Leaderboard

These guys are breaking all the rules. Thank so much Pocket Rocket team!

I'm (virtually) mega and ultra rich so I have two TBMs (at least)...one at Santa Barbara and another somewhere tooling around Florida. I like to go to Santa Barbara and fly touch and goes (cuz, you know, I'm virtually mega rich) and then go back to Florida for some real trips...for the snakes and humidity, of course. It would be cool if I could have different frames in each place since touch and goes can be pretty hard on landing gear and it's such a pill to fly it all the way across the country to do touch and goes even if the airport is gorgeous. From what I see, you have to put the airplane there and then change the airframe. Wouldn't it be cool to have it do it automatically...keep one airframe at one airport and the other one at a different airport. Load up the sim and the right airplane is there. How cool would that be? Gregg

Hi, made a little HOLD script for the classic. https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/51057-ixeg-737-classic-hold/ Still a bit rough around the edges, but it works. Teardrops and all. All courses are corrected for wind and magnetic variation, but it has not been tested in very extreme situations. A flight with 80kn wind worked. Things that influence the size (and shape) of the pattern, bank angle, height (TAS!), speed, wind. (TAS influences the turning radius, not IAS) Things that may confuse my program, large changes in aircraft configuration during holding. Its only a little smart. PPOS PPOS is a hold pattern at present position, a simplified version of the PPOS of a Boeing FMS. Enter the desired inbound course, leg lenght, speed and altitude, and click HOLD. The aircraft will enter a holding pattern and will adjust speed and altitude. When the hold is active, you can adjust speed and altitude if needed, the program will anticipate the changes. There is no luxury option like in the real aircraft to enter quadrants and arm an exit. If you are cleared to leave the holding, to have to find the best position to leave the pattern and continue with LNAV / VNAV. The PPOS hold is terminated when you click the button, or when you deselect HDG SEL. The program anticipates wind, but with strong winds the pattern will start to look pear shaped, because turn radius will be influenced by wind. Other factors that will influence the hold pattern are speed and altitude. A speed of about 220kn is quite good for a holding. The bank angle the program uses is 30deg. If you change the bank angle during the hold, the program will adapt. Small bank angles will create a large pattern however. If you choose a inbound course that is very much different from the course the pattern will look a bit odd in the beginning. Best is to choose a course with as much upwind as possible. "HOLDING AT" This will allow you to search for navaid in your area, and use this as the FIX for the holding pattern. If you have the navigraph files (you dont need them for this option), an attempt is made to link a hold record with the navaid you chose. Beware to check the result of your search, especially the distance, this may give an idea if you found the right one. Some searches may find navaids very far from your location. HOLDING AT searches for waypoints,VOR and NDB navaids, near you. When you are satisfied with your choice, click hold, and the aircraft flies to the FIX and enters the pattern according the general rules. This may look a bit strange at first, but its just a teardrop or parallel entry. It can do nice teardrops "FIND HOLDING" This uses the Navigraph data to find a HOLDING, and tries to link this to a waypoint or navaid. This works well in general, especially if you use the Navigraph (moving) maps / charts with it. Otherwise it works as HOLDING AT, some data from HOLD records may be added for you to accept or override. Some holdings you can find by their name, and some by their FIX name. Beware, the searches may find results thousands of miles form your location. And yes, it will try to fly there From the test range:

That's pretty cool. For the record, I am finally back to working in the FMS, including adding the holds. I'm in the process of porting over to the ARINC 424 / XP1100 nav-data format, which should make things go much smoother for holds...accurate routes / entry....just about everything route related. But thanks for this script...it will be a bit before the holds features get distributed! -tkyler

This is going to be payware, like most other things you will see coming from me. If you want us to step it up a level this is to be expected. I've invested a lot of time to bring this to X-Plane.

Hi Guys... Thanks for the comments... I'll take a look at getting Force Feedback in for maybe version 1.5 or 2.0 or something like that. It requires programming differently for Mac and Windows and I'm not sure if it's available at all on Linux, if it is - that's another whole suite of code right there. It'd be a great thing to add but it's not something I can just tack on. It'll take quite a bit of work. Cheers! Ben.

