tkyler

We are all Jack...we all want perfection too. The issue is simply time. The blemishes aggravate all of us, including me. Time will take care of it....as frustrating as it is to wait. Tom

It's reasonable for people to want to know why, I'm happy to oblige. Lets just say those were my adolescent years developmentally Jack and there were a few inexperienced edges there for both myself and x-plane t. The Hobbs meter was not one I was willing to program for a myriad of reasons then, but would definitely do so today. Also, I suspect the default meter backgrounds were done that way just because I was lazy or tired of working on it at the time. Each project is a learning experience where you discover something you could do better or more effeciently and as such, we seem to paint ourselves into corners routinely in certain areas that we just say, "oh well, lets get paint on our shoes and do it better next time"....and we get better each time. There are good things on the x-plane horizon....have been since 2009 in my opinion, but we're just now cresting the hill and seeing what's on the other side with V10 here. I'll go back and fix that Falco one day.... what was cumbersome then is not so much now. Regarding the GPS, I thought I had a functioning power switch in the Falco? Anyhow, yea...the GPS is a lacking point in x-plane, always has been. Given the work we've done on the 737 thus far, there is no doubt in my mind that we could do a fully custom "native" Garmin 430 today in Gizmo with graphics and everything, but such a task is a large project in and of itself and will just have to wait I'm afraid. Once a few of us are fully sustained by x-plane add-on income, then we can devote 100% of our time to all the shortcoming we want to resolve and keeping product up-to-date and fully featured. Tom

Thank you Big T. Yes, that is the Falco available at x-aviation. It's a fun little GA for sure and relatively full featured for IFR flying with working circuit breakers....though TBH, being a few years old, it's nothing like what we can do now in X-Plane. I "cut my MU2 teeth" flying with a buddy on night cargo runs and with X-Plane's night lighting abilities are really bringing back some memories. Here's a video of some light effects on the gear lights https://dl.dropbox.com/u/955680/xsMU2B60_15_3.mov

Point taken on the magnetic mode Jack The "super system" version will be all new for V2.0 I have to leave something to get paid for in the future but several areas are getting refined for this update. There's no reason I can't do the entire MU2 systems accurately from what I can see, including relays and circuit breakers. Having done the 737 hydraulics and electrics has totally changed my approach to what can be done.....and along the way, we got XP to get out of our way on some critical areas. The best thing that has come from the evolution of coding the MU2 simulation is a refined organization that is scalable. My code has evolved from original MU2 to Falco to refined MU2 (which didn't quite make it in C)...and now with Gizmo, taken lessons from the 737 and the "brick walls" I hit with my previous MU2 code, I think I finally have a system and structure that will work at any level of aircraft simulation with high fidelity. I can't tell you how excited I'm getting...with Gizmo's upcoming features, X-Plane's new access to electrical systems and V10 lights/shadows..there is just about everything available now to make a darn near perfect simulation given enough time. Here's one good reason why I want to go with V10. I've been wanting to do this since 2006!

Indeed we will Ryan!

I'm sorry it is the way it is Ryan. We certainly do not value profits above customer service. We strive to satisfy "as many as we can". As an exclusive V9 user though, you are in the vast minority of the customer pool and becoming moreso each day. In any progressive industry that moves forward technologically, especially in "migrations" as we see from XP9 > XP10, then it is inevitable some will fall behind. If I spent a disproportionate amount of my time making the MU2 V9 compatible for no return, I'd go broke and couldn't provide ANY product for the future and we'd see NO new MU2. You still have access to the V10 one when you finally make the switch AND the one that you have now does work for V9. I will say that X-Aviation (and myself) insinuated an imminent update was available and this was my counting my chickens before they were hatched and was the 'wrong' that was done to customers on a small level...a mistake I will not repeat, BUT at the same time, the MU2 you purchased was $15.00, the sale complied with the license as stated, works in V9 that you own and presumably you've enjoyed for nearly a year. I do apologize but he best I can do in this case is keep my big mouth shut in the future and make this MU2 update for V10 available for you for free when you (and the MU2) is ready......hundreds of hours of work with zero return, utilizing the latest tech to make the best product I can. We care about customers a great deal! Tom

