tkyler

I don't want to detract from the topic too much, this is about carenado and his thunder......so until we fire up another thread..this will be all I'll say. We're certainly applying everything we've learned into this project. It'll have just about every bell and whistle we feel we can conjour up, including full night lighting...cargo version and some other fun stuff too. I have to think it's easier in my opinion..a bit more "natural" to the brain. I did have discussions with the Carenado guys regarding porting stuff to x-plane several months back.....gave them my synopsis on the porting process and once I explained what I knew, I never heard back from them. I myself thought that was in poor taste....something org administration would do but I've gotten used to it I guess. It's why I'm here after all! I am truly excited to work with the very small group of special people that I do.

It does...wish I had done it! :-) Thanks Georges...this is a collaboration though and I think the real talent comes from my other teammates. As the quality really improves in x-plane, many of us find it very advantages now to team up and exploit team members max efficiencies and talents to complete project faster and better.

I'll be glad when V10 ships. I find myself doing four nearly payware quality aircraft in about 8 months of man-hours. I don't think many people develop as fast as some of the team members I'm fortunate to associate with..but we are all on V10 stuff at the moment. I will be excited to devote a good portion of time to other aircraft as soon as possible.

Guys...we've beens sitting on this one for quite some time..but under the circumstances, I guess we have to make it subtly public. Here's some shots from a C208b that x-scenery.com is involved in. The exterior is 95% modeled and going for texturing soon and the cockpit is most fully functional with custom plug-in to drive just about darn near everything. I doubt Carenado will begin his porting with his caravan so I suppose we'll have to expedite this project very quickly..besides, the systems programming on this one is quite indepth and we're fortunately, pretty far along....competition is your friend! I am glad that carenado is bringing products to x-plane though...it will be very good for the sim! I myself don't seem to be much interested in piston GA ...if I was I probably would be spooked....Carenado does superb work. I guess turbines and business jets are a good place eh?

Joe I totally and without equivocation know where you're coming from and actually support you 100%. This is a complex situation to be sure. I apologize beforehand for stating generalizations that might have included you......rest assured they are in the context of not singling any one individual out. The unfortunate side effect is that some get lumped in unfairly..such is your and a great many moderator's case. In many cases, I will not be able to refrain and I apologize before hand....but trust me that I am not calling you or many of the other mods out personally.

I can't say with 100% certainty nor is it my place elaborate, but I think there may be more to this story than meets the eye. That is I don't think Chip/Simon just said, "the heck with the rules". Nobody has successfully posted a review of x-aviation products "following the rules" at the org yet. With the existing climate between x-pilot and the org, it is impossible to do so without org management thinking that our "side" is trying to invade "their side" and will intrinsically question any motive of those who do so...it can't be helped. The only way it would appear "legit" was if a org regular or moderator did a review. That would demonstrate impartiality but I believe that no one there has the balls to do so lest they get banned or lose mod status...anyone want to try it?....that's what I thought! We do NOT want to take that approach here and encourage reviews of every x-plane product to be found.

Simon, I for one definitely would like you to continue as I said before. I've re-read my communications to you and still stand by what I said to you. For the record to others though, I did not describe his work as destructive though I apologize if this is the way it was interpreted. I think after dealing with criticisms, I can understand your frustrations Simon. Your presentations are professional and promote x-plane is a very positive light. Regarding my thoughts, you have them and I hope in the calm of the aftermath, you can reread it and perhaps see it for what it is.

x-plane HAS orbx quality ability...but as you can see, the workload to bring that to fruition is seriously intense. I hope x-scenery will return to scenery one day soon! :-P

Nothing new to show but I worked on the panel for a bit last night. I've got about 95% of the panel controls animated in Blender, ready for manipulators. Since I'm re-writing the plug-in though, that doesn't mean they'll do anything yet....I still have to rewrite the plug-in. That begins once I have 100% of the controls animated in Blender as well as the remaining 3D instruments. I figure about 6 man hours to get to that point. Those 6 man hours will come at the convergence of time, energy and enthusiasm...and those don't converge but about once every 2-3 weeks at the moment hence the time between posts. After the controls are animated, then the plugin rewrite gets done. I have no idea how long that will be...perhaps 36-40 man hours? Then the 1.5 update will go out.

A Beech Baron...not too shabby...will be shipped with V10 FYI

Thank YOU pilotman. The org makes sure people don't know about us and it is an uphill battle. I would encourage everyone who believes in what we're doing and what we're trying to accomplish to spread the word amongst your friends and other forums. Some of you do already and we're very grateful. -Tom

This is classic "potato / Po-tah-to" or "half empty / half full" type of question; however, as a statistical survey, it does just dandy. A lack of simpler aircraft will limit some sim pilots, but not others. I don't so much see things as 'complexity' as much as I do "un-attainability". In my experience, people tend to want to purchase and experience something they could not do in reality. Knowing that a simulation you bought is as complex as the real thing is part of the appeal of saying, "Hey, I could do this if I had to" or maybe "So this is what it is like up there in the cockpit". Though the Falco is the most interactively advanced pit in x-plane, the MU-2 outsells it 3-1 still. The Falco is a simple single GA that anybody can experience (a single GA, not a Falco) so I think the appeal is limited. I too, find it more enjoyable to fire up some complex aircraft that I can't in reality. Given what I've seen from the market..as Dhruv states, I'd elect to go the more 'reality' based route if I was forced to choose one. Sure some sim pilots would be left behind, but someone always is.

