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SimTools Settings, Tips and Tricks

SimTools, Settings, Tips and Tricks

Category

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Here you will find useful information about SimTools settings, tips and tricks

Dual PC SimTools Setup

#251

Startup and Shutdown positional controls

Your Startup and Shutdown options affects how the sim behaves when connecting and disconnecting from a game, see @speedy's explanation here: https://www.xsimulator.net/communit...and-windows-utilities.4957/page-33#post-83250

You can use Startup and Shutdown options to hold you sim in position when using motors that can be back driven when not powered: https://www.xsimulator.net/communit...ation-for-oculus-rift.7684/page-3#post-111568

With JRKs 221 is the on command for Position, 63 tells it where to go and 225 turns it off: https://www.xsimulator.net/communit...ght-with-oculus-rift.6179/page-14#post-106293

[​IMG]
#234

Which way to set SimTool axis movements

Which way an axis moves is determined by the Dir box being checked orange or not. Both boxes will be either checked or unchecked for surge and pitch, while only one will be checked for sway and the opposite one will be checked for roll.

[​IMG]

Nomenclature of movements in SimTools by @value1: http://www.xsimulator.net/community...r-simtools-api-documentation.4612/#post-44027

Pitch is the tilt of the car forwards or backwards in [°]
Roll is how much the car is dipped to the left or right in [°]
Yaw is the heading of the car (north, east, south, west) in [°]

Surge means the acceleration of the car in longitudinal direction [g]
Sway means the acceleration of the car in lateral direction [g]
Heave means the acceleration up and down [g]
[​IMG]
Direction of movements in SimTools
Acceleration → pitch slider moves to left, surge slider moves to right
Deceleration (braking) → pitch slider moves to right, surge slider moves to left
Right turn → roll slider moves to left, sway slider moves to right, yaw slider moves to left
[​IMG]
Left turn → roll slider moves to right, sway slider moves to left, yaw slider moves to right
[​IMG]
Driving downhill → pitch slider moves to right
[​IMG]
Driving uphill → pitch slider moves to left
[​IMG]
Tilted to the left → roll slider moves to left
[​IMG]
Tilted to the right → roll slider moves to right
[​IMG]
#230

Tuning Center - Entering manual values

When fine tuning motion profiles you can find the need to manually enter a Tuning Center value, which for some games can be less than 1, particularly for heave.

To do so in the Tuning Center un-check the tick in the box next to the name of the axis you want to manually enter a value for, say Heave. The check boxes are Green by default, which means the Min and Max values will default to the same value, Blue is to capture values and uncheck them to Pink (Off) to manually enter values. Hit Capture Max Min, change the values, then hit save.You can then manually enter Max and Min values all the way down to 0.01.

The values must be entered like this, 0.5 not like this 0,5 as a decimal point is the recognized deliminator. Sometimes the computer language setting may be an issue when trying to enter a decimal point if they are set to something other than US English.

Source: http://www.xsimulator.net/community...ter-simulation-plugin.4777/page-17#post-91187
#210

Manually removing a game patch

Ideally you should unpatch a game plugin with Game Manager before you delete or install a game to a different directory.

If you don't then the SimTools patching button will be greyed out and you won't be able to patch the new install because SimTools stores the old game installation path.

You can follow @eaorobbie's advice to manually unpatch a game: http://www.xsimulator.net/community/threads/how-to-unpatch-plugin-without-game.5831/#post-61244

"You will need to go to this directory c:\user\(yourPCname)\AppData\Local\SimTools\GameManager\GamePathSaves

And delete the save file for the affected game.

Restart Game Manager and you should now be able to patch the new game directory".
#208

When & how to run SimTools in Admin mode

#201

UDP games produce no output data

Please check the local settings for example they need to be like this:
13956

Here is an alternate method that can use the original settings on your control panel for those who uses unicode languages to avoid language compatibility issues with other applications here.

The SimTools developer @yobuddy has advised that the output bug has been found and will be fixed in the next release of SimTools: http://www.xsimulator.net/community/threads/game-data-input-0.4909/page-2#post-50117

Thanks @jamesdio for the solution.
#181

Traction Loss in SimTools

#175

Testing SimTools without a simulator

Many are curious about SimTools and you can experiment with SimTools without having a motion simulator.

