Using Replay mode to record videos from different positions

[Marijn Hummelink 2]

We are looking for a solution where we can record a flight, and replay it from 24 different positions (6 cockpit windows and 18 passenger windows). All these videos will playback at the same time on 24 different LCDs to create a flight experience. Currently, we are facing the following two main issues with it:

1) The different flight videos that we record seem to have a slight difference in length, the simulation engine does not seem to run at the exact same speed every time. Later during playback, this will make the displays run out of sync.

2) During the playback of the recorded flight, Prepar3d generates different scenery (ground, objects, clouds, traffic, etc) every time the saved flight is played back. This results in images that are not consistent between 2 playbacks. You will see on
one displays a cloud which will not be visible on the next adjacent screen. How can we avoid this?

Thanks!

[Woozie 732]

Chaseplane will receive a significant beta update this week (if all goes well) that introduces a replay function. This should cater for all your issues as it allows to pause, rewind and playback your flight from different perspectives at any time without actually reloading the sim & saved scenario. 

However, it remains to be seen if Chaseplane can capture all the animations of complex 3rd party planes as this is something most flight recorders struggle with. 

Chaseplane is available at https://fsfxpackages.com/ and there's a dedicated forum here at Avsim https://www.avsim.com/forums/forum/775-fsfx-packages-chaseplane-support/

Here's a preview of the replay feature:

 

[Chock 17,769]

The obvious solution re the weather is to go for some static weather or clear skies, which should avoid different weather views on different views. It might of course be worth going for something other than the default P3D replay function too, which isn't known for being the best at showing a replay with perfect fidelity, notably the deployment of flaps and spoilers in some payware aeroplanes, for example, it never seems to record the positions of one of the spoilers on my iFly 737 NG.

With regard to the playback itself going out of sync, if you are using either Final Cut Pro X or Premiere Pro to edit things, it is possible to speed up or slow down each clip in those applications by minimal percentages, which is often a requirement even when one is syncing off the SMPTE timecode, which should theoretically mean it all stays in sync, but never does even when using expensive cameras lol.

[Marijn Hummelink 2]

Many thanks for your replies.

@WoozieI will definitely look into ChasePlane. We can use a 'simple' aircraft model, there's no need to use a complicated 3rd party plane, since we are looking outside the windows only and I don't mind the shape of the wing in great detail, as long as it's from a large aircraft it'll be fine :-) 

@ChockSo using P3D it is possible to define static weather including clouds, that will be exactly identical each time you make the flight? I agree with you regarding the stretching of time, this is something that can be done, but if it can be avoided it would be great.

Any more comments on ChasePlane? Do you all agree this should solve our issues and maybe someone even has experience with doing it? 

[Marijn Hummelink 2]

Regarding the Replay function of Chaseplane, I found this video: https://fsfxpackages.com/en/blog/2017/10/14/its-one-of-those-replay-moments/
If you watch it from 40:50 you hear more about it. It indeed seems to do what we need!

[Woozie 732]

You may want to wait a few more days as the replay feature of chaseplane isnt public beta yet. Once it has been released to the wild we will be able to provide proper feedback related to the requirements you have.

However, looking at the preview videos it appears that it will indeed offer immediate ingame playback which *should* eliminate the issue of different cloud formations and give you a consistent image across all camera views. As chaseplane is mainly a camera tool, it should be a perfect fit for your needs. You can easily set dozens of different views and conveniently switch views using custom hot keys. You can even add dynamic camera effects like engine rumble or turbulence shaking if you dont want to add this through post-fx tools. 

[Marijn Hummelink 2]

That would be great. However, from a field expert I just got this message:

Quote

All flight recorders record the plane position, orientation, plane
status, etc, but do not record the exact environmental conditions.
The simulators have a randomness in the rendering engines which
renders the environment slightly different in each playback.
This causes timing offers, but also graphics images offsets.

Example: When a screenshot is taken from the same playback at the same
time (frame) you will see that the environments (skies, water, etc.)
has been rendered slightly differently. This causes for strong visual
mismatch that can not be compensated with our software.

What is your opinion about this? Do you expect Prepar3d will indeed render everything again (because there's another view point, a new render is needed)?

We do have a serious problem if it's not possible what we want, since we already mounted the 24 displays and equiped each of them with a Raspberry Pi 3 video player.

[Woozie 732]

you might want add this custom setting to your prepar3d.cfg file and see if it helps. Not sure if this affects cloud rendering too

from https://www.prepar3d.com/SDKv4/prepar3d/getting_help/advanced_configuration.html

Quote

 

UseGlobalTerrainView=True

The default value is False.

Performance Tuning Tip:

By default, every camera has its own terrain view which requests texture and dem tiles near the camera to ensure that all cameras get a quality view of terrain. It is possible for cameras to share data and avoid the extra work required to manage multiple terrain views. For multi-view scenarios in which all views are near each other, it may be desirable to have views simply render the terrain tiles loaded by the default view. Setting this option to True will prevent all camera from creating a terrain view except for the default 3d view. This can help avoid texture flashing and terrain spikes that occur on some systems with multiple views and/or multiple video cards. This value can be overridden by the UseGlobalTerrainView entry in a given CameraDefinition allowing each camera to determine whether or not to create a terrain view. This setting will be engorged if Tessellation is not enabled.

 

It may also be worth to contact the developer @Keven Menard directly or through the chaseplane forums at Avsim. He should be able to share more insight about this particular problem in regards to chaseplane replay

[Keven Menard 658]

ChasePlane will allow you to replay parts of your flights very precisely. Currently we have a 1200 second limit on recordings to ensure there aren't issues with memory but we'll likely raise that limit in the sort future.

Contrary to the sim, we use the system time to handle playback of the recorded data so it should be consistent across all playbacks.

There are no options to save recorded flights right now but that will come at some point in the future.

[ErichB 3,638]

3 minutes ago, Keven Menard said:

ChasePlane will allow you to replay parts of your flights very precisely. Currently we have a 1200 second limit on recordings to ensure there aren't issues with memory but we'll likely raise that limit in the sort future.

Contrary to the sim, we use the system time to handle playback of the recorded data so it should be consistent across all playbacks.

There are no options to save recorded flights right now but that will come at some point in the future.

Hi Keven

So initially the only option will be to replay a maximum of 20 minutes of your current flight?  Great start and from the videos we've seen the playback looks great.  Looking forward to it and further development.

[Keven Menard 658]

Just now, ErichB said:

So initially the only option will be to replay a maximum of 20 minutes of your current flight?

Exactly. But I can provide a build without that limitation if needed.

[ErichB 3,638]

2 hours ago, Keven Menard said:

Exactly. But I can provide a build without that limitation if needed.

Would be great.

One further question.  I think i remember seeing this in the playback video, but will the FSFX effects actuate during a playback?   

 

Edit:  Answered