A2A-EZCA (EZdok) Compatibility Guide

[Nick - A2A]

Just wanted to update the first post of this thread with a link to brief guide to help users of A2A Simulations aircraft resolve view conflicts with v1.18 of EZCA (EZdok Camera Addon) software. Hopefully this will be easier to follow than the information scattered throughout various forum posts.

A2A-EZCA Compatibility Guide.pdf

If any EZdok users come across conflicts using this method, please do let me know here in this thread.

Regards,
Nick

_________________________________________


A frequent topic here on the forums is how EZdok and the fantastic A2A pre-flight walk-rounds fail to play together nicely. The earlier versions of EZdok made changes to the camera system in individual aircraft.cfg files. The ingenious solution which Trev ('Treetops') hit upon involved reorganizing and renumbering some of these aircraft.cfg entries.

However, with the current version of EZdok (v.1.18.7) this solution no longer works. This is because EZdok now makes its changes in the FSX (or P3D) Camera.cfg file instead. This disrupts the A2A walk-round sequence because both the Cameras.cfg file and the A2A aircraft.cfg files use the "HotKeySelect=4" entry. This means that when the "EZCA Config.exe" is run, it rudely searches out and deletes the "HotKeySelect=4" line from aircraft.cfg files. Thereafter the first click on the forward arrow in the shift + 8 pre-flight inspection dialog takes us to the "EZCA Aircraft cam" view instead of where it should do...


Clearly then, EZdok is somewhat pernicious software, and sadly developer support is more-or-less non-existent. However, it's also excellent at increasing the immersiveness of FSX, with its smooth view transitions and panning. It's also very widely used judging by support post on the forums.

In this thread I described a partial fix which restores the proper walk-round sequence. It basically just involves restoring that "HotKeySelect=4" line which EZdok so unceremoniously deleted from the bottom of the "[CameraDefinition.0]" section in the aircraft.cfg file. However, this breaks the "EZCA Aircraft cam" view due to the resulting HotKey conflict. (Not a problem for me, but I imagine it would be for many users.)

What I'm wondering is this: could the A2A devs (specifically I think it's Rob Rogalski who's the mastermind behind the 2-D gauge systems) change the walk-round programming via an Accu-Sim update so it uses a vacant entry such as "HotKeySelect=6" instead? In my mind, this seems like quite a simple thing, but perhaps there are further complications. (The FSX camera system is pretty mysterious to me! )

If not, the 'fix' linked above may be of interest to some EZdok users (particularly in FSX-SE and P3D) who aren't worried about using the external EZCA cams...

Thanks,
Nick

[Edit: as the posts below indicate, it's actually possible to implement this fix without loosing or breaking the EZCA external aircraft cams... ]

[Krycekuk]

Cheers Nick!

Thats been bugging me since the latest EZDOK releases. Personally for the A2A aircraft I can make do with the default FSX outside camera and pan it about as needed. I can live without the camera shake effects on external views. Nice not having to flick the walk around camera in reverse.

[Kilstorm]

I've just stayed at 1.16 which once was broken with A2A walk arounds (like you are describing with 1.18) but A2A made a change AFAIK way back that fixed that.

[Molly - A2A]

I've just stayed at 1.16 which once was broken with A2A walk arounds (like you are describing with 1.18) but A2A made a change AFAIK way back that fixed that.

I don't believe there ever was a fix for it. The problem back before v1.18 of EZdok was that it needed to place a new camera definition inside aircraft.cfg to be used for any EZdok external cameras. The walk around script by A2A basically sends a "next camera" command to the sim, thus "walking" you through each camera/inspection station. It gets tripped up by having an extra camera definition in there, throwing off each station by one. I haven't tried the newer 1.18+ versions of EZdok, but I think it's still the same core issue - an additional camera placed in Cameras.cfg, this time.

To date I don't believe anyone has ever come up with a real fix as it's coded right now; either you do the walk around "backwards" thus avoiding the "extra" camera definition entirely, preventing the mixup, or you simply don't use EZdok external cameras (removing the extraneous camera definition entirely.)

Back when the 172 was still pretty new, I adjusted the xml coding for the walk around with an extra "next camera" command for each station, which worked for clicking the little round buttons in the walk around panel, but still did not work with the little left/right arrows as they are effectively a +1/-1 camera so they can't intelligently deal with the EZdok camera entry. Then I just deleted the < and > from the walk around so you'd just click the stations one by one. Still not ideal but at least it was impossible to "break" the system that way, so to speak.

[Nick - A2A]

I've just stayed at 1.16 [...]

Yeah, I only moved to v.1.18 because of the move to FSX-SE. This (and I believe P3D) require the newer versions of EZdok.

As molleh mentions above, the previous 'fix' required the end user to rearrange the aircraft.cfg file. I just wonder if with v.1.18 there's an opportunity for A2A to make EZdok 'natively' compatible. However, I suspect this is easier said than done, and that they used the conflicting "HotKeySelect=4" entry for good reason. The comments molleh made about editing the .xml file are interesting though: perhaps I'll look into that at some point.

Cheers,
Nick

[Molly - A2A]

I don't think there was ever a valid fix though through aircraft.cfg editing, that's my point. There were a post or two indicating someone thought they fixed it by re-arranging how the cameras are numbered, but that doesn't actually do anything. My guess is they fiddled until either the *right* arrow worked instead of having to go backwards (basically means just putting the EZdok definition first) or they removed the entry (intentionally or accidentally) and assumed it was "all good" based on the walk around, but neglected to try external EZdok views where the whole VC model in external view thing shows up again.

[Kilstorm]

Maybe Lewis can chime in here but as I recall, we discovered that a temporary fix was to use the back button but in doing was determined that there was something else that could be done on A2A's end and thus we got an accusim update that fixed it. Maybe Im wrong, it was some time ago.

