I'm probably stirring a hornet's nest here but...Has anyone else noticed that Microsoft put out the Traffic SDK just after Traffic Tools came out? And now they just release the scenery SDK when Rhumbaflappy's terrain tutorial just came out?Lee.

Sounds interesting, so when we discover more nice things we get more SDK's, looks like a good deal to me :-lolArno

---

Member Netherlands 2000 Scenery Team[a href=http://home.wanadoo.nl/arno.gerretsen]http://home.wanadoo.nl/arno.gerretsen/banner.jpg[/a]

Well, then I've figured out a way to have full-motion animations of people, vehicles and animals on the ground -- and in a way that actually boosts your frame rates! And if Microsoft doesn't release their "secret animation SDK" then I'll make a tutorial on how to do it. I swear I will! Do you hear me, Microsoft?-Bill Womack

Bill,Your a card!:-lol BUT HE MEANS IT, MS!!another,Bill

Have you looked at the floating point opcodes SDK? I think that's their "secret animation SDK". :-eek God help us. :-hah Lee.

I hear you! :-lolChristian

I have another theory as to why MS waited so long to issue the FS2002 Scenery SDK, and even then did not give us an updated SDK for the existing BGL language :-hahMy guess is that they were/are reluctant to release advance information about the changes to be made to the BGL language in FS2004 ...It is now clear that most existing BGLs will not be supported. They have told us how to draw and render objects in future, but they still haven't told us which of the other commands will still be supported and which might be dropped. For example, will they drop POINT_VICALL and INSTANCE_CALL entirely in favour of the TRANSFORM system? In the FS2000 SDK they warned us which commands would not be supported in FS2002, but they haven't done the same properly for FS2002~FS2004.I would be interested to know where Chris Willis got his information about "no BGLs" in CFS3? I suspect that he might be reading something into the CFS3 Insider pages that isn't really there. It would certainly make sense to change the file extension to something else though, as very few older BGL files will work. I also wonder if the CFS3 engine is going to diverge further from FS200x anyway because of the references to optimisation for low flying and damage ...?----------However, if the earlier theory about the MS SDKs is correct, I suppose we'll have to come clean about all those other improvements we have been working on secretly for these past months :-wink2 CheersGerrish

Gerrish,>I would be interested to know where Chris Willis got his >information about "no BGLs" in CFS3? I suspect that he >might be reading something into the CFS3 Insider pages that >isn't really there. Straight from the new CFS3 home page. Just select "tools" and read. Looks like the new file format will be called XDP.Anyway, I don't fully understand all this fear about the loss of BGL. BGL already changed a lot between releases and it's now more a generic container for everything ( both old and new instructions and databases ), than a well defined language like it was before.At this point, it's better to change the name, rather than removing many commands and still calling it BGL, thus giving the impression of being backward compatibile, when it's not.regards,

Hi all.I think the reference to .XDP is an extended Damage Profile format that will determine status, weapons and effects of CFS3 planes.There is no mention of CFS3 forgoing the BGL header format, although they may do this in the future.And we all assume that CFS3 is a preview of FS2004 (?), but they are not tied to that idea.As to why M$ released the SDK? I think the project was scheduled to close at the end of August, and CFS3 to officially open at the start of September. Realistically, Microsoft's employee's are generally temp workers... that is, they have a contract, and when the contract expires, they are gone. I think the contracts were set to expire Aug. 31, with the close of the project. The SDKs were described as final. Project done. That's why the rush-job to release the SDK... to fulfill the terms of the contract.Reminds me of bright college kids cramming to complete their thesis before semester-end ( a little too much partying during the term ).And the person responsible for any screwups in the final SDK is the project manager, who is probably not a contract employee, and should have seen it coming. Dick

Sensible thought about the final SDKs, Dick. I know all about contractors ... there's one sleeps in my bed with his head on my pillow and my wife beside him. Greets me in the shaving mirror every morning too, even when I'm away from home :-)I believe that there is a small team of MS programmers (and a project manager) permanently assigned to FS (?) to maintain continuity, but your point about the contractors makes sense. Rushing the documentation out before the end of the contract sounds familiar too! In the days when I taught programming, I used to tell students that if they started cutting code before they had documented it, they were hackers! In class, if I found someone coding before there was a written design on his/her desk, I used to have a laugh putting a nameplate on top of their PC labelled just that - "HACKER!!!". But reality is always a different thing, eh? What I couldn't understand with the FS2000 SDK's was that they seemed to describe a prototype version of FS2000 with a number of different features to the release implementation, and yet they released the SDK's long after the product was out. (I could understand it really, I'm just being sarcastic :-lol ). The pressures of writing software for commercial profit ....But I see that we are going to get some SDKs for CFS3, and they have even given us an estimated publication date! Will wonders never cease?As regards the rest of the speculation about the future of FS2004, I think I have already expressed my opinion about that in other posts (I remember using the word "nonsense" in one of my more intemperate moments!). Anybody who can read the SDKs etc. has got a fairly good idea of where FS2004 is going. But I just wondered if Chris Willis knew something that I'm not party to - I have no inside knowledge AT ALL, I'm just your average part-time hobbyist!CheersGerrish