[MOD][0.32] NOBlackBox - Tacview recording utility for Nuclear Option

[solid rain]

hm u know what

my client didn't record anything

weird

[pale charm]

im so confused
its wasnt even creating conf file first 2 reinstall of mod, i dont really understand why, but it should be last version because of bullets traces

[solid rain]

I wonder what happens if I join a server that is not running the mod

[pale charm]

btw, have you consider add comment with mod version in acmi file?

[solid rain]

yeah that's a good call

can you try to record a SP mission with this and let me know if the formatting works

fixing MP recording will take some 🧠 and its getting late here ^^

i think I just forgot to set the position coordinates to output with invariantculture, everything else looked ok in the file

[pale charm]

Still same problem

[solid rain]

(its not the same dll, despite same size! ^^)

[pale charm]

nope

[solid rain]

[solid rain]

how about this

btw I changed the decimal separator in my windows settings on purpose and using the release from earlier today and still can't replicate

[pale charm]

arent separator tied to language?

[solid rain]

you can change the settings individually

regardless of language

[pale charm]

Still nope
I even cleared cache of browser so i can be sure its not downloading same file every time for some reason

its really looks like i doing something wrong, because no way that problem isnt just 1 line fix

[solid rain]

I think something is messing with the formatting of the string after the numbers have been crunched and printed

and no its not a 1 line fix

[pale charm]

There is a change!
Its now just , instead of \,

[solid rain]

some progress!! 🍻

k that's my last attempt for the night

[pale charm]

Nope
gn i guess

Ill ask to test that in russian lang NO community, maybe that only for my device for some reason

[solid rain]

something sneaks culture variance into the string I just can't find it

but also im pretty tired haha

[hallow laurel]

how do i put the map in tacview?

[solid rain]

https://github.com/KopterBuzz/NOBlackBox/blob/main/INSTALL.md#the-tacview-assets

[hallow laurel]

still shows like this?

[solid rain]

idk what to tell u. I uninstalled tacview, deleted tacview's programdata folder, reinstalled tacview, reinstalled the assets into the programdata folder

[hallow laurel]

aight i'll try again

[solid rain]

@rotund rapids sorry for the ping. is it normal for a neutral unit to have unit.persistentid = 0 in multiplayer? One of the radar stations in Escalation Co-op as BDF always seems to have 0 for id.

(but only in multiplayer )

(and only if you join as a client, as host it's not 0)

@pale charm I got u an update

I'm not sure if the formatting issue is fixed, but this should be able to record again when you join MP

https://github.com/KopterBuzz/NOBlackBox/tree/BUGFIX-notRecordingAsMPClient

[pale charm]

multiplayer working, separator still wrong

[solid rain]

i swear if this doesn't fix it... 😄

[pale charm]

It, in fact, did fix it

[solid rain]

https://tenor.com/view/poggers-gif-19995658

you'll notice the mission description no longer shows up in the tacview file

that was part of the reason recording didn't start in MP

some of the variables aren't yet set when we try to initialize the recorder

gonna work it out

[pale charm]

TackView need 30 seconds to open 32 Kb round table
I wonder will it be able to even open hour-long escalation

[solid rain]

for me 32kb isn't that crazy but when I want to view a 2 hour long escalation game that's 400MB

that takes some time

if you have cpu that has an integrated gpu, or if you are on a laptop with dual graphics, windows might be assigning the integrated graphics to tacview by default

esp if u are on windows 11

going into the graphics settings inside windows display settings, adding the tacview executables to the list and enforcing the high performance mode so it always picks the dedicated gpu might help

well maybe not with the load times

but with general performance of the 3d view

[pale charm]

well, there is some delay when opening last version, but i found old record that weight 23 Kb and it open instantly
I wonder could new data like TAS, AoA, Mach impact load time that badly, because record without it have no delay

[solid rain]

yeah probably because we collect lots more data now

we can expose configuration settings later

[pale charm]

Its loading to 50% bar and stop for some time at that mark

[solid rain]

because some things like AoA and speed, tacview can predict them from the position and rotation changes of the objects

so they aren't really essential

but TYKHUN2 did such a good job with the current system, it covers a lot more data points than my original version of the recorder code

but it has some bugs and quirks that I want to iron out before i can add some quality of life features

[lime totem]

fire mission

[pale charm]

you can now assume that if i join session, you being recorded

[solid rain]

https://github.com/KopterBuzz/NOBlackBox/releases/tag/0.2.3

-Fixed various bugs that prevented recording from starting when joining a multiplayer game as a client.
-Fixed remaining formatting issues caused by various different Windows locale settings.

[solid rain]

@pale charm nice nuke

[craggy fulcrum]

What is the R-3 and AT-9?

[solid rain]

i think they are typos the R-3 is probably S3s

sometimes tacview will assume an object is something based on its name, and it can make mistakes

it has its own database of things like aircraft, weapons and vehicles, which include a lot of real-world stuff

and when it encounters something it cant quite designate, it makes a best guess

we extend the default database with NO specific types, but its not fully complete

at-9 is stratolance

should be R9

[craggy fulcrum]

Ahh

[coral anchor]

@solid rain hey do you need to be a host to record the match?

[solid rain]

no atm it records everything no matter what
it was originally only recording from your datalink as client but the way it was doing it hurt performance a lot

I want to change it so that stuff that's not on your datalink can become transparent to show as "undetected"

[coral anchor]

Hmm okay then

[low pasture]

Can you flare the heightmap up at the edges to compensate for the curvature?

I might be misunderstanding but that seems to be the source of height discrepencies

[solid rain]

we will have new heightmap in the next release that has much better accuracy

[low pasture]

Ooh

[solid rain]

https://github.com/KopterBuzz/NOBlackBox/releases/tag/0.2.4
^^

[gloomy jungle]

woops

[gloomy jungle]

@solid rain chicane has no model

[gloomy jungle]

bruh, i cant update it

[solid rain]

?

[gloomy jungle]

tried to put newest zip file in umm and it wont work

not bepinex 😭

im to stupid to install bepinex

@solid rain ima need a tutorial on how to install bepinex

[solid rain]

did u read the docs?

[gloomy jungle]

?

[solid rain]

https://github.com/KopterBuzz/NOBlackBox/blob/main/INSTALL.md

[gloomy jungle]

dont understand how to install bepinex at all

[solid rain]

https://docs.bepinex.dev/articles/user_guide/installation/index.html

all u gotta do

is put the bepinex folder into the game root folder

and launch the game once so it initializes

[gloomy jungle]

where does this go?

@solid rain

[solid rain]

u dont necessarily need the pdb file only the .dll

[gloomy jungle]

ok, i test now

@solid rain do i need to create this folder?

[solid rain]

no

[gloomy jungle]

no replay dolder is being made and no replays shown

disregard im just stup;id

[solid rain]

its a hidden folder

u can change the path if u want

[gloomy jungle]

when model

rip

[solid rain]

i don't think we have models for everything atm so tacview just makes best guess

[pale charm]

Btw if you change path make sure you have / at the end, other way it will not work

[solid rain]

either that or i have the wrong files in the release

[gloomy jungle]

the defult is just a paper plane

[solid rain]

yeah I just reinstalled the tacview customisations and I don't get these issues so I think u didn't install the tacview assets correctly @gloomy jungle

again, I invoke the read the docs spell
https://github.com/KopterBuzz/NOBlackBox/blob/main/INSTALL.md

installing the mod .dll only installs the mod

the mod doesn't know about tacview and doesn't care about tacview

u also have to install the tacview assets

[gloomy jungle]

i installed the tacview things

rip

[pale charm]

I had some problems with steam version, do you installed it from steam or from Web?

