Aircraft Development

  • Nah, you were right first time

    All praise Jan! 8)8),

    Without his help we would all be just scratching our heads and heading off to the pub, and I don't drink ;(

    No need to miss out - I'll have a pint for you!

  • The base is located at the base of the switch or lever, it is a location that you can point your mouse cursor at and use your mousewheel to manipulate the switch or lever. As you rotate the mouse wheel the switch position or lever position might change and the tip of the switch or lever now moved away. But the base stayed in place and you can just keep scrolling.

    It's like a safe zone where you can always hit a switch or lever easily even in turbulence or whilst you manipulate it. Unlike the non-base controls you cannot grab a base with your mouse or vr hands and pull it. It also makes it easier to hit a tiny switch with your mouse.

  • Hey guys,

    I'm currently trying to wrap my head further around the rigidbodygraphics and linking with the dynamics. I've been trying to get the control column to work independently from each other, but still be linked i.e the spade rotates from a fixed point on the control column. Here's what I have so far;

    So how would one go about linking these so that the Spade follows the Control Column rotation, but rotates on its own too?

    TLDR; layered elements w/ their own rotations?

    Cheers,

    Alex

    Edit: Got it, was easy peazy.

    Just add the 'parent' to the [Graphics] parameter like this;

  • Hi Alex,

    There are plenty of aircraft that use this animations like that. I have never linked two hingedbodies before, but aparently that works too....

    Usually we use a rigidbodygraphics for the column and then often another rigidbodygraphics for the yoke. Any rigidbodygraphics can have an input transform, which can be a chain of transformations, e.g. first rotate the switch on the yoke, then rotate the yoke with the aileron, then rotate all that around the column foot point with the elevator. And on top of that I added some yoke hides that either push the yoke down or "away". These transformations are called graphics_rotation and graphics_translation... The benefit is that you can chain these without an actual graphics pointer to another object, so they work independant of the order of the graphics section (which goes down each element one by one and if the linked graphics pointer is below the current one the older transformation from the frame before is used, which looks strange or it doesn't work at at all).... So ideally you just want to chain these graphics transformations instead of making one graphics object depend on the other.

    But of course it's a lot more practical just to use a hingedbodygraphics on top of a rigidbodygraphics, I have done that a lot. But I would not recommend putting one hingedbody ontop of another hingedbodygraphics.... for me these hingedbodies sole purpose are switches there you can use the InputID instead of the InputAngle and then scale the switch deflection with the AngleMax... Then it is very clean: switch in physics, switch in graphics, switch in dynamics and the rest (e.g. the system logic following that switch position) is completely out of the way of the movement of that switch.

  • Hey guys, just sharing some info Jan sent me in regards to Inputs

  • Hey guys, just sharing some info Jan sent me in regards to Inputs

    One day someone might make a little YouTube training course introducing these concepts from the top down with some visual references and I bet a lot more people would feel inspired to have a go at this. The way Rodeo did for scenery.

  • This morning's arrival was the ever impressive Antonov An-2, the largest single-engine airplane in the world. This Russian mass-produced utility/agricultural is huge in so many ways. The An-2 has remarkable lifting power and can takeoff from the poorest of runways. With a 60 foot wingspan and a takeoff weight of 7.275 pounds it can easily carry 12 passengers over 500 miles at 120 mph.

    That huge 4-prop 9-cylinder, 1,000 hp radial engine is the Shvetsov ASh-62. This is the Russian version developed under license from the famous Wright R-1820 Cyclone. This engine was standard fare on the DC-3 and B-17 Flying Fortress in WWII.

    At last count, the An-2 has been in continuous production someplace in the world for 45 years. 13,000 were built in Poland between 1961 and 2001. China continues to build the An-2 under license as the Shijiazhuang Y-5.

    I almost forgot to mention that the An-2 is a biplane with leading edge slats with a typical landing speed of a remarkable 30 mph. Over the years, the An-2 has been fitting with skis, floats, turboprops, agricultural sprayers, fire-fighting equipment and used as a water bomber, polar research vehicles, air ambulances, cargo/paratrooper, mail delivery, and high altitude weather reconnaissance. China uses their Y-5 turboprop version as a 5-seat VIP transport.

    The An-2 should be an outstanding addition to our Aerofly FS2 fleet. Wait 'til you see how much is packed into the cockpit - all for the single pilot.

    Regards,

    Ray

  • Yes, the An-2 would be a great addition to the FS 2 fleet!

    Maybe we can get the instrument panel gauges fine tuned in time to use the An-2 for a people hauler in the upcoming Lukla scenery package. There has been some concern expressed about the high altitude ops. This should work just fine. There is a bit of extra reflectivity along the inside of the metal framing of the canopy/windscreen/windows.

    I'm thinking the Wilga should also be a good STOL package for all those short and high Lukla airports.

    Regards,

    Ray

  • I'm thinking the Wilga should also be a good STOL package for all those short and high Lukla airports.

    Yes a "typical" landing speed of 30 mph for an aircraft that large and heavy is amazing -- those two wings must generate a lot of lift!

  • Great progress has been made on the Spit over the last few days/week. Here are a just a few of the changes;

    • A number of clickable controls have been added, such as mixture, throttle, RPM, Elevator trim, Spade, Flaps and most likely a few I've missed.
    • Flaps have been edited to reflect the real values
    • Materials have been changed to use the appropriate shaders
    • A few instruments have been added (RPM, Airspeed)
    • Edited some textures to work better with AFS2 (still need to do a lot of tweaking)

    Multiple changes to the FM have been done by the legend himself, Jet-Pack, including;

    • Airfoils & mass are now accurate
    • Corrected engine values
    • Added prop graphics including fading & blade pitch animation
    • Added/fixed preliminary gear physics
    • Tweaked trim

    Again, big thanks to Jan for all his help!


    So this is now working in FS 2? When is the release date? It looks great!

    No ETA at the moment. You will know as soon as I do :) Hopefully soon!

  • It'd be great if one of the IPACS guys a description for all of the shaders and what they are good for. Like, what is the difference between glass, window and canopy? When should one be used over the other? I just discovered the darken shader is transparent and makes things behind it darker. What's the difference between "standard" and "default"?

    In the mean time, do you have any idea larrylynx?

  • Hi Donny

    Sorry me old mucker but I can offer no help, only recently found out about some of the shaders myself. As we have interior and exterior I don't get standard and default unless they are there for the scenery guys. Perhaps canopy needs to be used to get internal reflections rather than glass as I never did get any with glass, just a guess here. Again, should we be using canopy rather than glass as that's for scenery and not aircraft

    And of course there are decals, I know how to use these for scenery but quite how they are used for aircraft remains a mystery, never really seen the need to use one but that may change with the Lynx when adding aircraft numbers as thats the only use I can see at the moment

    Reading the wiki

    exterior........... everything that is not in the cockpit/cabin, outer faces of windows and canopy

    interior ...........everything that is in the cockpit and cabin, inside of windows and canopy

    Even these can be taken different ways. Does exterior include windows and canopy polygons or is it saying, not these but that's the bounding area, Interior would seem to include windows and canopy or is it also saying that's where the bounding area is again

    Also, can we add more then one shader to a material. Guess the IPACS aircraft modeller should make an appearance and help out

    Steve