Hey Nils, thanks for the comments. It's a fun toy to play with - I think it will be awesome once it gets some momentum. I haven't investigated the Hard-Object issue at all... I'm really not sure, I suspect they aren't available. I might tie the bullet physics lib into this one day... that opens up -lots- of fun options. For now though I just wanted to show off the core technology. Due to the nature of this product I'll be releasing a public beta as soon as possible for people to play around with. The content will take a while to grow but it's kinda fun to make 'in sim'. Lots of instant gratification. Good to see you over here.. hope you like what you see. Ben.

That's where bullet comes in, it can compute all the object collision stuff, then I just push the ground data into x-plane.. very handy. The tricky part is the different world scales, bullet doesn't like an environment the size of X-Planes so you have to come up with some fancy code to keep switching the active object contexts around without hitting performance too hard. Bullet suggests a 10 kilometer box in its sample code. It's a bit of a combination of both. Eventually, it will be capable of pulling down OBJ+Image files off the server as well as placement data. To begin with I plan on leveraging OpenScenery X - a lot of people have it installed and by referencing it's object paths we can begin to populate the world. I do not have permission to redistribute the OpenScenery X library so people will have to pre-install that to see it. I don't think that'll be too much bother though, it's already got enough momentum. It'll definitely get interesting as time progresses. One of the things I can see in my mind is an iterative build up of the world. Normally when working on a scenery package you need to finish all your objects and then work out the placements and then package it all up and push it out the door. With flux I can see a workflow where you can knock out a rough version of a given building, upload it to the flux server, place it in the world, then work on the building for another week or whatever, uploading better content as you go, replacing the mesh of the first version you placed but keeping the location data. This way the world will be more alive, each time a user flies through a given area they will see the buildings being improved on. I want to get the ST3400 out first, then probably X-Joystick 'cause it's closer to completion and then flux some time down the line.

Hey Wade... I'm looking at solutions to this general problem. A similar issue exists when porting profile data from one OS to the other, if I plug my xbox controller into my Mac I'll get buttons 1-20, if I plug the same controller into Windows I get buttons 80-100... or whatever. So, I'm looking at ways to discover/set the lowest button/axis number and then apply the profile data based on that offset. So basically, you'd have to do a minor little profile calibration instead of redoing the entire config. If you know, and memorize your lowest index buttons and axis it'd only take ~30 seconds. I'd like to avoid talking to the lower level HID/USB API's on a per OS level if I can... though I may end up poking around in them for Force Feedback some day. Another user has filed a feature request for input profiles recently with Austin, if he throws it into b8(unlikely) or 9.40 I'll probably reconsider my priorities with this one... I don't expect him to do it, but he might. Some other stuff has come up besides the above, that means the probable ship date on this one has been pushed back. I'll keep you guys posted if I update anything.

Feel free to read up on the whole thread Nick.

> >

Borrowing work without any Atrribution of Credit and statement of intention IS WRONG and WILL NOT be tolerated. One more stupid issue, Rafael, and you're gone. You dissapoint me. Don't bother PMing me this time, you muddy your own name. This post will make no difference.

> > >

His account has been left active so that he can argue his case if he so chooses.

..I made him a special group, if anyone can think of a better group name let me know.

Rafael... This is really boring.. Pack your bags and FUCK OFF.

Go back to your "Rafael Fernandez" account and make something, anything, with your own blood, sweat and tears. Hiding under another name is easy and not worthy of respect. Standing up and wearing the shit you've attracted with your behavior is far more admirable. Yes, you've got some work to do to restore your reputation but it's not beyond repair. If you want to play pull-aparts with other peoples stuff that's fine too, just make sure you label it clearly, like you have above. (Though, personally, I'd tag the image in BOLD with something like: "Learning to texture, FUSE IS XPFW WORK.", not a side note of "PS") Attribution is something you're going to learn a lot about in the next few years as you progress through high school and if you're lucky, college. We all stand on the shoulders of giants, we owe a lot to those that have walked before us, just remember to give credit where it's due. Respect is earned, not given. ...maybe this will help: http://www.darkscarab.com/tutorials/blender/car001.php It could be worse:

Give yourself a chance Raf.. I can only show you the path, it's up to you to walk it. "Nothing Worth Having Comes Easy" -Theodore Roosevelt (paraphrased)

...that's why I call it PAIN-maker... people that say blender is non-intuitive and hard to learn need a good dose of PM. ;D

Personally, I think it's good to be seeing so many screenshots of intermediate results, provides a lot of transparency.

you mean people actually run x-plane???? ;D

...this guy rocks.

Err... I'm pretty sure (99%) that QUADS support went out the window when we got OBJ8... A quad is just two tris, blender might draw them prettier but that's about it. Don't make me read the OBJ8 spec, it's too early in the morning.

Clarification: Nicolas informs me that the reason posted above is apparently not why Cameron was banned. However, from an outsiders point of view it certainly seems that way because up until that post was made Cameron had access rights. The straw that broke the camels back... As Nicolas did not mention exactly why Cameron was banned one can only guess at what could lead one to ban someone on the premise of something as trivial as a light jab at ones use of the flight sim.

I'll sell you a car, it's a real beauty, all it needs is a tune up and a cut-n-polish and it'll come up like new, promise.

Free Language choices: - C/C++ - Delphi/Free (Obj) Pascal - Python, with a third party plugin. (Sandy Barbour's) This is a great choice for learning/prototyping but users sometimes have trouble installing it properly. - One or two others. I'm very close to completing my Lua scripting plugin which is designed to make a lot of common plugin tasks very easy. I also have a .NET bindings plugin that I aim to finish one day. See the SDK site for more information: http://www.xsquawkbox.net/xpsdk/mediawiki/Main_Page The SDK is powerful and pretty easy to work with once you grasp the concepts. There are always lateral thinking exercises to do to achieve what you really want though. Tools: Anything that can build a normal C-style .dll, .so, bundle or dylib. The gcc toolchain works nicely on all three platforms. Visual Basic 6 is out. As are all the .NET "Assembly style" .dlls, without a wrapper. OpenGL for drawing. There's no audio SDK calls so it's kinda roll-your-own, most people use OpenAL or Direct-Sound depending on how much compatability they want. Plugins for aircraft can range from the mundane to the very complex. Hope that helps somewhat.

Sweet!

Quick Q: ... is 256 custom sound slots going to be enough?

3D position sensitive audio is a real pain in the butt. It requires a bunch of vector math that I simply don't have time for right now. However, as a step towards that, I have standard "omni present" sound already done. Pitch control and a few other nice little things are also fairly easy to add. Position control and all the subtleties that come with it will come a bit later. For now I can do a lot with omni.

Everything is on permanent, possibly terminal hold while I sort out living arrangements and a new abode. Very likely involving a new job, a new city and other exciting adventures. Whether X-Plane factors into it at all is yet to be determined. It's been fun.

This project has been frozen. Why? Because users want a more complicated solution than I had initially planned for. X-Joystick, as it exists now, relies on X-Plane to interpret the low-level USB device details. It simply re-maps what X-Plane presents. To be a true solution to everyones problems, which include complex "multi device" USB chains, I would have to write a significant portion of code to deal with the USB device tree. I am not familiar with the lower level details of the USB HID system and quite frankly, don't want to be. While there are ways to work around this "perfect solution" and still come up with useful improvements to how X-Plane is today, I think for most people that really want this plugin any work around would fall short and they would still end up feeling frustrated at the need to remap their devices, even to a lesser degree. Until such time as I can work through the low level details of USB HID interaction and programming this project will not progress. As a work around, I would suggest investing in a powered USB hub with enough ports to satisfy your requirements of permanent device connection. Looking at Amazon now I find a significant number of 7 port USB hubs that are cheaper than I had planned to offer the plugin. Thanks for your interest, apologies for the disappointment.