Your suggestion is appreciated though I don't think we'll be doing that soon and here's why. Without a doubt our loudest complaining customers have done so because of improper manual installation where their products wouldn't work. They have cussed at us, accused us of being thieves, liars and cheats...and most people are too impatient to actually read installation instructions. Since going to single executable installation files, we've had ZERO issues or complaints. I understand the problems you've had with FSX, but we're not FSX and have not shown a history of troublesome installers. If we did, we would certainly take your request to heart, but no since doubling our workload with such a high success rate.

...and if you do buy, you can keep up with the progress towards the upcoming update to version 1.5...which is HUGE update to the cockpit. http://forums.x-pilot.com/index.php?topic=413.30

I can certainly admire that. We're not just set on giving up DRM at the moment, but as we've mentioned before, we are moving towards making it easier and more flexible. The end result we're looking to achieve is simply entering your x-aviation data and hit one button and be done with it, one time on each machine...across multiple computers even. That's literally no more work than logging into x-plane.org or x-pilot...and only once no less. I think this approach takes away every single argument against our DRM inconvenience save for two. 1.) Its extra work to enter your x-aviation user name and pass, even just one time....pfff 2.) It makes someone feel like a criminal....pfff I can live with both of those complaints. If the technology, expertise or some logistical issue prevented maintenance of the DRM system in any way, then x-scenery products at least would be converted to non-DRM. For that to happen, basically 3 folks would have to all die at the same time for customers to be left out in the cold. Several of us have the capacity to strip the DRM from x-scenery products and re-distribute if it ever came to that. I've even left instructions with my wife on what to do about it if something should happen to me.

Textures are "downsampled" based on rendering setting (except cockpit texture, which is always hi rez). So a 512px runway texture gets pretty blurry, but several 2048px aircraft textures will keep the aircraft textures reasonably sharp.

I'll add also Larry, that most of the ADF requests were from my European customers as you mention and grand total I've had less than 10 direct requests for the feature. That is most assuredly a small percentage of the total number of MU2 users so I suspect that you're very right as few people use it in reality...at least statistically speaking. I do like having it all in there though...certainly not a big deal to add it anymore (after a major workflow overhaul that is)

I should clarify. I've been a bit careless referring to "versions". I originally thought about calling the next update the "2.0" update because it was relatively significant; however, after a bit of thought and discussion with others, I've decided that "1.5" is more appropriate for the next release whereas a "2.0" version implies a significant overhaul. Version 1.5 is a refinement of the existing series. Now while ANY improvement can be considered a "refinement"...there comes a point where improving the product as a whole requires an extensive rework. An extensive rework in this case means scrapping the existing 3D model and redoing it from scratch. Improvements in a "2.0" version will be a new model, higher resolution textures, normal maps, more 3D detail and animations, more custom sounds, etc. Version 2.0 will take enough time and effort that I'll charge for the update. Existing customers would receive a discount and the overall cost might rise to $35.00. Now for that I would expect to deliver a product with the 3D you see in this cockpit ALL OVER! And I'd expect to provide even more documentation, more detailed tutorials to cover new systems and new animations and eye candy. So then this Version 1.5 is to make the MU-2 a more complete functional product from the "flight simulator" perspective. That is I want it to simulate the operation of the MU-2 in flight first and foremost. I left a few things out for technical reasons earlier but I feel every customer ought to at least get a relatively complete MU2 simulation...so this 1.5 update will be free for existing customers. Those are the autopilot mode buttons. The "shroud" that surrounds them has yet to be redone.

This is just a big image to share cause I like the cockpit so much. From the previous pic, this has more texture work, additional details added, instrument glass, more complete instruments, and lots of infrastructure for animation and the reworked plugin. Still left to do is is to rework the quadrant texture and refine the 3D mesh, still add more animation / manipulation infrastructure, then on to the plugin. I'll be using the Falco plugin as a starting point so a whole lot of the work is already, but I'll work on getting in the additional features and system simulations put in. Final steps will be the normal mapping and the lighting / LIT texturing. I figure the back half of August, early September for the update. Upcoming Oshkosh and Laminar work take up most of the week.

