tkyler

What I am proposing to developers is the option to participate in contributing to a new x-pilot sponsored scenery library using workflows and techniques I use with laminar. It's well proven and certainly compatible. Laminar's library is limited by texture budget and manpower whereas the community is not. Developing the most optimal library that uses new V10 tech and does not suffer from OpenSceneryX's growing pains requires a bit more organization and discipline from developers and conformance to specifications; therefore,this isn't for everybody. I'd like to get this ball rolling during 2012 and will be setting out the specs independent of whomever participates. So this is not some official call in the sense that we need a certain size team to accomplish a very specific task....this is a call more like, "we're going to build a library in THIS way and whomever wants to help can". Time will take care of the rest.

I agree there is a misunderstanding Arno. My reference to the XPFR model is not one of skill management, but rather one of pursuing a unified goal...and not one so broad as to be unmanageable like "let's model the world". As to whether or not you have competition of skills, that is only relevant dependent upon work scope. The XPFR scenario does not apply in the scope of work that I am proposing. Just what it is that I am proposing requires a bit more explanation which I'll give a little bit later.

The deal with using Blender 2.49b is that all the scripts that leverage V10 tech are written for 2.49b. That is not to say that they won't be ported to 2.5+ in time; however, 2.5 does not offer any significant tactical advantage as far as features go in my opinion...but I won't discount "comfort" for those who are happy with 2.5 either. It's inevitable the scripts will find their way to 2.5 eventually, but I have no idea when. Re sketchup. I can't say I've honestly seen what a sketchup built model looks like in x-plane, nor how the textures applied in sketchup come across in Blender. Until I get my hands on a UV mapped sketchup model, I really won't know. I'm sure it's perfectly capable for modeling though....and if some authors don't mind modeling up some stuff and passing off the texturing, then that's a potential win-win; however, there are significant features in the Blender 2.49b workflow that HIGHLY encourage us to get all our 3D into blender at some point.....I'd even go so far as to say that everything needs to ends up in blender. It's perfectly OK to build stuff with other software, but whatever is used, it needs to find it's way into Blender to leverage the new export and attribute options BenS provided in the scripts. We should definitely investigate workflow and if anybody has a model they built in sketchup and have got it into blender, I'd be interested to get my hands on it. I'll talk more about these blender features later. I will be going over some of the standards that I have adopted relatively soon here to things rolling...and also include a few screenshots of some of the V10 development work so that everybody can get an idea of how we're doing things at laminar and also the general direction I'll be pushing here. I will say up front, that the main areas of development strategy will be in the areas of shared UV space, minimum texturing resolutions by "type" and tightly packed textures. Authors will need to get their UV maps/textures as rectangular and and small as possible...packed tight like some puzzle. I'll post examples later. Because we'll probably be wanting to combine people's work together into single textures, it will be important that textures can be easily cut and pasted into larger textures. For those who are unaware, x-plane runs more efficiently with fewer large textures than a whole lot of small ones. So what comes next from me will be a general description here, with screenshots, of work that demonstrates some scenery building techniques I've used for V10 and the advantage of using them. In this way, people can make some conclusions about their work and whether or not they want to work in this way. As far as the logistics of copyrights, how we share this stuff and redistribute it, well we're working on that. As I said, I'm not after any particular time-frame, only wanting to share some techniques....and those who want to learn can benefit, but the main thing I'm pushing here is a x-pilot centric effort that will be our own and fully managed for quality control. As another heads up...if I had to choose some place to start something like this, I'd probably start by suggesting that control towers for the top 50 biggest airports get done. Another effort could go towards doing famous landmarks around the world...and yet another effort at building nothing but hangar variants. It's too early to act on any of this mind you as some up -front planning is in order, but these are the kinds of things we'll be wanting to do. I'll try and get the more informative post with screenshots up as soon as I can. EDIT: Simon, no clue on the 2.5 > 2.49 thing....offhand I can see no issue but prudence would dictate a few tests to be sure.

