Greetings virtual pilots,

 

Welcome to the content creation/modding thread! When we announced DTG Flight School and DTG Flight Simulator one of the very first questions that we were asked was “Will there be an open, publicly released SDK?” Since that day you have not stopped asking us this question, so we completely understand that being able to create your own content is extremely important to the flight simulation community.

 

From professional developers producing the well-known add-ons that we all love, to the bedroom developers, there are loads of you who spend your free time creating liveries, missions, aircraft, airports/airfields and other freeware and payware. We recognise that flight simulation would not be what it is today without the hard work and dedication of content creators, and we fully intend to continue this tradition with Dovetail Games Flight Simulator.

 

We also recognise that technology has advanced substantially since the FSX SDK was released with FSX Deluxe back in 2006. Ten years ago the modding and user generated content (UGC) scene was a lot different from how things are today. Over recent years we have seen modding and UGC move into the mainstream across both PC and consoles. More and more titles are now arriving with comprehensive editors and tools, while services like Steam Workshop make it easier than ever for players to share their content.

 

We know the needs of livery creators are very different from the needs of sound pack creators; that the requirements of mission designers are not the same as airport creators. Over time, we fully intend to provide content creators with the tools that they need in DFS, however in order to do this to best of our ability, we have a few questions we need you to answer:

• Why do you want an SDK?


• What exactly do you currently use the FSX SDK for?


• What sort of content do you create with it?


• What does your workflow look like?


• Are there certain things about the current SDK that annoy you or that you wish were different?


• Would some sort of scripting tool or editor be more useful to you?


• What third party tools or software do you use with the SDK? Photoshop, Blender 

The more you can tell us, the more we can understand how to make the content creation process more enjoyable for you! 

 

- Martin 

AI and ATC access.  To me, the most frustrating thing about the FSX (and P3D) SDK is how closed this part of the product is.

 

i think the single most important thing in this respect would be the capacity to 'be asked' which runway should be used for an AI to depart or arrive on.  Even if nothing else changed, this would allow a huge improvement in managing AI traffic at busy airports.

 

I write my add-ons in C++.

Up to date modelling plugins for not only 3DS Max, but support for blender as well. That'll make sure bedroom modellers will have access to a powerful, but free 3D modelling package. No expensive subscriptions to 3DS Max required.

AI and ATC access.  To me, the most frustrating thing about the FSX (and P3D) SDK is how closed this part of the product is.

 

i think the single most important thing in this respect would be the capacity to 'be asked' which runway should be used for an AI to depart or arrive on.  Even if nothing else changed, this would allow a huge improvement in managing AI traffic at busy airports.

 

I write my add-ons in C++.

 

Hi Bryn, 

 

Thank you for getting back to us. What sort of add-ons do you make? 

 

When you talk about AI and ATC access is that for you own person use in the sim or is that part of your add-on creation process? Could you please give a practical example of when this has been an issue for you? Being able to understand what it was you were trying to achieve and the problems you faced would be really helpful. How in an ideal world would you like to see these barriers addressed? 

 

- Martin 

Up to date modelling plugins for not only 3DS Max, but support for blender as well. That'll make sure bedroom modellers will have access to a powerful, but free 3D modelling package. No expensive subscriptions to 3DS Max required.

 

Hi Jess, how goes things? 

 

When you say pluggins do you mean simply a import/export function or something deeper than that? Is it just Blender or are there other programs out there that you think there should be support for? 

 

- Martin 

Hey Martin,

 

Hopefully more than just importing and exporting. The current P3D sdk for example has support for 3DS Max from version 7 up to 2015. There are tools for amination in fs, along with cloud tools, attachment points, shader tools and Export LOD stuff. If that could feature for blender it would be fantastic.

 

As for other modelling programs. Support for Sketchup would bring an army of new modellers in as its so easy to use, and it's easy to expand with thousands of plugins to enhance the basic package.

 

AC3D would be great as well. Easy to use, cheap at just $90 iirc and X plane developers love it.

 

Then there's unity which is free to non enterprise users, and could like Sketchup encourage new creators into the system.

Hi Martin,

 

I'm hoping to get fully behind this new DTG release.

 

I would like to know the file structures, if not fully explained at least the data structures would be a great help.

 

Surfacing all SimConnect functions, not just to .NET would be handy.

 

Best regards

Steve

Surfacing all SimConnect functions, not just to .NET would be handy.

 

 

Hi Steve, thank you for getting in touch. Could you give a practical situation or an example to demonstrate how this could be helpful? 

 

It always helps to have some context. 

 

- Martin 

Some FSX A functions are only exposed to .NET languages, so I'm hoping that trend doesn't continue with the new sim.

 

If it's all via managed in future then so be it. But FSX originally made things simple in SimConnect with the C++ header, then Acceleration upgrade exposed a few items to managed only and hence made things a little more awkward.

+1 on all Jessica's comments about modeling tools. Basically look at what's in the FSX/P3D 3dsMax gamepack and that's the functionality needed.

 

I'd like to suggest taking a look at Fusion360 as well. It seems much easier to use than Blender and has a freeware license for hobbyists.

 

Besides ATC and AI, the Weather API's need to be massively improved to allow for a third party weather engines to do their jobs, instead of the uber-hackery that Active Sky has to perform in order to inject weather properly.

 

A good replacement for FS2002 ground polygons please, which allows for proper materials settings.

 

It would be great if tools like resample, shp2vec, bglcomp etc work as they do in the FSX/P3D sdk's so they can work with existing tools such as ADE and SbuilderX. Please also talk to the folks at fsdeveloper.com, people like Arno Gerretsen and Jon Masterson and see if they can get the tools they make to work with your SDK. That would be a tremendous jump-start. The same thing with payware tools like Instant Scenery.

 

Are you thinking about doing anything new in the area of gauges programming, or will we continue with XML code? What about flight dynamics, can I continue to use AirWrench or will you be changing the airfiles and aircraft.cfg formats?

 

To answer some of the OP questions:

 

- I use Photoshop, Gmax, would like to use Blender

- Other tools I use: For scenery Gmax, SbuilderX, ADE, ModelConverterX, Instant Scenery. I've dabbled in aircraft development and used Gmax, Airwrench, ModelConverterX

 

Since SbuilderX is no longer maintained, it would be interesting to see if terrain tools could be integrated with a free GIS tool such as QGIS.

One other thing: Lighting!! For example doing nice lighting at an airport is absolute misery. I'd like to see light objects where you can configure the color, brightness, cone and other properties and they actually cast light on the ground and on other 3d objects, and that fade out properly at a distance, and otherwise have correct physical properties.

 

For 3D modelers, using the attach tool to add and configure lights attached to an object would be fine I think.

 

 

Thank you for getting back to us. What sort of add-ons do you make? 
 
When you talk about AI and ATC access is that for you own person use in the sim or is that part of your add-on creation process? Could you please give a practical example of when this has been an issue for you? Being able to understand what it was you were trying to achieve and the problems you faced would be really helpful. How in an ideal world would you like to see these barriers addressed? 

 

I write my own add-ons (and some simple freeware as well, like approach code bgls, and a weather radar using the ASN API).

 

Here's an example of a problem I think could be overcome easily with some small additions to the SDK.  KSEA has 3 runways, but because most of the traffic areas from the eastern sector, and the terminals are on the east side of the airport, 34R/16L is used for almost all of the AI traffic.  To get around this, some AFD designers have used various complicated tricks, but it's still very sub-standard, and you end up with outrageous congestion on the single runway.  Centre runways are also never used.

 

If simConnect polled for whether I wanted to set the runway for each aircraft when it came time for DTG-FS to choosing their departure or arrival runway, I could assign a runway using my own algorithm.  Everything else could remain exactly the same (ATC, taxi algorithms, etc), and you'd get a pretty good improvement in traffic realism.  If you extended that to choosing the approach type, or runway intersection for departure, it would be even better.  To me, this does not seem like a complicated proposition.  The program is already doing it automatically (I've spent some time trying to nail down exactly where this happens, without much luck) - all I'd want is a check to see if I want make the choice for this aircraft, if null response continue with the stock choosing algorithm.

 

Opening up the ATIS for writing the runways in use would be also handy in this context.

 

Finally, allowing access to ATC commands might also be really handy.  Rather than taking over an AI and writing a waypoint for the AI to fly to (as the current simConnect allows), it would be great if we could just issue an ATC command to the aircraft.  If you expanded the number of ATC commands available, even better.

 

AI and ATC addons have been few and far between, mainly because the SDK tools have not really been there to do anything particularly impressive.  But I think there is considerable interest in these types of addons - many users love just setting up an airport with traffic and watching it.  So small modifications in the SDK in this area could make the program considerably more interesting and realistic for them.

AI access, especially in the context of ATC. Currently trying to build (yet again) a better ATC experience. And I understand why not much has "stuck" - you essentially have to scratch everything that's built in and do it all from the bottom up, using crude methods to do so.

 

* EDIT: Allow easier access to terrain elevation data: ATC (all of them, from approach control to enroute centers) have [this is simplified somewhat] a "minimum vector altitude" chart/display. FS seems to try to do something here but it's crude. Even adding the MSA values from the approach charts would be something. Still crude but saves me from having to do it. Having this data would save a ton of time. And it does't have to be exactly the same as they use in the real world. Again, MSA values from the charts would help - storing them so I can just read the values from the data files...

 

A scripting engine would be nice but not necessary. Nice, for simple stuff and perhaps testing during development, but too limiting performance-wise.

 

Ask your programmers what they would want.

 

I wouldn't bother making tools: if you expand, and document!, the SDK then those tools will be made by third parties. Which, I guess, is the point of it all.

 

Jeff

Hi Martin.

 

If you really want to see the scope of developers for FS9 and FSX (all of whom would be interested in Flight Simulator development) You need to visit fsdeveloper.com. Hundreds of developers of both freeware and commercial FS projects. It is the primary resource and community for FS9 and FSX developers. You should probably post there for insight into the community needs for Addon development.

 

Dick

At a minimum, we need all the tools and functionality of FSX SDK. If the familiar tools of resample, shp2vec and bglcomp are used, then scenery can easily be created (perhaps SBuilderX could be altered to accept any new variables used by those apps). More transparency to file structures would be appreciated. Then we could develop better tools. 

 

Blender has been mentioned as an alternative to 3dsMax as a means to create models, and that would be an excellent idea. Again, more info on file structures would allow toolmakers to develop Blender plugins if Dovetail cannot.

 

Concerning models, it would be great if we have conditional display used. This is absent from FSX scenery objects, but it's inclusion for all objects would be great for Flight Simulator. I understand this is not an SDK concern specifically, but a core principle of the display engine.

 

Dick

One other thing: Lighting!! For example doing nice lighting at an airport is absolute misery. I'd like to see light objects where you can configure the color, brightness, cone and other properties and they actually cast light on the ground and on other 3d objects, and that fade out properly at a distance, and otherwise have correct physical properties.

 

 

Absolutely!

Nothing ruins the look of any carefully designed airport more than aircraft and GSE sitting darkened in what is supposed to be a pool of light beneath a ramp light. The effects for lighting an aircraft were in FS9 and FSX, and were quite apparent when illuminated by lightning, but unsupported in Gmax.

 

As Rhumbaflappy mentioned, whether for freeware or commercial usage, any meaningful discussion of a well thought out SDK should be addressed at FSDeveloper.com which is where the majority of Flight Sim developers have cut their teeth for over a decade.

 

Regardless of the features and capabilities of any DFS SDK, the chances are high that most people who are using the SDK are going to learn how to install, configure, and use it at FSDeveloper.com.

 

Just sayin'.

Gman