This situation is inevitable and we see it every x-plane release cycle. Nobody complains that the MU2 doesn't support V8 though it was actually developed on V8 and for V8. The good news is that if you're an existing customer, this V10 version will be available to you for free when you do get V10. The more functionality that goes into custom plugin work though actually isolates the functionality from future issues....so what that means is that as the MU2 evolves, it will actually stabilize where it will eventually work from whatever version it was developed for onward. Custom things I put into the plugin back in 2008 are still there working today. The problems I encountered then were trying to manipulate the default XP behavior instead of "going around" it. Nowadays, I am going around X-Plane more and more as time moves on. I really am close to the point where all the "things subject to break" (i.e. things that Austin might try and improve in the future) I am taking over. I don't expect the compass heading variables to ever change because they just work so I use those. But things like electrical / hydraulics and power related stuff I am steadily moving those simulations into the plug in. During the V10 dev run, we have had many discussions about how to stabilize the sim in such a way that chances of future breakage of products are minimal. Towards this end, we have access to variables previously inaccessible and more override abilities. We are very close to the point where a aircraft author can use Austin's aerodynamic force model, which is pretty stable and basically write everything else themselves. This is a new paradigm and as time goes on, more and more developers will take advantage of it and that stability that users want in their products will become more prevalent. Tom

Porting is paying pretty big dividends. I'm moving very quickly through the code base, fixing lots of things that were not "right" when done in C because the "compile > reload" was just too cumbersome. I've got about 75% of the code base rewritten in the last 3 days. With the burdern of working in C removed and the added experience of the 737 coding, it is much easier to try new things or rewrite algorithms. I know many won't be too happy, but this update will be V10 only. After a year of working on V10 and it getting reasonably stabilized, there is no reason not too, there is just too many nice features to take advantage of. This is just the way computer software is. The Moo now has "real" landing lights on the wings, real wing ice light...independent taxi light control on the nose, higher fidelity systems simulation etc. Tom

Not at all Jack. Things are what they are; however, I did make a significant step recently by finally switching a lot of the code base of the MU2 over to Lua/Gizmo. We're testing against Gizmo 12, which is quite a bit more stable that past versions and has more features. Now keeping in mind I've written 1000s of lines of code in Lua for the IXEG 733 project, where the algorithms are much more advanced..... the coding for the MU2 is going about 5x faster than it did in C and opens the doors to a much deeper simulation in the future. I've been able to implement about half the functionality of the previous plugin in one evening, fixing bugs along the way. Of course the more difficult stuff is yet to come, but this was a significant step in integrating the MU2 back into the workflow. -Tom

If you wanted to actually "draw" the polygons...and I assume you mean drawing them in WED. Then you would use the "Polygons" tool in WED and draw the shapes using bezier curves/paths. The problem with this approach is that when you draw a polygon with this tool, you need to specify a POL file resource (in the upper left hand corner of WED). A POL file tells x-plane which texture to use to fill a polygon and also how that texture is oriented/rotated within the polygon (...like if there is some type of grain direction to the texture). Default POL file resources are generally of grasses, asphalts, concretes etc...and what you would need is basically a "white paint" texture and therefore would have to make your own texture/POL combo. So you would need to: 1.) Create a simple repeating 'white paint' texture 2.) Create a *.pol file....something like "white paint.pol", that references the white paint texture you made. POL files are simple text files with a *.pol extension. 3.) Put the pol file and texture in the custom scenery pak you want to use it in. Then when you open WED, you can actually select that pol file in the browser (I think, going from memory here) and begin drawing shapes. IF the pol file did not appear in the browser...then you would select the polygon tool and in the upper left hand corner of WED, type in the name of the pol file to be used. When drawing shapes in WED in this manner, that is polygons on top of polygons, you have to mind your draw/stacking order in the heirarchy or your numbers might be under your red background and unseen. -Tom Kyler Laminar/IXEG

