Pete_SMS

Shooting approaches in Juneau, therefore the gear is down. See that water strip left of the runway? That's were I was going. Float only version not for the first release...

Hey all, The texture work is finished now. Stay tuned for the next Sunday Beaver Update 22, where you will receive news and new in-sim pictures, showing off the new liveries and different versions of the Beaver. -Pete

Thanks Jim!

Sunday Beaver Update 21 Hey everybody, I guess it is time for another Sunday Beaver update after such a long time without doing one. Today, I would like to give you a sneak peak to the liveries that will come with the Beaver package and in addition to that another info about the release. So I will start with the info: As you probably remember, my plan was to do a two step release for the Beaver. First a the regular tire version for $24.95 and then the full package (regular, cargo and amphibious) for $34.95, with a $5 discount for the people who bought the initial release. I now made the decision, that there will be only one release and it will be the full package with all three versions and I won't be selling it for $34.95. It will be availabe for $29.95, so basically everybody will get the discount. In addition to that info now the sneak peak. Sneak peak, because the liveries are not completely finished yet, but in a state that is very mature for showing. Once they are all finished, you will get more detailed In-Sim pictures. Each version will come with two liveries, and then there will be a neutral diffuse map for texture painters to create as many liveries as they like. Regular Version Cargo Version Amphibious Version Neutral Diffuse Map for Texture Painters I hope you like the update and also like what you see. Again, I have to thank you all for your continuous support and patience, and I hope this update makes you aware that the project is still alive and that you will fly the SoulMade Simulations Beaver in X-Plane. You all have a great Sunday!

That is right and I need to apologize for not having done any updates for some time. However, I have to take care of a few things at the moment which are much more important than a simulated aircraft. Thanks for all your patience and understanding!

Hey guys, The business trip this week and another virus infection grounded more or less all dev work this week. I guess I will do a mid week update next week to tell you about what I am working on and about the progress. You all have a nice Sunday!

Sunday Beaver Update 20 This week I didn't work on the fuel system. I worked on the initialization of the simulation. So what will the default cockpit looks like and what states the systems and switches have when you start the sim with engines running or cold and dark. Also the time of day will have an impact on the interiror lighting etc. Then another major topic what engine malfunctions. I am not fully done with it, but you have to be careful to not abuse the engine. Malfunctions will not just be a "let's start a timer when you bust a limit and activate a malfunction". Engines state, envirmonmental conditions, system states all this will have an impact on when and how you will get into trouble. So you better wait until the engine has proper operating temperature until you go for higher power settings for example. Thats it for today. You all have a nice weekend!

Sunday Beaver Update 19 Hey all, Time for another update. This week I completely re-worked the oil pressure, oil temperature and CHT simulation. I had a model in place last week, but when I started working on the CHT model, I discovered a few flaws with the old one, which made it hard to tune and enhance. Therefore, I needed to start from scratch, but I am very happy now. The 3 models behave exactly like I want them to behave and they are of course dependent on each other. The CHT will have an impact on the oil temperature and the oil temperate effects oil pressure. Density, outside air temperature, airspeed, climb angle, etc.,all these things have an impact. I also continued with my approach to have a realistic behaviour of temperatures. So to warm up the oil on a cold day really takes some time. The coding of these models was one thing, but the tuning really took time. There a so many constants and factors to play with and to tune them in a way that all three model give reasonable and realistic numbers in any condition was not easy, but finally achieved the results I wanted and I am happy. Maybe a little bit more tuning might be required in the beta phase, based on the input from the team, but I am confident that it won't be a lot. So next is the Fuel System You all have a great Sunday!

Hi Anariaq, I took the GPS out for now and there won't be an option for now. However, if Laminar provides a more realistic GPS, I might consider it in an update. No promises though.

Awesome!!!

Sunday Beaver Update 18 Hi guys, Just a small update. Well not a lot of details to report as I have been writing code this week. I continued with systems coding, especially for the engine and the stand-alone oil system is now in place. Oil pressure and oil temperature depend on outside air temperature, airflow over the engine, power setting and more. I am very happy with the result so far, but tuning still needs to be done. However, this is not the big chunk of work anymore. I was just wondering if you guys really want to sit on the apron or taxiway and warm up the oil in a realistic way. If you fly in Alaska and have a very cold day, this warm up can take up to 15 minutes until you reach the first red line temperature of 40 degC. When you start with engines running, all temperatures, pressures should be OK, but if you start cold and dark, warm up could take a while on a cold day and on a regular 15 degC day somewhere between 4-5 minutes. Would that be OK for you or does this kill your fun factor. Next is Cylinder Head Temperature and Fuel Pressure. Have a nice Sunday!

