How does PMDG develpo their aircraft.

[Chock 17,769]

Can these programs especially the 3D modelling onw work well on you average GPU, average I mean what most of us have, gtx 560, 570, 580.

Most if not all of those programs will work on any computer that is fairly decent, although the standard and extended versions of CS5 Photoshop prefer a 64 bit operating system since the latest version of Creative Suite was developed with 64 bit OS in mind and Adobe did in fact remove some functionality from Photoshop in its 64 bit incarnation (mostly stuff to do with video import, i.e. if you try importing video frames to layers in order to edit a frame in isolation, the 64 bit version won't like it). Nevertheless, most CS5 applications will work with 32 bit operating systems, the notable exception being After Effects, which won't install on a 32 bit system, although there is a pseudo 32 bit version of PS CS5, but frankly it's better to have the CS4 and CS5 versions, as that is a more flexible solution. If you have a Macintosh, you need a fairly recent OS version to run CS5 well, i.e. Lion, Snow Leopard etc. Lightroom will run on pretty much anything, but as an alternative you could also use Camera Raw and Media Encoder if you have CS since both these come as either accessories to accompany CS design applications, or as a function of Adobe Bridge, thus you'd already have them if you had a CS5 application, which is actually a slightly smarter way to do it in some ways, since you can synchronise all your profiles via Adobe Bridge, which is in fact why Adobe's product range is a Creative 'Suite'. The big issue here though, is the ambient lighting in your room and the profile and calibration of your monitor, i.e. you need either specialist lighting, or a monitor hood, and you also need a calibration spider to ensure that your monitor is really genuinely displaying sRGB-RGB IEC 6 1966-2.1 properly, if you are intending to distribute something worldwide and want to ensure it looks correct, for example the colours on the PFDs in the NG's VC, since you'll probably be taking shots with a digital camera for research, and that camera is extremely likely to be using a built-in Adobe RGB 1998 profile, which you'll have to convert to sRGB-RGB IEC 6 1966-2.1, and if you can't do that accurately because your monitor colours are off and can't accurately colour-correct it in Photoshop, then it will look incorrect on the finished article (this is the kind of thing PMDG will be talking about when they mention all the stuff that has to go on in the background to get things really accurate when developing stuff, and also why occasionally people might think a PFD colour looks 'wrong' on their PC, when in fact it is their monitor calibration that is off profile). Where 3D applications are concerned 3DS Max will in fact work on a really rather basic PC, but the problem is not will it run, but will it then render out what you have created, and for that you often need a really good PC, or even a series of PCs linked together as a 'render farm', although that kind of rendering is not typically what you would need to do for an FS aeroplane part, since it would in fact be misleading to show a render of such a part when ultimately it will be the FS engine and your graphics which is doing that on the fly with the finished product, but it is still a fairly decent way to get an idea of what a work in progress 3D part is going to look like approximately. Thus you tend to see such fancy rendering set ups in high end video suites and at CGI companies, even though - ironically - such stuff is often rendered out at lower resolutions than most gamers have their PCs at, since it has to match traditional film resolutions when used in movies. Avid works better if you have a decent amount of fast RAM, but it will run on a low end computer, same is true for Izotope, but a dedicated high end sound card (i.e. not a typical gaming one) is really recommended, as is a dedicated set of studio monitor speakers. C+ is of course only code lines, so it will run on most computers without any problem, but a nice keyboard and a twin monitor set up with an extended desktop is a big help for that kind of thing, as indeed it is for most such work, and if you go to most professional video or sound production facilities, you will find they do in fact have specialist keyboards with colour-coded keys specific to the video and sound editing applications they run, and they will probably also have a dedicated video or audio transport box as well, since it is quicker to edit on one of those than it is to use the screen buttons. The real problem if you are interested in all this stuff, and 3D in particular, is the cost not so much of the hardware (although that is a consideration for ease of use), as the cost of the software, since 3Ds Max will set you back about three and a half thousand quid (approximately five and a half thousand Dollars). As you can imagine, with that kind of price tag there are few people other than professionals who can justify that kind of expense although there are quite obviously a lot of people out there running bent copies of it when you see people claiming they have it when they are fourteen years old or whatever. I do all this kind of stuff professionally for my job, and even I haven't got a copy of that at home LOL. Likewise with Creative Suite, which isn't cheap either, although I do have all that. Thus you'd probably want to look at a less prohibitive option for 3D most of the time, such as GMax (the chopped down freebie version of 3DS Max), FS Design Studio, or 3D Canvas/Crafter, and for image editing you might consider Paint.net, which is a freebie editor that is similar in capability to Photoshop and can handle DDS files. Where sound is concerned, you can probably get away with using Goldwave as a cheap option. Al

[Tabs 2,790]

Hello! Can you also tell us which program(s) are you using for the display units? Best regards, Christopher Schilly

Those are programmed from scratch using the Microsoft GDI+ API - it's part of Windows and DirectX. It's not a program that makes them, just part of the C++ code.

[christo95 0]

Those are programmed from scratch using the Microsoft GDI+ API - it's part of Windows and DirectX. It's not a program that makes them, just part of the C++ code.

Thank you!

[yos233 1]

I'd love to hear an approximate line count too. I'd say over 2 million easily

I do not know how many lines of code it is, so I cannot tell you, but I did solve how long the entire code for the NGX is when converted to Binary. Assuming ~350 MB for the install (I forgot, that is my estimate), and 1cm for each 1 or 0. The entire coding for the NGX is 17,000 miles. To make it sound even more amazing, that is very close to a light-second. Lets take it down an entire order of magnitude. If each character in the binary for the NGX were 1mm wide, you could go from Los Angeles to Chicago. One measly millimeter at a time.

[Vic1 3]

what comes first the 2d panel grapics or the VC? what i mean is is the VC geometery buillt around the 2d main panel bitmaps or is the VC made first and then the 2d bitmaps drawn to fit the geometaryso there is no streatching?. I can see that with the pmdg747 the same 2d panel bitmap is used in the VC. so i am interested to know what came first? and how this is done? i would also like to know how all the fonts are done so accurately as per real world boeing panels. is each letter draw by hand or is there a way of doing this simply by typing. I am curious because boeing panel fonts are not standard in photoshop so where do they come from. same goes for the guages and displays?? thanks vic

[Tabs 2,790]

The VC came first - the 2D panels are actually "photos" of the VC model, which itself was made out of photos of the real aircraft.We made custom fonts for everything that were matched perfectly to very high res photos of the real thing.

[Chock 17,769]

I thought the Boeing panels used one of the Futura family. Is that not the case? It looks a lot like it. Al

[Vic1 3]

thanks Ryan. im assuming when you say photos of the vc you mean a UVW template was made of all the panels and then the graphic artist either manipulated real photos or drew the panels on to the template in photoshop then re applied to the vc again etc etc vic

[UVW 0]

Those are programmed from scratch using the Microsoft GDI+ API - it's part of Windows and DirectX. It's not a program that makes them, just part of the C++ code.

i saw lockheed martin implemented directx support for gauges in prepar3d, is that something that would be impractical for u implement ? or even possible in fsx ?i would think it would buy u a lot of performance room.

[Ben Cap 89]

i saw lockheed martin implemented directx support for gauges in prepar3d, is that something that would be impractical for u implement ? or even possible in fsx ?i would think it would buy u a lot of performance room.

Wondering about this too.....

[jbassue 181]

I'd like to know who sponsored PMDG's real 737 EDIT : To work on of course.