Ben Russell

X-Plane does have benchmark modes built in, I've been thinking about creating a web-app to consume the output of them so that they can be collated in a friendly, useful manner. The downside is that X-Plane doesn't turn off all plugins when it runs the benchmarks..... some plugins use a lot of CPU time and not all users have them installed, and this skews the results. Maybe I should take this up with Ben so that the benchmark modes disable the plugins when they're running... The other thing is that the benchmark is run at the default airport for whatever version of the Sim you're using, this used to be KSBD in 8.x and now it's LOWI in 9.x.... it may change again in future, hopefully not halfway through a version run though. We would also need a small helper app to kick X-Plane into the benchmark modes and take care of pushing the log files to the web-app on the server, it's a bit fiddly for some users. (Involves terminal... results are written to Log.txt) (For the curious, it's a command line switch, --fps_test=1 2 or 3... 1 being low settings, 3 being high.)

Here's the best article I could find on rendering to a texture in GL. Forget pbuffers, use FBOs. http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article2331.asp

I know they're interested in porting to Mac eventually ... it's a highly complex plugin that leverages multiple multimedia technologies and various Windows-specific API's, porting to the Mac is a non-trivial task so you'll just have to wait and see what happens. Bugging them won't really help, they know people want it. ClassicJetSims make highly accurate systems that model all sorts of nuances with the aircraft they target, I believe the F-18 package they made was put together for the US Navy and exceeds anything else available for X-Planes military offerings.

X-Plane has built-in benchmarking modes since sometime during the V8.x run. Here's how to use them to do a proper benchmark: http://xplanescenery.blogspot.com/2006/10/howto-use-command-line-options-in-x.html

This forum definitely has Poll functions Jason... Maybe you cant see them at your user level but I'm pretty sure we have all the relevant options enabled for all user levels.. When creating a new topic there is a button in the same bar that is labelled "Post New Poll". When replying to an existing thread there is a button labelled "Add Poll".

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 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.

This is NOT an April Fools, this product is real. This video demonstrates the Flux Object Placement and "Distribution" system. Traditional scenery requires that the user downloads and installs scenery packages that define how objects are placed in the world. Flux discards this concept in favor of Server-Based Object Placement and Distribution. Flux will connect to a server and download object placement data as you fly around the world. Publishing your scenery is also as easy as pressing the "Update" / "Publish" button which will send object coordinates to the server. Flux will be tied to the X-Pilot.com forum member list, if you have an account on the forums you will be able to login to flux to access and share scenery. We plan to offer multiple levels of scenery content from the basic "Free" object-placement data, which allows you to create scenery with pre-downloaded object packages (eg. OpenScenery X (I have cleared this with Aussi..)) through to premium packages which will feature high quality content created by Artists such as Tom Kyler. Premium packages will be available via a very affordable subscription system. Without further ado I present the flux Alpha Preview video demonstrating two copies of X-Plane running side by side on my G5 sharing object placement data in near realtime, the data is passed between copies of X-Plane via a remote server which stores the object placement data so that it can be loaded by any client that connects. This video is taking a while to encode on YouTube so please grab the attachment on this post while you wait... Flux_-_Dynamic_Object_Placement.mov

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.

Awesome clip! 5 stars! Love the use of sound, really adds to the effect!

Buy a Leo Bodnar circuit board and change the guts.. You don't change the game-port, you just throw away the old logic board and re-wire all the pots and buttons to the new one. As a bonus, you'll get 12 bits or so of A->D resolution instead of the usual 8. http://www.leobodnar.com/

Core2 Duo's have some 64bit support, I'm not sure exactly how much but I was reading some stuff about it on the Intel site a while back... It'd be interesting to see if you can run XP/Vista/Linux 64 of a C2D...

Snow Leopard will be 10.6. We are currently on 10.5.x "Leopard" http://www.apple.com/macosx/ Notice you can buy "Leopard" but you can only preview "Snow Leopard". Snow Leopard contains a number of significant new features. I'm looking forward to using it, I'm just hoping it has PowerPC support still.