[solid rain]

then do it again because my cricket is not a super tucano and my chicane is not a paper plane and I use the same files from the 0.2.4 release 😄

are you viewing an old .acmi file?

because those might have incorrect definitions

which will not associate with the models

try recording a new one

[gloomy jungle]

stock cricket is simple plane

[solid rain]

chicane is just tacview default rotating wing model

but not paper plane

again, if you are viewing an old recording, it is 99% guaranteed to not look as nice as a new recording

[gloomy jungle]

recorded 10 minutes ago

[solid rain]

then idk

screenshots are from a recording taken yesterday with the same build

and I even reinstalled the tacview files

[solid rain]

did u only copy the obj or did you merge all 3 folders

into tacviews programdata

[gloomy jungle]

all 3

[solid rain]

yes the tarantula will also default to paper chopper, same as the chicane, but idk why your cricket looks like that

[gloomy jungle]

https://tenor.com/view/praying-crying-downfall-sad-tears-praying-gif-7785197299162436598

[solid rain]

assuming we are using the same files (i reinstalled everything with 0.2.4)

and it works on both of my computers

send me the recording

if u can

I'd like to see

[solid rain]

maybe another stupid formatting bug again that only happens when the blue moon's rabbit spot is facing a sunstorm or something

nope there is my cricket

[gloomy jungle]

bruh

[solid rain]

same with the trial version of tacview on my other PC

so

idk

[gloomy jungle]

is the COIN.obj the one for it?

[solid rain]

yes

[gloomy jungle]

am i able to send that to you so you can check it?

[solid rain]

i highly doubt there is a difference we both use the same download

[gloomy jungle]

can we check?

do you need just the obj file?

[solid rain]

delete the data folder from programdata/tacview

redownload the mod
run tacview once to init the folder structure

and then copy them again

unless bill gates is trolling you, we have the same file

[gloomy jungle]

i deleted data, ran tacview, no new data folder

[solid rain]

it works for me

idk whats wrong with your computer, sorry

[gloomy jungle]

it pulled the map and names out of its ass

no new data folder tho

[solid rain]

i just did the same thing on my second pc, it recreates the folder structure

and then you can copy all the stuff back in from the mod zip

restart tacview

[gloomy jungle]

i do fresh tacview install

[solid rain]

uninstalling tacview might not clear its programdata folder I'd nuke it anyway

[gloomy jungle]

i zapped the programm 86 folder

[solid rain]

no

programdata

c:\programdata\tacview

[solid rain]

zapping the program files folder won't do anything to programdata

its a hidden folder

:c

just like appdata in your user profile

[gloomy jungle]

zapped

fresh recording, bill gates can kill himself

@solid rain

i think it might just be kaput

[solid rain]

idk what you are doing wrong, but it looks extremely wrong

[gloomy jungle]

im installing it correctly as the instructions say

i feel like allot is missing

@solid rain allot is missing right?

why does my scud look like a 68 😭

@solid rain tacview is cooked

ima go to bed, sya mate

[solid rain]

i agree the config is not fully complete but something is not correct with your setup for sure

on my second pc the tacview install's grace period has expired and I did not activate a license

and still, it looks the same as on my activated install on the laptop

and both were freshly reinstalled

with programdata cleaned up and reinstalled from the latest release of the mod

[gloomy jungle]

whole thing is cooked then

[solid rain]

medium rare

[solid rain]

gonna have new tacview config at some point

I'm gonna be social this weekend so probably not until next week

[gloomy jungle]

aight

[wraith iron]

@solid rain I get this error when I try to load the file.

[solid rain]

pls send the acmi

[wraith iron]

Here.

[wraith iron]

@solid rain progress?

[solid rain]

no im afk

will check tomorrow

[low pasture]

Wonderful mate

New heightmap seems to be wayyy more accurate

[wraith iron]

For reference this was recorded yesterday.

[solid rain]

I see the problem in the text file, will have to find the bug in the .dll's code

thank you for the report

[wraith iron]

You’re welcome, will I have to redo the installation steps or just put in the new .dll?

[solid rain]

just gonna be a dll swap once its fixed

but do note that broken recordings will stay broken, you can edit them manually to get rid of the bad lines

[wraith iron]

Progress?

[deep ridge]

https://tenor.com/view/error-loading-cat-mad-angry-gif-7243458

everytime you ask reset!!

[solid rain]

@wraith iron i wont be able to work on it until later this week, you can use the .dll from the last release, i think the bug does not exist in that one https://github.com/KopterBuzz/NOBlackBox/releases/tag/0.2.3

[low pasture]

Just curious, will we see ports of ships and ground vehicle models?

[winged quest]

tacview says my NO recordings are empty. What gives?

[prime heart]

@solid rain I have it added to the server!

how do i view the recordings in 3D? im only seeing top down view

[low pasture]

Press f8

[solid rain]

u gotta fiddle with the camera settings

[solid rain]

idk

if you have a bug like this send .acmi file

otherwise all I see is nondescript questions that don't tell me anything

[winged quest]

Can I upload it directly here?

[solid rain]

yes if its not too big

[winged quest]

Here's one.

[solid rain]

also can you try recording with the .dll from the previous release see if that works for you
#1262110297070632992 message

[winged quest]

Okay, I've figured out what was wrong.

[solid rain]

what did u find

[winged quest]

My stupidity. I had the "[Chainloader] HideManagerGameObject = true" Twice in the cfg file

well actually I had "HideManagerGameObject = true" twice

[solid rain]

ah

good

glad u found the problem

[solid rain]

is it working with your ticketing system now ?

[prime heart]

yes! the server clock is perfect to go back to right when a ticket is sent to us automatically when it happens

[Wednesday, March 5, 2025 5:54 AM] Player: chair(76561198156320219) has been kicked for Unit player Helipad.

this is what the tickets look like^^

I also just made a powershell script that runs daily that will wipe any acmi files older than a couple days that runs every day to prevent build up

also was able to use rclone to copy the replay files to my google drive everyday so other people in our server can rewatch them

[prime heart]

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/111OWPbhwr4aqBkrolsKa-tGJS8r8e-x8?usp=sharing

[coral anchor]

So when I pull off some crazy stuff in your server I can look here to find the recording?

[hasty raven]

based

[wraith iron]

Are you able to just send me the .dll?

[pale charm]

Just download them from github.com? There is a button to do so

[grand moon]

I'm trying to install the mod, it says to change a certain setting in the file "BepInEx.cfg," but I downloaded BepInEx and I don't see any file called that.

oh I need to run NO first ok

hmm... okay I'm at the last step, changing the TacView terrain to the NO terrain, and I'm not seeing where to do it.

found it!

okay, so after I record smth with NOBlackBox, playing it in TacView with the Falcon 4.0 terrain will show it?

cuz I personally still see a globe.

[solid rain]

did you install the files in c:\programdata\tacview\data

if you did it should show

after selecting falcon 4

you will see the globe

but the NO terrain will be added to it

[grand moon]

I did, but I extracted them directly to it instead of to a folder within it. Should I have done that?

wait, where would the NO terrain be?

[solid rain]

on the equator just west of africa

[grand moon]

it's there! yay!

it's just REALLY small!

yeah Primeva and Boscali are. small nations.

[solid rain]

if you open an actual recording it will traverse the map directly to where the recording takes place

so won't have to mess with finding the map

[grand moon]

ah ok makes sense

[solid rain]

also there are different cameras

[grand moon]

ah alr!

[solid rain]

free cam/aircraft cam is perfect for setting up some cool shots

[grand moon]

nice

[plucky quartz]

i extracted the bepinex file (win x64 5.4.23.2) into the root folder and launched the game through the .exe and steam, but the config file is still not showing up for me

[solid rain]

i should kinda look like this

[plucky quartz]

this is what mine looks like, am i supposed to bring out the "BepInEx" folder instead of the "BepInEx_win_x64" one?
i tried doing that as well but it still didn't work

[solid rain]

nononono

you need to put the content of the bepinex folder

into the game folder

you put the unzipped archive itself into the folder

so the directory tree is not how it should be

do you see

what I am getting at

you need the content inside the archive, not the archive

I can't explain it better I suck at teaching

[plucky quartz]

ah i got it now, thanks

i think the problem was that i put only the "BepInEx" folder and not the four other files as well?

[solid rain]

yeah you need all of them

well changelog.txt is probably not essential

but the rest of them are

[wraith eagle]

anyone know how to fix this and add the NO map?

[grand moon]

Possible that you installed the TrackView assets incorrectly?

