Im wondering why nearly all the aircraft developers do not include an actual co-pilot in their model. I have only ever found one aircraft that included a person occupying the co-pilot seat.. It is an Ants Aircraft - Eaglet trainer.

Why not include a couple of passengers in the back as well.

How many others think it would be better to have some cyber company.

In future sims might it even be possible to have an option to paste an image of the users face onto the 'model' in the cockpit, especially in multiplayer mode for both pilot and co-pilot.

All good questions.  I think it's likely the number of polygons for the 3d objects that might affect the performance of a particular plane.

 

I love the idea of pasting an image of users face onto a pilot model.  I know one can do it by manipulating the actual texture file associated with the pilots textures but I have never tried it.

I guess every bit counts  in the effort to keep frame rates up and the number of posts in this site show a lot of simmers have a high frame rate as priority no. 1.

Im not a developer so dont understand the complexities of aircraft development but Im wondering if its possible to have an option for a co-pilot / passengers to show up or not. Simmers with frame rate jitters can then opt not to have company.

In the multiplayer mode having a lookalike model of the person you are flying the aircraft with, in the seat next to you  would make the multiplayer mode a lot more realistic.

The Megestic Dash 8 has a co-pilot. The Eaglesoft Citation has a beautiful female passenger.

Flight 1 KA200 and their Cessna Mustang have co-pilots, Flysimware Learjet 35 and Mu-2 both have co-pilots, and a number of Carenado planes have co-pilots...

Thanks for the above listings which I shall check out.. I have recently only been getting Carenado but admittedly I wait for the sales which tend to be the older ones and I'm guessing its the newer ones that show a co-pilot

Captain Sim C-130 has a very nervous looking copilot looking out the side window at who knows what?

 

Randy

An actual animated model of a copilot in the vc with you seems to be a no no for devs these days. Some say it causes fps problems or is too distracting,,,rubbish..Bill Lyons had wonderful animated copilots and even and animated dog in his Goose package way back in the FS9 days. 

 

It can be done easily but devs do not consider it essential. I do consider it very essential to the immersion of being in a cockpit. In fact I think it is unrealistic to sit in an airliner cockpit with an empty seat on your right.

And then ? a copilot sitting there doing nothing !

Thats the biggest issue.. most developpers just let it raise the gear, and thats it. A bit help during an ILS approach would help, like calling out height, or when capture of deviating from it.

http://www.itsyourplane.com/

 

 

Let Michelle be your co-pilot!  Heck, she'll even fly and land it for you!

Developer voice here. I hate humans. I hate modeling them (polycount really skyrockets with the amount of details), I hate texturing them (ever tried to get a correct skin tone?), I hate posing them (try to do this without bones and skinned meshes) and if I have more than one of them, I hate that they're all individual (just look at the clones in some aircraft models' cabins) which requires even more of them in all kinds of variations (exclusively physical though).

I hate that I have no effectve means of making them do stuff (each "please flick switch xy" animation would require a separate set of arms!), interactive (no way of making them handle default ATC on their own) or at least helpful (callouts without lip movement, yeah, right).

So without any use and purpose, models of virtual flight companions are only invitations for complaints ("Blocks FO seat!" "Looks ridiculous!" "Reminds me of my ex!" "Creeps me out!") instead of any experience enrichment whatsoever.

 

If an empty external model cockpit wasn't actually worse than dealing with poly-meatbags, I'd leave them out altogether.

 

Rant over.

 

If you want co-pilots that are actually of use and have mildly more personality than bunch of polys, textures and animations, consider a change of simulation* or go outside and fly for real.

 

 

 

* http://www.gog.com/game/b_17_flying_fortress_the_mighty_8th

The last sim I can remember that really did co-pilots right was Razorworks' Commance-Hokum. That was a long time ago (think around 2002?) and I recall the co-pilot being pretty convincing--moved around and didn't look too uncanny.

 

Maybe not impossible to do it right?

 

James

So without any use and purpose, models of virtual flight companions are only invitations for complaints ("Blocks FO seat!" "Looks ridiculous!" "Reminds me of my ex!" "Creeps me out!") instead of any experience enrichment whatsoever.

 

If an empty external model cockpit wasn't actually worse than dealing with poly-meatbags, I'd leave them out altogether.

From a fellow developer: +1 on all you wrote.

 

Additionally, trying to fully animate even a fraction of the actions of a busy copilot would inevitably exhaust the number of possible animations allowed...

 

...to the point where things that actually matter, such as important switches and controls would cease working entirely!

 

Several years ago I placed a very lovely young lady in the right seat of a DA-42 who sat quietly with hands folded, wearing some really expensive Paris fashions, and a magnificent diamond ring (which cost more than a real DA-42 I might add).

 

To date no one has even noticed or mentioned her...

Interesting thing is that Bill Lyons did all that in FS9, moving, animated copilot and passenger and still lots off switches and things. Bill was a genius and and an innovator and was not put off by "you can't do that in FSX" talk. 

 

If you have never used or flown the Goose in his Tales of the Gold Monkey adventures than you won't understand where I am coming from. I can still see copilot Corky giving me that look when things went wrong as well as the dog in the back covering his eyes with his paws when I flew a bit reckless. 

You can do everything in FSX, but the question is whether it's worth the effort or not. And with humans, the pendulum swings to the "not worth it" side of things really quickly, especially if you have to spend most of your project time on basically satisfying the "Visual quality über alles!" and "Heil systems simulations!" crowd.