2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator

[Vikesrock]

Originally Posted by lachoneus8

Not yet, though it is on our todo list.

Try the 'C' key for camera modes. 3 modes: Chase (default), Overhead, and Competition view.

Minor quibble: why is chase the default camera view? IMO this is the most useless of the 3 views. Driver practice will almost certainly want to use the Competition view and strategy development will likely use the competition or overhead views.

The chase view starts the match with your camera pointing at the back of a wall if you start in one of the corner locations (not sure about the center one)

Overall, a great program from the little I have been able to play around with it. We will hopefully get a lot of useful strategy development and driver training done with the assistance of this program.

[lachoneus8]

Originally Posted by Vikesrock

Minor quibble: why is chase the default camera view? IMO this is the most useless of the 3 views. Driver practice will almost certainly want to use the Competition view and strategy development will likely use the competition or overhead views.

A leftover legacy of the fact this was developed initially as an exhibit. The problem with the other two modes is
1) No easy way to see which robot you're actually controlling... pretty confusing when you've got 6 robots running around the field.
2) The controls are more intuitive when you're behind the robot (up for forward, etc).

Both are essential for drivers to learn of course, drivers need to learn to overcome the confusion (especially this year when there are balls flying around everywhere and human players to contend with) and drive with the robot's axis in mind, but someone first picking up an Xbox controller would find both of these views difficult to start with.

We may just make it a game option what default view you start with in the next patch.

Originally Posted by Vikesrock

Overall, a great program from the little I have been able to play around with it. We will hopefully get a lot of useful strategy development and driver training done with the assistance of this program.

Glad you like it so far! On this first run, we're definitely looking for feedback on how to make this a more effective tool, so make sure to record any thoughts on strengths/weaknesses when you do use it for driver training/strategy development. There will be some surveys coming later in the build season.

[ttldomination]

?

When I'm in Lunacy, the friction too high, I don't know if that's just how it drives or if there is little physics applied...

Also, anyone know how to manipulate the balls???

[lachoneus8]

Originally Posted by ttldomination

?

When I'm in Lunacy, the friction too high, I don't know if that's just how it drives or if there is little physics applied...

Also, anyone know how to manipulate the balls???

Are you running a client? If you're just running the server you're just controlling the camera. You need to create a client to connect to the server to drive a bot. It will then give you prompts of what keys to press to manipulate the balls.

[Josh Goodman]

First off, VERY NICE PROGRAM and thank you for putting the time in to do this!

I do like all of the above suggestions and would like to add a concern. For some reason Overdrive works fine, but Lunacy is very, very laggy for me with the lowest settings. I play some pretty graphics intensive games on my laptop. Anyone else having this issue?

Also (just a cool thing not a requirement, you guys have already done a lot), but a controls setting would be nice.

[lachoneus8]

Originally Posted by Josh Goodman

I do like all of the above suggestions and would like to add a concern. For some reason Overdrive works fine, but Lunacy is very, very laggy for me with the lowest settings. I play some pretty graphics intensive games on my laptop. Anyone else having this issue?

My guess is that its not graphics... the main difference between Lunacy and Overdrive in the game engine are the number of physics objects in play (10 for a full overdrive game vs well over 100 in Lunacy).

If you have an NVidia card, you might want to update your drivers. We are using the NVidia PhysX engine, and some of their more recent cards have hardware to accelerate physics using this engine.

Originally Posted by Josh Goodman

Also (just a cool thing not a requirement, you guys have already done a lot), but a controls setting would be nice.

On the todo list!

Just a point for everyone: The FIRST website forums are the official forums, so any feature requests/bug reports are more likely to be heard and tracked there then here.

http://forums.usfirst.org/forumdisplay.php?f=1091

This is also linked in the original post of this thread.

By the way, David Dobbs, one of the developers, posted a nice picture by picture walkthrough in how to get started using 5th Gear.

[dpeterson3]

Nice job. Is that C#? It looks like it was made with some version of visual studio. Anyway, is there any way to define your own robot to get an idea of how the team bots will drive? If so, I couldn't find it.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by dpeterson3

Nice job. Is that C#? It looks like it was made with some version of visual studio. Anyway, is there any way to define your own robot to get an idea of how the team bots will drive? If so, I couldn't find it.

dp - Did you get an answer for this question? If not, ask it in the FIRST Forum. There is a link in my original post in this thread - Blake

[bleem313]

I really want to try this program out, but the link on http://thinktank.wpi.edu/article/141 seems to be dead. I get "The requested URL /resources/263/5thGear2009v1_0.zip was not found on this server."

Is there something I'm doing wrong, like not seeing a different link?

[lachoneus8]

Originally Posted by bleem313

I really want to try this program out, but the link on http://thinktank.wpi.edu/article/141 seems to be dead.

Fixed. Thanks for the heads up!

[Creator Mat]

Ok i installed the simulator and restarted my computer then when it goes to start i get a can not start application message. then its details list this


PLATFORM VERSION INFO
Windows : 6.0.6000.0 (Win32NT)
Common Language Runtime : 2.0.50727.312
System.Deployment.dll : 2.0.50727.312 (rtmLHS.050727-3100)
mscorwks.dll : 2.0.50727.312 (rtmLHS.050727-3100)
dfdll.dll : 2.0.50727.312 (rtmLHS.050727-3100)
dfshim.dll : 2.0.50727.312 (rtmLHS.050727-3100)

SOURCES
Deployment url : file:///C:/Users/Matthew/Desktop/5thGear2009v1_0(2)/Lunacy%20Release%20Candidate%201%20-%20subversion%20rev%20149%20-%2020090122/5thGear.application

ERROR SUMMARY
Below is a summary of the errors, details of these errors are listed later in the log.
* Activation of C:\Users\Matthew\Desktop\5thGear2009v1_0(2)\Lunacy Release Candidate 1 - subversion rev 149 - 20090122\5thGear.application resulted in exception. Following failure messages were detected:
+ Exception reading manifest from file:///C:/Users/Matthew/Desktop/5thGear2009v1_0(2)/Lunacy%20Release%20Candidate%201%20-%20subversion%20rev%20149%20-%2020090122/5thGear.application: the manifest may not be valid or the file could not be opened.
+ Manifest XML signature is not valid.
+ No signature was present in the subject.


COMPONENT STORE TRANSACTION FAILURE SUMMARY
No transaction error was detected.

WARNINGS
There were no warnings during this operation.

OPERATION PROGRESS STATUS
* [2/14/2009 11:07:54 PM] : Activation of C:\Users\Matthew\Desktop\5thGear2009v1_0(2)\Lunacy Release Candidate 1 - subversion rev 149 - 20090122\5thGear.application has started.

ERROR DETAILS
Following errors were detected during this operation.
* [2/14/2009 11:07:54 PM] System.Deployment.Application.InvalidDeploymentExc eption (ManifestParse)
- Exception reading manifest from file:///C:/Users/Matthew/Desktop/5thGear2009v1_0(2)/Lunacy%20Release%20Candidate%201%20-%20subversion%20rev%20149%20-%2020090122/5thGear.application: the manifest may not be valid or the file could not be opened.
- Source: System.Deployment
- Stack trace:
at System.Deployment.Application.ManifestReader.FromD ocument(String localPath, ManifestType manifestType, Uri sourceUri)
at System.Deployment.Application.DownloadManager.Down loadDeploymentManifestDirectBypass(SubscriptionSto re subStore, Uri& sourceUri, TempFile& tempFile, SubscriptionState& subState, IDownloadNotification notification, DownloadOptions options, ServerInformation& serverInformation)
at System.Deployment.Application.DownloadManager.Down loadDeploymentManifestBypass(SubscriptionStore subStore, Uri& sourceUri, TempFile& tempFile, SubscriptionState& subState, IDownloadNotification notification, DownloadOptions options)
at System.Deployment.Application.ApplicationActivator .PerformDeploymentActivation(Uri activationUri, Boolean isShortcut)
at System.Deployment.Application.ApplicationActivator .ActivateDeploymentWorker(Object state)
--- Inner Exception ---
System.Deployment.Application.InvalidDeploymentExc eption (SignatureValidation)
- Manifest XML signature is not valid.
- Source: System.Deployment
- Stack trace:
at System.Deployment.Application.Manifest.AssemblyMan ifest.ValidateSignature(Stream s)
at System.Deployment.Application.ManifestReader.FromD ocument(String localPath, ManifestType manifestType, Uri sourceUri)
--- Inner Exception ---
System.Security.Cryptography.CryptographicExceptio n
- No signature was present in the subject.

- Source: System.Deployment
- Stack trace:
at System.Deployment.Internal.CodeSigning.SignedCmiMa nifest.Verify(CmiManifestVerifyFlags verifyFlags)
at System.Deployment.Application.Manifest.AssemblyMan ifest.ValidateSignature(Stream s)

COMPONENT STORE TRANSACTION DETAILS
No transaction information is available.

any help would be apprcated. our schools computers are junk and i am the only one on the team who is willing to bring in their computer that can run this.

[gblake]

C M - I'm sending a heads-up email to the guys who developed the installer and the part of the software that would create those messages. - Blake

[gblake]

Originally Posted by gblake

C M - I'm sending a heads-up email to the guys who developed the installer and the part of the software that would create those messages. - Blake

The guys are scratching their heads... Stay tuned

[Creator Mat]

k thanks

[ChrisH]

I started to download 5th gear, but the website said to install NVIDA PhysX first. According to the NVIDA website my GeForce 7600 video card is incompatible with this software. Am I out of luck on this?

ChrisH