[wraith eagle]

i might have

should i just delete the data and let it reinstall the folder

[wraith eagle]

got it fixed

[solid rain]

ive been playing too much street fighter lately but still planning to add some features
at this point i might just wait until after 0.30 drops, just in case the patch breaks the mod...

[prime heart]

@wraith eagle what did you do for the fix? Mine shows up this way too but the map looks normal

[solid rain]

you should be putting things in c:\programdata\tacview\data
not program files

[wraith eagle]

yea

found that out last night at like 2am

oh and dont record a 12gb scenario (4 hours ish) ive been gone for like 2 hours

[solid rain]

i never had such a big file, but i usually only play escalation or confrontation

[grand moon]

four hours

lore accurate NO

[hasty raven]

What's your update rate set to?

I had mine set to 60 initially since that's what the tick rate of NO/Unity is and that was giving me huge file sizes

I think I've got it set to like 10 or 15 and the acmi files are still big but still less than 3-4gb per hour

[solid rain]

you really dont need 60 lol

[hasty raven]

Haha no definitely not

[solid rain]

it really only starts looking jank in tacview if you go down to like 1-2hz...

the default 5 is pretty good trade for storage footprint imho...

tacview itself interpolates and predicts everything based on the recording file, that's why we can get away with low rates...

offiry mentioned he might try to write a script to import the data from the tacview recording to blender for making videos based on recordings.
that would benefit from higher update rates to make sure its as close to the game as possible, that's why I made it configurable

but for general use with tacview the default 5hz is perfectly adequate

[prime heart]

I think TO is set to like 5 or 10. Works perfectly fine for just moderation purposes

[solid rain]

set it as low as possible to save space, 5 is perfectly fine

[wraith eagle]

oh uh it was 300-600 last time lol

[low pasture]

What the hell

[solid rain]

to be fair I don't think the game can even run that fast to begin with

[low pasture]

Certainly not

[wraith eagle]

do you know if it will keep recording even if the mission ends. lets say bdf won cause it would just open the ESC menu tab and display the victory

[hasty raven]

i think it stops once you go quit to the main menu

[hasty raven]

also lol. lmao even

Nuclear Option only runs at 60 updates per second

so anything set above 60 isnt adding any more fidelity

[solid rain]

ya the input filter iirc is tied to the phyisics tick

so you don't really get meaningful improvement in recording fidelity beyond 60

besides possibly with the client side interpolation on render frames, since those can go beyond 60

but the faster you crank noblackbox, the more it impacts your game performance also

nothing is free on the computer

[solid rain]

it should keep recording until the gameworld scene unloads

[solid rain]

out of curiousity, when you record with such high rates, do you get stutter on a regular cadence?

[wraith eagle]

ehh i somtimes get around 20-30 fps in long bursts like 5-10 mins but even if i do record it i cant even open it cause its so large

also do you know how to deactivate this so i dont keep accidentally recording when i dont want to?

[solid rain]

no on/off switch at the moment

[solid rain]

honestly just stop using ridiculous update rates...

[wraith eagle]

alright so i just remove it from the plugins folder?

[wraith eagle]

yea i use 60 fornow

[solid rain]

yeah that's what u can do at the moment

[solid rain]

you can believe me 5 is more than enough to have decent recording

and a 2hr escalation will be less than 1gb...

[wraith eagle]

yea i js love watching it

[solid rain]

i have friends&family coming and going for visits until later this month then I can put some dev time in, will add on/off toggle

[wraith eagle]

alright

[solid rain]

we need top update the mod to work with .30

it won't support new map in its current state

(just putting this here in case anyone comes asking)

[pale charm]

do you have any idea how to implement multiple maps?
i can imagine that offset coordinates and place new map near old easyest solution

[solid rain]

yeah just have to implement way to detect which terrain is loaded and apply offset

[leaden bolt]

very excited to see the updated mod, would help a lot with data collection

[prime heart]

Same. Ready for update 😄

[solid rain]

its a busy time at my work as we usually ramp up projects in march/april

I'd like to remind everyone that the project is open source and is open to pull requests.

i have a free weekend so if nothing else, expect an update on sunday

[gloomy jungle]

when update

[jaunty summit]

Can somene link me to a download link?

[solid rain]

i need to spend some time figuring out how to deal with the map problem

we could just offset the coordinates to a different part of the tacview map, but what if we get so many maps in the future that we run out of space

im gonna dive into the vtol vr tacview mod code and see how they did it

[leaden bolt]

Good call

[solid rain]

i mean its unlikely we can fill an earth sized sphere with NO maps on a reasonable time scale but if we have to deal with unique coordinate offsets for every single terrain its just gonna become annoying to support for everyone

[gloomy jungle]

@solid rain can you ad a timer till next save so that we can prepare for the save because when it saves, game freezes for a few seconds, thx gng

[solid rain]

did you increase the update rate?

under normal circumstances it shouldn't hitch unless you run the game on pretty weak hardware or if its saving to spinning disk not ssd

[gloomy jungle]

how often? i set it to 300 seconds

[solid rain]

the longer the save interval the more data it has to dump so that explains why its hitching

what is UpdateRate set to?

(default is 5)

and AutoSaveInterval default is 60 (seconds)

with those settings i don't get performance impact on any hardware available to me but I have pretty good CPUs and everything is on ssd

[gloomy jungle]

update rate is 5, i changed it from 60 to 300 so that it wouldnt freeze as often

[solid rain]

there is a permalink to current release in OP....

[solid rain]

what hardware do you have?

I can totally add a a hud element that pops up when the mod is saving to disk, just curious about the performance characteristics

[gloomy jungle]

specs in bio and i have the files saving on my ssd

[solid rain]

that's wild

I have 5900x and 13650hx and its not hitching on either of them

sorry to hear that

[gloomy jungle]

The code knows how long till it saves right? So you can ad a timer by converting the seconds into seconds and minutes then show a timer till next save

[solid rain]

absolutely

[gloomy jungle]

put that in next update

[jaunty summit]

Yes, but the op isn't pinned

So I have to scroll all the way up

At least on mobile

[solid rain]

<@&1118065368657821747> could we have the OP pinned please?

i think there is no "go back to top" button on mobile discord

[primal acorn]

That?

[solid rain]

yes, thanks a lot!

[gloomy jungle]

@solid rain when update

[gloomy jungle]

NOW

[stoic cypress]

Is there a way to turn off specific notifications in Tacview? I wanna turn off all the "<Missile/Bomb> was destroyed" type messages and keep it to just vehicles

[solid rain]

I don't think so, but if there is i wouldn't know I never used tacview before making this mod

[stoic cypress]

Damn.

It's clear Tacview is meant for larger scale games like DCS, Falcon 4.0, and ArmA, where there's not several dozens of munitions flying around at all times

[solid rain]

yup, but its the best we have at the moment...

[gloomy jungle]

@solid rain when update

[pale charm]

TackView lack some pretty basic features
I guess you can filter some stuff out with small python script tho

[lime totem]

are there any detailed instructions on how to install bepinex?

ah, found them https://docs.bepinex.dev/articles/user_guide/installation/index.html

[inner acorn]

New map for tacview when?

[solid rain]

if anyone can export a height map pls let me know

[deep ridge]

@solid rain

if you need higher resolution lmk

8x quality.

[solid rain]

ayy

my hero

[deep ridge]

Incase anyone wants source later...

[solid rain]

❤️

I might put this in the mod so we can autosave custom maps' heightmaps if you are ok with that ?

[deep ridge]

whatever you want lol

i was too lazy to get keypress working so i just did 30 seconds after launch to record heightmap

[solid rain]

I'm planning to add some bells and whistles with bepinex configuration manager anyway, so gonna probably refactor and take care of activation on configuration manager gui button press or something

[deep ridge]

well hope it works for you

[solid rain]

it kinda is, I'm currently rewriting the png export function to use unity code instead of having to supply System.Drawing assembly with the mod

and validating the raw export (that's what I actually need anyway)

[deep ridge]

raw might be broke i never actually got to test it lol

i dont have anything to preview it

https://docs.unity3d.com/530/Documentation/ScriptReference/Texture2D.EncodeToPNG.html

But apparently our texture import doesnt have it... @solid rain

which is why i did system.drawing to be ghetto 😄

[solid rain]

well

its a work in progress

[deep ridge]

😛

its weird because apparently they dont use terrain[] so it was harder to generate a heightmap...