As initial V10 development comes to it's end, I'm starting this thread as a sort of informal "meeting room" to talk about V10 scenery with active x-pilot community members who are interested in development and to answer any questions they may have or help prepare those interested. I am also interested in establishing a unified method for scenery development among the x-pilot community, i.e. establishing standards that developers will follow....because what I have learned developing for Laminar over the last year has resulted in a very consistent and quick workflow. The purpose of the standards are to ensure consistency and maximize efficiency of created scenery. The standards derive from my experience on default airport scenery for V10. The standards include such things as Blender file setup, Blender layer and scene organization, texture naming conventions, texture resolution and folder organization, Photoshop / GIMP layer structure and layer modes. Organization and planning is the key to developing for V10 and the Blender scripts that will be available to the community require a very strict following of structure within the blender file. It's the price to be paid for using blender as our scenery authoring tool but we can achieve things we have never been able to do in the past. So to begin, a few questions: 1.) Who is interested in developing scenery for V10? 2.) Who is willing to adopt a unified approach and workflow to scenery development? (this means blender 2.49b for now) 3.) What do you feel is your best development skill: Modeling, UV mapping, Texture painting? 4.) Who is willing to take "assignments" as part of this effort....i.e. "Model skyscrapers, model landmarks or airport towers, convert planes, etc. As XPFR have demonstrated, with teamwork and coordination, you can achieve some really spectacular results and I am ready for x-pilot and it's members to take the lead in scenery development for x-plane...but I need to get a feel for the "volunteers" first. For those that are wondering, "what is the matter with the OpenSceneryX way"......well plenty. It has it's place though and is not obsolete, but it is not optimal and it is showing some signs of strain with it's size. The new lighting and shadow technology in V10 actually allows easier and more compact scenery development but at a cost of more careful UV and texture planning. These are the kinds of things I want to talk about here. This is not some effort to have a project with a beginning and and end, but rather, start the ball rolling for continual scenery development and contributions in a steady manner. Scenery is about to enter a new era for x-plane and I am very excited for what's to come. I hope others are too.

That didn't take long. BTW, this is the problem Cam is talking about. http://forums.x-plan...showtopic=54175

Good to see Cameron. The communication / information will be good to know. Wonder if the org will copy this too. Congrats on leading the pack with innovation!

Sorry to butt in. Deniz. I notice you're in New York. I just might be that way in the next month for XP10 related stuff. Can I look you up and come see you and the sim if I make it that way? -Tom

I bet it flies just like the real thing too!

I don't think so. I'd hope to see it during V10 some time though, I do know it's on the feature list...but obviously sits behind higher priority features.

The problem with diversity is the amount of texture space. I'm cramming in all that stuff into about 7 2048 x 1024 textures and they're filling up fast. The question will be , "will laminar add more texture space?"We have a budget and I can't just "add another roof" if there's no space. Doing so means loading up video cards at a "base level". With custom scenery, users will accept the burdern because that kind of addition to one's scenery stable is "voluntary". If laminar has extreme VRAM requirements in a base install, then customers will be none too happy. It is possible to diversify wall types, but you won't find as much diversity in "color and texture". We can add new shapes all day long as long as we map them with the same texture. Custom scenery developers wont' be bound by such things though. I'm sure as time goes on though and such limitations of RAM and performance wane...that might change. The idea is to seed the scenery landscape. Folks will want to do custom stuff pretty quick when they see they can get a lot of "free" stuff like hangars / FBOs and a few filler pieces. Also, you have to keep future users in mind, who will want to see something at an airport, even if it is a repetitive approximation. We have some ideas here to really push scenery creation. There is no way we'll get the diversity we want without lots more texture space and manpower....Laminar will only be willing to go so far in how much detail they'll 'officially' support....so the best we can try and do is guide the developers, give some guidelines and see if we can't start a movement here of some organized scenery development.

