Quote from Zachary Zoomy :

my mac asks what application I should open it with.

What's your system's version?

FlipCams 1.0b2 is out and now comes with an installer that takes care of everything.

You can get it from the top message of this thread on R4R's forum.

Definitely, thanks!

Quote from alco64 :

Tried it out and it works great.

Good news, thank you!

May I ask you if you have AutoHotkey installed on your machine? It's supposed to work without it, but I'd like it confirmed.

Update: I'd also like to know which version of the OS you're running, if you don't mind. Thank you.

Last edited by FL!P, Fri, 25 May 2007 14:29.

I'm releasing the first beta version of FlipCams, a new addon for LFS that allows to save and use five different custom views per car, and cycle through them by pressing CTRL+F11 and CTRL+F12.

Sorry about the spam but I'm posting this here because W29 is required, so I won't advertise FlipCams yet in the Unofficial Addons subforum (I hope this is OK with the devs and moderators). But you can get it from my team's site.

Please let me know if you run into any issue with it. I hope you'll enjoy it!

Thanks again to Scawen for having implemented the /wait command that fast when I needed it!

I'm releasing the first beta version of FlipCams, a new addon for LFS that allows to save and use five different custom views per car, and cycle through them by pressing CTRL+F11 and CTRL+F12.

W29 is required, so I won't advertise FlipCams yet in the Unofficial Addons subforum. But you can get it from my team's site.

Please let me know if you run into any issue with it. I hope you'll enjoy it!

Thanks again to Scawen for having implemented the /wait command that fast when I needed it!

In the command.txt file I got with this patch, there is the line:


In this line, "/alt" should be "/altf".

Thank you, Scawen! It works great!

Last edited by FL!P, Thu, 24 May 2007 22:53. Reason : typo

Quote from Scawen :

OK, it's done, a new command /wait - it's the same as /exec but... waits

Wow, brilliant, thanks a lot! Can't /wait to try it!

It would be better to only hang the script, obviously, but I guess that will have to wait for the implementation of the /pause command. So in the meantime, I'm sure this will do the job well enough. Thanks again!

Thanks a lot for checking this, Scawen!

You're right, it doesn't solve the problem with the exe not being done running yet when the view is reloaded. So yes, it'd be great to have a pause or wait command.

Thanks for your reply and suggestions, mate!

Quote from JasonJ :

I guess the reload wont happen automatically because LFS isnt monitoring the data/views folder for any changes. So when the files get replaced. LFS has no clue this has happened.

Yes, as I said you have to switch views for the changes to be visible. Obviously LFS reads the cvw files each time you switch to the custom view. Hence my attempt to run /press v /shift v.

Quote :

You do need to find a way to call the change view command AFTER the files have been moved.

Exactly.

Quote :

BTW : There might be a better way than calling /press v /shift v

Have you tried the command: /view custom to switch to the Custom view.

I'll try it. I searched for something like that, but somehow I missed it in the commands file.

Quote :

But this wont solve the lag from the file copying issue. I've have also found instances where a wait or pause would have helped in scripts.

perhapse you couild force a wait by Perhapse spamming some text over multiple times.. say 50 eg:

Yes, I've considered that possibility, but if it works, that would be my last resort.

Thanks again.

I'm not sure how to reproduce it at will, but sometimes when I change the Mapping Mode setting to Off the cars become white, like no skin was loaded yet, and I can no longer change that setting successfully until I quit and relaunch carview.

The first screenshot shows how it looks when turning the mapping mode off works as expected. The second screenshot shows how it looks when the problem occurred, with mapping mode set to both Off and Normal (which makes no difference, then), and the third screenshot shows how it looks when mapping mode is set to Anodised.

This is a on MacBook Pro running 10.4.9.

I think I know why this is happening: I suspect that by the time the LFS's script reaches the /press v /shift v statements, the exe isn't done running yet. The behavior I see would make perfect sense, in this case.

