Replay Options / Sky Dolly

@rgp1942 Thank you very much for putting the time and energy into your write up.

I came to the Forums just now to do a search for exactly this kind of information. We’re very fortunate to have this resource available to us, and of course, community members like yourself that create quality content and make the community so valuable.

Thanks again, I really appreciate it!

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Thank you, i’m going to test skydolly. I bought Flight recorder, but I don’t like the UI.

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Flight Recorder is free to users.

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Hello,

I’m the developer of FlightControlReplay. In order to confirm some informations that may remain under questioning in this thread, I can confirm here the following :

FlightControlReplay can either help you for a quick replay, without creating video. For example, you can just watch how you performed your landing or your TopGun mission challenge.
Or you can also decide to record an actual MP4 video straight out with only FCR.
About Replays, you can decide to resume the flight at anytime by using the time slider (if you have just missed your final approach, or you ended your flight on top of a cactus !)

And FCR also lets you decide to load your flights for Replay, with OR without, all situations data : weather, time of day, aircraft selection. You can replay the flight with the same aircraft and with the same weather conditions, or change them if you better want another experience.

It’s also appreciated for its ability to record separately the Camera movements and save it as a path than you can replay in other flight situations, to simulate Formation Flying, to record and follow AI aircraft operations, to change camera automatically during Replay, support of VR devices, with the ability to restore your flight in the last known position before a crash to desktop, apply an offset to your aircraft altitude (with also force gear position), etc.

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When flying online, will this only record the user’s plane, or will it record/playback other aircraft (I fly VATSIM with AI Traffic Manager generating other online traffic).

Additionally, when playing back, do I need to disconnect from the network so that controllers and other pilots don’t see my plane moving around? I caused some issues with “another” of the playback tools when remaining connected to the network, since I wanted to see other traffic in my playback video.

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See this post…

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Sky Dolly will only record your current user aircraft (you can add multiple aircraft to a „formation flight“, however recording is „sequential“ in this case).

While it would technically be possible to record other „AI objects“ (simulated traffic, injected real-world flights, and also ground vehicles) the underlying SimConnect API specifically does not give access to „multiplayer aircraft“ (that‘s why they also do not show up on e.g. Little Navmap). (*)

Yes. Sky Dolly „controls“ your aircraft during replay, just like you would control it with your input devices (keyboard. mouse, …) Every movement (or non-movement, when you pause the replay) hence shows up in online multiplayer and other ATC networks you are connected to at this point. Just like if you would use „slew mode“.

So better disconnect at least from ATC networks before replay.

(*) If you want to record a formation flight with other players: every player can record their own flight. Via export / import they can be exchanged among each other. During import you can then enable the „Add to flight“ option. The time offset can then manually be adjusted, to properly sync the flights.

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I have to say that sky dolly surprised me very much, positively. This is currently the best replay app. Sorry to admit it, but the paid FCR add-on has been left behind. Dolly is better at even starting the engine or turning off the engine. Plus, you don’t have to run the thread on the plane to go back to the replay again. It always works and works properly. There is a super smooth replay.

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How do you chande view during playback? All can do so far is cockpit, can not get external views

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Normally I‘d say just like you would change views when flying „normally“ (not replay). But since you‘re asking I guess that doesn‘t work for you? How exactly are you trying to switch to external views, via keyboard shortcuts?

When in doubt perhaps try the Camera menu in the toolbar in MSFS?

UPDATE: Since I just saw that you replied to someone else below just now (on purpose or accidentally): I am the author of Sky Dolly. So which application are we talking about here exactly, to begin with? :wink:

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It has disabled Logitech multi panel durning recorded flight. Have you heard this before

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Hi !!

No never heard before …. I ll investigate about :sunglasses:

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I agree 100% with your assessment. Sky Dolly is the replay tool that I use, and I paid for Flight Control Replay and FS Playground when they first came out. It’s amazing how well Sky Dolly performs.

I’ve tried the built-in Asobo tool but the user interface is less than optimal (being very generous here :slight_smile:). I think that it has HUGE potential as the Devs have unfettered access to every single bit and byte, but they haven’t made replay a priority. Which is strange since MSFS is such a visually spectacular Sim.

And of course we’re missing easy to access/employ Fly-By and Tower views which require (I think) Asobo Devs to create them (or provide hooks via SDK).

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Whenever I start Sky Dolly to playback, it crashes the sim. Any idea’s?
Cap’n Jack

I cannot reproduce this. This is with the latest MSFS version, the current Sky Dolly 0.16.3 on Windows 10 (AMD GPU, all Windows patches applied) and some randomly selected aircraft (the Antonov AN-2).

I recorded a new fligth and the replay worked as expected right away (I did not reload the flight in MSFS: right after stopping the recording I hit the Play button).

If you want you can create a bug issue here:

Issues · till213/SkyDolly · GitHub

(free GitHub account required)

Please specify whether this is reproducible with any aircraft or just a specific one. What exactly you do, all relevant versions (specifically Sky Dolly) and anything what might help to track down the issue.

You may also export your flight that reproduces the issue, best in “Sky Dolly Logbook” format and attach it to your newly created issue (if it does not reveal any “personal data” such as your hometown etc.). Please make sure that the flight is as short as possible :wink:

Can I change the directory where SkyDolly saves the videos to a different drive other than C:?

Just to clarify: Sky Dolly does not create videos: it records so-called „simulation variables“ like aircraft attitude, position, gears/flaps/lights states etc. and stores them into a database (the „logbook“).

During replay Slky Dolly then simply re-sends the previously recorded aircraft state and position to the Flight Simulator that then recreates the original situation, including sound- and visual effects (but with disabled „physics simulation“).

But I guess that this is what you meant when you wrote „videos“ :wink:

As to answer your actual question: yes, you can change the logbook location (which indeed defaults to a „Sky Dolly“ subfolder in your standard „Documents“ folder):

Either choose

  • File | Save as… to store a copy of your current logbook to the destination of your choice or
  • File | New… to create a new logbook at the destination of your choice

Or you could even move an existing logbook with e.g. File Explorer and then select File | Open… in Sky Dolly to open that moved logbook.

Keyboard shortcuts for all those actions exist as well, e.g. CTRL + N to create a new logbook.

In all cases Sky Dolly will record new flights into the new logbook and re-open the last used logbook the next time you restart Sky Dolly.

You can see more information about the current logbook in use under File | Logbook Settings… (if I remember correctly that menu entry name), including its file location. This is also the dialog where you can change the logbook backup periodicity (which defaults to once a week), including „never“. Logbook backups are stored in a Backups subfolder of your current logbook folder.

Does that help?

Happy flying!

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Yes sir, Helps a lot. I knew the program wasn’t creating videos from the previous posts above but I didn’t know what else to call them. My C: drive is getting full and I have a separate 2 TB SSD for flight simulators and thought the logbook would be better off there.
Thanks, I like the program.

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Thanks for the useful overview. I was wondering what this app is supposed to do – I’ll think I’ll give it a try!

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All credits in this regard go to @rgp1942 who opened this thread in the first place.

There is also an official Sky Dolly announcement thread here:

You‘ll also find many useful tips and tutorials in the „official“ Sky Dolly discussion thread here:

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