Goran_M

I have seen some screenshots of the ERJ in the org forums and I noticed people complaining about the "marching ants" effect. The marching ants is almost definitely a mesh problem. ie. duplicate objects occupying the same space. Dan has said it is a texture issue but I don't know what kind of texture issue he is speaking of. The ERJ looks to have somewhere over the 200 000 polygon (triangle) mark. Duplicate objects would push that to a maximum of 400000 if ALL objects were duplicated. Add that to a bunch of 2048 ^2 (and no 1024 ^2 textures) texture maps and you're going to have fps issues. However, he has said he will be coming out with some kind of patch somewhere down the line so I guess people will have to wait a little bit. I don't mean to criticise Dan's work and that's not my intention. If it was a small handful of people with these problems, then it's a hardware problem. But there are at least 6 pages of fps complaints on the org forums so I suspect it's a problem with the add on.

I can safely say it's a matter of days now. Lots of testing going on. Tying up a few loose ends. There are a small handful of things we have to tidy up and align including night lighting, and 1 more tricky animation that needs to be done, but everything works as it should and I have done quite a few flights, including YHOX-YSCB (Hoxton Park to Canberra) which was my 2nd ever solo flight.

AFAIK, ordering from x-plane.com using express shipping provides tracking. In any case, you're in good hands with either method.

You forget the extra screens on the panel. ;D

We'll get the most popular repaints out first, but we don't really want to delay any kind of release due to us making particular (special request) repaints. We will, however, make these repaints available after the 742 is released. In saying this, if we have time to do special request repaints while I still work on systems and animations, then I'll try to get Theo to do them before the actual release. Goran

quite unusual problems you are having. Can you clarify whether you are seeing just empty spaces or do you actually have broken link images? If they show a broken link, what happens when you try to right click the icon and go directly to imageshack to view them? Quite a few of us on the forums are using Mac's and not having these issues. Goran

Don't even ask. After the Boeing projects are done, I'm sleeping for a month.

I have been given the all clear to finally announce this. A few months ago, I was in talks with Nick from XPFW about a possible collaboration. As many of you may or may not know, XPFW were making a 747-400. The project has turned into a rather major workload and it is unreasonable to finish it to a high standard and to make it freely downloadable. So, we have all decided to make a package Boeing release. We have actually been working on this for a while and the 747-200/747-400 can be purchased as a package or individually. It is a rather large undertaking and there are at least 5 of us working on this project. For this reason, I have decided (my other bit of news) to finish the Saab once the Sundowner is finished, then move straight to the 747-200 while ocassionally working on the Hawker 4000. I think the mid sized jet market is getting a little full for now. So, for any questions, comments, etc...please feel free to post them. Both projects are quite far along at the present time and we are hoping to have at least the 742 released before the end of the year. The 747-400, sometime early in the new year. And some screens...

How's this for lateral thinking? http://forums.x-pilot.com/index.php?topic=794.0

Use a bit of lateral thinking. When I do eventually mention what I have in mind, you're going to say..."aahhh, so THAT'S what you meant!"

I really want to post my plans about this project, but I can't just yet. The project is still moving forward, but I can't elaborate on it just yet. I can say it will be finished sooner than expected and will have something extra "attached" to it.

sorry Theo, I shouldn't 'crack' jokes ;D : LOL Simon!! You "crack" me up!. But seriously, if you keep trying to make jokes, I'm going to feel absolutely "shattered"!

Radio stack is now working. We had a few issues with it to begin with but now I can safely say it is fully functional. Theo and I have both agreed to leave the cracked glass. It's not in this screenshot but it will be in the final package. While I go over all the animations, Theo will finish up the night lighting and manipulators. Then finish up the manual, test it, and have it available in a matter of weeks. I just noticed I put the wrong screenshot up. DUH. We made the radio look better than the one I showed here. I'll put up a few more screens soon.