I can think of two ways to fix this problem (none of which is implemented yet, unfortunately):

1. When it launches an exe, LFS could wait for a reply from it (maybe optionally) and resume the execution of the script only when it has received it, or

2. LFS could provide a /pause command (taking a number of seconds or a number of ticks as parameter).

Scawen: I remember you said somewhere that you were planning to add a pause command. Any chance to get it in the next official update? That would be great.

Sorry, this is a bit difficult to explain and English isn't my mother tongue, but I'll do my best.

I'm planning to release a suite of scripts that allows to save and use several different sets of custom views, and cycle through them from a single command. Basically it works by having several views folders and an executable renaming them to change the active one. This exe is called from LFS scripts via the /exec command.

If I run the suite while I'm using the cockpit view, for example, the next time I press V to switch to the custom view, the custom view will load with the new settings as expected. If I run it while I'm using the custom view, I'll have to press V and SHIFT+V (or vice-versa) to reload the custom view and see the changes. This makes perfect sense to me.

But since this isn't very user friendly, I'm trying to do this press V & press SHIFT+V from a LFS script, so the custom view would reload automatically. And this is where the problem is.

If I end my script with "/press v" the view changes as expected (for example from custom view to chase view). But if I end my script with


... nothing happens and I still have to press V and SHIFT+V by hand to see the changes. I suppose the second simulated key press occurs too soon after the first one and LFS somehow ignores them. I tried to run press v first, then my exe, and then only shift v, and it makes no difference.

But there's more, and this is where it gets puzzling: if I display the custom view and call my suite repeatedly, then the custom view reloads the second and the subsequent times and everything seems to work perfectly. But in fact it does not work as expected: it doesn't display the custom view from the set that was just activated, but from the previous one. Again, it's only when I press V and SHIFT+V by hand that the custom view will be displayed with the settings from the current views folder. So the press v & shift v sequence seems to take effect only the next time I trigger my script. I have no idea why.

Any suggestion to work around this problem and force the custom view to reload immediately? Maybe I should post a feature request for a script command to reload the custom view?

Yes, Auto It seems more powerful. At least, it has many more operators and an impressive list of built-in functions.

Quote from neglouseight :

Wish I could help more. I have lots of Mac's been a user since early 90's. On the desk are MacPro and G5, plus have a G4 here, and MacBook (Intel) and iBook G3, Probably my old G3 tower is around too.

About the same here. I can test on a MacPro, a MacBook Pro, and a G4 QuickSilver. I also have a blue & white G3, a Performa, a LC and a SE somewhere, but I won't test on them!

I tried carview on the MacBook Pro and this is very promising, Becky! Bravo! I noticed a few problems, but I don't think you need any bug reports at that point, right?

Cool, I'll give it a try. Thank you!

Update: I did. AutoHotkey is very nice indeed! And it works fine, as long as you compile the script (making an exe of it) and call that from LFS. Because LFS' /exec command fails to execute the .ahk files with an "invalid parameter" error. I guess it doesn't know that these are executable files.

Anyway, I'm now using AutoHotkey for my CustomViewsSwitch thingie and it works perfectly. So thanks a lot for pointing it out!

Last edited by FL!P, Tue, 22 May 2007 22:24.

I wrote a batch file that allows to have different sets of custom views and switch between them from inside LFS (see here). It works by having several views folders and renaming them to change the active one. I run it from LFS via the /exec command.

It works fine except for one detail: if LFS is in windowed mode when I trigger the script, a Terminal window briefly flashes on the screen as the batch is executed. Not a big problem, but not the best behavior either. However if I run that script when LFS is in full screen, LFS then loses focus and gets minimized to the tasks bar. Obviously, this is a bigger problem.

I'm not sure if this is a bug or a feature (might be for security reasons) but it's annoying and somehow defeats the usefulness of /exec. Is there a way to prevent LFS from losing focus, in this case? A way to run batch files in "silent" mode, maybe?

Quote from JasonJ :

Thats pretty cool. I imagine if you make any in game changes to the custom views, the changes are saved and re-applied next time you cycle through them all.

Yes, they're saved in the current set, so with three sets you can have three different custom cams per car.