[solid rain]

modern problems require modern solutions

[deep ridge]

goodluck! lol

[solid rain]

so i tried the vanilla code with system.drawing
and getting different result in png from your uploads
half the islands are missing

I'm gonna try to f** around again later i just woke up and feeling algorithmically challenged

[deep ridge]

Half islands are missing from mine or yours...

[solid rain]

mine

going to a gig tonight but there are some things I wanna try tomorrow

[solid rain]

this game's coordinate system is like 1.0f = 1 kilometer, right ?

[deep ridge]

That' I'm not sure of

[solid rain]

nvm i think thats the assumption i took with coordinate conversions and it worked

[solid rain]

I'm going in raw

[solid rain]

ok so it looks like doing a raycast every meter is not a good idea

[solid rain]

doing some ocean floor scanning rn

gonna find all the ships y'all been sinking

[rotund rapids]

I think you could easily get away with half that resolution (2m)

it'd make it go 4x faster as well

[solid rain]

ya still tweaking

[inner acorn]

Wow. You find way how to create map heights. Cool

[solid rain]

for now its just small tiles of the map, need to stitch them together

[inner acorn]

Perfect

[marble flame]

idk what i should to recomend you. But i usually run mesh to terrain script in unity, and then use cartographic soft to generate height lines...

[solid rain]

I don't know how to find the mesh programmatically during runtime but if you know how to do that and willing to tell me please do so 🍻

I'm not trying to convert the asset, I want to build something into the mod that can just export the heightmap from the game so it can be easily done with ANY custom map in the future

[marble flame]

ahh...

Then gl ig...

That goes beyond my ambition and knowledge, but sounds very cool...

[solid rain]

we live in year 3077 here

VTOL VR tacview mod does the same thing, but I'm not sure if their method is directly applicable to the way this game renders terrain

i think VTOL uses heightmap texture to generate the terrain

not mesh tiles

[solid rain]

that's gotta be close enough for now hehe

I'm gonna get started on stitching

[inner acorn]

Im pretty sure this is enough to understand what happening on map. But could be little better

[solid rain]

yeah the bridge is annoying me

its spiky

same with buildings

should be possible to smoothen though

[inner acorn]

Probably because middle level of details. 0.5-1 meter should be enough to reach very good result.

P.S. Probably problem with bridge because in one place vertically coordinate have double height. One is road level, second level of floor or wire

P.P.S. if problem in bridge wire, you should install resolution at least twice smaller than wire

[solid rain]

it kinda looks like terrain in old novalogic games

GIGA RAYS

https://tenor.com/view/nvidia-gif-14251978375826396304

[solid rain]

ok this is sad, last time I saw no eating this much chocolate was when I forgot to turn off my dedicated server for a week lol

[solid rain]

its gonna start floating any time soon

eh

I am not a matematik

🙈

[deep ridge]

deditated wam?

[solid rain]

this has nothing to do with web account management tokens

but ye I got 64gigs in here

even though dell says this laptop only supports 32

it was a bit finnicky to get it to recognize all of it though

[solid rain]

i hate dealing with coordinate systems

now it seems like its stitching in the right order at least

hopefully that's that and then onto several other learning moments as to why does it need 20GB of ram to get the work done

[deep ridge]

;>

[solid rain]

the orientation is wrong but I can fix that later

[solid rain]

after much

terrain mesh tiles are accessible

so no need for ray casting

[deep ridge]

Yippee

[solid rain]

https://tenor.com/view/never-give-up-fist-pump-motivation-motivational-gif-4892451

i guess some shader magic should still be possible though

[solid rain]

i have to confess trying to vibe code a shader for this doesn't seem to be working out well so far

just getting weird scribbles like this

Shader "Custom/NOBlackBox_VertexYToColor"
{
    SubShader
    {
        Tags { "RenderType"="Opaque" }
        Pass
        {
            ZWrite On          // Enable depth writing
            ZTest LEqual       // Use standard depth testing
            Cull Off          // Cull back-facing polygons (optional)

            CGPROGRAM
            #pragma vertex vert
            #pragma fragment frag
            #include "UnityCG.cginc"

            struct appdata
            {
                float4 vertex : POSITION;
            };

            struct v2f
            {
                float4 pos : SV_POSITION;
                float yNDC : TEXCOORD0; // Normalized Device Coordinate Y
            };

            v2f vert(appdata v)
            {
                v2f o;

                float4 clip = UnityObjectToClipPos(v.vertex);
                o.pos = clip;

                // Convert clip.y to NDC (Normalized Device Coordinates: -1 to 1)
                float yNDC = clip.y / clip.w;

                // Map NDC [-1, 1] to [0, 1] for texture-like use
                o.yNDC = (yNDC + 1.0) * 0.5;

                return o;
            }

            float4 frag(v2f i) : SV_Target
            {
                float brightness = i.yNDC; // already in [0, 1]
                return float4(brightness, brightness, brightness,1.0); // grayscale gradient
                //return float4(1.0,1.0,1.0,1.0); // grayscale gradient
            }
            ENDCG
        }
    }
}

https://github.com/KopterBuzz/NOBlackBox/blob/heightMapGeneration/src/HeightMapGenerator/HeightMapGenerator.cs#L207

I've never worked with shaders before so I have no clue what I'm doing wrong yet.

[solid rain]

hm maybe i should use a camera.....

[marble flame]

Blind man trying to describe color blue...

[placid topaz]

very strange, does it work in any capacity on heartland?

afaik the two terrains are rather different in, well, terrain

[solid rain]

its the same on both

[placid topaz]

heartland is fully tiled out whereas ignus is where each mesh is just the island

strangr

[solid rain]

scene still gets lit etc
I might just go back to raycasting lmao

at least that was a bit more straightforward

[deep ridge]

:p

[inner acorn]

Looks very good

[solid rain]

no it doesnt look good at all, actually

[finite reef]

lookin like synthetic aperture radar shots

[solid rain]

what we need, should look more like this

I'm just gonna use raycasting instead, its much simpler, albeit the end result might look a bit like voxel terrain from old novalogic games
should still be good enough for functional representation of the environment in tacview

[inner acorn]

How i can understand, this is not height map. Just photos. Chat gpt probably will can help get from this height map🤔

[solid rain]

you can't make a heightmap from a rasterized image, unless the pixel color information is the vertical position coordinate of the vertex underneath

that's what I tried to do with custom shader, but I can't get around the render pipeline

so instead I'm just gonna go back to raycast, the raycast hit has info on the exact position of that was hit by the ray so we can get elevation info that way, and then write it to a texture and save it in the right format

just need to optimize it so it doesn't take 1 hour to generate a high detail map...

[lime totem]

if you want to, send me the code and tell me how to run it, and i will leave my pc running overnight

[solid rain]

I'm gonna fix it up after work, the main issue is that I was literally casting rays every meter 😄
I'm gonna relax the sample resolution and implement a gaussian blur algorithm to make the elevation changes less jagged

[lime totem]

every meter is awesome for buildings though😛

[solid rain]

yeah you can actually see bridges and buildings on the output but they are "spiky" - applying blur should help with that

i have some ideas to speed things up + manage the memory better, current version of the code leaks 20GB of ram

[solid rain]

https://gist.github.com/zulfajuniadi/ab63483e44f9f9ae29f3a4581d642e3e
ok so there is a built in raycast batch processor, hopefully that's available in unity 2022 also

[solid rain]

so I have a problem with the output being slightly offset from center.