Sunday Beaver Update 17 Hey, this week was much more productive than the last three or four. Yes! As I said in my previous post, the issue to have the fuel tank selector correctly working is solved. My initial feeling was that I can easily assign the tank I want to get fuel from to the dataref in question, especially since planemaker allows to setup nine tanks. However, this was not the case. The dataref only knows the the left, right and center tank, all or none position. So if you have three tanks all sitting on the centerline, you run into a problem, because XP cannot figure out what is left, right etc. So in order to solve this, you have to slightly offset the tanks from centerline, in order to let XP know which tanks to use. The offset is of course very small, so that it doesn't have an impact on the flight characteristics and is also not messing with the CG. OK, so much for the technical details. Besides that, I finished the tail wheel steering mechanism animation, and a few other external animation issues I had. So execept a few details, the external animations are done. Also in the cockpit and cabin almost everything is animated now. The doors animations for the pilot and co-pilot are in place as well and the door angle depends on the airspeed. So as it gets higher, the doors will close more and more, until they are finally shut. I haven't implemented the animations for the passenger doors, because I was asking myself how many people would actually use this feature. Who wants to be able to open and close the passenger doors from inside? Don't know. Not me. I hooked up my stand alone electrical system again, after a few code changes, and it works as advertised. Also the electrical starter and the whole custom engine start procedure works correctly now. Had a few issues in the past, but now it is just tweaking it a bit. Had to make a design decision for the starting procedure as well. Well, in the Beaver you start the engine by holding the starter switch, count a few blades and then you switch the mags to "BOTH" and you let go the starter switch. It wont stay in position if you don't hold it. So in XP this could be a little hard to do. You cannot really hold one switch in position and operate another one at the same time if you use the virtual cockpit. So I made the implementation in the following way. You switch the starter on and it will stay in postion without constantly holding it. Then you can move the mags switch and the starter switch will move to the off position automatically, following some logic. That way you don't have to worry about that you forget about the starter switch and it stays on the whole time. This would be not good! However, this also doesn't mean that the engine will start-up all the time or without problems. Did some changes to the flight model, to make the landing behaviour a bit safer. In the past you could easily run out of elevator before touch down, if you didn't watch you airspeed and landing procedure. I heard from a pilot that you could have this problem in the real aircraft as well. However, I had the feeling that it was alittle bit too pronounced for the flight model. If you know what you do, it won't happen, but I could imagine that a few people could get frustrated by hitting the ground too hard and pulling the yoke all the way back. So I gave back more elevator power again. What else....hmmm....a few minor changes here and there and overall, I am very happy with my progress this week and I hope you like the update a bit more this week. You all have a nice Sunday!

The issue with the fuel tank selector is solved. Next!

Sunday Beaver Update 16 Well, I was able to spent around five to six hours on the Beaver this week. Not a lot, but when I look at what was going on at work and at home, I am happy that I could spend some time on it. As I already said last week, I continued with the animations and ran into a few blocking issues. I thought that the fuel tank selector animation and the hook up with the corresponding dataref is a piece of cake, but not so. I haven't figured out yet how I can set the dataref to my tank in question, based on my fuel tank selector psoition in the cockpit. It looks as if the dataref just knows left, right and both, while I have front, center and aft. All I tried wasn't working so far, or at least I din't get the results I was looking for. However, I haven't spent a lot of time on this. Bugger! But as everything else, I will figure it out in the end. I also had a few issues with the external model mesh, because it was not setup properly for animation in a certain area and I am in the process of fixing this. These are the things you learn when you do an aircraft for the first time, but at least I know what to look for when I will work on the next aircraft. Believe me, I already learned a lot from mistakes. So yes, I am working on all these things and I move forward at a slower pace at the moment, but I feel OK with it, because I know that all will get done in the end and you will be able to fly the Beaver. Promise! Have a nice Sunday!

Sunday Beaver Update 15 The flu had me back and I was sick for a few more days. You should never think that you are over it too soon and hope that you can cope with the remaining by taking medicine. Well, at least for me that didn't work out and I felt really sick again. Anyway, today was the first day where I really felt better and I could spend some time on the Beaver again. Nothing major to report, but at least I could get back into the development groove. I worked on animations again and really hope to have them done by the end of next week, because I want to continue with the flight model and systems again. However, I guess it is a good idea now to finish one thing instead of jumping back and forth between topics. Also the Beaver beta test team increased by two people and I am really happy to have them test fly the Beaver. I am sure everybody will work hard to iron out the issues that might come up during the beta phase, while having lots of fun doing it. Stay tuned for more news next week and I really hope that this was the last boring update....