Quote from JasonJ :

My initial idea was pretty clumsy and required alot of 'man-handling' of files. Wish I once learnt loops and crazy batch file stuff. Pretty cool. Great stuff.

Thank you! And your idea was a great starting point.

OK, I got it working, thanks to JasonJ's suggestion. Here's how, for those who'd be interested in doing it.

To use three different custom view sets named "driving", "onboard" and "exotic" (to keep my previous examples) with a single command that cycles between them:

1. Go to LFS\data and duplicate the views folder. Name the copy "views_onboard". Duplicate it again, and name the second copy "views_exotic".

2. Go to LFS's folder and create a text file named switchViews.bat (at the same level as the data folder).

3. Set the contents of this file to:

4. Save and close that file. Each time this script runs, it will rename the "views" folder into either "views_driving", "views_onboard" or "views_exotic", depending on the current set, and will rename into "views" the next of these three folders in the cycle. So calling the script the first time will switch from the driving set to the onboard one, the second time it will switch the set from onboard to exotic, the third time from exotic to driving, and so on. You can test it outside of LFS by double-clicking on it.

5. Launch LFS , go to Options > Game and set a key to run the script. For example set CTRL + F12 to /exec switchViews.bat.

Voilà, it's all set up. Since you didn't create a folder named "views_driving", this is the set which is currently active. Go to single player mode, and make sure the custom views of the cars you use are set in the driving position. When you're done, press CTRL + F12 to switch to the next views set (onboard).

Then, you just have to change the view (by pressing V or SHIFT + V) to switch to the new custom view if it wasn't active when you triggered the script, or if it was active, to switch to another view and back to the custom one to force it to load the new camera settings. Of course the first time the views won't be any different, since you just duplicated the original views folder. But now the active set is the onboard one, so go to Options > View and set your onboard camera. When you're done, run the script again, and set your "exotic" camera.

There's just a little problem: if you're running LFS in windowed mode, when you invoke the script you'll just see a Terminal window flashing briefly as the script is executed, and this is OK. But if you're in full screen mode, LFS will be minimized to the tasks bar and you'll have to click on it to restore it. It's not a big problem, because this isn't intended to be used while driving, but it seems to be a limitation of LFS. Not sure if it's a bug or a feature. If anyone knows a way to avoid it, please let me know.

I'd still like to be able to script the custom view, but in the meantime this is not too bad as workaround.

Thank you, guys. I'll try it and follow-up here with my findings.

Cool, I didn't know the views are saved in separate files, nor where. Thanks for the tip! I'll investigate the method you suggested (probably renaming the folders from a batch file rather than copying files, though).

Yes, you'd load them by calling the script, either from the text input, a key equivalent, or a controller button. It doesn't mean you could save them, though. You'd have to write the script by hand (or to download it if someone else did).

You could make the scripts on a per-car basis, of course, but yes, it'd be great if prefixing their name with a car code — like BF1_overhead.lfs, FO8_overhead.lfs, FOX_overhead.lfs — allowed LFS to figure out which one to call based on the current car when you just run the "overhead" script.

Last edited by FL!P, Mon, 21 May 2007 02:57.

it would be really cool to have script commands to change the custom view's parameters, like X, Y and Z offsets, pitch, rotate, acceleration shifts viewpoint, etc. It would allow to script various custom views instead of the one per car we have now.

For example when I drive the BF1 in cockpit view, I find my point of view too low and in some corners the steering wheel and the driver's hand can hide the apex. So I use the custom view, with the same settings as the cockpit view but a bit higher. OTOH, when I watch replays I like to have the custom view set like the overhead onboard cam in F1 cars. If I made videos, I'd also use it to make "exotic" onboard cams, like behind the front wing, etc.

At the moment, obviously, there's only one custom view per car, so you have to change the settings by hand each time you want to change the view. If those parameters were scriptable, you could have all these cams defined in scripts and switch between them instantly.

It's great that you're working on this, Becky! Good luck with the development!

Last edited by FL!P, Sat, 19 May 2007 03:08.