Virtual Crew Chief for BMS
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I just tried this out the other night, and it was fantastic. However, I did have one issue. Everything went well until checking the flight controls (big movements) and coming to the manual pitch override. Although I flip the switch, the crew chief never gave me the ‘kick’ reply.
Then, because I am halfway through a command, I cannot do anything else with voice attack, as it keeps saying it is in the middle of a command. Any ideas?
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@patpatpowercat
Yep. Here’s how to fix this.<TLDR>: Instead of using the MPO cockpit switch, press key “o” to toggle MPO on/off. The “Kick” response will only occur when the pitch is full down.
So try this: when going through Big Movements and DBU movements:
a) Do pitch UP, get VCC Response “Nose Up”,
b) then do pitch down and hold it there (full down), get VCC response “Nose Down”,
c) wait for VCC response to stop completely, then
d) press and hold O key (or your assigned button for O keypress) for about .5 to 1 sec, get VCC response “Kick”.
e) Let go of O key and then press O key again (this disengages MPO - verify when you get back in the cockpit)
f) then continue on with roll and yaw testing.
</TLDR>VCC4BMS uses a small .dll file (F4SharedMem.dll) to look into BMS’s data stored in memory during 3D. Unfortunately, Manual Pitch Override (MPO) switch position is not one of the pieces of data stored in BMS’ shared memory. So, in order to define MPO for VCC4BMS, we have it search for when the “o” key is pressed (“o” key is the default keyboard command for MPO Switch Toggle). For real, when this evolution is done, MPO is engaged when Pitch is full down (because it is easiest for the Crew Chief to see the elevons drop fully down in MPO ON).
Additionally, if you ever get stuck in a VCC4BMS command, you can always tell the Crew Chief “Disregard” or “Standby”. This will break the loop that VCC is in that is holding up the events, and allow you to continue issuing commands.
Regards,
Tomcattwo
(VoiceClone) -
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Hi Guys,
thank you again for your amazing work to bring this to BMS for us!
Are you planning on a version 1.2 currently, to add some more recordings of BogeyDope maybe?
AFAIK there have been talks about it at least, so I just wanted to check in, if there are any new updates planned for this -
@Korbi We don’t have any plans right now, but if you have any specific wishes, please let us know.
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@Ricky Copy that no problem
What would be a nice addition are some lines from the VCC for recovery ( I know there is not much, but there is a little ) welcoming back the jet and for putting in chocks and the EPU pin. -
Here is a little kneeboard card I made for all the current voice commands for the startup.
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@Korbi That should be doable. Do you have any information on what the procedure should look like? Otherwise I’ll ask Bogey Dope.
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@Ricky That sounds great! Unfortunately I do not have any information on that, but I think to ask BogeyDope would be the better way to go anyway.
What also came to mind yesterday, it would be cool to have a interaction with VCC when you need to recharge the JFS with a feedback call when its charged again -
@FullMetal_cooKie Did you ever get it working? I just installed VCC and get the same DLL error when attempting anything that checks shared memory.
I verified the DLL is in VoiceAttack’s shared/assemblies directory but no luck. I am attempting this while BMS is running.
Looking forward to getting this to work.
11:00:22.475 Inline function exception creating instance: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation. Could not load file or assembly 'file:///C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\VoiceAttack\Shared\Assemblies\F4SharedMem.dll' or one of its dependencies. Operation is not supported. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80131515) 11:00:22.298 Inline function exception creating instance: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation. Could not load file or assembly 'F4SharedMem, Version=4.35.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=98c24c6603c8861c' or one of its dependencies. Operation is not supported. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80131515)
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@zip said in Virtual Crew Chief for BMS:
I just installed VCC and get the same DLL error when attempting anything that checks shared memory.
@Ricky for info/assist
Therefore I assume that VCC4BMS works properly in Falcon BMS for things not requiring info from F4SharedMem, for example Comms Check or “How’s it going, Chief?”. I also assume that you are running the latest version of VCC4BMS (1.1), and that you had no issues with assigning your joystick/rudder axes/brakes in VoiceAttack when you installed VCC4BMS. That narrows it down a bit.
The exceptions are telling me that either Windows or VoiceAttack are not allowing F4SharedMem.dll to be accessed.