Here is a handy tool by @perdixero which simulates the movements of a 2dof, without having hardware or needing to connect anything: https://www.xsimulator.net/community/threads/simple-application-to-analyze-the-axis-setting.10430/

Alternatively SimTools comes with the Live For Speed plugin already supplied and here @value1 explains the steps where you can test SimTools with Live For Speed without needing a simulator: http://www.xsimulator.net/community/threads/game-engine-exceptions.7080/#post-82208

As an alternative you can also use the free version of Google SketchUp to make your model motion controlled by a game of your choice and SimTools:

The latest version of SketchUp: http://www.sketchup.com/download

How to connect SimTools to SketchUp: http://www.xsimulator.net/connect-simtools-sketchup/

See @SilentChill's tips for configuring Sketchup 2015 for SimTools: http://www.xsimulator.net/community...v-dc-motors-mms-and-arduinos.6948/#post-79442
#171

Backup - Reinstall SimTools without loosing your profiles and settings

#160

Flight simulation - How to exploit human percption in motion simulation

Flight simulation brings into play the physics based limits of motion simulators. But part of the science and fun of motion simulation is exploiting the weaknesses of human perception to work around the physics, as a way to create the sense of 'being there'.

Getting the most out of a flight simulator with motion is tricky, but @Archie has put together a guide to show what is possible with Prepar3D, including how to get around some of the physics based limitation of motion simulators: http://www.xsimulator.net/community/threads/getting-the-most-out-of-p3d-and-your-sim.6889/
#142

Game Manager DPI fixes

#123

Set base tuning motion values in the Tuning Center

The basic information for Tuning Center settings is here: http://www.xsimulator.net/tuning-centre/

Keep in mind that the Tuning Center is working with whatever % you set in the SimTools Game Engine.

Increasing the Min/Max numbers will slow how fast the rig reacts for that force and decreasing them in value makes the rig respond quicker. By unchecking the tick you can set the Min/Max at different values, which is useful for simulating things like gear shift

There are default values that plugins supply for the Tuning Center, but they are not always correct.

The first thing to do before fine tuning motion settings in the Tuning Center is to get you simulator to establish some base settings. The proper sequence to do so is click capture max/min, reset all, drive/fly for a while without hitting anything, back in Tuning Center save then finally stop capture, as explained by @noorbeast here: http://www.xsimulator.net/community/threads/pitch-problem-with-fsx.6482/#post-71837

See here for the official Tuning Center documentation: http://www.xsimulator.net/tuning-centre/
#122

Snappy gear change motion

#121

Axis Assignment Percentage Totals

Setting up a good motion profile takes time and is not always easy.

It is recommended by @eaorobbie that the total axis assignment, per axis, should not exceed 100%: http://www.xsimulator.net/community...ors-and-item-structure.6102/page-4#post-68586

Others have found that sometimes going over the total 100% axis assignment is necessary to get decent motion on their particular rigs, as @bsft explains here: http://www.xsimulator.net/community...t-mover-big-worm-gears.4898/page-2#post-63188

There can be issues in going over 100% axis assignments though. As @bsft, @Nick Moxley, @Blame73 and @noorbeast warn more that 130% starts to create real problems , which often means lowering the axis limits, for which there are a variety of approaches: http://www.xsimulator.net/community/threads/motors-keep-stopping-need-some-advice.6790/#post-76066

Its mentioned by BlazinH :
https://www.xsimulator.net/communit...-question-and-answer.8175/page-36#post-125786

Simtools1.x allows a maximum of 6 output interfaces but Simtools2.x allows 12. Therefore we can run two different simulators as one so to speak. The best example is a 6dof Stewart platform that also has a g-seat on it. In this case, interfaces 1-6 (Axis1a thru Axis6a) would be used for the Stewart platform and interfaces 7 up to 12 (Axis1b up to Axis6b) would be used for the g-seat (in actuality you could put the g-seat first though). Then what we would do is use the tuning center to adjust the forces to where we want them for our Stewart platform. But we only have one set of tuning numbers, not two.

Therefore, in order to tune the g-seat part of the simulator, where we may need to use more or less than the Steward platform uses, we adjust it with axis allocations instead since we don’t have separate tuning numbers for it. As an example, there may be a possibility where we may need to use more than 100% of an axis in order to get the motion we want on the g-seat and therefore why an axis allocation can go up to 150% now.
#120
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