I was cleaning up a few files on my computer and came across this older pic of the cockpit with some more 3D in it than we've shown before...but untextured. I just like it for some reason. It's not the most current though We're still working on the FMS, we had a bit of a slow down with the transition into the fall and general family thing for each of us to deal with but we are still moving forward. Here is another development snapshot of the LNAV testing. As you can see, so far so good on LNAV tracking. The waypoint locations shown on the EHSI are inconsequential in this screenshot, they are not part of the final code obviously...this was just a route draw / AP track test. Tom Kyler Laminar / IXEG

There are two aspects to the word 'learn' here: 1.) Learn how to do it 2.) Learn how its done These are different. #1 means pretty much being a full-fledge experienced programmer with higher education (read college) level of knowledge. #2 is simply satistying your curiosity...and that is much easier to explain. There are NO true reflections in X-Plane. There will be NO true reflections in x-plane for many many years to come. Dan Klaue and Roman have done what are called "hacks", albeit they are good hacks and the "ideas" for coming up with these hacks are diverse. The best reflective effect (as accepted in the industry) is done with OpenGL custom programming and with shaders and only BenR here has done it in XP thus far. X-Plane's shader engine presents lots of challenges and obstacles with implementing shader tech though...so until Laminar implments "reflections" on OBJs, I wouldn't expect to see it. -Tom

It doesn't matter what 3D software you use, you most likely will have to go THROUGH Blender or AC3D in order to export to X-Plane OBJ formats. Blender is more lengthy to learn, but more powerfule than AC3D...and once learned, very fast indeed. The frustration factor when learning Blender is high....but I can not tell you how many people I've helped with Blender over the years say..."Oh that's cool" when shown how to get something done. Whichever you choose depends as much as whether or not you can get past the interface...and then followed by the complexity of what you want to build. The more complex the project, the advantage tips in Blenders favor due to scene mangement tools, better UV tools and rendering-baking features. I have never seen anyone who has gotten over the Blender learning curve from AC3D ever go back to AC3D. I'm still on 2.49b and consider it the pinnacle of 3D software for x-plane development. Proven, stable, full-featured, well supported, predictable, full of every feature I need to support my workflow. It's like a pencil, shovel or keyboard....it just works for the job at hand. Tom Kyler Laminar/IXEG

We are in NO WAY saying we'll do an NG. There are way too many variables right now and we do not like to look beyond our current goal....BUT lets get hypothetical anyhow for fun...... if we did.....we would not have to start from scratch. No writing of the FMS again...no designing of the lnav planning...there's 6 months we don't have to do. No remodling of lots of the fuse....no redesigning the electrical system, only "rewiring"....the hydraulics code doesn't have to be done...there's another 6 months we don't have to do....no investigating and overcoming flight model limitations...we already know how to manhandle x-plane and get this, drawing electronic displays is 2x easier than doing the analogs....even more time saved. SO....I speak NOT as an IXEG representative, this is NOT on record.....I do NOT speak for any other team member....but only as a sim enthusiast myself.......I myself would like to see IXEG do an NG if this Classic sees the light of day. It's the most popular plane in the world and we're already more than halfway done with the work on one . We chose not to do one because we did ot want to step on the x737 toes...but after nearly two years...we are not worried about that any longer. But as I said, NO GUARANTEES. Native X-Plane developers are total novices compared to the experienced and long-established MSFS devs and it remains to be seen if a team can be held together with unified vision for more than a product or two. As we've seen, there is lots of individualism in the x-plane dev market and this can be a liability. I have worked with no greater group of individuals than on the IXEG team and there is chemistry here that has the potential to go the distance, at least I believe so. IXEG won't speak or speculate on future (read "work not done") projects though so my thoughts here are my own and I will only give my own. Best one can do is cross their fingers...including me! Tom Kyler