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First, I recommend that you double-check that all the VCC4BMS files are in their correct folders per the VCC4BMS installation instructions (…VoiceAttack\Apps\Virtual Crew Chief for BMS, …VoiceAttack\Shared\Assemblies\F4SharedMem.dll, …VoiceAttack\Sounds\Virtual Crew Chief for BMS with all included folders\files. Make sure all folder and file names are spelled properly too.
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Please check to see if VoiceAttack is being run in Administrator mode. To check this, open VoiceAttack, click on the wrench icon (lower right corner of VoiceAttack window) to open the Options window, select “System/Advanced” tab in the Options Window, and make sure the box for “Run VoiceAttack as an Administrator” is checked (ticked).
Since the location where you have F4SharedMem.dll is within C:\Program Files x86 folder, Windows requires Administrator permission to run anything contained within this folder or its subfolders. Normally, VoiceAttack sets itself up to be run as Administrator, but check anyway. If you just updated VoiceAttack to the latest version, perhaps the updating could have caused something to go awry.
Regards,
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@zip What version of Windows are you running? And is it 32 or 64 bit?
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@Ricky windows 11 64-bit
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@Tomcattwo For the record, I have verified all this. VCC commands are working fine otherwise and VoiceAttack is running as administrator. I’ve been using it for BMS with the AVCS4 Falcon BMS Radios profile for a while without issue.
And @Ricky, I am not sure if you need more Windows info, but it’s Windows 11 Pro version 23H2.
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@zip
Try this:-
Navigate to your F4SharedMem.dll file in c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\VoiceAttack\Shared\Assemblies\ folder
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Right click the “F4SharedMem.dll” file, and from the dropdown select more… choose “Properties”, then under the “Attributes” tab, make sure “Blocked” is not checked. If so, uncheck it and click “OK”.
For some reason, Win 11 puts a block on what it considers suspicious , new .dll files, and defaults to checking that box.
- Once that box is no longer checked, click apply and OK, and go test VCC4BMS again. If that box was checked, unchecking it should fix the problem.
Please let us know if that worked.
Regards,
Tomcattwo
(VoiceClone) -
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@Tomcattwo Nailed it! Saw this notice and “Unblock” checkbox in the dialog. Totally silent… Windows Defender didn’t list it as a threat or action taken. Gotta love Windows. Thank you.
(Screenshot from the web - not the F4SharedMem.dll file, obviously.) -
@zip
Glad you got it working!
R/,
TC2 -
@Korbi I spoke to BogeyDope, he provided the following information:
“In real life, there are EOR (End of runway) checks that are done before the jet is sent to parking. This includes a walk around, and pinning the landing gear, and weapons troops pinning up everything on their end. From there, the jet is sent on to parking. We marshal the jet into the parking spot, we chock em up, then connect comms, and the first thing that is said is by the Crew Chief, “Welcome back sir/ma’am, clear to pin the EPU?” and then the Pilot gives the green light to pin it up. We pin it, and then we let them know it’s pinned and we shut down. That’s about it.”
So this could be a very interesting addition to the VCC, but we need to think about how to trigger it. Perhaps the parking brake? But then the parking brake should only be used at parking, not for the EOR checks.
Another option would be to pretend the currently unused UHF channel 1 is for the crew chief. But I understand this is not realistic, because communication is normally through an intercom.
What do you all think? Any other ideas what we could check for to determine if the jet is at parking? A certain step in the shutdown procedure maybe.
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@Ricky
As described by Bogey Dope, it sounds like the Ground crew installs chocks as soon as the aircraft is parked and it is safe to do so. However, in BMS, chocks are not installed until the pilot directs the ground crew to install chocks (t1).How about if we use that command (Ground install chocks) as the trigger? I haven’t looked in the F4SharedMem header file to see if chocks installed/not installed is monitored, but that may not matter if we just have a VCC command for “Ground, install chocks” (plus some other recognized ways to say that) to trigger the welcome back response, delay for 30 sec to install the chocks (t1) then have VCC request to pin the EPU? That might work better than parking brakes, since I know that I apply parking brakes any time I am stopped, to include EOR checks.
What do you think? I am open to suggestions from everyone else as well.
Regards,
TC2 -
@Tomcattwo
This idea sounds good to me TC2 -
@Tomcattwo This would probably make the most sense, especially kicking off the sequence with a voice command for installing chocks. I don’t see any other way of triggering it, except maybe the parking brake. But that’s not reliable either, because people might use it at EOR.
I’ll get to work.