Im assuming this is due to floating origin, because I am using Datum.originPosition as an offset atm, otherwise it would be way worse

but otherwise its getting there, these are png files I'm using as output testing, not atcual heightmap file format (those would be at least hundreds of megabytes in decent resolution)

i fixed the memory leak

ok definitely the floating origin

I moved the spectator camera a bunch and got this

i guess I can just grab the position of the camera and use that to correct the raycast positions or something

[solid rain]

never mind I am an idiot

notice the glaring typo

yessss

moray pattern is because of low scanning resolution so I can test quicker

[opaque depot]

thats awesome, congrats

[solid rain]

https://github.com/KopterBuzz/NOBlackBox/blob/heightMapGeneration/src/HeightMapGenerator/RaycastHeightmapGenerator.cs

its spaghetti code still, gonna turn it into a monobehaviour so it can run in update() and not block the main thread

but at least the basics are working now

[opaque depot]

i was just gonna say how clean it looks

[solid rain]

I do try to keep the project itself tidy

[opaque depot]

compared to the thing i've "vibecoded" on coffee induced mania. (i'm not a programmer by any means)

[solid rain]

I started out by tinkering with powershell at work (which is kinda my main job now), and just code recreationally otherwise

[solid rain]

ah i think the orientation is still wrong

nvm

[solid rain]

no it is flipped vertically

when tacview reads the .data file

[solid rain]

🤣

i guess a system.array.reverse pass on the rows will take care of it

[deep ridge]

The final stretch

[opaque depot]

that looks sick

[solid rain]

things are falling into place now

[solid rain]

need to add automatic altitude adjustment based on Datum sea level or something and generation of the custom tacview XML manifests

that's the customheightmaplist.xml tuned for naval, and the heightmap

and thats the CustomTextureList.xml tuned for naval
(the "texture" is just the image from 0.30 patch notes)

the texture stuff goes to
C:\ProgramData\Tacview\Data\Terrain\Textures
the heightmap and its custom xml manifest goes to
C:\ProgramData\Tacview\Data\Terrain\Custom

the altitude offset in CustomHeightmapList.xml is inaccurate, needs to be lower

the islands are floating above sea level a bit

Ideally I want to do all of these things programmatically so generating this stuff for custom/future maps will just be a button press

[marble flame]

Why don't try to use depth map?

[solid rain]

cba with gpu programming for this to be honest

i don't understand very well how the renderer works
and using chatgpt etc for coding things I don't understand well is like pissing in the wind, but the wind direction and speed randomly changes every second

[solid rain]

[MOD] NOBlackBox - Tacview recording utility for Nuclear Option

when I'm done with this update, I'm actually going to play the game a bit XD

[solid rain]

I changed the post title so it now actually comes up when someone searches for Tacview in the forum 😄

[bronze dove]

Remind me after work in about 15 hours to look at the raycasting code to maybe multithread it.

[solid rain]

would appreciate

[bronze dove]

Managed to get the computation down to seconds instead of hours, but I get all zeroes so I guess there are drawbacks lol

[gloomy jungle]

@solid rain has it been updated?

[solid rain]

no we are working on a heightmap generator

[solid rain]

so when we are done with that ill make a new relase

i will also add the countdown to next autosave timer you were asking for

[gloomy jungle]

thx pookie

[solid rain]

im away for a few days but no plans from wednesday onwards besides finishing the update and playing doom

[prime heart]

hey 7ep3s! I installed the latest update but I have an issue of it using the old map and not changing to the new one

[solid rain]

you need to change between tacview terrain and texture programdata stuff depending on which map you want to be present in tacview

I will provide supporting documentation when I actually make a new release

idk what you downloaded but we haven't released an actual update yet

I just posted some terrain data for naval some days ago in the chat but there is no new release

[prime heart]

ah okay ill replace the terrain data, I appreciate you!

[solid rain]

had a breakthrough with the height map generation's accuracy so getting closer to clean up the code, make configuration parameters, update documentation and release a new version ^^

[solid rain]

@gloomy jungle

now with color ^^

test version with the work in progress heightmap generator, and the countdown timer

to access the settings GUI you can see on my screenshots:
install BepInEx configuration manager https://github.com/BepInEx/BepInEx.ConfigurationManager

latest release of the configuration manager for bepinex 5: https://github.com/BepInEx/BepInEx.ConfigurationManager/releases/download/v18.4/BepInEx.ConfigurationManager_BepInEx5_v18.4.zip

[solid rain]

getting a bit carried away with this feature
now it creates texture automatically, as well as height map ^^

[inner acorn]

Wow. Looks very good!

[inner acorn]

Very good. And what about bridges?

[solid rain]

you can see them on the textures but the geometry won't look perfect

[inner acorn]

Actually this still enough to have pretty not bad info about battle.
Great work!

[solid rain]

Tacview only understands elevation in meters, and the data is stored as 16 bit integers where 1 unit = 1 meter, so the precision is limited

[inner acorn]

Enough for roads? Enough. Thats enough!

[solid rain]

yeah roads look mostly OK, you can see their trail in the mesh itself also + the texture will show them too

[inner acorn]

And this mean only one... Update release soon?

[solid rain]

yeah, just tidying up and updating docs ^^

[inner acorn]

Yeah. This pretty valuable for newbie users!

[solid rain]

https://github.com/KopterBuzz/NOBlackBox/releases/tag/0.3.0
New Features:

-New Terrain data for Heartland and Ignus
-Implemented a Heightmap + Texture Generator so we can easily support any Terrain added in future.
-Updated documentation to explain how to switch between different Terrains in Tacview.
-Display Countdown to next Autosave

Known Issues:
After using the Heightmap Generator and exiting the mission, the game will spiral into an agressive memory leak very quickly.
The Heightmap Generator is DISABLED by default so this won't impact general use of the mod.

The terrain elevation map is much more accurate than before, so now the ground vehicles are actually on (or much closer to) the ground, and quirks like the Stratolance battery on Vigil Cay looking like it sunk inside the mountain will no longer happen

also some buildings/structures are captured in the elevation info, but its not very pretty. so the cities look like a bunch of very narrow very spiky pyramids

regardless, now when you analyse a dogfight around port maris etc, you can kind of see the buildings so its easier to read the situation

[inner acorn]

My hero

[solid rain]

ooops it looks like I broke something...

recordings comingfrom this version are broken...

I'm checking

i found the problem

[deep ridge]

[solid rain]

I accidentally deleted a line from the .acmi writer so the manifest at the beginning of the file was incorrect

uploading fixed release now

https://github.com/KopterBuzz/NOBlackBox/releases/tag/0.3.1

[gloomy jungle]

i love you pooks

[solid rain]

so now that there is a visible countdown, I can evidently see and correlate some of the stuttering I experience with autosave.

but also sometimes the game just decides to throw itself into 20fps from 60+ for no reason at random times, so it was difficult to see previously

[gloomy jungle]

any new models yet?

for tac view

[solid rain]

no, at the moment I am trying to sort out legal stuff so we don't get nuked for using game assets! 😄

so for now the only new models are the new terrain models for both maps + associated textures

[gloomy jungle]

bruh

bro has mitch's lawers contacting him

[solid rain]

It's better to ask permission first, since we would have to rip the unit and ordnance models from the game

[gloomy jungle]

true

[solid rain]

and we have a good case + don't have any monetary gain from this so I sent an email to the dev team to ask permission officially

[gloomy jungle]

new models might come with next update?

[gloomy jungle]

how long ago

[solid rain]

we already have some aircraft models in the tacview dataset but its better to have things covered legally

[solid rain]

maybe 2 hours ago

😄

[gloomy jungle]

https://tenor.com/view/rigby-cat-rigby-pee-funny-cat-gif-436236211739437212

[gloomy jungle]

@solid rain EXPLAIN WHAT ALLTHIS DOES

caps

[lime totem]

height map is the altitude of every location of the map i assume

high resolution means more detailed mountains and buildings

meters per scan is how many meters are between each measurement

[solid rain]

https://github.com/KopterBuzz/NOBlackBox/blob/main/INSTALL.md#using-the-heightmap-generator

[gloomy jungle]

👍

[marble flame]

impresive. but with those clouds...
The issue is, that this texture remove all "depth" from scene idk.

I prefere topographic shading

[unkempt crown]

ahh shit

I don't know what I'm doing with BepInEx

[solid rain]

yeah the scene gets lit unfortunately, don't know how to set up a Unity Camera GameObject to ignore lighting

You can toggle custom textures on/off in Tacview itself also

i guess i could try messing with the cloud layer and try different times of day for optimal texture outcome

[solid rain]

or i could try shaders again

[deep ridge]

I can disable lighting via code...

Idk how that'd look lol

[pale charm]

tbh "rename those files to switch terrains" sound pretty bothersome to do every time
wonder if saving maps in git branches and using script to check save name, switch branch if necessary and launching TacView would be more user friendly

[solid rain]

i cant share details yet but there is a good chance we wont have a reason to bother putting any effort into workarounds like this soon 😎

[solid rain]

what you are proposing could be implemented in a quite simple way without using git, all maps have a unique ID in the XML so could store everything locally and switch maps with simple GUI or command line app where you can select the terrain you want and it automatically creates a copy of the desired xml and overwrites CustomHeightmapList.xml and CustomTextureList.xml

I DID think about adding this, but again, soon we might not need it at all 🙂

[solid rain]

[MOD][0.30] NOBlackBox - Tacview recording utility for Nuclear Option

[solid rain]

Looks like this mod is broken on 0.30.9

I'm not staying up, will look at it tomorrow

[MOD][not working with 0.30.9] NOBlackBox - Tacview recording utility for Nuclear Option

[bronze dove]

I've reviewed the cause of the crash and confirmed it is incompatible code changes. We'll be looking into it deeper soon.

[solid rain]

need to dig up where to get Terrain dimensions from

[solid rain]

with any luck I can post a fixed release later

today

[solid rain]

https://github.com/KopterBuzz/NOBlackBox/releases/tag/0.3.2

fixed stuff that was broken by new patch

[MOD][WORKS WITH 0.30.9] NOBlackBox - Tacview recording utility for Nuclear Option

[solid rain]

the heightmap generator is likely broken in this release, but since we provide heightmaps for the current terrains it should not be a breaking issue. the tacview recorder functions seem to be working fine

after work I'll fix it up properly and update the manifests to support the new weaponry

[solid rain]

this will be delayed, ive been summoned to a party

[solid rain]

ah so recording of ordnance is completely broken right now by the looks of it...

[solid rain]

Discovered a new issue: ordnance is not getting recorded due to the Missile rework impacting our code.

We have a fix in the works already just needs code review.

updated dll for the time being

includes a workaround to allow weapon recording to work

https://github.com/KopterBuzz/NOBlackBox/tree/ACMIMissileFix

[gloomy jungle]

@solid rain

[solid rain]

are u using this?
#1262110297070632992 message

[gloomy jungle]

woops

[gloomy jungle]

working now

has mitch said yes for the models?

[solid rain]

yes, I started working on them ^^

[gloomy jungle]

https://tenor.com/view/zesty-cat-niklas-cat-tongue-gif-9842551414196208576

[solid rain]

also

check out latest tacview beta:

^^

need to update the mod to support it, but we are getting our own terrain layer ^^

[gloomy jungle]

https://tenor.com/view/mog-mogged-mogging-mog-coin-funny-gif-10196604141758860495

[woven bronze]

YES

[pale charm]

huh, did you asked TV devs to add NO or its possible to add custom terrain layers options?

[solid rain]

I asked them to give me some advice re heightmap data structure.

They did that + also decided to add better support for NO ^^

We are currently discussing how to do the terrain switching.

I think it will be possible to make it work without getting the user to do any manual switching and maintain support for custom terrains.

[pale charm]

oh, that cool
Also i guess you just made free addvertisement for NO

[solid rain]

yup! ^^

[grand moon]

oh that's really cool

[solid rain]

https://tenor.com/view/sunnyfication-gif-20299408

i totally definitely didn't need to set up an entire toolchain of processes written in 3 languages to get this working XD

[opaque depot]

if it work, it works

[solid rain]

there are some kinks that need to be worked out, but I can pretty much get all the models processed into tacview compatible .obj files with a few button presses at this point

[solid rain]

I'll try to push an update tomorrow

enough of this for tonight, time to play doom

[pale charm]

Can you lift up its radar?

[solid rain]

maybe in the future, for now I'm focussing on getting all the models configured

I'm trying to write automation for as much as possible so every update I just have to run a couple of scripts and push to git

some things need to be adjusted because there are some naming and casing discrepancies in model names, and Tacview is case sensitive with basically everything

[solid rain]

how about that

[solid rain]

[MOD][WORKS WITH 0.30.91] NOBlackBox - Tacview recording utility for Nuclear Option

https://github.com/KopterBuzz/NOBlackBox/releases/tag/0.3.3

to make sure Tacview gets all the updated assets, I would delete all the old Nuclear Option XMLs from
C:\ProgramData\Tacview\Data\Database\Default Properties

and also delete all old meshes from

C:\ProgramData\Tacview\Data\Meshes

and then replace it with the new stuff from the release's TacviewAssets folder

[solid rain]

and then the inevitable bugs 😄
some models look a bit wacky due to how the automatic processing pipeline works, will fix it later

[inner acorn]

Looks awesome. You make great work

[woven bronze]

hoverfrit isn't real, it can't hurt you
hoverfrit:

[solid rain]

@oblique lichen lets continue here

did you install BepInEx 5 or 6 ?

[oblique lichen]

actually im not quite sure, its been here for a while

[solid rain]

make sure you use use bepinex 5

[oblique lichen]

its 5.4.23.2

should be the same right/

[solid rain]

yes

did you maybe screw around with it so it doesn't load

do these exist in your NO root folder

[oblique lichen]

theres a log file if you want to take a gander at it

[solid rain]

based on that timestamp

[oblique lichen]

OOF

[solid rain]

I'd wager it hasn't worked in a while

[oblique lichen]

yeah i found out that the winhttp.dll is gone

dunno how it died

[solid rain]

ya reinstall BepInEx

[oblique lichen]

oh yeah, i thought aircraft models were imported? i only see generic models

[solid rain]

did u copy the tacview files

https://github.com/KopterBuzz/NOBlackBox/blob/main/INSTALL.md#the-tacview-assets

[oblique lichen]

Yes

All 3 were in the right place

[solid rain]

like this ?

[oblique lichen]

Too late now, already shut off PC will check tmr

[solid rain]

I deleted all the Tacview customizations from my programdata, reinstalled the files from the release's TacviewAssets folder and it works

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[solid rain]

oh its also possible that because these models havent got polygon reduction done yet, tacview is taking its time to stream all of them in especially if you are opening a big replay file

i seen that a few times

it doesnt like models with polygon count over 4000

[oblique lichen]

hmmm lemme try a smaller file

[solid rain]

when that happens every unit will looke like boxes and paper planes then after a while if you move the camera in and out they might refresh

[oblique lichen]

i watched a 1 hour file, the new models never showed up unfortunately

[solid rain]

im away til the afternoon (BST) but im pretty sure the release files are good

[prime heart]

@solid rain Hey the new update looks great! I was curious would there be anyway to build in map swapping? a simple exe that we can click that will swap modify our tacview files so if people use different maps its easy to swap maps

[solid rain]

Tacview dev is working on implementing auto switching for NO in Tacview

i started writing a launcher as a backup option but they seem to be happy to add NO support

[prime heart]

awesome news!

[oblique lichen]

is this soemthing with tacview or something with blackbox? sometimes the labels of an aircraft dont show up, and it ignores unit scaling sizes

[solid rain]

i think its tacview trying to automatically prioritize which labels to show

[solid rain]

can you send me your tacview log file after opening a replay so i can see if its finding the xml manifest for loading models

as i said i reinstalled on mine from scratch and it worked so not sure why it is not loading models for you

[oblique lichen]

Busy rn, will give soon

[solid rain]

no rush

[solid rain]

if you don't see this line in the log the files are not in the correct place

same goes for these yellow warnings

[oblique lichen]

huh yeah its in the wrong place it seems

but i thought this is the right spot/

[solid rain]

no

ProgramData

not Program Files

ProgramData is hidden

but if you type C:\programdata

or %programdata%

into the file explorer's address bar

it will reveal itself

[oblique lichen]

no the defualt install directory is in program files

no tacview folder in program data'

nvm i see it now

[leaden bolt]

Why are the tris so high I'm sobbing

[solid rain]

its automated export + conversion im still figuring it all out

[leaden bolt]

😭

[bronze dove]

Compass unit type has typo

Air+FixedWing*t*

[solid rain]

where ?

nvm found it

[solid rain]

while(obj.data.polygons > 4000) {automatic decimation go brrrrrrrrrrr}

[bronze dove]

One way to save on polygons is remove all the internals since we don't need them in Tacview

[solid rain]

yeah I just gotta update the keywords for what to reject before exporting obj

currently too many components are grabbed

orginially I was hoping every model has meshes with LOD1 in their names but that's not the case

[bronze dove]

Also probably make the cockpit glass solid and remove those internals

I wonder if you could do some rendering check to see if a given mesh is rendered from an external camera

[solid rain]

I'd say thats too much effort but if you want to look at it i won't complain

although i guess it would be possible with a unity editor script relatively painless?

on a second thought

so the undesired components wouldn't even make it to the fbx export to begin with

current process just grabs the whole prefab, and exports the fbx

and component rejection + face count reduction is done by blender processing

I think I gave u acces to the private repo that holds the scripts used

[bronze dove]

Between work (got a new promotion with lots of new responsibilities) and my other mods I can't guarentee I'll have a look

[solid rain]

congrats for promotion, hope the pay bump also scales with the resposibilities! 🍻

[bronze dove]

Absolutely does not come close

[solid rain]

https://tenor.com/view/never-give-up-fist-pump-motivation-motivational-gif-4892451

[bronze dove]

I've been wanting to get a good job for a while but been struggling so.

[solid rain]

job market is funny these days, I've been struggling to find a new one too

current one's not so bad but they won't let me work from the country I want to move to

[placid topaz]

if you'd like basic models i can add glass to the existing skin templates

[solid rain]

thank you, that would be really cool while we work out the kinks in the the automation pipeline 🍻

[placid topaz]

sure thing, i have the assets available so if you need anything else let me know!

[woven bronze]

"what weird universe is this" type ifrit

[solid rain]

it also messed up the scale so looks more like rc model

ya if you could get me those aircraft models with the canopy added that would be awesome, the vehicles, buildings and other misc stuff doesnt seem to be problematic from this perspective

@placid topaz

[placid topaz]

@solid rain do you happen to know what kind of format TV prefers? fbx, obj, etc.

as well as the orientation, as the models i have are all 90 degrees on x axis

also, what angle to put the tarantula at

[woven bronze]

DYNAMIC TARANTULAS
any angle from 0 to 90
or if that's not possible, 45

[solid rain]

ill send you the details when im back home

cheers

🍻

[solid rain]

so,
obj is good

they just need to be rotated 180 degrees
currently they fly backwards ^^

but I can take care of that with a bpy script

[leaden bolt]

@solid rain quick question, what options would make the mod have minimal performance impact?

[hasty raven]

Lowering the updates per second (I forget the exact config option name) to like a value between 2-6.

Lower is less taxing on performance

[solid rain]

you can try reducing the polling rate https://github.com/KopterBuzz/NOBlackBox/blob/main/INSTALL.md#updaterate and disable some of the optional data points that are described in the same section of the document
also try JetFox's FPSBooster

the only performance hit I get is when the autosave occurs, you can control that with AutoSaveInterval (https://github.com/KopterBuzz/NOBlackBox/blob/main/INSTALL.md#autosaveinterval)
there is a short hitch while its dumping to disk - need to think of a better way to write progress in the background, should be possible with less of a performance hit

[solid rain]

default is 5, imho there is no much point to go beyond that, it will let you do anything up to a 1000 but realistically even 60 might be pushing what the game can actually give you in regards to useful data (since physics are 60hz...)

(tacview also does its own interpolation of the supplied data from the replay, so even 5hz looks OK when replayed...)

[bronze dove]

!!Speculation alert!!
Increasing the autosave interval will reduce the rate of hitches, but will almost certainly make them stronger as more data has to be flushed.

[solid rain]

I wonder if there is a point where more frequent autosave would actually cause less noticeable hitches because there is less data to write

also could make it so it only autosaves under specific circumstances, like opening the menu, or when entering the aircraft selection screen, but that carries the risk of not saving for too long and potentially lose too much data if the game crashes or alt f4 occurs or something like that

[oblique lichen]

Tbf the guy knew alt f4ing won't save anything

[solid rain]

autosave is more people-proof than any disclaimers or documentation, in my experience 😄

[opaque depot]

how often are the autosaves? would it be viable to save when the player changes aircraft, to keep the hitches to when you are not flying.

[solid rain]

60 seconds by default

configurable in .cfg

[solid rain]

ya I guess that's a good idea to only save as a client when not in air

but then if you run a long bomber sortie

there is a chance you won't be saving for 10-20 minutes

or more

smartest solution would probably be moving autosave to a separate cpu thread

[opaque depot]

and if you dont save for 20 min the hitching will be glorious

[solid rain]

so the main unity thread is not getting blocked by it

or idk if doing it async would be enough to be honest

need to do some research

[prime heart]

Hey 7ep3s im ahivng an issue where the recording is not displaying player controlled planes in the recording

[solid rain]

can u send me it

[prime heart]

theyre all here

[prime heart]

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/111OWPbhwr4aqBkrolsKa-tGJS8r8e-x8?usp=sharing

[solid rain]

if u have player log from the same session can i have that as well

i will try to replicate anyway

[solid rain]

also, was this recording made by a server?

if yes which mods did u use

actually i'd like to know which mods regardless

[prime heart]

thats a big list

btw seems to be working fine on my new tacview install on my laptop

when viewing them

[prime heart]

it was made by the server

[solid rain]

no worries i can try to replicate if i know the circumstances. but if it works fine on a different tacview install im not sure if the mod is at fault 😐

[prime heart]

yeah probably user error

ill let them know, what a dummy

[solid rain]

I'm going to be away a lot this summer and probably won't have much time to work on new features for a while.

Once new Tacview version comes out with full support for NO, I will definitely update the mod for that ASAP.

But I would also like to hear what you all would like to see added to the mod also, in case I get some productive downtime between trips etc 🙂

[leaden bolt]

The only thing I want if possible, is more performant saving

[solid rain]

it's on the list! ^^

[leaden bolt]

Cool cool

[prime heart]

Not sure if you're interested but here are two very simple ps1 scripts to help users change maps for now as since I am swapping maps frequently it is a bit daunting.

[solid rain]

cheers mate

[pale charm]

hand-made airport from Rund Table looks so fire now on tacview

[lime totem]

@mighty sparrow

[solid rain]

it is amazing how this "just works" thanks to how the game is engineered

we gotta figure out the city buildings too

[solid rain]

trying to git push from hotel wifi is a pain

I'll try to release a mini patch tomorrow

no autosave performance improvement for now, but I got some better looking aircraft models thanks to @placid topaz and @viral dagger ^^ I also reduced them to below the 4K triangle threshold so should play nicer with Tacview + fixed a typo that could cause compass to be not detected by Tacview correctly

[solid rain]

https://tenor.com/view/doom-doomguy-mug-meme-mug-doom-eternal-gif-23149506

thought I'll try my hotspot because surely its better than the hotel wifi

but alas, throttling is still a thing

at my cell provider

ya hotel wifi is even worse

need a proper release pipeline so I don't need my laptop to make new releases

[opaque depot]

we should return to CD's/floppy disks

[solid rain]

im hoping my laptop battery doesnt give in while im out and it uploads by the time i get back to the hotel lol

no power in the sockets when the key is removed and i dont have a spare ;')

gonna try to set up a github action for this moving forward when im back from my travels

[solid rain]

haha of course it went to sleep and the upload broke

rookie mistake

[opaque depot]

haha, happens to the best of us

[solid rain]

i will find a way to get this out tonight

pro tip for when its impossible to figure out what goes wrong between the OEM and Microsoft's power management and the computer goes to sleep anyway: put youtube on loop in fullscreen

[opaque depot]

https://tenor.com/view/modern-problems-solutions-dave-chapelle-gif-13450651

[solid rain]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HkD_8QjtHs

perfect case study on the same issue! 😄

[solid rain]

https://tenor.com/view/residentsleeper-sleep-boring-snore-gif-11985580

[solid rain]

https://tenor.com/view/move-faster-go-faster-mad-angry-gif-17875678

[solid rain]

https://github.com/KopterBuzz/NOBlackBox/releases/tag/0.3.4

finally

• improved aircraft models
• fixed typo that would cause Compass to be not categorized correctly
• 🐴

[solid rain]

im going to be at a festival with no computer for the rest of the week so if there are any other stupid bugs that reveal themselves, i can fix them when I'm back next week

[inner acorn]

Good luck

[viral dagger]

Thank you so much for your efforts, I have so much fun with the MOD and you keep making it better! Have fun at the festival, have a good time and live in the moment!