Hi All! It makes us proud to see so many of you coming here and liking what you see! Without you we are nothing. This is your site. I've created a small signature badge that you can use to show your support for X-Pilot on the rest of the web... The image is here: http://x-pilot.com/images/logo_badge.png You can use this BBCode to embed the image on other forums you visit. [nobbc]http://x-pilot.com/images/logo_badge.png[/nobbc] Warning: This may get you banned on some forums. :-\

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.

I received a comment on YouTube asking if this gauge is going to be a plugin or whether it is for a "special aircraft".. This gauge will be available as a stand-alone gauge that will work with any aircraft on Mac Windows & Linux! It is possible to integrate it with a 3D Panel if aircraft authors choose to do so. It supports a full suite of "command strings" for all the buttons so that the Bezel buttons can be mapped using either Generic Buttons or Manipulators. In some cases, aircraft with heavily customized 3D cockpits that have not been designed to integrate with the ST3400 will need to use the gauge in "Pop up" mode for optimal usage. The popup toggle is also activated with a "command string" so that it may be activated using either a joystick button, keyboard hotkey or generic-panel-button. So in summary; - Will work without mods on most 2D panels, drawing over the top of any existing gauges. - Will work on some 3D panels with no mods. - Will require integration with high-level 3D panels that use 3D instrument bezels, eg: the Mu2. - Will always work in Pop-up mode independently of the panel instruments regardless of the aircraft.

The Sandel gauge will work inside X-Plane as a 2D Panel Gauge, a 3D Panel Gauge and a Popup Gauge. I'm working on technology that will allow you to drag the gauge interactively to where-ever you would like to see it in any gauge mode. The following video demonstrates dragging the gauge in 3D Panel mode, 2D Panel mode and Popup Mode. My apologies if it's a little hard to interpret and tell which mode is which. It also get a little messy towards the end as the 3D-Cockpit camera pans around.

I've been working hard to bring a Sandel ST3400 TAWS unit to X-Plane. Here's an Alpha Preview video. This gauge will be feature complete. If you'd like to see more info on the real unit, check it out HERE.

Hi Dan. Thanks for the feedback on this one. I'm aiming for a slightly different approach to scenery with this one, I'm not aiming to compete with WED or OE. I'll look into your overlay polys suggestion and producing DSF files but at the moment my aims for scenery distribution using this plugin are slightly different than what people are used to. I aim to make it as easy as possible to populate the somewhat barren X-Plane world. I'll keep you all posted as things unfold, I think you'll like where we take it. Cheers, Ben.

Hi Dan. Thanks for your interest, I'm glad to see the frustrations with control setup are not just me. The plugin is in the Quality Assurance phase at the moment and I still have some research to do with regards to how portable the setup profiles will be. I'm hoping that profiles will be exchangeable between Windows, Mac and Linux clients so that we can setup a library of controller default setups. This will allow a new user to simply select "Saitek Pro Flight Yoke" from the drop down and get flying quickly and easily. This will be in addition to the ability for the user to save as many different profiles as they like for their own setup under whatever name they chose. The profile data is stored in a simple text file that is human editable and, importantly, will not be obliterated by a version upgrade. Hopefully I will have the plugin available for purchase in about a month. I'm thinking somewhere around the $10 mark. I have another unannounced plugin in the works that takes priority so this date might slip a little. Cheers! Ben.

In the unlikely event that Quartz Extreme does something odd to your Mac here's how to boot in Safe mode: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1455 Basically; Press and hold the shift key after you hear the boot chime. Release the shift key once you see the Grey Apple Logo boot up screen. This should boot your Mac with Quartz Extreme disabled, safe video drivers, etc.

I've added some tool-bar buttons to make Vimeo/Toutube stuff easier. If you paste your video id, eg: 2348540 and then select it and click one of the buttons it should automatically wrap the video-id with the vimeo/youtube tags.

Thanks Dave, I think they definitely a little extra something to the threads that are using them... Nice to have you around. I've been reading your blog, great writing, keep it up. Side-note: Some users have been issues with the video tags in IE, hopefully this problem is now fixed. If not, I'll be working on it. Just doing some cross-browser tests to see if I've resolved it now.

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:

This is a new scenery tool I've been working on. It allows direct placement and tweaking in-sim for perfect alignment with the scenery, extreme ease of use and instant gratification. Testing exact object placement, tweaking so it fits the aircraft nicely: Test multiple objects in the scene and extended pitch/roll/heading settings for placement: