO BOBBLE HEAD
2.2.5 BOBBLE HEAD
ATTN: BOBBLE HEAD OPERATION On aircraft 161353 THRU 161924 AFTER AFC 018, and 161925
AND UP MUST SECURE BOBBLING BEFORE DESCENT
***********
* CAUTION *
***********
Simultaneous selection of fuel dump and bobble head during high AOA
maneuvering may cause fuel to ignite with resulting fuselage damage.
Secure your bobblehead.
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Haha…I might need to go to BOBBLE HEAD Recurrent training…my BOBBLE HEAD memory items aren’t 100% at the moment.
I love the little touches like they actually modeled the position keeping lights on the bottom of the tanker. There are so many features like this in this “lite” sim that are pretty astounding… It neeeeeds multiplayer… (Yes, I left my radar switch on…2 demerits…)
I have to ask, how do you record the cool videos of your character sat in the cockpit? It certainly is a neat “sim-not-as-lite-as-it-looks”… kind of like Kerbal in that regard, where there is a lot more going on under the hood than initially meets the eye.
It sure is. TGP tracking, CCRP and CCIP bomb deliveries, cruise missiles with programmable waypoints to fly. It is really, really well done in a unique way.
The character cockpit shot is enabled by going to the in cockpit MFDs and selecting the S-CAM. From there you can select either random or choose your preset camera angle (in cockpit, external, and action) and you can set the field of view as well. Your view doesn’t change in the Rift (you are always in first-person in the cockpit inside the headset) but the output to the 2D monitor is now the S-CAM view. So you can still do your normal thing in the VR pit, but have an external program recording the monitor window (I’m using OBS Studio). With OBS Studio, you can select any input window to record, and also add an audio channel to record (so I added the Rift microphone). And there you have it.
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Awesome! Thanks Chris, I’ll have to give it a try when I get home from training.
Chris, are you controlling with your HOTAS or the VR gamepads?
I’m using my Touch Controllers. There is now an option to use hardware rudders only, and I’d probably use that but my desk play area doesn’t work well with VR and where my rudder pedals are. There is a pretty darn nifty feature in VTOL VR that helps you get your controls centered. You push a red button on the virtual armrest near where the controls are and the controller auto adjusts as you move your hand to where you want “neutral” to be. Then you let go, and hit the button again. The same is true for the throttle, it has buttons that allow you to raise and lower the “collective” and even extend and retract its length. Where this works great is if you hit those buttons and then rest your arms on your chair so that your wrists are hanging over the front edge of your armrest, that will be a natural and easy “center” position that you can easily return to and it keeps the controls pretty well centered up. The rudder is always a bit finicky though…I’d like to be able to put a dead zone in it. But there is an on-screen indicator on the HUD to show you if you are “uncoordinated”…so that helps.
I’ll try to post up a video in a bit that shows it working if you haven’t already seen the auto adjustment thing…
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Here’s a quick video of me adjusting my controls so that when I rest my forearms on my seat armrests they are at the low point for the collective and “neutral” for the right/stick hand. This allows me to move my hands around the cockpit, but then just putting my arms back in the same place on my armrests returns me to the preset position.
And I don’t know what is going on with the tearing at the sides of my capture. I’m attempting to use OBS Studio with Oculus Mirror because it shows a slightly wider field of view than just the Oculus game window…but something funky is going on where it can’t keep up with the framerate or something. Probably sending and receiving too much data to my hard drive…
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Not sure, but had you seen Jabbers VR streaming/recording tips here (I put the timestamp to 12:06 if it doesn’t work)?
I’ve actually used OBS in VR but for another typical bizarre and frogish use. Sigh, almost embarrassed to say this as it’s off-topic and it’s so incredibly hacky, but whatever…
Goal: I wanted to use X-Plane X-Life in VR.
Steps:
-
Set up OBS to sample a screen portion rectangle of where the ATC comms window appears on X-Life in the X-Plane 11 VR view mirror.
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Resize the OBS window to just show what it would record, i.e. make it a long rectangle, turn off the other OBS panels inside the app. I used two monitors, with X-Plane on the left one and OBS on the right.
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Use Oculus Core 2, i.e. once in VR press the ‘Oculus button’ to see your home. Choose ‘desktop view’ (in my case Monitor 2, that is showing OBS) and view Monitor 2.
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Grab the shown OBS window from Monitor 2 desktop and move/resize it, so in VR it’s in your view and readable, but on your right hip, i.e. not in the way of your main view out the front of the cockpit. Make sure you ‘pin’ the window, so that when you press the ‘Oculus Home’ button again the pinned window stays up in your VR view.
-
Map up keyboard shortcuts for the tab selection and transmit choices in X-Life. It has keyboard shortcuts already, so you can set a HOTAS hat to press ‘Alt+1’ when pushed forward etc.
So that allows me use X-Life in VR, using OBS not to record anything but just to sample a bit of the screen and provide a dockable window so that Oculus Home can composite in my VR space.
I did say it was frogish, right? 
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Ah…I’ll check that out and see what settings he is using.
Oh dear…you mean I can watch the Tour de France in a window in VR while I’m playing…!?
Great little work-around you used! Hmm…gets me thinking. I need a webcam mounted to the front of my Rift that streams to my desktop. Use your little trick to pull it into the Rift and I have a mini front facing camera. LOL…
Yep, as long as OBS can see it then you can grab it and see it in VR using the Oculus Home 2 pinned window feature. I sometimes do it for checklists/PDFs etc. (not even using OBS, just grab your PDF or browser window) Anything shown on your desktop can be ‘grabbed’ and it’s fun to play around with. The touch controllers make it easy to move things bigger/smaller when positioning too.
It actually has very little impact on performance as well, as the view compositor is deep in the Oculus driver stack and the window is being rendered somewhere anyway.
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Very neat stuff Chris. Thanks.
Always one of the favorite moves the Harrier pulls off at airshows when it pitches up and rotates the nozzles aft to climb away from a dead hover…
The VTOL variation…
Beta updated change log:
v0.0.10p5
Map Editor
- Added airbase navigation system for AI pilot taxiing
- Added landing and takeoff authorization system for AIs using airbase runways
Mission Editor
- Added command for landing AI VTOLs at a waypoint
- Switched toolbar fonts to non-dynamic to fix occasional jumbled text
- Fixed: Scenario info window showed incorrect forced fuel when opened for the first time
AI
- Allowed AI pilot to release multiple bombs when targets are clustered together
- Improved and added variation to AI pilot bombing
- Improved AI pilot collision avoidance with terrain
- Improved AI take-off traffic management on carriers
- Fixed VTOL AI issues when landing while yawing
- Fixed IR SAM launchers leading target incorrectly
Units
- Added enemy aircraft carrier
- Set up enemy ASF-33 for carrier operations
- Fixed missing fire when destroying Z20x2 (enemy AAA)
Equipment
- Made new equips available in existing missions
- Fixed CCRP Auto issue with CBU-97
AV-42C
- Switched fonts to non-dynamic
- Fixed HUD G/Mach/Alpha declutter issues
- Fixed MK-82AIR x1 name
General
- Added heat to missiles so they can be targeted by IR based counter-missile systems
- Fixed performance issues caused by ship wakes
- Fixed performance issue caused by city blocks
Look forward to reading your article Beach.
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