Doing it yourself: Making your own sim

[HiFlyer 9,332]

So much talent and skill out there. So much passion, that occasionally, somebody who doesn't see what they want on the market simply throws their hands up and decides to make it themselves. How many projects like that? Flightgear, of course, but how many others?

 

Here are two you may (or may not) have heard of. Are there more?

 

http://www.ysflight.com/

 

http://seveng-f18.com/about.php

[HiFlyer 9,332]

And of course Vehicle Simulator, which has to be the most insanely ambitious one-person (with lots of modder help!) project ever made. Just imagine programming all this!

 

I think of this whenever somebody suggests that Outerra's goals for cars boats planes and more are too ambitious.

 

http://www.hangsim.com/vsf/

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=23&v=RfMtFdaX5_c

 

Vehicle Simulator is a unique simulator, combining land, underwater, sea surface, air and low orbit environments into one, the program makes it possible to drive, fly, sail, dive, and go into space in one convincing simulation environment. The program excels especially as a flight simulator and as a naval simulator combining the powers of two previous simulators Micro Flight and Virtual Sailor into one, however the game engine was completely re written and has far greater capability and capacity than any of the previous ones it was made of. 

 

Vehicle Simulator has some unique and innovative features that stand out compared to other programs of its kind, here are some of them: 

• Ability to see air flow visualization, allowing you to learn how to soar cleverly using the rising currents of air caused by wind, thermals cloud suction.
• Ability to design your landscape easily inside the program itself, in 3D, editing everything including the ground and vegetation upon it.
• Ability to design your vehicle out of components, and elements, position and adjust each of them, giving your vehicle unlimited functionality.
• Built-in simulation of Hang Gliders, Para gliders, Hot air balloons, dirigibles, planes, gliders, rocket planes, boats, cars, micro lights, and more.
• Ability to import scenery directly out of SRTM data and using it on the fly without the need for any additional work.
• Simulating animals of all kinds, on land air and water, and allowing creation of new ones and programming their behavior.
• Simulating weapons of all kinds allowing you to practice weapon operation for the fun of it.
• Advanced recording and playback of flights, and addition of pre recorded vehicles into an exiting one.

The program uses fully documented file formats, and invites a hands on experiences, noting is locked away from the user, allowing third party add-ons to be easily made.

Vehicle Simulator was created by Ilan Papini first version released in March 2009. Vehicle Simulator is based upon Micro Flight and Virtual Sailor, and combines them into one powerful program containing :

• Excellent graphics from ground level and up.
• Excellent naval environment above and below water.
• Excellent atmospheric model from ground up to space.
• Excellent vehicle simulation for land, naval and flying vehicles.
• Component based vehicle design making the program a great engineering tool.
• Scripting language capability allowing complicated scenarios to be simulated and edited.

Vehicle Simulator has a much denser scenery than these two programs, an excellent physical simulation, and a totally flexible vehicle design.

Vehicle Simulator includes a built in scenery and vehicle design, making it much simpler for users to create and share content than ever before.

The simple yet powerful vehicle design makes Vehicle Simulator an excellent learning tool and also a powerful preliminary design tool.

[jcomm 5,880]

Probably the most ambitious 1-person project is actually Aerowinx PSX :-)

 

Hardy did it with Ps1, and since August 2014 we have PsX.

 

Somehow X-Plane was also a one man show for many versions... It still is in as far as core FDM characteristics are concerned - I guess only Austin will know how to touch them...

[HiFlyer 9,332]

Well, Aerowinx kind of lists itself as a systems trainer (that can plug into actual simulators) so I'm not sure of its status....... Would it also be considered a sim?

 

As a general rule though, I'm thinking of non-commercial projects.

[jcomm 5,880]

Well, Aerowinx kind of lists itself as a systems trainer (that can plug into actual simulators) so I'm not sure of its status....... Would it also be considered a sim?

 

As a general rule though, I'm thinking of non-commercial projects.

 Ah!  Ok, non-commercial only ( but VS is commercial too ... ).

 

PSX is a full flightsim ( meaning, visuals included... ) but you have the option to use GE, FSX, P3D or XP for the external visuals.

[HiFlyer 9,332]

 Ah!  Ok, non-commercial only ( but VS is commercial too ... ).

 

PSX is a full flightsim ( meaning, visuals included... ) but you have the option to use GE, FSX, P3D or XP for the external visuals.

 

I stand corrected! 

 

I've only ever played with the demo: and I think buying it only adds additional features.

 

Still, in that case, I guess commercial is ok. At the Aerowinx asking price though, it's going to be on a completely different level!

[Flying Penguin 44]

Oh god, I'd forgotten about YSFlight.... 

 

Played that years and years ago, even at the time (~2004)  it brought back fond memories of early 90's sims (AV-8B Harrier Assault, A-10! Cuba etc).  I'm just amazed it's still being updated!

[avgaskoolaid 292]

And of course Vehicle Simulator, which has to be the most insanely ambitious one-person (with lots of modder help!) project ever made. Just imagine programming all this!

That looks amazing. I'm surprised at how excellent the environment looks when compared to YSFlight (and even FSX/P3D considering it was made by 1 person!). But if we're talking most ambitious one-person software projects, I HAVE to bring up Space Engine even though I made a topic for it a few days ago (http://en.spaceengine.org/). I discovered it last week and the more I use it the more it blows my mind. I actually haven't touched P3D since I came across it. 

 

But anyway I'm downloading Vehicle Sim right now- looks like a lot of fun. 

[HiFlyer 9,332]

That looks amazing. I'm surprised at how excellent the environment looks when compared to YSFlight (and even FSX/P3D considering it was made by 1 person!). But if we're talking most ambitious one-person software projects, I HAVE to bring up Space Engine even though I made a topic for it a few days ago (http://en.spaceengine.org/). I discovered it last week and the more I use it the more it blows my mind. I actually haven't touched P3D since I came across it. 

 

But anyway I'm downloading Vehicle Sim right now- looks like a lot of fun. 

 

Yep, I've seen space sim before and it looks very promising! Something similar as far as deep space and a single ambitious programmer, is Limit Theory.

 

http://www.ltheory.com/

[HiFlyer 9,332]

If you are a truly hardcore button presser that likes your simulation with a capitol "S" This program Rogue System is being made by a guy who taught himself programming just to make his dream game. He takes his inspiration from the realism of Flight Sims.

 

http://imagespaceinc.com/rogsys/

[HiFlyer 9,332]

Orbiter is a freeware space flight simulator created by Martin Schweiger, Ph. D., of the Department of Medical Physics and Bioengineering at University College London. No list of Single person created sims would be complete without it. :smile:

 

Its interesting to me that in the world of single-handed creators, Space sims seem to predominate.

http://www.orbiter-forum.com/