tkyler

Taking my screencasting software for a drive. First up, how to align points in WED.

No on the photometric data. X-Plane gets its light effects from a text file called "lights.txt" where light parameters are defined. It's not a file to be trifled with as one typo can bring x-plane down and it really wasn't designed to be tampered with by the layman...so it's definitely a "use at your own risk" thing. Anyhow, you can make light "presets" here and give them names, and the basic things you can control are light color, intensity, how far it "throws", width of beam and also the effect of the "halo"...that is it's angle range of visibility (as in the case of spotlights) and it's magnitude. So you don't really define x-plane light parameters by the same type of terminology/parameters one would be used to if you are a lighting guru in the business; however, if you understand the terminology and subsequently, the effect, then you can probably adjust the parameters of the x-plane lights to get the generally desired effect; however, the convenience from the photometric data just isn't there. It could probably be put in a script though by an intrepid soul whose name ISN'T Tom though. X-Plane provides generic, fully "parameterized" lights where, in blender, you can enter all the values and basically get any light you want. The downside is you have to enter all the parameters for the light (9 of em?) In such a case. A valid technique is to simply create a library of lights ready to go OR what I do sometimes, is my default blender template contains text blocks that have all the data in it so I can copy and paste the light data when I need to. -Tom Kyler

OK..I think perseverance has paid off. Special thanks to Sandy Barbour for getting me past a wall, as usual, his help is of immense value to the community. I think I've got all the bugs for this release squashed and I'm in comprehensive testing. Let's hope nothing crops up. After my testing, I'll send it off to some other testers while we prepare the distribution stuff and....fingers crossed....3-5 days is my current hope. There's a few scraggling "features" I still hope to put in after the release..mostly for convenience reasons..but at the least it'll still leave something to look forward to. -Tom

Well I think you'll really love the update Steven. I'm making steady progress on this one issue...probably stubbornness trying to make what I designed work instead of using a workaround...but either/or, I'm determined to get this done asap.

REPORT. Hey guys, I am definitely not staying idle on the MU2. In fact, I have been on it for days now simply trying to animate the throttle levers with hardware. Simple right? Well it SHOULD BE. and for all you code guys out there who might say, "have you tried this or have you tried that", then the answer is yes. You can try a lot of different things and troubleshooting over 24 hours of trying to achieve one task in about 15 lines of code. Consistency of operation of the throttle like the Moo is a pain. I am running into behavior I haven't seen before, like x-plane choking on a empty for loop inside a flight loop....."well it shouldn't"......well it does, etc. Anyhow, this is out of my inbox and on my desk and just as soon as I can get it all working, we'll put it out. Sorry guys....but I keep getting tackled at the goal line.

Looking very good Chris. I'm curious..how many orthophoto tiles are you using? The resolution looks pretty good. Is that the reason for the original 500MB file size?

Yes Larry. As is the C90 and phantom and F22. I have a few more things to do to these aircraft and will address them in a few days after I finish a family trip.

I have made grass "forest" files in the past but was quickly shot down by Ben S for performance reasons beyond my comprehension. He said that while it could be done, it becomes performance prohibitive quickly, which I have seen myself. Of course I was practically creating a high density cornfield so it was no surprise. Anyhow, the result of that conversation was that In the future, we would look into grass type files similar to for files that was more performance friendly.

Ok here's the "low-down", the hits just keep coming. I just got my new office space ready and a family illness on my wife's saide has me traveling for 5 days now on really short notice. Of course my family will always come first and the best I can do is let you guys know what's happening. I am trying to get to a point where I can just sit and work and not have to travel....and between family holiday stuff, the office transition and this new development.....1 week is turning into about 3 where I can't even find the time to sit down. I'm really sorry guys, I myself am ready to put this thing out. So another 2 weeks maybe....1 for travel and 1 to get the MU2 set up for distribution.

Me too Michael, but probably not. I am moving from one office to another all weekend and family matters with the holidays has just taken more time than I hoped. As soon as I am settled into my new office, I'll get right back on it and it shouldn't be much longer. We really are just putting finishing touches on as much as we can. -Tom

DOH....well without investigating, yes I think I know the issue is. Having just messed with the altimeter to get the night lighting in.....The needle is probably indeed "behind" the gauge face and needs to be brought to the front in planemaker. I'll get that fixed up for the next release.

Thank you for the suggestions. I do have many ideas on how to go about it and indeed there are multiple solutions that, in my opinion, are all good and valid; however, they all take development time that goes beyond my desire to release the MU2 by end of year. I am looking for a "simplified solution", if one exists, that lets me get the MU2 out with all animations in tact in the next week, but I am not too optimistic at this point. If it goes out without hardware animated throttle; however, then at least folks can enjoy the other 95% of the improvements and then I'll start considering solutions for making hardware integration more robust. A dedicated configuration dialog is not out of the question either....so we'll see.

hey guys. I think there is a bug with regards to actuating the manipualtors (as for the radios) when you are in a certain view mode. If you "glance left" or "glance right" I am finding that you can't work the manipulators...but if you are in "3D camera mode"...which is SHIFT-0, then you can work the manipulators...radios included. This is worthy of a bug report and I'll file it.