Hi all, I am very sorry that I was not able to do my last Sunday update. I was sick and had a flu and wasn't able to do anything on my computer, but it is getting better now. My little girl at home likes to share every virus and infection with daddy.

Sunday Beaver Update 14 Hello all, As you probably know I spent the last week on the S-TEC 50 autopilot and it was driving me nuts at the beginning, because my custom code was fighting with the stadard XP behaviour. However, I reached a state where the S-TEC can be operated almost as the real one. I guess most people won't notice it and won't miss anything. I am quite happy with it now. All availabel modes are working like STB, ALT, HDG, NAV, APR and REV. You can also manually roll the aircraft to a selected heading by using a rotary knob. I haven't done any AP constant fine tuning yet. This will be part of the flight model testing and tuning. I am getting closer to the development state where I could show a video for demonstration purposes. You all have a nice day!

Sunday Beaver Update 13 Hi, The mid week update didn't work out, but the Beaver made good progress again during the second half of this week. 3D cockpit and external Animations All switches and controls in the 3D cockpit are now hooked up properly again and can be accessed via my custom cockpit interface. As you know I tried to support external hardware, but not everything was working out as planned. The radios can be operated properly via external radio equipment. However, switches were not always properly working and some of the Beaver switches are not supported by external hardware anyway, so the virtual cockpit has to be used. Everything can be operated properly via the virtual cockpit though. I will provide the list of all custom and standard XP datarefs which are used in the 3D cockpit, so if somebody wants to make custom hardware work, he or she should be able to do so having this information. The cockpit lights (instruments, map, cabin, warning lights) are properly working now, according to their state and power source and the same is true for external lights. I also added a few more animations for the external model. The prop, flight control surfaces and the tires are working fine now. A nested animation for the tail wheel steering is driving me crazy at the moment, because the parenting of parts is correct from my point of view, but I will figure it out. Systems I also continued with systems coding and the main part has been the implementation of the S-TEC autopilot. Still some work to do, but it looks fine so far. That's it for this Sunday.

This one was on my list of possible liveries. Not sure though if it will make it into the first release.

Have been out of town for a few days, so no update today. Most probably a mid week update soon. Have a nice weekend.

Sunday Beaver Update 12 Hello, time for the Sunday update and today I can actually show some new pictures. At least something visual today. This week I kept myself busy with a few more changes to the cockpit interface and I sent the new version off to the test team a few minutes ago and I hope they come back with positive results for their external equipment. If so, all this re-work was worth it. My plan is to finish all cockpit animations and controls by the end of next week and then maybe two or three days on the external ones. Then I will have all the visuals in place. After that I will dive back into the more technical stuff like flight modeling, systems coding and sound again and I am really looking forward to it. The visuals I can show today are for the Beaver pilot. He got a headset now and it not looking so tanned anymore. You will also see two shots of him in the cockpit, but don't be afraid that he will be there forever. He will only be visible in external view. I just did these shots so that you can get a better impression of what he looks like. You all have a nice Sunday!

Thanks for the nice comment hobofat. This makes me smile!

Sunday Beaver Update 11 Things were a little slow again and actually I hate to make updates like these, but I also just don't wanna stop doing them, because I said that I will do them and at least I have a few things to talk about. 3D Cockpit and Cabin: The cockpit, animations and manipulators are almost bakc to a fully finished and working state, after I did a heavy re-work in order to support additional external hardware. I know this is kind of feature creep and it actually took me some tim, to come up with a suitable approach and then to re-work a lot of stuff. Maybe I should have decided against it, but on the other hand is was important. Final testing is still outstanding though, but I hope all will just work fine. Sounds: I worked a few hours on sound files this week as well, in order to have proper engine sounds. I had already a great base for the sounds, but I am in the process of improving them and I have to see what can be done and what can't. I am not using the XP standard sound engine, which gives kind of poor quality, and it also doesn't allow to use multiple sound files for the complete engine rpm range. Using a custom sound engine means that I have to prepare the files in a way that they make a smooth transition from one file to another and also that the fading and everything is OK. That means a lot of trying, tuning, tweaking. Kind of trial and error until it fits. Plug-In code: Another session of code clean up and optimization. I could also leave it in the current state, but I just can't stand "ugly" and repeating code. That's just me I guess. You all have a nice Sunday!

Sunday Beaver Update 10 Hi guys, thank you very much for your understanding. That is much appreciated. Still not a lot more news this week, as the situation continued into this week. However, I would like to show you who is sitting in the cockpit at the moment. I still need to tell him, that he shouldn't tan so much and he is wearing no headphones at the moment. I think finally he will accept my advice. I have to ask you to be patient with me again... Here he is: