New outside Graphics Engine for PSx?

[Pierre Theillere]

Hi folks!

Who knows if we'll get our "weekly fix" to prevent the usual withdrawal symdrom? Today's substitution substance is at http://www.outerra.com with (among many other things) a nice video featuring a C172.
Wouldn't it be the perfect visuals generator for PSx?

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Ha, they use the word "planet simulator" -- the perfect identifier.

[Will]

Nice.  It would be excellent if PSX could hook up with a good "planet simulator."  Seems much, much better to me than using the scenery engine from an existing sim.

[Hardy Heinlin]

Will it model runways and runway lighting?

[Will]

Their website says they're looking for someone to partner with, and they're calling for ideas on their forum.  People have posted suggestions such as flight sims, space sims, and multiplayer online combat games.  In the "gallery" there are screenshots of trucks that they've modeled.  My suspicion is that they'd happily model whatever their partner(s) require.  :-)

[ivan]

Don't forget FlightGear :-)

[cameni]

Hi guys,

I've come here after receiving email from Will Cronenwett about Aerowinx. I didn't know it before, and I have to say it's really impressive work.

Will suggested that we could talk about our possible cooperation. I too find it enticing, unfortunately our engine is not yet ready, at least not until we implement the runways that Hardy mentioned (these will come with completed vector data support). I suppose we can look into how we can interconnect the simulators then. If you find it interesting too.

Cheers,
Brano Kemen

[Hardy Heinlin]

Ahoi Brano,

it's very easy to communicate with PSX: via TCP/IP it sends out text lines containing, among many other things, aircraft coordinates, true altitude, heading, attitude, time, date etc. pp. You just pick the variables you need.

Regards,

|-|ardy

[cameni]

Ah, that's easy. Is there any possibility to give it a feedback? A 747 probably won't land outside the runways, but I'm just wondering if we'd be able to give it an information about the terrain. In case someone will try to land on a highway defined in Outerra, or something.

[Hardy Heinlin]

PSX consists of an earth model, a weather model and an aircraft model.

The PSX aircraft model reads data from the PSX earth model.

The aircraft model needs this data for its aerodynamics, its radio altimeters, its weather radar antenna tilt geometry and radar reflection intensity, its radio navigation etc.

The PSX weather model, too, reads data from the PSX earth model.

The PSX weather model needs this to compute cloud ceilings, surface temperatures, microbursts, mountain wave turbulence etc.

...

When an external scenery generator is connected to PSX, the internal elevation modulation can be switched off so that external elevation values may be injected into the PSX earth model.

The weather model and the aircraft model won't notice this, they will keep reading data from the PSX earth model (which is then being fed by external elevation values).


Regards,

|-|ardy

[Michel Vandaele]

Isn't the problem, a B744 is a long haul aircraft, which means a lot of airport can be reached ? Will it be possible to have them all in detail.   The strong thing about FS9(X) is that these airport can be added and are created by a lot of people and companies. Freeware or commercially.
Simmers who like to fly to Europe, to the America's , Australian,  Asia Africa etc, all can find addon's to make their sim look as real as it can.  Mega airports as FRA, LHR , LAX  are al worked out in detail, but also smaller fields as Hahn, Maastricht  or Boeing Field are also availalble in addon's with great detail.

Not an easy thing to start from scratch I think.

B. Rgds
Michel

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Replace "can" and "are" by "could" and "were"...

[Hardy Heinlin]

In light of "could" and "were", is there any chance that scenery designers will be able to automatically convert the vectors and bitmaps they created for the MSFS format to any other format -- just like HTML to PDF etc.? :-)


Regards,

|-|ardy

[Michel Vandaele]

hmmmm  
Good question.    The most recent onces for FSX are using XML I think.
See you
Michel

[cameni]

I'd have to look at the used formats, but I suppose the vector data can be imported relatively easily if there will be a proper type mapping; the raster overlays have to be processed and compressed to our LOD-friendly fromat but otherwise it could be a semi-autonomous process as well.

The object importer applies some rules on the models for performance reasons, so it may be grumbling about a model, not letting it in until the listed issues are fixed. But I think that's a good policy in the long term.

I guess in the end it depends if the process is worth to undergo for the designers. Or how loud will be the demands from the users  

[Pierre Theillere]

Hi Ivan and folks!

I just noticed that FlightGear v2.0 has been released: see http://flightgear.org/ it seems it has improved quite a lot as a visuals generator, according to the screenshots gallery. Light, cloud and haze effects could be great, when slaved to PSx!!!

[Richard McDonald Woods]

FlightGear 2 and Outerra look very impressive.

My problem with getting away from MSFS is that PMDG is slaved to it, as is British Airways Virtual airline.

I am hoping, therefore,  that PSX will enable me to continue with MSFS as the scenery generator, using a new version of Visual744, so that I can continue with BAV as is.

If this will not be possible, then PSX will be much less attractive to the current large population of PMDG744 pilots.

Cheers, Richard McDonald Woods

[Will]

@Richard: Out of curiosity, what does the PMDG<>MSFS connection have to do with PSX?  Can't they be separate? In other words, can't you use a PSX<>Outerra/Flightgear rig with BAV?  Or is BAV somehow dependent on MSFS?

[Hardy Heinlin]

Argh, the @-style has reached America :-)

I'll soon need a therapy against my @-allergy.

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

It is a safe assumption that 99% of all auxiliary software for flight simming, such as ACARS implementations, ATC links, aircraft tracers, and reporting tools, are totally confined to MSFS only. There simply was no other product with such a broad user base, all other sims were niches. BAV, for example, has a set of software they require pilots to use and that is strictly MSFS only.

This will inevitably change now MSFS has been discontinued, but it will take years and years before new products appear with the same feature set, and developers can switch platform. Until then, 99% of the sim world will simply remain faithful to MSFS only.

However, to answer Richard's question, it is pretty much assured that PSX will have a scenery link with MSFS exactly like VisualPS1, by the same author, using the same technology. PSX itself is and will remain scenery-agnostic, but it is designed to drive basically anything out there and interact appropriately (like feeing PSX with radio altimeter data from the scenery generator).

As currently the norm for PS1, slaving MSFS to PSX will allow all MSFS utilities to be fooled into thinking that MSFS flies. It doesn't. PS1/PSX flies, and MSFS is a camera pod stuck to the PS1/PSX aircraft. But it works like a charm.


Jeroen