Your 2c are duly noted medfox and feelings understood. I continue to stand by my assessment of the situation as outlined above ....but I also fully accept any and all vocalized misgivings and frustrations. Tis a choice I made aware of the repercussions. Your insinuation that the Moo is "forgotten" is not correct though. I will still deliver the update as long as I or my family is healthy enough for me to do so and it will still be free. The timing has been altered, but not the responsibility. I have taken lessons away from my experiences though and will endeavor to provide better service and expectations to customers in the future. Tom

Thanks E. I know my choice will upset a few in the short term, but the long term implications I think will mean better products more consistently. I think that if I asked for a show of hands for a PMDG level 737 or an updated Moo.....the Moo would get the boot! Fortunately, the 737 will allow me to improve that MU2 properly in the future. Imagine a PMDG level Moo...that's what I got in my head! TK

Me too Hal. Me too! But things happen that we can't fully foresee and it simply is what it is. I wish it were otherwise. As I've said in the past, the only thing I can do is make good when I have the opportunity. X-Plane add-on development is pure adolescent compared to the FSX and therefore in a state of change. As x-plane addon develop goes from hobby to business for folks like myself, I think there will be some "jockying for position"...."repositioning of strategies" and in the process some things will get shuffled and reprioritized......similar to MS Flight. One day it's there...the next day it isn't. The add-on developer scene in XP is still in a state of flux and does not have the maturity of the FSX developer scene yet where folks know what they do and what works for them. I think in the future as a "xp addon company" can count on the market to sustain its work financiall, you will see less and less fickle behavior....but to recap, the patience and civility of users here has been really something. I thank them all for their gracious disposition. Best, Tom

do I look like a Captain to you? Captain! I just work here.

The lighting is borked in my beta 6 otherwise I'd have done a better shot When it gets fixed, we'll post another....I still think it can look a little better.

It was the sugar.

DOH! You can see how much I use that feature for non-repeating draped polygons! Thanks Chris. I used draped objects for this kind of stuff.

When a curve is in a facade, it is indeed a bit buggy. It has worked "off and on" in the past, but seems that any time a curve is introducted in a bezier facade, it causes an issue. I believe it's on the bug list though! Tom Kyler Laminar / IXEG www.ixeg.net

Ryan. good contribution. A few things though. You have 18 variations but there are over 350 possible combinations in total if you add in L, R and C combinations. You're 18 POL files account for being on "one end" of a runway only...for example, you have 18 - 36, which works great if you're at runway 18, but If you're at the other end though, RWY 36, you would have a sign that reads 36-18 with the '36' being first. Also, with POL files, you don't get the preview in WED when you place these...,hence my suggested to go with a draped object. Tom Kyler Laminar Scenery Dev

somehow posted twice..

Best way is with a "draped polygon object". These would be version 10 only though as draped polygons are not supported in V9.....there's just a hair over 350 possible combinations so it's a lot of objects. A draped polygon object is simply an OBJ but with special directives in the OBJ file. If you look in xplane > resources > default scenery > airport scenery > common elements > parking items > asphalt cracks....you will see the components that make a draped polygon object. The minimum required commands are: TEXTURE_DRAPED path_to / draped_texture ....and further down in the file ATTR_lod ATTR_draped You can use two textures within a single object as long as one of them is TEXTURE_DRAPED.....but I do not think any export scripts you guys have available support two texture exports. For "draped only" polygons....that is an OBJ where every polygon in the object are draped polygons.... this isn't an issue and would work fine. You just make one polygon, texture it with the runway markings, export it, then go in and change "TEXTURE" to "TEXTURE_DRAPED" and then add the "ATTR_LOD" and "ATTR_draped" commands manually as seen in the example file shown above. Tom Kyler