OK, I thought this was kind of cool. The MU2 has 5 fuel tanks with an auto transfer system designed to keep the main center tank full at all times until the outer and tip tanks run dry. When I built the plugin for the MU2 way back when, there were only 3 tanks so I had to "fake" the system. Now if fuel is always put into the MU-2 symmetrically...as it should, then this "faking" looks just like the real thing for the most part. So as I get close to the next update, I've moved from the 3 tanks to 5 as in reality and located all the tanks in their proper location. Now since there were only 3 tanks before, and these tanks were numbered 0, 1 & 2 , the plugin would use these numbers to simulate the fuel transfer system. With the 2 new tanks, they're numbered 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4 going from left to right. So then the plugin as of now will only transfer from tanks 0 and 1 into the center tank (2) until I rewrite the plugin to account for the 2 new tanks. The screenshot below was a test I was doing simply to make sure the fuel gauges read the right levels. It was fun to watch the fuel transfer from the left tanks into the center tank, first from the tip, then from the outer just as in reality....but when I straightened my view, I noticed the plane was leaning heavily to the right since the right tanks were nice and full...and it reminded me that the MU-2 does indeed have a fueling protocol for this exact reason. Many line personnel do not like fueling the MU2 because the tip tanks cannot be any more than 150lbs out of balance. Well the tip tanks hold 600 lbs each, which means the line personnel have to fuel one tip tank to 150lbs...then go to the other side, fuel it up to 300 lbs....BACK to the first side and fuel to 450....BACK to the other side and fuel to 600..then one last time BACK to the other side to top off. If this isn't followed, then the MU2 can have one side dip way down as seen in the screenshot. The new update will finally have the fuel control panel working and you can switch from auto to manual to manage the fuel transfer; however, such manual management on the Marquise isn't really done in reality except in the case of a fuel pump failure. And regarding "dragging" vs. "clicking" for switches and knobs. I'm going to have both. Switching between the methods will be done "in sim" without loading a new aircraft using a 3D type control panel. I'll simply have multiple sets of manipulator polygons with different commands whereby the control panel will disable/enable different sets.

Alex, The ADF does work; however there is no way to tune to the NDB frequency on the panel. This was because of limitations in x-plane when the MU-2 was initially created...hence an update :-)! To work around the problem until the next update comes out, I have created a simple plugin that allow you to turn on ADF1 and 2 and tune it so that you can use the ADF in the MU2. So the simple answer is yes you can use the ADF but you'll need a simple plugin that creates a pop up window to input the frequencies. Please read the following post. http://forums.x-pilot.com/index.php?topic=396.0

I thought I'd do an update and throw up a screenshot of some upcoming changes to the MU-2 for version 1.5, which will be the last version on the 1.0 series. This update will pick up most of the functionality that was left out of the initial release and replace some of the older technology with newer technology. The artwork, except for the panel will remain largely unchanged. Version 2.0 will be a completely new, ground up rebuild whenever it gets completed. The following screenshots shows some of the new things going in. The screenshot was taken with a FOV of 60 degrees and a resolution of 1280 x 8-something I think. - 3D instrumentation throughout (as opposed to 2D mapped polygons) - A new mechanical ADI in place of the "EFIS" based 2D one. This is faithful to most MU-2s - Higher resolution textures on the intruments. - Larger numerals on the instruments to make them easier to read and more optimized text. Note the radio frequencies and barometric pressure on the altimeter...much easier to read! - A full featured Garmin GTX330 transponder lifted from the Falco. - More robust fuel systems modeling - 3D manipulators across the board - MUCH nicer night lighting. - Working ADF...(check that frequency eh? finally!)

I've found some time to move through the cockpit and change some things over to 3D. The following image shows the new engine gauges (on right) vs. the old...well at least the torque and temp gauges anyways. The lighting is a bit better and I'm moving to bigger fonts to make the gauges easier to read. The JPG compression has degraded this image a bit...it's quite easy to read in sim. The blender file is setup now so that's it's relatively quick to move through and make changes, these gauges were retextured and animated in about an hour....except that I'm on other obligations 10-12 hours a day it seems and eating or sleeping the rest of the time. I think perhaps by mid-fall, I'll be able to concentrate on my add-ons nearly full-time once again and hopefully make some good progress.

Maxime, you'll need new activation keys for those products now that you have a new computer and Jim is right, contacting Cameron at x-aviation is the way to go. I have to warn you though... that x-aviation is in the process of moving to new facilities and there might be a slight delay in a response. x-aviation has the best and fastest response time in the x-plane market but you just might catch them in a short busy phase while they relocate.

I'll hazard a guess. If people are not aware of what others are working on, then two entities might end up working on the same project and losing valuable time. If competing teams are of differing levels of competence, then it's possible they may both decide to move forward with their projects or they may elect to stop working on them. One of the few ways to judge competence is to know who is working on what....so it's plausible that just knowing who is working on what is a courtesy to other developers. I myself ran into this recently when a fellow developer was not aware of my King Air B200 project. He was quite far along actually, though not as far along as I. He contacted me and let me know he would cease working on the project. I told him that I certainly could not expect that from him though I appreciated the gesture. I felt bad for him because he was put up to the project by someone who WAS aware I was working on a B200...someone who would stand to gain from his doing a B200...someone who was willing to sacrifice someone ELSE's time for their own gain...but I won't say who. Anyhow, the x-plane market is growing quick and some of the more desirable models are going to be attempted by multiple teams I'm guessing and knowing who's working on what is just plain nice. I know a few models I won't be doing because of it, regardless of how much I know about their project.