That said, I recently installed P3Dv3 and never made any changes to my config files in the A2A planes and they work right out of the box with EZDok going forward or backwards in the walk around. I know that the 1.18 is made for P3Dv2/3 as a native installer but I stayed with v1.16 and used the EMT. What I loose is the ability to use outside views easily (I might be able to fix that but have never tried because I dont sim like that and stay 99.9% in the v/c inflight and now have Avatar mode to explore outside while on the ground) but I'd give that up for the walk around in A2A to work as it does.

[Molly - A2A]

Right, it's always worked if you sacrifice the EZdok external views.

[Nick - A2A]

Hi all,

Finally had the opportunity to do a bit more testing of this issue and of the 'fix' I proposed above. What I've noticed above is the solution does indeed seem to work perfectly for both the A2A Cherokee and Comanche. Simply restoring that "HotKeySelect=4" entry in the aircraft.cfg restores the A2A walk-round and moreover any EZCA aircraft cams or world cams seem to work exactly as they're supposed to with EZdok v1.18.

However, if we use the same approach for the A2A Skyhawk or Skylane, although the walk-round is fixed, any EZCA aircraft cams will show the interior .MDL file (that's to say one without a nosewheel!)

"Why is this?" you may ask. "What's different about the Cessnas?" Well, some of you are probably ahead of me already. The walk-round in the 172 and 182 starts off inside the virtual cockpit with that view of the pitot tube through the window. However, in the Pipers, the walk-round starts off outside with a view of the right wing flap. In other words, the first stage of the walk-round in the Cessnas uses the interior .MDL whereas the first stage in the Pipers uses the 'normal' or exterior .MDL file.

What this means is that with a bit more editing, I can probably come up with an aircraft.cfg 'mod' that will allow full functionality in terms of the walk-round and EZCA cams for the A2A Cessnas. However, it'll use a different view of the pitot tube: one from outside and probably squatting down under the wing to avoid 'clipping'. I say 'probably', but maybe there are further complexities I haven't considered...

Cheers,
Nick

[TreeTops]

Sounds like you are onto something Nick.
Another view possibility is using the outside view but positioned inside the cockpit where it was before looking out the left window at the pitot.
Edit : That idea didn't work at first try.

[Nick - A2A]

Another view possibility is using the outside view but positioned inside the cockpit where it was before looking out the left window at the pitot.
Edit : That idea didn't work at first try.

Yeah, that would create a clipping issue I think Trev.

However, after a bit more testing, it seems that editing the "[CameraDefinition.0]" section in the aircraft.cfg file to give us a completely different view of the pitot tube for the initial walk-round station will allow full compatibility between the A2A Cessnas and the latest version of EZdok.

This involves changing the line "Origin = Virtual Cockpit" to "Origin = Center" so that the first stage of the walk-round uses the exterior MDL, then altering the view position and angle. In the tests I've done, the following edit to the aircraft.cfg entry seems to work okay for both the 172 and 182. (I've used colours to highlight the edited lines).

[CameraDefinition.0]
Title = "Pitot Tube Heat Test"
Guid = {3A09FD6C-D406-4d8f-A5CD-FA4F5E0A88ED}
Description = Preflilght inspection
Origin = Center
SnapPbhAdjust = Swivel
SnapPbhReturn = FALSE
PanPbhAdjust = Swivel
PanPbhReturn = FALSE
Track = None
ShowAxis = FALSE
AllowZoom = TRUE
InitialZoom = 1.0
ShowWeather = Yes
InitialXyz = -2.3, -0.0, -0.8
InitialPbh = -15, 0.0, 35
XyzAdjust = TRUE
Category=Aircraft
ClipMode=Minimum
HotKeySelect = 4 //Restored to original A2A setting

This edit results in an initial walk-round station something like this depending on your resolution/aspect ratio...

...The caveat here is that you'll have to nip back into the cockpit (i.e. go back a step) if you wish to switch off the pitot tube heater using the VC switch (rather than a keyboard or hardware shortcut, or the shift + 3 menu). It guess this is a little more realistic in a way, as we couldn't check the pitot tube was warming up from the pilot's seat in the real thing.

There may be further possibilities via editing the walkaround.xml file as molleh mentioned previously, but I'm happy with this solution for now...

Cheers,
Nick

[TreeTops]

I came to the same conclusion this morning about changing to 'centre' but kept the viewpoint from inside the cockpit and bumped up the zoom to eliminate the clipping.
I didn't test further. Good point about switching off the heat issue.

[Nick - A2A]

Talking of zoom, one further observation is that the EZCA aircraft cam zoom setting seems to be 'inherited' by the first walk-round station if we use an EZCA aircraft cam and then perform the walk-round. I guess this is because of the ongoing "HotKeySelect=4" conflict. If the aircraft cam uses the same zoom setting as the walk-round view (i.e 1.0 or "64" in EZCA numbers) this isn't a problem, but it's worth being aware of.

Ultimately, the conclusion seems to be that with a bit of tinkering, the A2A walk-rounds and EZdok can be made to play together very nicely indeed; with v1.18 at any rate.

Nick

[Molly - A2A]

Thanks Nick, looks like I'll finally be giving EZdok another chance after all this time

[Nick - A2A]

If you do molleh, perhaps you could let me know if you encounter any problems. I'll also create a small PDF document describing the 'fix' and paste a link to it a bit later; that way it'll be easier for me to update it if necessary. In particular those "InitialXyz" and "InitialPbh" settings may still need a little tweaking to deal with different monitor resolutions and aspect ratios.

It would still be good if there was a way to get either EZdok or the walk-around to use a different "HotKeySelect" assignment, but not sure this is practical.

Thanks,
Nick