BenS posted a bit on this xplane blog about some scenery developments http://www.x-plane.com/blog/ There are efforts, independently of Laminar, to set up a type of "developer university" with some tutorial vids targeting various levels of development. Laminar is not so much attempting to do all the 3D scenery as it is attempting to enable to community to easily do the 3D scenery itself...and leverage the community workforce. We're probably far enough along where I could answer any technical questions anybody has within reason. If any of you are interested in dabbling in scenery, then this forum is the place to be.

That's good illustration Hampster..the backbone of good tutorials. That and not skipping steps We're glad to have contributors who feel at home here and hope we can get folks a place to put their contributions soon.

As usual, anything is possible with the x-plane SDK. The SDK provides the necessary tools to do these kinds of animations. The key is to animate a very large range of motions and to be able to tie one motion into another smoothly. It would take a fair amount of programming to come up with AI logic for all the situations one may desire. I have no idea how in-depth orbx interaction is or how deep it's AI goes. It could be that a character might walk around a building non-stop. I'm sure the videos tend to show the best possible situation to "sell" the product. Ben Russell did a character animation of a ramp worker waving a plane in. It was basic but demonstrated proof of concept. Heck, he did it before orbx probably even tried it's people flow. For this to make it to x-plane, it'd take some very dedicated work and money. So until x-plane gets more market share and the money flows in this direction, I wouldn't expect to see it for a while. It's possible orbx could port this to x-plane one day dependent on how they structured their code. I'm only speculating but vectors and physics are vectors and physics and it seems they have a lot of work already done. I've said it before and I'll reiterate it here. X-Plane has the technology to do just about anything that FSX can do, x-Plane has the fundamental technology built it.....we just don't have the manpower yet. Somewhere, sometime, someone will be driven by this single task and we'll see it eventually.

You have NO idea I'm seeing all these new releases and have to sit back and watch. I take solace knowing that I'm helping grow x-plane though. I've gotten so much experience in the last 2 years doing scenery and aircraft.....it seems to me that anything I look to do that I used to think would be difficult or time consuming just looks downright easy. I have more ideas for scenery and aircraft than I have time at the moment. I can't wait to start making (and improving) more stuff! As you can imagine though, it's downright crazy at laminar right now.....we're all moving through development non-stop. I'll probably be working a bit past the release date though putting finishing touches or addressing bugs that people find. The end is in sight though, that's for sure.

Scenery...is probably the biggest thing of all though. Flight simulation is mostly a visual experience and the more visual stuff, the better. My favorite line over the years is..."if all things were visually equal, users would choose x-plane every time"...because of it's smoothness and rendering. X-Plane 10 is setting out to change the visual landscape..and from what I've seen, it's doing a darn good job! More and more users will come to x-plane after V10 ships....many will find things to complain about just because they don't want to see Austin make progress...and their arguments will be opinions, not facts. The x-plane landscape is changing...literally (pun intended). ..and after the ixeg guys get their 737 out, I think x-plane will take top crown in simulation visual richness and functional fidelity. There are also some awesome scenery things coming down the way and scenery creation in x-plane 10 will spawn a whole new "club" of developers . We're going to work to make x-pilot scenery creation central.

As someone who likes to learn period...I like to learn C/C++ for "non-xplane" reasons and just the overall mental challenge so I continue to study it. Besides, if Ben dies or falls of the face of the earth or is abducted by aliens or something, then it doesn't hurt to know SDK esoterica either....... BUT for now I use gizmo exclusively for xplane when I need to get something done, the power is just stupid and fast. I agree the "how to begin" documentation is lacking and as a "typer" and a "talker", I'd like to write something up eventually. That being said, if your goal is to accomplish results within x-plane as opposed to "the journey", then in that case, I think you owe it to yourself to look into gizmo. I was a "slow converter" having written all my stuff in C on the MU2 and Falco, but having accomplished everything in gizmo/lua that I did in C now, I'm not looking back. No compiler, no compiler headaches, just a text editor and instant changes while the sim runs. If, however, you just plain flat-out want to learn some C for whatever reason, then we won't knock you for that either because sometimes you have to experience the challenge to embrace the solutions.

