The B737 Classic Project

[scubajuan_new]

As far as GPU I alway wandered why developers don't  just make it available when the plane is parked (engines off and parking break set), if the power comes from the ground, a cube in front of the plane or via Nicolas Tesla's wireless transmission of electricity I don't care. There is room for a ground services plugin that works for all planes and I believe there is a python script out there that does just that with openscenery objects. Having the option of GPU, fuel truck, catering, luggage trains and belt loaders and the fat guy with ear mufflers that walks besides the plane picking his nose, is that, optional. They can come via plugin or as part of the scenery. 

[Litjan]

As far as GPU I alway wandered why developers don't  just make it available when the plane is parked (engines off and parking break set),

 

As far as the pure availability goes, we want to have a bit more option than that - just having the GPU plugged in already has an effect on the electrical system of the aircraft, so we want the user have the option of having it available or not.

 

In real life you will have ground power at most destination you fly to, and using it is strongly encouraged as it saves precious fuel in APU use. But sometimes its not available, especially if you fly to an airport that doesn´t service bigger aircraft regularly (diversion type scenario). If worse comes to worst and your APU isn´t working, you´d have to service the aircraft for turnaround with one engine running. First the right one (so passengers can disembark on the left), then crossbleed start the left one again and shut of the right one (to enable fueling/cargo service). I fortunately never had to do that.

 

Once I arrived at an airport where the GPU wasn´t working with an inop APU and we just had to shut down the engines and the passengers then disembarked under the gloomy lights of the emergency lighting system (I warned them beforehand ;-)).

 

Jan

[Morten]

About the ground model, XP has a few "issues" with regard to friction.  So we use a pluggin that controls the friction.

Like the typical problem with nose-wheel skidding and screeching in tight turns no longer exists.  Another typical scenario that doesn't work in default XP is single

Engine takeoffs due to Vmcg problems.  Asymmetric thrust combined with XP's friction issues makes the aircraft uncontrollable at high thrust on single engine.

This is also taken care of.  

 

With regard to Xwind landing performance, there are many factors that come into play.  To many to mention.  To sum it up, with the correct landing technique you will have no problem

doing 30-40 kt landings/takeoffs in this aircraft - like the real one.  You will find it more stable and precise on the controls than what you are used to.  (Important to have your hardware sensitivity and

realism settings as we recommend)

 

As for wing flex, we certainly wish to have that in at some point.  The visual part is Tom's department, but I'll bug him about it 

 

For those that missed the link for the latest exterior shots;

 

http://www.ixeg.net/gallery

 

M

Edited March 3, 2013 by Morten IXEG

[horani]

I know it has been said so many times, but judging just from the available info, this is gonna be THE add-on for any sim. I am impressed.

I just can't wait to press the buy button, no matter what price this will go for.

Edited March 3, 2013 by horani

[skiflyzander]

XP has a few "issues" with regard to friction.  So we use a pluggin that controls the friction.

 

Do you guys plan on sharing this pluggin with other aircraft developers or is this something that will be special to IXEG aircraft only? :)

[tkyler]

if other aircraft developers buy the IXEG 737, then we'll consider the plugin shared.  Seriously, it's not some "generic fix" for x-plane's friction...it's a variable regime model that is specific to the 737.

 

Tom K

[ktomais]

Could you tell me what liveries do you have planned down the road, if that’s possible?

[Morten]

At the moment we have about 10 liveries.  These are actually picked after our IXEG website visitor location statistics where most XP users live.

So 70% of you should have a local livery.  So if your local livery isn't on the list, make sure to visit the website often

 

We might do a few more liveries pre-release, but it's not high priority.  Liveries we make will be free!  We also want to involve the community livery painters.

There are many extremely tallented ones in the XP community, so we hope they will contribute in the old XP spirit that us old timers from XPFW remember.

We will provide a paint kit - and maybe if practically possible - a basic 3D model so they get a head start before release, but we havn't really discussed that yet so don't quote

me on it.

 

Lufthansa

United Airlines

Norwegian

Scandinavian

America West

British Airways

Air Italy

Air France

Varig

Transaero

 

M

Edited March 5, 2013 by Morten IXEG

[mike10]

I can not wait for this plane.. this might just be the best plane for any flight sim..

[meshboy]

Haha thanks to me and my million visits to ixeg.net we have scandinavian! Hurray

[Nils]

Becoming a dad has kept me from the IXEG kitchen for a few months but I've had a little time again recently to work on engine textures. Figure I'd show the bottom of it because it's more interesting in terms of detailing. You won't fint many useful texture references of the bottom side of a CFM56-3 online, so as much as my crawling under one of these in a Lufthansa hangar amused the surrounding maintenance crews, it did pay off when it came to painting it.

 

In case someone wonders about texture resolution and use of decals, the pic below is pretty illustrative of our 'target range' that we want stuff to look crisp at (click image for full size!). We discussed using as much as 4 times the texture space to achieve twice the resolutions, but we don't think it makes a good trade off between appearance and VRAM demand. We want this plane to at least load for you with 512Mb video cards. Regarding decals, we have hundreds of megapixel photos of decals and bolts and rivets covering virtually every square foot of the aircraft and we could certainly make every warning text on the entire fuselage readable using 'decal' techniques. By 'decals' I mean the use of 'skin' polygons sitting on top of the main aircraft geometry that are textured with a high-res picture of a warning label or maintenance panel. The thing with these however is that, if done to extremes, I believe they do the overall apperance disservice. At least to me, large differences in texture resolution on adjacent surfaces draws more attention to the lower rez texture and the visual effect of the decal, however crisp and sharp, is lost. A reasonably hi-res but consistent texture sells the model better than one with bits of extreme detail bolted on to it. So for the 737, we do use decals but make sure not to overdo them. The engine in the picture has a handful of them for the smallest warning signs - not to make them perfectly readable at any distance, only to enhance the sense of detail at a reasonable viewing distance. 

