IRFC Hawkeye

I'll probably catch flak for this but I like this kind of stuff. Heard it on a movie and liked it. Video is stupid though, just listen to the music if you can....it's not hard rock like most everything here seems to be.

Since folks may find a new need to use JoyToKey considering the 3dmygoto mod, figured I'd update info from an old thread here. I recently reinstalled JoyToKey and had a LOT of problems getting it working on my rig. Ashamed to say it took hours, all due to a lot of unknown things that I found out the hard way. Here's some easier ways I found that may help others. Problem 1: Can't figure out which joystick shown in JoyToKey is the one that I want to work with. Related: The one I want to work with may not even be one that is shown. Solutions: Starting with the second issue, make sure all joysticks are shown. The default shown will be two, but if you have more, they also can be shown (up to 50). Go to the options tab and note how many "joysticks" are shown (devices may not actually be a joystick). If you have more than 2, change the number accordingly and refresh the screen. That insures that one of those is the one you need to deal with. First issue, which one do I configure without a ton of trial and error? (I did the trial and error ) Before I got anything working, I figured this out: Go to your JoyToKey installation folder and find the file "JoyToKey.ini". Open it with Notepad and look at the bottom section to find your devices as seen by JoyToKey. (As you can see, one or more of the "Joysticks" can be a device with no buttons that you could edit at all...in my case, rudder pedals): In my case, the buttons I wanted to configure were on device number 1, or "Joystick 1" in JoyToKey. However, it could have been any of the 3 detected. I needed to set the keyboard emulation that I wanted on the "Joystick 1" tab. Problem 2: I don't know which joystick buttons to edit. The ones shown in the game button mapping utility for the controller I want to use do not seem to work. Solution: Do not go by the button numbers that you see in the game for the buttons you want to use. What matters to JoyToKey is what Windows uses for your button numbers. This is often one number different, since the game probably counts "0" as a button number, and Windows doesn't. Go to the Start menu and find "Game Controllers" in the list of programs under "G", and run that. Then select the controller you want to use, and go to "Properties". There you can actuate the buttons you wish to use and see the button numbers that Windows assigns them. These are the button numbers you'll need to edit in JoyToKey: Edit those joystick buttons to emulate the keys you want, on the correct joystick tab: With JoyToKey running, start the game and go to the Key mapping utility. Pick an empty field and push the appropriate buttons. (Instead of doing this, I stupidly started a SP mission each time and checked to see if the zoom was working... ) If working, it should now show the keyboard emulated key(s) instead of the original joystick button number(s) that it originally did (in this case, it originally was "joy1_b23"): Problem 3: It still doesn't work Solution: Associate the game with the profile you've created. In JoyToKey, go to Settings > Associate profiles with applications...(A). Then enter the path to the IL-2 game executable as shown below (assuming your game installation locations and folder names are the same as mine....they can differ so use what is correct for you). The auto-detect feature is buggy and locked up my mouse and the game, although I still was able to finish the process using the keyboard only. I advise CAREFULLY entering the path manually as shown below. REMEMBER that the "Il-2.exe" file is a CAPITAL "I" and a LOWER CASE "L". It won't work if you get that wrong. Also do not neglect to put spaces exactly as shown: Problem 4: IT STILL DOESN'T WORK! Solution: Set the JoyToKey.exe to run as administrator every time. Browse to the file in it's location, then select the file, Properties > Compatibility tab, and check "Run this program as an administrator": Other considerations: You may want to set JoyToKey to automatically run minimized to the system tray. In that case, when you start it, if you need or want to make any changes, you'll need to click on it in the system tray. Otherwise it can work without the window being up or any indication in the taskbar. Personally I prefer it that way. Go to Settings(S) > Preferences...(P): Other other considerations: You may also want to set JoyToKey to start automatically at startup. This is done by placing a shortcut to the executable in the Windows "Startup" folder. Path...C:\Users\(Your Account Name)\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup. However, although I tried this and could see the program listed under the Startup section of the Apps menu, and it was enabled, it still would not start. Reason: I found out that if you set a program to run as administrator, it does not have permissions to run automatically, so it won't run that way if you do that. So don't bother trying it unless the program somehow works for you without being set to run as administrator. This may have something to do with whether or not you have UAC (User Accounts Control) enabled or disabled. Obviously this was all a lot more complicated than it should be. I almost gave up. If you can't get it working feel free to knock on my door, maybe I can help. S!

@ScorchedBeans Link to official templates: Templates

Good work, guys! S!

This is the discussions thread, not the submissions thread. He's just making them available to view for approval.

Care to elaborate? Isn't that plane supposed to be subject to high speed compressibility stall?

With 23 dated 2013, you must have originally got it before then....is that the case? Anyway he'll know soon enough....there's no reason he can't check it right now, why wait? It's not like the old unit would quit working if updating to 23 turns out to be necessary.

Not sure how old the required firmware is....but I did install the latest that was available at the time I replaced the mainboard. So it may already be good. EDIT: I see in the video that the date of the required ver. 23 firmware is 09/10/2013. So you're almost certainly already good to go. Looks like you would just need the firmware updater from the website, and that will tell you what you currently have (see the above video). Apparently you don't need T.A.R.G.E.T. for that aspect. I would say that if the original slew worked in-game without T.A.R.G.E.T., the new device should work too. Probably safest to only have the throttle plugged in when you do it (unplug the joystick). And if updating, use a USB 2.0 port, like Lipfert said. But there is little chance that any of that is necessary.

Which gate did you end up liking better?