Kieran. I myself don't know the issue on this one offhand....sorry! Perhaps ask over at the org in Sandy's forum?....and brace for some obscure answer

Hey Kieran...I can very much remember when I started and the biggest frustration was dealing with the compiler and the error messages. For any given x-code project, the project file itself will have a LOT of settings associated with it that tell the compiler what to compile, how to compile, what type of processor to compiler for, what libraries to use and of course, where to find headers, etc....probably a hundred or more options. Anyhow, one of the settings is for specifying paths to header files. Pointing xcode to the SDK headers, especially when dealing with other's projects or source code...it's a pretty common action. The good news is doing that will probably fix this issue, the bad news is I'm on a mac without xcode at the moment and can't show you some screenshots as to where to set those...I myself can't remember; however, with some exploration you might hunt it down. On the left side of the xcode window is a "navigation" pane that shows source files, external frameworks, etc. On one of those bad boys, you double/right click and you'll get the project options to pop up. It's a really long confusing list at first. Anyways, somewhere in that list is a "path to the headers" option. You'll want to point it to the SDK Cheaders folder and make sure the recursive options is on so it will traverse into that folder looking for headers. If you do not have the recursive option, you have to point xcode to each header folder individually (there's 3) ...at least best I can remember. There's some many headaches I've encountered in the past I can't remember them all, but that's the place to start. This is a simplification since there are many better ways to go about it, but if you're just beginning, then pointing xcode directly at the header folder is a good start to get a "feel" for how xcode does it's thing and you can save the "convenience" methods for when you get some more experience. If you still don't get it, I'll try and grab some screenshots of the setting at first opportunity. -Tom

I thought I'd add a few more "high level" thoughts to this topic and also try this new forum here. We all feel the frustration...even as a laminar developer we're all anxious to develop and get on with it. Simon's suggestion (or maybe Chip wrote it?) that we hire more people is a valid one....ASSUMING that is...that the market can bear or WILL bear that burden of cost, but as of yet it does not. We are still a very small segment of the flight sim market and the efforts going on now within laminar, IXEG, new stuff at the org and even here at x-pilot are a good indicator that things are not slowing down; however, as a market segment, we still have not reached "critical mass" where everybody is developing for x-plane. It is my opinion that after x-plane 10 ships...and not immediately thereafter, it'll take a bit of warming up to the new tech...but after x-plane 10 ships and Aerosoft comes over, more Carenado stuff comes up, the IXEG guys finish their work and folks see the ease of creating scenery for x-plane AND with the new ATC (which I have yet to experience), I think that will be the time everybody will take notice. Only after they take notice though will they say, "hey, this is a viable sim" and only THEN they will begin to develop after they're convinced. So it's not unreasonable to surmise that x-plane 10 needs to come out, folks need to see that it's good, more developers need to decide to develop and then actually develop, and this cycle might take a year or more after x-plane 10 comes out to get going. Remember MSFS is over 25 years old and didn't have a real competitor for well over 15 years. That is incredible momentum. I think x-plane is making great strides, but change doensn't happen overnight. As far as the guys dabbling in FSX, they're flight sim enthusiasts, they should go wherever they get enthused. Right now, x-plane is just downright "regular" I agree...but that will change soon. You have no idea how bad I want to get x-plane 10 out and get back to working on some custom stuff. I've put out enough 3D polygons for x-plane 10 to redo the MU2 10 times over, it's hard to sit by at watch that thing become a "has been". It's really no more complex than "good things take time", but the workforce is still small. If we had 8x the developers, each working slow and steady, we'd have 8x the output but everybody would still work the same as they do now. The goal is no different than the day we started here. "Change the market perception of x-plane quality and service and we'll grow the market". I'm still on that mission...just from a different place at the moment. Rest easy gents, x-plane 10 is pretty cool. REMEMBER...when it gets released as a beta, it'll be just that, a beta...and participants need to be ready to report, not complain.

