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SimTools v3 Public Beta

Discussion in 'Tutorials and Tips by the Developer' started by yobuddy, Sep 26, 2022.

  1. peter stolmeier

    peter stolmeier Member

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    Ok, one more question. I've searched the manual and google, What is SRV_Roll and pitch? I think it stands for servo but is not all of this a kind of servo?
  2. noorbeast

    noorbeast VR Tassie Devil Staff Member Moderator Race Director

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    There can be basic profiles, but the diversity of DIY rigs means there is almost always going to be a bunch of refinement required. For example, even a basic 2DOF could use wildly different hardware and controls to construct a compact, shoulder mount, knee mount or foot mount design rig.
    • Agree Agree x 1
  3. yobuddy

    yobuddy Well-Known Member Staff Member Moderator SimAxe Beta Tester SimTools Developer Gold Contributor

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    Even if your rig only physically does roll and pitch, I would still assign sway to the roll axis of the sim, and surge to the pitch axis of the sim. This way you can really feel the gforces as you drive the vehicle.
  4. cstdarknight

    cstdarknight Member

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    I'm new also so this may be wrong but I think the problem would be that there are so many ways people can build a custom sim that it would be hard to have a setup that would work. E.g. my motors are mounted opposite of each other so my "roll" directions are the same way but my "pitch" direction needs to be opposing motor directions.

    You could have "simulator build plans" and a setup that matches the plan.
  5. cstdarknight

    cstdarknight Member

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    My Motion Simulator:
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    A couple of questions:
    1. Has anyone else used SimTools 3 and War Thunder Profile successfully (Just to give me confidence that I need to keep working on it)?
    2. Is SimTools 3 still in Beta User Testing or is it full release and should be working with profiles?
      1. Where would I go to see "patch notes" if any?
  6. yobuddy

    yobuddy Well-Known Member Staff Member Moderator SimAxe Beta Tester SimTools Developer Gold Contributor

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    Note that with simtools configured as needed for any given simulator project, that we can export a setup file for the project directly from SimTools v3. And this new setup file will allow future users to install the file and have SimTools fully setup, without the need for any user settings at all. It will even automatically find and correct the needed com ports for the new system.
    Dissconnect.png

    and then...
    Connect.jpg

    All done!
    Complete.jpg

    So the only thing left would be for the user to install a game plugin and configure it. But we can also automate this too.
    upload_2024-10-25_11-44-55.png

    Here we can export a custom game plugin that has already been configured in SimTools and it can contain working configurations for Motion, Dash, Vibe and/or Crash. From here this game plugin can be installed by future users and instantly be played. This means a whole setup for a end user is configured and the user does not need to configure anything at all by themselves.

    NOTE: This is also a great way to backup your working SimTools and Game Plugins setups.

    Taking this to the next step, we can even create new repo's for these projects to live at. and have the setup file and a catalog of games pre-configured ready for users to install.
    upload_2024-10-25_11-55-7.png

    Anyway, should we find sim projects a lot of people are building, know that we can quickly build a small community of files around a give build. And hopefully make the whole project easier for all.
    Take care,
    yobuddy
    • Agree Agree x 1
  7. peter stolmeier

    peter stolmeier Member

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    Again, I'm speaking to you in good faith but my words may sound harsh. I had my system running in sim racing studio with no delay at all on the first try. That it functioned so quickly is what gave me the confidence to actually get my sim as good as it can be.

    It took me a full week to replace it with simtools and I was trying every day, reading manuals and watching videos. I do not believe this is an issue of user error or ignorance, it's actually obtuse. It could have a selection for "three actuators, 2 front, 1 rear" along with other common setups to get you started so tweaking can start.

    Another example, I installed bass shakers today and I had to boot up SRS again to make sure I had it working technically correct. Now I'm going to bed without Simtools following suit because I have no idea what to program in. I get it to test just fine but what needs to happen in the game profile? Good luck to me, it's going to take a few days to figure it out. That is not an exaggeration, it will probably be Sunday before I am dialing in a working profile.

    Whatever it is I need to do is for sure not in the manual. It's probably in the forum post about the setup for v2 but I'm reading that and still not getting any action out of the game. I am 100% sure it doesn't need to be this way so I'm pointing it out with the hope it can be sorted eventually.
  8. peter stolmeier

    peter stolmeier Member

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    My Motion Simulator:
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    This will primarily be a flying sim, but I should add a few points to it to see.
  9. noorbeast

    noorbeast VR Tassie Devil Staff Member Moderator Race Director

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    My Motion Simulator:
    3DOF, DC motor, JRK
    I'm speaking to you in good faith, but my words may sound harsh, if SRS works for you but is limited then why not take your angst out there, rather than at SimTools for what it actually does best, being capable of being configured for a vast array of rig configuration, hardware and games.

    Everything has its pros, cons and tradeoffs! Maximum rig and game flexibility means user choice and configuration, at the opposite end of the spectrum, for a standardised commercial rig, the hardware is known and little configurations should be really necessary, yet even there members complain that commercial entities selling rigs for lots of $$$ fail to provide good motion profiles for all games, or limit what games you can play ,and what motion software you can use to play a wider selection of games.
    Last edited: Oct 26, 2024
  10. peter stolmeier

    peter stolmeier Member

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    I have no angst and I am not complaining. SRS can not do what I need it to do and simtools can. Yours is by far the better program, that's why I switched to it and why I'm taking the time to point this out.

    I'm not even frustrated about it, I've got the time budgeted and really do expect to be dialing in by Sunday. As you said, everything has it's pros and tradeoffs, but did you know how much of a trade off is needed? Simtools takes several days of study for a new user to do the basics. It's true and I am sharing that fact with you because it occurs to me that you genuinely may not know how big the gap is.

    I'm going to leave it there, don't want to get marked (any more than I am) as a complainer. If I didn't point it out, with proof, how would you know, right?

    Here's a pallet cleanser, today is my birthday and I have a bad ass (and working) sim in my garage!
  11. cstdarknight

    cstdarknight Member

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    Thank you for the information this seems like it will be great to help everyone share settings for different profiles. One question would be: Does the person receiving a profile have to adjust the "direction" of to match their motor setup. E.g. My motors are opposite of each other so someone that has their motors in the same direction would need different settings for each motor direction. Is this a correct assumption?
  12. cstdarknight

    cstdarknight Member

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    My Motion Simulator:
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    After learning a lot I've settled on the following settings for No Limits 2 (on my rig)
    upload_2024-10-26_13-36-3.png
    Notes that I found good as a newbie:
    • (2DOF system) I found my pitch and heave are in the same direction and "add" to each other so watch out that the unit doesn't "max" out past your limits.
    • Alternatively Roll has sway "removed" from it so you can push it a bit more farther.
    • Surge is opposite of pitch/heave.
  13. cstdarknight

    cstdarknight Member

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    I'm still banging my head against my keyboard with War Thunder on ST3. It would really be great to get some feedback on this. I see that people seem to have it working on ST2 (which I don't have running as I don't have ST2 with game profiles). I don't have any experience with game profiles but it seems that ST3 is more of a amalgamation of the different ST2 Game Engine and Game Manager (with some added perks) but underneath the interfacing with a game should be relatively the same. How off am I?
  14. peter stolmeier

    peter stolmeier Member

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    That is an issue, but there are few ways to solve this:
    It could ask which servo is assigned to which action. (which actuator is front right?)
    It could tell you which servo to plug into which port to get the right action. (port 1 on the AMC is front right)
    It could display what it's suppose to be doing then ask if it's doing it so user can click which axis needs to be in reverse.

    This last one is close to what we're doing now. When I finally got it to respond, roll and pitch went straight up and down until I understood what the reverse buttons did. If it had just started in that configuration where I was getting SOME action on bootup, tweaking it to actually turn would have gone several days faster.
  15. yobuddy

    yobuddy Well-Known Member Staff Member Moderator SimAxe Beta Tester SimTools Developer Gold Contributor

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    The person would need to build the same simulator as you for the files to work. Basically a clone of your sim, and the next guy does not need to setup, as he can use your files.

    I will take a look at this plugin on Monday and see what I find. There last update changed things a bit, so maybe they have changed things again. Anyway, I will take a look Monday and see what I find.
    Chat soon,
    yobuddy
  16. cstdarknight

    cstdarknight Member

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    Thanks for the feedback, I'm sure working together people would definitely get it working.
  17. cstdarknight

    cstdarknight Member

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    Oh thank you so much. Crossing my finger for good news on Monday/Tuesday. You're the best.
    • Like Like x 1
  18. cstdarknight

    cstdarknight Member

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    Adding one more note:
    • Speed (force) is for your fan (if you have one) not the motion of the vehicle.
  19. cstdarknight

    cstdarknight Member

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    My God if I knew how fun this would be I would have spent more time building it faster LOL. Having a simulator 2DOF is great for IL2 and I can't wait to add my yaw (traction loss) axis. Anyways I have set up my 2DOF for IL2 with the following settings. Please any tips or suggestions to "tune" it would be very welcome.

    Note:
    • Setup on SimTools 3 (ST3)
    • motors are mounted opposite of each other in opposite directions, hence Roll is same dir and pitch is opposite dir.
    • I needed to adjust the Pitch in min/max tuning to 180/-180
    • No changes to default for Parking Location and Crash Detection
    • Lesson Learned - Anti Rollover on Roll and Pitch is a must in flight sims.
    • Question - My smoothing is set to 15% but I'm wondering if that may be too much. It seems good in the game but suggestions or feedback is desired.
    • Question - I'm not sure about setting my min/max - Data Input settings to "Rotational" and 100 degrees. It's working and getting very close to my "max" range but I do have about 170 degrees in total range (even with it set to 100 degrees).
    upload_2024-10-27_14-38-10.png
    upload_2024-10-27_14-36-21.png
    upload_2024-10-27_14-37-11.png
    upload_2024-10-27_14-39-2.png
    upload_2024-10-27_14-40-16.png
  20. noorbeast

    noorbeast VR Tassie Devil Staff Member Moderator Race Director

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    My Motion Simulator:
    3DOF, DC motor, JRK
    With smoothing keep in mind its effects are across all axis, so the minimum amount is generally the best objective, after you have refined the base motion profile as much as possible.

    Yes rotational is correct for your rig.