I do think the trim rates and/or settings have been altered from V9 to V10....but because I have only been working with the V1.5 update, I haven't really checked the current 1.1.1 version in V10. It would not surprise me if a few things were off. The V1.5 update trim seems to work fine in V10 though it seems to actuate slower. I will conduct more thorough tests after the update comes up for V9. On another note, I've been in some discussions with 2 individuals about the throttle animation issue and I am not very optimistic about achieving my goals given the more "legacy" nature of how I've modeled the throttles. Using the mouse and manips, they work perfect. Though I am still going to try and find a workaround to the problem before the release, I might end up releasing the simulation as is with no throttle animation for hardware users and then go to work on a new engine management model that will better achieve my goals. The challenge is getting the throttles to both work and animate by manipulator, keystroke and joystick while simulating propellor locks and the engine start sequence, which "somewhat" is independent of lever position. The "old" solution I have is no solution at all and based on Austin's default engine control....whereas the best solution is to write my own. Given how much time has elapsed since the last update, I would rather put it out there now as it's still quite enjoyable rather than wait some unknown amount of time while I write my own engine management. If it does go out without hardware throttle animation support, then I will begin working on a solution immediately. -Tom

That's cool Ola! Re: the props...I've already addressed that for V10. Working on the update daily...mostly trying to make the hardware integrate in a natural way for the throttle (not particularly easy as you'd think). Everything else is done...so it shouldn't be too long. TK

Hey FloB. Whenever an update is available to customers, a email newsletter will go out from x-aviation letting everybody know. The next update, 1.5, is pretty much ready to go sans documentation. I've worked on it the last 2 days sewing up the really major loose ends and though a few issues remain, they are really minor as to not be noticed by most. I will be working on the final details today and tomorrow and right after Christmas, we'll get it wrapped up and packaged and hopefully have it out before the New Year....and indeed as you may have seen, there is much better night lighting and crisper panel textures (and overhead) to be had. I expect a bit of tweaking once users get it and I can incorporate things...and any resulting changes and subsequent 'availability of updates' will result in notification emails to customers also. So as long as your x-aviation email is good to go, that is how we'll keep you informed. RE: x-scenery. I have no idea what's going on. Every now and then I get paranoid someone sabotaged the site. I have backups though so no biggie there; however, I can't seem to load the web page to log in to my internet management portal so that somewhat implies the provider is having some issues. I'll be looking into it soon after the MU2 is out though...I'm sorry for the annoyance. -Tom

currently, the terrain is "built up" of raw datapoints of elevation. These points are then connected to make triangles which make the terrain. The source of the datapoints can be in many forms, but as you mention, a "height map" or "digital elevation map" or DEM is readily available and fairly common. The terrain is not built "on the fly" from these sources but is pre-built and stored in the DSF files and this makes up the bulk of the data on xplane discs. The process of creating the DSF terrain files from image or other sources is what we call "cutting DSF tiles" and it takes a LONG time to do for the entire world....a few days maybe? You are correct that xplane loads and unloads grids as you fly...at any given time, there are six of these grids...also called 'tiles" loaded at one time and they load in front of the plane as it flies. In the future, we hope to incorporate image based dynamic terrain generation or dynamic 'tesselation as it's called. This means we can load up lower resolution terrain in the distance and then have it get more detailed as you get closer to it. The technology exists now, but getting it incorporated and performing well will take a while. As cool as the video below is.....still, the world is a pretty big place and harnessing and managing data to make it all look like that is no easy task. A small area like that...that is generic....sure, no problem. The whole world? that's something different altogether.

not really a xplane workstation as much as a developers I guess....coffee, books, trackball. I have a cheap joystick in the corner I just bought though.

unfortunately, that won't be an option since the throttles are controlled by plugin. I've tried a few techniques to let the user know where the throttle is and it's not really that bad with some visual feedback. regarding V10...no major issues that I can see yet so it's running OK.

Good news. I think I just finished the last functional programming for the update...meaning that everything works like I think it should pending testing by some beta testers and whatever they find. I am working on getting the hardware consistent with the animations....but because the MU2 is so customized, it's a bit of a challenge and I if I encounter some unforseen issues...then I think I might release it anyhow. So far, there is only one real problem and that is the throttles do not animate when hardware throttles are moved...this is what I'm currently working on. X-Plane's throttle and joystick datarefs are relatively generic and do not match the functionality of the MU2 power levers at all and a good portion of my headaches are trying to make it all work consistently. I will warn some though that I have had to choose between a lesser of two evils and I have chosen the path that is most accurate. The real MU2 has two detents in the power lever. These detents keep you from going into reverse when you pull the levers back...you have to lift "up" to go into reverse. Joystick hardware, of course, has no detents....so when you pull back your hardware throttle paddle on the MU2, you'll go into reverse. The conventional option was to go with the default setup of using the period key to go into reverse, but that is too generic and doesn't apply to many of the subtlties that the Mu2 has, like controlling prop pitch and prop locks with the power lever also. So what I am contemplating is some "lights" on the panel that will light up when you are at certain power lever positions. Because hardware users won't see the power lever onscreen as it's out of the camera view...they can watch for the lights and know where their throttle is. You can also watch the torque gauges and the beta indicator lights so that you have 3 inputs that, when used together, give you a good idea of when to stop pulling back on the throttle paddle. It's not ideal but we are sitting at a computer and if anybody knows me...the accuracy comes first and the convenience second. Nobody said the MU2 was easy! If I can get the hardware programmed today, then I'll start working on the documentation and organization and this thing should be out shortly after Christmas. fingers crossed. The video below shows the new mechanical flight director bars on the ADI (artificial horizon). Watch the ADI as I set various autopilot modes. -Tom http://www.youtube.c...#!v=9hqCUByZaoY