[viral dagger]

Has anyone ever had the problem that a recording has been created by the mod, but it is only 255 bytes in size and TacView rejects it as “empty”?

[junior latch]

211 bytes but yeah!

i dont know what the deal is

[junior latch]

fixed it for m

e

[viral dagger]

Thank you!

[viral dagger]

https://youtu.be/yduvhlfibkI

[viral thorn]

idk if I can post here or not, but I cannot get the map portion of tacview to work and im not sure why. It wont ever display nuclear option's maps or the jets.

[viral thorn]

@solid rain sorry I hate to be that guy but ^^

[viral thorn]

models and stuff works, but there is no map

[blazing jungle]

fantastic video, however I am having the same issue as @viral thorn above. Selecting the "Falcon 4.0" option does not give the heartland map as it appears to in your video. I instead get this result.

any help appreciated

[viral thorn]

yeah I think we have the same problem

[viral dagger]

We fixed it. I write an explanation!

[blazing jungle]

Awesome! I'll look out here for the explination.

[viral thorn]

it will be in the pinned comments of his video

[viral dagger]

I did so, but for the quick check:

If the game map does not display after loading a replay, it may be due to missing files. In the folder C:\ProgramData\Tacview\Data\Terrain, there are two subfolders: "Custom" and "Textures". Open the "Custom" folder, which contains two .xml files: Terrain_naval_CustomHeightmapList.xml (Ingus Archipelago) and Terrain1_CustomHeightmapList.xml (Heartland). If your replay is on Heartland, do the following: Copy the file Terrain1_CustomHeightmapList.xml and rename the copy to CustomHeightmapList.xml. Then, go back one folder and open the "Textures" folder. Here, you will find two files: Terrain_naval_CustomTextureList.xml (Ingus Archipelago) and Terrain1_CustomTextureList.xml (Heartland). Proceed as you did in the "Custom" folder. The map should now display correctly after loading a replay.

[blazing jungle]

this did work, but now of course my followup question is if i have to go through that same process every time i want to have tacvicw display the other map. I've now got it displaying heartland correctly -- do I have to go do all of that the next time I want to switch to Ignus?

[viral dagger]

https://github.com/KopterBuzz/NOBlackBox/blob/main/INSTALL.md

Scroll down to:
Switching between Different Tacview MAPS

I'm afraid the current answer is yes.

[blazing jungle]

I'm afraid the current answer is yes. 😦

[viral dagger]

But I've heard rumors that there may soon be an auto-installer for the mod. Tacview will soon support the Nuclear option natively. I could imagine that Tacview will either automatically select the correct map in the future, or that you can conveniently change it in the program via a menu.

[blazing jungle]

this would be very nice. im not the most savvy person with modding but I can get by, especially with your video to guide, but I could completely understand if someone just decided to not due to the complexity of the installation process

[blazing jungle]

thanks for the video

[blazing jungle]

and for this correction

[viral dagger]

Let's help Nuclear Option become as big as it deserves to be. So huge 😄

[blazing jungle]

Agreed.

@viral dagger just considering how the mod is made, shouldnt there be a way to tie the terrain of heartland to one of the presets, and ignus to another preset? from what I understand, the current function of the mod hijacks the Falcon 4.0 map option in Tacview -- why not just have it do the same thing but with the IL2 option, and with Ignus, for example?

im a bit lacking on what actually occurs to make the tie between the NO assets and the Falcon 4.0 map happen, but conceptually wouldn't this work?

[viral dagger]

I can understand your way of thinking and also appreciate that it could be approached in this way. But my assumption is based on total ignorance. Creating a mod is far beyond my current imagination. I'm glad to have got it up and running. Not because it's bad or particularly difficult. Rather because it's a completely new area for me. Getting it done motivated me to help others get it done too.

[blazing jungle]

Mine as well. After a very rudimentary review of the files used to modify tacview, I can find no reference to Falcon 4.0. I'm sure that it is, but I'm just not aware enough of how to find it haha.

If someone more inclined to modding reads this thread, maybe try to have ignus replace the map of another preset. Or better yet, have two new presets both for heartland and ignus.

[coral anchor]

@viral dagger thanks for the setup video it helped out a lot

My only problem is the terrain for some reason didn't load in and acts like everything is the ocean

But other than that I love it

[viral dagger]

#1262110297070632992 message

That does not help?

[solid rain]

read docs

sorry im extremely hungover lmao

[viral thorn]

problem solved already, sorry about that

[solid rain]

@viral dagger thanks ❤️

[solid rain]

glad u got it 🍻

[mighty sparrow]

oh yeah wwhy did you ping

[lime totem]

round table stupid

[craggy fulcrum]

Smh that clearly says rund table

[solid rain]

is the mod working for everyone with latest NO patch?

im back home in the mancave tonight will have a few days to work on updates

[viral dagger]

Yeay! WB Master 😄

[fluid summit]

I have a queston, Tacview pauses the replay every time a unit is destroyed and writes "-Something- has been destroyed". Is there any way to get rid of this?

Cancel, I found a check mark behind three doors.

[fluid summit]

I have several comments\suggestions:

1. The names of the aircraft controlled by the player, the weapons used by the player have names like PlayerName(PlayerName). Please change it to objectName(PlayerName)
   2)If possible, please add the option to disable event recording (as in the screenshot above) to the configurator.

[solid rain]

yeah for 1) i have no idea what happened I'm also a bit confused by it! 😄 do want to fix it though
2) is planned, will need a bit of re-engineering of the recorder object i think

[fluid summit]

https://tenor.com/view/thumbs-up-double-thumbs-up-like-agreed-yup-gif-14284264219182206721

[solid rain]

actually in I'm not sure if we mean the same by 2)

i want to add an action to stop/start recording on demand

what you were asking in the screenshot question I that's not default Tacview behaviour, and this mod only adds assets to Tacview, and does not change any of its settings

[fluid summit]

Aah, no, that's not what I mean. Recorder spamming with some kind of events involving the destruction of objects. Is it possible to add to the config the ability to disable the recording of events about the destruction of something?

[solid rain]

i see what you mean

so

I think there are 2 ways to remove objects, one is the Destruction event, the other one is a more silent method

we could make it configurable i think

I actually got sick over the festival (my immune system held up until yesterday) and I only have a few days at home, so no promises on anything.

I'm planning to add @viral dagger 's new model pack but not sure if I will make any code changes this week,

[fluid summit]

It's okay, it's not critical.

[fluid summit]

Unfortunately, the beta version is only for Standard and advanced licenses.

And this is the 9th beta from May 29th.

[solid rain]

yes I was talking to the devs and they added this feature specifically to help us

I'm hoping i can work on it tonight

if I get a bit better XD

[fluid summit]

Cool, to be honest, I'm surprised they got in touch.

[viral dagger]

The Hyperion Class Carrier ist still missing. Im about to make it tomorrow.

[solid rain]

well, the more supported games, the more licenses they can sell, so it is good for business! 😄

[solid rain]

[MOD][WORKS WITH 0.30.94] NOBlackBox - Tacview recording utility for Nuclear Option

[north pelican]

got a kinda technical question out of curiosity- does this mod need to take take into account conversions between the spherical world of tacview and a flat world in Nuclear Option? or is that not actually an issue?