For developers, talking about "what will be" or "what they WILL do" is bad business. You risk something coming up and not being able to deliver. In addition, we're never really sure when we'll deliver...but I can tell you that it is not likely that people have stopped developing because of XP10 development. The complexity of projects is increasing and the time required to develop is growing..and that is my guess as to what's going on.

You're absolutely right on this point, I apologize to you. The thing is...we at XA are in a major uphill battle. We had only one goal in the beginning...to improve the X-plane experience...in service, in products, presentation and marketing, etc. I've a LONG list of people that said, "I got xplane because of the MU2"....that's what we were after when we started. We've met resistance since day one form the org in ways you can't imagine. Our own community, cutting us off because we didn't sell at the org. We've had to fight and it's had it's "uncomfortable moments". Because the org is so big...everybody just thinks it's the greatest thing since sliced bread and can do no wrong. We, on the other hand, have seen behavior that just about anybody would agree is inappropriate by human standards, yet it goes "ignored"...or "unaddressed"...people "turn the other way" and don't address it for reasons I can't fathom....for example, the T-28 incident...what's your take on that? It's a part of the xplane community yet it and it's authors get banned from THE site for xplane information. Check this: This is what we're angry about. This guy controls OUR community for his gain...it should make you unhappy and you should say so. WILL: What you're listening to, the kinds of things you're talking about....all begin with someone doing a malicious selfish act at the expense of another. We are not keeping up the hate, we are fighting against it. I suppose the bobbies responding to the looters are all perpetuating hate for being so aggressive against the looters eh? Can't they just ask the looters to please stop looting? That doesn't work...to subdue the bad guy, you gotta pull out the billy club...and if it makes you queasy, you turn away.

Branden, you won't win this one. You stand on the sidewalk as a bystander licking an ice-cream cone, watching events and speculating...which is OK, as long as you keep licking instead of talking. right...but under specific conditions spelled out in the agreement! There are terms and conditions I know about because I have the contract, I sell at XA. Have you read XA's vendor contract? I doubt it....you know why? Because you're on the sidewalk and not in the conference room. If you have read the contract, I'll post a public apology here and now. We all have the same agreement, I know very well the nature of the agreement....maybe...as the very first vendor on XA, I helped write it eh? You don't know this though because you're on the sidewalk and not in the conference room..remember? I'm sure everybody looks shiny and clean behind the rose colored, plate-glass windows of the conference room.....you keep licking that ice cream and all will be well for you. EDIT: and +++1 to Goran's point on the T-28. They went somewhere else and were cut off at the org. Nicolas clean? What? you afraid of getting banned at the org for agreeing with us?

Your conclusion is unfounded in any of Cam's text. I'm not sure where you pulled it from...but let me clarify so your statement above doesn't go misunderstood. I know the circumstances of XA agreements.....I sell at XA. I know the circumstances of the CRJ's selling on the org. Cameron has acted in a professional manner by choosing to let the issue go and move on for the sake of the community. Javier and Philipp STILL violated the agreement and Nicolas is supporting it. The only professionalism here is by XA...as usual. That's the clarification.

It's that simple. There is no healing...no "coming together", only money.

We have always agreed that people will want to sell in other locations; however, proper competition dictates XA offer services that will encourage people to do business here. Selling at the org is not the issue....breaching the agreement and what it says about character...or lack of it rather, is the issue. I've spoken with Cam about this and we both agreed....all they had to do was abide by the terms properly, then they're welcome to sell wherever they like...but they didn't! Breaking an agreement is not my idea of wound healing Will. If Nicolas was competent, he would have inquired of the CRJ team about existing agreements. So either he's incompetent or deviant...hardly a recipe for healing.