 

Edited March 6, 2013 by Nils

[clavel9]

I agree. It's more important to have a consistent overall "feel" to the texturing and looking at this screenshot, I's say the balance is about right. I was wondering if any of the latch/hinge details on the lower surface of the engine pod are modelled or if they're just textured. In whichever case, they are extremely convincing.

The thing with these however is that, if done to extremes, I believe they do the overall apperance disservice. At least to me, large differences in texture resolution on adjacent surfaces draws more attention to the lower rez texture and the visual effect of the decal, however crisp and sharp, is lost. A reasonably hi-res but consistent texture sells the model better than one with bits of extreme detail bolted on to it. So for the 737, we do use decals but make sure not to overdo them.

[FloB]

Outstanding work. My admiration, Nils. No need to change anything here  - well  - maybe to release this thing and stop torturing us

 

Cheers

Flo

[Nils]

I was wondering if any of the latch/hinge details on the lower surface of the engine pod are modelled or if they're just textured. In whichever case, they are extremely convincing.

 

Those are textured. Of the features that are modelled on the nacelle, the three vents seen on that pic are among the smaller. Again, a matter of philosophy. There's a lot of sublime modelling work done that looks great in the ambient occlusion vapor-shots, but in the actual sim, textures usually work as good or better than additional polys, especially when you have normal and specular maps to play with.

[meshboy]

This is pure torture with all the images! 

 

Anyone on the team who flies the 727 from flyjsim?

I wonder how the 737 is compared to that in Framerates?

Edited March 6, 2013 by meshboy

[RojanTrojan]

Those engine nacelle texture are insane!!! Well done IXEG team. This looks like it is really shaping up!

 

Rhydian

[ksgy]

We will provide a paint kit - and maybe if practically possible - a basic 3D model so they get a head start before release, but we havn't really discussed that yet so don't quote

me on it.

 

A nice tool: http://mrdoob.github.com/three.js/

It has blender import/export scripts, so you can export a basic 3D model of the outer frame. Just FYI

[79carboy]

Wow, that is amazing!

[pryoski]

At the moment we have about 10 liveries.  These are actually picked after our IXEG website visitor location statistics where most XP users live.

So 70% of you should have a local livery.  So if your local livery isn't on the list, make sure to visit the website often

 

We might do a few more liveries pre-release, but it's not high priority.  Liveries we make will be free!  We also want to involve the community livery painters.

There are many extremely tallented ones in the XP community, so we hope they will contribute in the old XP spirit that us old timers from XPFW remember.

We will provide a paint kit - and maybe if practically possible - a basic 3D model so they get a head start before release, but we havn't really discussed that yet so don't quote

me on it.

 

Lufthansa

United Airlines

Norwegian

Scandinavian

America West

British Airways

Air Italy

Air France

Varig

Transaero

 

M

 

So where's Qantas?

[clavel9]

Providing a 3D mule for the textures is a super idea.

We also want to involve the community livery painters.

There are many extremely tallented ones in the XP community, so we hope they will contribute in the old XP spirit that us old timers from XPFW remember.

We will provide a paint kit - and maybe if practically possible - a basic 3D model so they get a head start before release, but we havn't really discussed that yet so don't quote

me on it.

[MTR1994]

So where's Qantas?

And Belavia

[Orcair]

I'm sure that if they do not release those liveries someone in the community will - hence the paintkit

[chris k]

WestJet for the win.

[Dhruv]

At the moment we have about 10 liveries.  These are actually picked after our IXEG website visitor location statistics where most XP users live.

So 70% of you should have a local livery.  So if your local livery isn't on the list, make sure to visit the website often

 

We might do a few more liveries pre-release, but it's not high priority.  Liveries we make will be free!  We also want to involve the community livery painters.

There are many extremely tallented ones in the XP community, so we hope they will contribute in the old XP spirit that us old timers from XPFW remember.

We will provide a paint kit - and maybe if practically possible - a basic 3D model so they get a head start before release, but we havn't really discussed that yet so don't quote

me on it.

 

Lufthansa

United Airlines

Norwegian

Scandinavian

America West

British Airways

Air Italy

Air France

Varig

Transaero

 

M

 

 

At the moment we have about 10 liveries.  These are actually picked after our IXEG website visitor location statistics where most XP users live.

So 70% of you should have a local livery.  So if your local livery isn't on the list, make sure to visit the website often

 

We might do a few more liveries pre-release, but it's not high priority.  Liveries we make will be free!  We also want to involve the community livery painters.

There are many extremely tallented ones in the XP community, so we hope they will contribute in the old XP spirit that us old timers from XPFW remember.

We will provide a paint kit - and maybe if practically possible - a basic 3D model so they get a head start before release, but we havn't really discussed that yet so don't quote

me on it.

 

Lufthansa

United Airlines

Norwegian

Scandinavian

America West

British Airways

Air Italy

Air France

Varig

Transaero

 

M

 

SOUTHWEST!

 

If you don't do it Morten, I'll paint the whole fleet, special liveries and all .

Edited March 9, 2013 by Dhruv

[-TheoGregory]

And Air New Zealand!