I got sick of remapping my joystick buttons all the time. X-Joystick allows you to save and load profiles for different controllers, aircraft-usage, etc. It also allows you to save different non-linear values for different aircraft. I have a few other features planned too. Here's a sample of the GUI so far:

That works with some versions of windows but not all, indeed, I started out that way, but then when using Win7 and 64 bit flavours of Windows, things didn't work. The old tried and true rules of where DLL's can live have changed in subtle ways and I have worked hard to provide the easiest solution for everyone. Additionally, there are step by step instructions and single file links on my Wiki for those that don't like installers. I'm sorry that there's an initial bump to getting Gizmo installed but that's what happens with something that introduces so much more to the sim. We've only barely scratched the surface with what we can do with it, I hope to show you a lot more in the coming weeks.

I have modified the DRM license server so that it will recognize machines that have registered before. If you lose your license key or need to re-install a DRM locked product for some reason, you should be able to get your old key back without the need to contact X-Aviation. If your machine configuration has changed significantly the 'fingerprint' we generate will probably change and the machine won't be recognized. If this is the case, contact X-Aviation support and we will look at it on a case by case basis. We're working towards allowing you, the customer, to manage a pool of machines with a reasonable level of freedom and flexibility. Apologies to anyone who's had to put up with any teething issues.

...thanks for the feedback, im not real sure why it does that, maybe the self check is smarter than I thought. Would it be too much to ask to get you to take this up with the author of XFSE directly? I have way to much on my plate and the new code is pretty clearly commented where and why it's been changed. Code mods are released as BSD license (free to use, however you like..) or whatever suits the XFSE license better.

...gear isn't detailed enough, start over.

Minimum license duration is 1 second. There are lots of options, I've tried to build a system that suits everyone. Programmers hate DRM to you know, perhaps more than most, it's not easy to write and it's utter hell to debug. This DRM system wasn't built by suits who don't care.

...I still say the gear needs more detail.

I'll drink to that *cheers*

H Guys. I appreciate the interest but I can't reveal anything ahead of time. User expectation is a heavy burden to bear and I have enough to deal with already. It's fun to spring surprises on you guys too. Thanks, br.

Most people find the turbulence a little bit too strong and too constant. I don't think there's much you can do to tweak the built in real weather.

Hi Guys. I'm planning to try and release Gizmo updates monthly. That leaves me a week until April when we will all see Gizmo 10.4. Apologies to the patient Linux people who are still waiting. All Operating Systems will get the 10.4 update at the same time. At this time it will be a new .zip to download - not an in-sim update. In future I'd like seamless, easy in-sim updates.

...he's actually just trolling airliners for photos and pixelating them a bit so they look photoshopped.

They're probably using the much over-hyped "JERA" "technique". Basically they use a small rocket engine to work around the sound limitations of X-Plane and they make a huge fuss over it, with special labels and custom acronyms, ultimately its just a bullshit hack, if we labelled every tech-work-around we use to get stuff done we'd end up with product names six miles long.

Hi Guys. This definitely seems to be an issue with Gizmo. I'll get a new version out soon that addresses this, but, for now, as Gizmo is only being used for contacting the license server, once you have registered your product feel free to simply disable Gizmo "in sim" by going to Plugins > Plugin Admin, finding Gizmo in the list and disabling it. Once disabled you should be able to fly as long as you like with no FPS leak. Sorry for the hassle.

...abacus beads.

Greg Hofer (Classic Jet Sims)already has a very well rounded out product that has been developed in conjunction with mil forces, either Canadian or USN, not sure. Either way, it's a class A product. It may be Windows Only though. I can't speak for Javier, he will do what he likes, but given that Classic Jet Sims model is both visually and systems accurate, it would seem rather pointless to do a cheap copy of it.

Jacob, I'm sorry but I had to remove the images you posted. ImageBam uses explicit adult imagery in its banner ad's. This is an all ages site. Thanks for your understanding. Ben.

...that's just evil.

...a fix will be out soon, I'm just trying to get the particle systems to work nicely.