Ok, I added a download area to the main menu. It is crude for now, but I was able to download larger files without issue. I believe I secured the directory up (for you hackers out there let me know if there is a security issue, pls) and I will customize the view a bit more when I have time, let me know if this solves your download issue?

Looks like these WP plugins have issues with php requests timing out or something. I went around that so now your doing a simple http request. Its irritating this issue, because I pay for these plugins grrr so they look more professional and blend into the site well 🙂

Hi Andy, i have a question, you "corrected" the animations for FFED3DAJ 1.12 it seems, due to that there is no second animation possible anymore.
if it's vital i won't mind but it was nice to do things like this:

First i started ffed3daj1.11 (for this clip) and in this release the "second channel" (in principles when there is no animation) still works and i can use it to rotate the engine (part), unfortunately when i start ffed3daj1.12 this won't work anymore.

i'm just asking because if that stays i will have to remove the animations from a few models 🙁 and have to keep in mind that this won't work anymore. recently only two models use this trick, the stud-city ip-shuttle and the kestrel (as far as i remember).

I just like to know if you like to keep it or if you will revert it to the previous state, no matter how i will accept it.

No need to remove anything!
I disabled it because I wasn't aware of anything actually using it. The primary animation for landing gear & doors is tied to an in-game value but the extra animations weren't. I figured it was a bit dumb just to keep stepping through the animation without taking the current stardreamer (time) setting into account. I can take another look at "doing it properly" now that I know there's something to test with. (also, v1.11 steps through any number of extra animations if you need more than 2!)

BTW, I recall that you had a replacement dome model that you were working on. Have you had a chance to try it again in the new builds as these *should* be scaled now.

The scaleing of the submodels works perfect Andy!

The Domes have the proper size now after i placed it in the proper directory and after i noticed that i had to size it down very very much.
The Scanner (i assume ECM as well) appears now proper on the Ships, smaller on small fighters much larger on carriers.

True yes it's not ideal and i guess it was never ment to use the time where is no animation as a second channel (i stumbled over this issue), thus it's really not a big thing if it stays like it is for 1.12. If i really like to rotate the engine of the Kestrel i would still have the option to hack this i guess.
As far as i remember it's just rotate over y yes/no, also this would be affected by the stardreamer equal to the rotating engine pods of the courier. For the "StudCity Shuttle" it's really no problem, i won't complete a LEGO FFED3D in this life, maybe in my next and the Kestrel will be a Kestrel with or without this little extra. I neither planned it i just thought, "hey i have for this ship so many unused submodels, let's use at least one and do something with it".

I "abused" the animation for certain stations even i didn't feel really comfortable with them, they are useless imo and as you stated they won't be affected by the stardreamer (i guess the robot can stay but the shuttles are really not to see if you don't go close to them).

----

I like to place a wish or a thought (or two) here, much more of importance as a second animation will be.

I noticed that the Domes have now a collision detection or a collision mesh of some sort, personally i wonder where it comes from because the original Dome submodel are only edges and it has no collision detection, everybody knows you can fly through the Domes. The "mesh" (i assume a bounding box) is quite larger as the model itself, i collide with the dome long before i reach it. Now i was always wondering if collision detection is based on the original geometry or if it's taken from the replacement models. This because i would like to lower or lift certain ships which are positioned wrong now when landed, but this would mean they leave the boundaries of the original geometry, but if it's a bounding box (or diameter) based on the dimensions of the replacement model it won't matter.

I would like to know if it's safe to reposition the ships even when they leave the boundaries of the original geometry.

The second is an experiment i made with the shader, i guess i posted this already last year. Recently i "abuse" the texture to influence specularity of the materaial, this works so and so and neither i know if i did that in a proper way, it works that's all.
But if i use the texture as specularity map all dark colored areas will be flat shaded, dark windows to.
Thus obviousely a specularity map would be the right thing, it's just that i couldn't get this working, whatever i did (last year) when i used a greyscale the model had no texturing at all afterwards or was lit in a strange way from inside, most probably i have no idea what i'm doing.
Already the use of the texture as specularity map makes a big difference, buildings i lowered much in specularity using the shader, for the ships i re-used the texture which let's them look less synthetic with the drawback that i.e. windows will be flat shaded.

I noticed that i have changed one city groundtile in specularity, this i will have to check out i forgot what i did but it looks quite good almost like a bumpmap, the terrain looks bumped (due to varying specularity).
Thus maybe i have a solution but forgot it already, i will have to see.

These two things would make me much more happy as a second animation ever can because they are well to notice and for the specularity it makes a big difference in appearance. i neither would need a bump map, i can replace this well with the effects of the specularity map, a bumpmap i would need if i like to get studs on the LEGO bricks but not to give a surface a certain structure.
As default the shader could still fallback to use the texture as specularity map, certain models will look alright in this way (buildings or stations).