I'll see what I can do about cabin pics in the next couple of days. I'm flat out getting the flight model for the Sundowner working as close to perfect as possible and helping Theo with getting the bugs out. When I have some spare time, I'll load up the Saab and take a few screens.

Welcome to the x plane world. The Saab won't be too much longer. It pains me to say it is a few months overdue, but it will definitely be ready soon.

The first night I get more than 5 hours sleep and I wake up to this cracked glass stuff. WOW. (I got a great sleep though!) I'm now leaning towards leaving it in, to be honest. I can safely say it won't be distracting while flying because the radio stack is actually not visible when flying in 2D cockpit mode. Only when flying in VC mode can you pan around and see the radios. Although, in saying this, I'm going to have to adjust the viewpoint so we'll see what happens. If, by some chance it does become visible after adjusting the viewpoint, we'll fly it around and see if it is a distraction. If not, we'll almost definitely leave it in. Goran

Everything but the Hobbs is animated on the Sundowner at the present time. Every knob, switch and gauge. The Hobbs is proving a little tricky. We're adding clickspots and manipulators over the next 2 or 3 days. BTW, we will be adding glass to the gauges. That's actually last on our list.

Just to add to this. The 747 is at the point where I cannot do anymore to it for the time being. To save myself a whole lot of grief, it is always advisable to animate AFTER the UV mapping has been done. This is on top of the fact I need many textures that show indicators and limits on the gauges. I cannot animate a gauge or dial without these textured markings. Theo simply cannot UV map and texture as fast as I can model so it is not possible to do animations for the 747 until AFTER Theo UV maps it. And on top of that, programming cannot start on the 747 until AFTER it has been animated. Also, to put it in a bit of perspective, Javiers CRJ has now been in development for well over a year now. Tom Kylers MU 2 was in development for about 2 years. "Mick431"s cessna has now been in development for over a year. My projects: Hawker 4000 was started in May last year Saab in October 747 in November And I'm confident I can get most, if not all of those out before the end of this year. I hope what Cameron and myself have said has helped clear up how this process, for me at least, works.

Without putting too fine a point on it, The Saab animations will be finished by me after I finish the Sundowner, which will be very soon. I have finished the animations and Theo is about a quarter of the way through mapping click spots and manipulators. Once that is all done, and testing is done, it'll be ready for sale. The 3rd person who was working with me on the Saab has had other priorities come up and he cannot continue with the project. I cannot speak for Theo, but I, personally, have been working on the Sundowner every single day, all day, finishing up animations for the past 1-2 weeks. The Saab will take approximately the same amount of time as most of it is animated. I just have to go over it and fill in the blanks.

SSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for the comments, gentlemen. They are much appreciated. Wombatboy, I'll send you a PM soon.

Coming together rather quickly now. All gauges and controls are working nicely.

There's always a trade off somewhere. Where they add detail, some detail must be taken away from somewhere else to maintain good fps. ESPECIALLY for FS9 and FSX. Looking at those screenshots, I can see they textured the holes for the switches, fire handles and digital displays instead of modelling them (Holes actually use up quite a few polygons). The gauges... I try to find some kind of middle ground between performance and appearance. Keep in mind, those screenshots I put up are extreme closeups. No one will fly with their viewpoints THAT close and from that angle. Not bashing their work, by any means, (Although I have heard their planes don't work properly) but to each their own.

It depends on what gauges are being used in FSX. SOME of the gauges used in FSX (true 3D mesh) use enough polys to make it look like a nice rounded circle, and those are used sparingly, but MOST gauges are the equivalent of Planemaker default gauges. Flat textured surfaces with animated textures. And those can be made to look extremely high res. A texture doesn't use nearly enough resources as a 3D mesh so it gives the illusion of a high res gauge. You can see this in a 2D panel made entirely with Planemaker. Comparisons screenshots...

And some more screenshots. More videos coming soon. These are all "in sim" screenshots. Perhaps a little tweaking here and there will be done on the textures to adjust contrast/brightness/color saturation. But it looks like I'm finally going to release something!.