We know folks are disappointed and we don't expect them to be otherwise. We are disappointed we could not make it all perfect or get it in before the released. But we keep working. One thing I have noticed on the ridiculous AVSIM discussions is how users speak like what has come out is the final product and will never improve. "Laminar screwed up....they forgot feature X". But all of you know the difference. I could take 2 hours right now, place some buildings at KBFI, KDFW, KORD, etc.... upload them to the xplane server and you guys would have them at the next update...which I think might be this afternoon. So why don't I? Well because we have some features...optimization features... that we want to implement before we begin placing buildings on a "production level", but I have to wait for Ben and crew to debug other issues first. So it is simply a matter of a full inbox and many items have to wait for others. We will approach the point very soon where my instructions will be to start populating airports as fast as I can.....followed by, "make the default library more diverse and add new buildings and facades. So hope for around Feb/Mar 2012 for x-plane to start getting fun. This "engine start" has a few cylinders not fully fired up. -Tom

We had hoped to have more stuff populated but had to get the sim out the door. The general idea is to populate the big airports "in house" using basic facades and the default library. THEN try and autogen as many airports as is technically feasible....and finally, let users customize as they wish and resubmit for redistribution. Right now...the next step is for me to get a version of WED that allows me to specify the rendering level at which objects are drawn....and given the holiday...that will probably happen early january assuming some of the big rendering bugs can get squashed. Right now, the plethora of video cards and drivers is making for quite a challenge keeping everybody happy.

Ola. Only smaller airfields will get autogen buildings and this is slated for future work. We have done a few tests but making autogen work universally is the challenge. The only place you'll really see autogen airports is single strip type situations where we can infer where the taxiways are quickly. As far as larger airports go, that will be done through WED work and those populated manually by Laminar. What I am waiting on to do this is a specific build of WED and that specific build of WED is waiting on Ben to deal with other bugs and optimization. So xplane will get some of these airports populated in same fashion soon. As far as the ground autogen.....and this is speculation...the placement of buildings and houses is based on OSM data...and I'd bet that you probably have that there.....so if you're not seeing houses on the streets, even at max OBJ settings, then that would be cause for concern and certainly not a lack of effort or vision as we do want OSM streets populated.

Hey Michael, The Moo update is imminent. 2012 will probably see the caravan come out some time though I'm not sure when. The release of xp10 has altered my priorities a bit and caused me to shift my focus. The only thing I can say for sure is I'm freeing up even more time to work only on x-plane projects...so if things move faster for me, then I hope to begin stringing out more projects steadily, including the caravan. As far as simulation accuracy and complexity, all I can speak for is the Moo as I have actual time in one....and the 1.5 update really gets thorough. It includes every single step I experienced myself when flying cargo runs. so nothing is warmed over. You'll do exactly what I did in the real thing to fly from A to B. Now with good feedback from a C208 pilot, I see no reason we can't make the C208 equally as accurate though. If anything, I suspect the Caravan might end up being the more accurate only because I can pour more of what I've learned in past projects into it. I really wish I knew when I'll get to the C208. I am going full time into XP add-on work and I have jumped into some ambitious projects that I think x-plane needs first....well they are all needed but some moreso than others. With any luck, by June of 2012, I would very much like the freedom to pursue all these unfinished loose ends and get multiple products on the market in 2012. There's just so much to do! Tom

Tom, The MU2 doesn't have such an FMC. It's a rather simple aircraft, even the autopilot. I am not looking at doing a reality XP version yet. My last dealings with RXP raised some "caveats"with regards to user interaction in 3D and I simply left it alone. I might look into it after everything else is working to my satisfaction as I agree that X-Plane's lack of a decent GPS is bothersome to many. The KLN90B is indeed a great piece of work by Dennis, though I will not forgo Gizmo usage in favor of it. As much as I'd like to have such a GPS in the MU2, Gizmo, I believe is the stronger platform for the future. It may lack products because all competent users are using it for other things, but it is my belief that in the near future, we will see a lot more products like the KLN90B being done in Gizmo. I have other very intensive projects on my plate in addition to the MU2 and I really don't know at what point in time I will look to improve the GPS. X-Plane has so many need s right now and few to fill them that the "waiting game" is the only game in town for users. Such is the way it is going "out west" before everybody else I guess. But we are working constantly to improve whatever we can. One thing is for sure, x-plane has more and more every year.