I guess that's all - i will remember what else i thought of when i'm at home where i have no web, as usual.

Just a very quick post that I've dropped a new v1.13 beta4 build here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/457k5xv0jyqjk0u/FFED3DAJ_v1.13%20beta4.zip?dl=1

I've run the zip through VirusTotal and just a FYI it does trigger 1 of 61 antivirus tests.
https://www.virustotal.com/#/file/62ef92caa901fea6c2cfc0a75b819d115651e6eda1eed372ccfe6f3e48a52904/detection
Ikarus antivirus which doesn't like the anisotropic/hellmod executables for some reason, but I'm confident that this is a "false-positive" result.

This build should restore the animations Gernot, and they're linked to the speed of the stardreamer now as well.
RE your questions. FFE shouldn't know about the meshes of .X models. The only collision code deals with planet surface meshes and I think a simple collision 'sphere' for ships (and perhaps space-stations)
You should still be able to fly through and land inside domes even as a .x model.
IIRC ships also use the same collision detection when landing on planets. Speed and landing gear position determine a safe landing or collision damage I think.

I can't really go into the specularity/bump-map shader stuff tonight as I'm just typing this very quick response before I'm away until next week.
Extra textures will be available to use for this sort of thing, it's something I'm experimenting with and so haven't documented yet.

Anyway got to go. Back next week.

That previous post was actually from last week (18th) but required moderation, not sure why.

There's a brand new beta7 here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/1sy63x0dk6puy3y/FFED3DAJ_v1.13%20beta7.zip?dl=1

(For anyone just joining the thread, this beta build needs to be added over a setup that's using the last full release of FFED3DAJ (v1.11) or has already had a later 1.12/1.13 beta build applied to it.)

Ugh, I will try to investigate this issue this week. I have no clue why the server does this? Last week I called GoDaddy and of course they said everything is fine :/ so I will look into some settings. I was able to download the corefiles but I had a failure (2x) trying to download the whole package.

I believe my .htaccess is preventing direct download, so I will look into relaxing that so people can download directly and not have to go through site. I will keep you updated I will make a post in the admin area when I think its fixed.

Update:

See this post: http://spacesimcentral.com/community/ssc-administration/download-area-info/#post-56378

Hi,

FFED3D-beta3-Ittiz.7z is recommended as the base pack for new users to download and install over.

Is this still the recommended thing to do?

When I run it, it has no sound.

The original FFED3D_Complete does have sound.

I am running on WIN7.

PS.

I had to make a new account, because I could not log in. I have all my passwords in keepass, so IDK what might gone wrong.
I could also not ask for a new PW, since I am not sure what email I used for that.

@andyj OK! The link is down!! Where can we find it?

Mantigora2 give Darkone a pm he might be able to sort the passwords out for you, although it might be after charismas before you hear anything back.

@pinback I was talking about the dropbox link!! Is the latest beta available in the DL area?

Don't know all the files for FFED seems to be dated the 2018 innless this version was put was where else.

@captainkal 

Hello my name is Laura, Andys partner.... im afraid to inform you Andy sadly passed away last July 😢 

I know he loved helping everyone out on here but i just id best let you all know as he was taken way too soon

Very sad news! Thanks for letting us know, Laura!

That's very sad!!! My deepest condolences for your loss Laura!! 😢 😢 

Sad to hear of AndyJ passing, R.I.P.

My condolences to you Laura. Andy was well thought of throughout the Elite community. My thoughts are with you and know that the wonderful work Andy did with his FFE3D builds will be appreciated and enjoyed by Elite fans for many, many years to come. 😑 

This is definitely sad news to find out, AndyJ was a valued member of this community and we will miss him.

I will host his work here as long as I am able so everyone can enjoy it.

RIP @AndyJ

I can't believe this awful news; Andy and I had exchanged messages for many years about the next build of FFED3DAJ and it was no exxageration to say the iminent release of another iteration was something I very much looked forward to. Clearly a very talented coder and a nice guy too.

Very sorry for your loss Laura. RIP Andy 😕 

Oh no, this is very sad news instead. I enjoyed talking to Andy in the past, and he was considering making a special build for me... Guess that won't happen now. 🙁

Sad to find out Andy pass away...
R.I.P. Andy

Posted by: @steve

I can't believe this awful news; Andy and I had exchanged messages for many years about the next build of FFED3DAJ and it was no exxageration to say the iminent release of another iteration was something I very much looked forward to. Clearly a very talented coder and a nice guy too.

Very sorry for your loss Laura. RIP Andy 😕 

Somebody should take over Andys excellent work and make a "official" SSC fork of FFED3DAJ, imho. 

RIP @AndyJ