I've hated it since the beginning....not going to pretend I know what's realistic or not, just hated it. It's bad enough it comes on at what seems so early, but then after you reach that point, it gets even easier to black out after that....and on and on. In terms of the WWII side, I feel like I'm flying a flippin' F-4 Phantom at full throttle all of the time, just trying to dive in on an enemy from above. Of course most if not all of that is my fault....but it was that kind of change, from before. I just gave up. I think in certain areas, there is a real need to do things a little differently when making a flight sim. We simply lack sensory input that would have been SO obvious in real life. Therefore we need a little forgiveness and a good bit of forewarning for a lot of things. For example something tells me that in real life somebody would have some inkling before hand when their wings were about to snap off strictly through their own maneuvering (not bullet damage effects). It would also, I think, be very clear through some means, that you were taking damage from enemy weapons hits (applies to WWI more than WWII). Since we lack so much of the sensory input, we need compensation in those areas that we do have sensory input for (like hearing!). In terms of blacking out, how about we see some "stars" at the onset, before your flippin' vision immediately begins to seriously be impaired? Have any of you seen stars before something worse happens? I have, plenty of times. If they don't do some serious revision on that aspect, I doubt I'll ever waste time again trying to dogfight the WWII planes, even more so now that I've seen an absolute expert like Barton comes near to losing in a situation he would normally have ruled in.

I guessed wrong....was looking at the tach. Strange how one moves clockwise, and the other moves counter-clockwise. Anyway just wanted to see what speed you were at when you started evasive maneuvers.

Apparently I've been rendered non-compliant

When did having black stabilizers and yellow elevator/rudder become a requirement in J10?

What a great title, lol Which one of those is your airspeed indicator?

Sure I guess when you're starting with a pre-made template and using PS too. But I still don't get exactly what is meant by "flattening". Almost sounds like you mean merging layers. I guess in a sense, the less layers you have, the more "flat" the stack becomes. But I had also thought it might have had to do with the alpha layer and making the final product look "flat" (not shiny). I think there's a few major differences between Gimp and PS. For one I don't think it's necessary to copy the alpha channel to edit it in the layers section, with PS. You can edit it right where it is and save it. But I stand to be corrected. In every template I've used, as many as 10 different weathering layers are already there; and if there's too much it's easy to simply make any of them not visible with the click of a button, or even deleting them. You're making it sound like you have to create weathering from scratch. If I wanted to add additional weathering, I could edit any or all existing weathering layers. Also with every template I've used, the alpha channel was already there. Of all of those, the only one that seemed to need adjustment was the SPAD one. All of the others I just left as-is. The more painting I've done, the less merging of layers I do. Takes away too many options for changes. When I'm creating certain design aspects I might make it piece by piece and then merge those. Otherwise I like to leave options open. I am without a doubt the least knowledgeable skinner in this squadron, so I have a lot of things I'm undoubtedly wrong about. In any case, I think I convinced myself about the answer to my original question.

I have a dumb question, I hear that expression a lot lately, what exactly is meant by "flattening layers"?

Ha! Well done. So yeah, when you save as, it defaults to the standard .psd file, and when you need to produce the .dds file, you have to choose that new file type. That's when the nVidia dialog comes up. That's how the plugin works....within the PS program. If you had paid close attention to what file types were available in the pull down list for the "save as" function, you would have noticed that after you installed the plug-in, the new D3D, DDS option was added. After that it is available to choose....where as, before you installed the plug-in, that file type option wasn't there. Make sense? S!

Oh it obviously works....what they probably mean is that it doesn't work 100%....meaning like I said, the profiles part doesn't seem to work. But it does produce the images. Every single skin I've made was done with it. My guess is if you try to get the older version from an nVidia site, it's going to redirect to the new version. But if you can find it elsewhere, it would work. But there is no reason not to try the other, unless a slight increase in convenience is an issue for you.

Yeah, mine would be the "old", even though it works with the most current PS CC, 2020. So you are saying that in your format pull-down there is no direct option for DXT5? My guess is maybe it just isn't supported, or at least properly supported. As for the "2D texture", my guess is that should be in the "image type" field. If that option is not available, maybe that's the problem. That "old" version I have is a plug-in, so when you're in PS and "save as", the DDS file types do appear directly in the list. I'm not sure if what Vonrd uses works that way, or if it's more stand-alone. If you can uninstall this new version and still find the "old" one, you might want to try that. Otherwise, use what Vonrd suggested. I never did that because this worked fine and I've had it ever since.

Use these settings. Moxy was on the right track, just needed more specifics. As for the cyrillic names, those templates are made by who knows, and a name like that I do remember at least for the SPAD, maybe others in the channels area. Not sure why you wouldn't be able to rename it though, although there's no real need to do that. When you hit the save button, it looks like nothing is going on and that it might be froze up. It isn't. The only indication that anything is going on is the cursor changes shape to something else and just stays that way for quite a while until the MIP Maps are done and the process is complete. When you finally see the cursor change back to normal, you know it's done. Once you save a file using these settings, after that the settings will automatically be already set the way. If you need to change them for other sims you'll need to remember them, otherwise you'll probably forget them because they just stay there automatically. You'll notice that there's a way to save profiles, which if I remember right didn't work when I tried it, and I think it froze up. Possibly it was because that directory didn't exist, but I kind of doubt that because it should have just created it automatically. I any case avoid the profiles part if it gives you problems....the settings will stay anyway.

"Near" Hell Hawks! Robert F. Dorr / Thomas D. Jones Zenith Press, MBI Pub. Co. 2008 About the 9th Air Force in WWII. Read it, pretty sure you'd like it. S!

Thumbs up McDonnell, glad you took the plunge! S!

I've read descriptions of P-47 ground attack where a near miss with 500 lb bomb would flip the tank over.

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Looking forward to the ones from Bloody April and FiF