A Challenge To The Fly! II Community

[Guest]

To those dedicated individuals who work so hard at making Fly! II the best simulator ever, please don't take offense, but...Is this the part where I rest my case? Fly! II, with its current user base, is economically non-viable. I never said that the product was dead. Only that in so far as future development of the Fly! II platform is economically driven, there is little to no impetus. Consequently, we must rely on a smaller group of non-paid individuals. This makes the introduction of new aircraft significant slower, particularly if the modeling group takes the time to introduce flight systems that are true to the aircraft being modeled.And let me point out that I was merely expressing my disappointment at the perceived state of affairs. And now that we have RealAir's official stance...So here's my challenge...The fine people at ROTW, the Fokker 50 Team, and the several dedicated others, will help keep this simulator going. I intend to help as I can with the introduction of a working log book feature as well as trying to get my head wrapped around airplane modeling. But as I am a relative newcomer and the documentation available to aircraft modelers is not exactly robust (with the notable exception, of course, of ROTW's Modeling Tutorial by Jean Sabatier), I don't expect that my own contributions will make any impact on the "critical mass".What I perceive as the real problem is that support for the simulator is dwindling to near-nothingness. Richard Harvey simply doesn't have the time to dedicate to a product that gives TRI no economic return. PMDG and RealAir have similar problems. The TRI patch PMDG said they needed to fix various quirks in the 757 and would be here any day now is now no nearer than September and when September gets here? How long do you think it will be?I am a programmer by trade. I enjoy it. It's fun. And combining programming with flight simulation as a hobby seems perfectly natural. On the other hand, how would I, someone with no graphic arts experience, proceed to model an aircraft, panels, flight model, sounds, and so on? Is there anyone out there who could teach me? Or even just direct me to a tutorial that covers all phases of development from start to finish? Moreover, I have no intention of spending $3500 for 3D Studio Max, nor am I willing to pay $500 for PhotoShop. I have however purchased, trueSpace 4.3 and PaintShopPro Anniversary Edition, since they seemed to have comparable features and cost me less that $200 combined. So where do I start? The several anchored posts in this and the developer's forums have nothing to do with aircraft development. Did I miss something? Here's an even simpler task. In another post, someone made a plea for others to do some repaints. Okay. I'd love to. How?Let's set up a concise resource for would be developers that would make this less intimidating to the neophyte and would encourage what willing people we do have to work on Fly! II projects. Moreover, let's try to gear it towards people who don't want to spend $4000 on software. That sort of nonsense is entirely unreasonable.I want to keep the Fly! II torch if not burning brigtly at least sputtering heartily, but we need to get our collective selves together to do so.All of this is of course my humble opinion...Cheers, TonyP.S.: I'll not accept righteous indignation as a reasonable response to my challenge so don't even think about it. Please carefully consider what I'm saying and see if there is anything, you, personally, can do to help stabilize if not build momentum for our beloved simulator. I'd be happy to do editing work on tutorials and work to assemble a comprehensive developer's guide, but I simply can't do it alone. I need help!P.P.S: Probably in more ways than one...

[Guest Henri W]

Tony,I also want to keep the Fly! II torch burning. In many aspects which are very important to me it is unsurpassed by any other simulator around. I just spent two days again trying the work with the major sim around, and although I think that product has some great features, it lacks in areas essential to me. (No sim wars here, please!) I think I will be using both Fly! II and the other sim side by side, but I know for sure that I will spend most time on Fly! II. I fully understand the econmomic argument. It is too bad that such a great product as Fly! II suffers from the fact that its great features are unknown to the general public. Well, that's marketing I guess.Anyway, let's continue developing great stuff for Fly! II.Best regards,Henri

[Guest tonyc]

I think many of us FLY users are hoping that one of these days Richard Harvey would decide to show a bit more of a presence in these forums. We know he's around these forums. tony

[LAdamson 240]

> It is too bad >that such a great product as Fly! II suffers from the fact >that its great features are unknown to the general public. >Well, that's marketing I guess. >I'm still at a loss regarding these "great features". IMO, FLYII generally went backwards from the original & FLY2K. Graphic resolution is basically stuck at 1024*768 without adding additional problems. Low resolution isn't truely appealing on my 22" monitor when I'm running 1600*1200 with the other sim. I've never been "overjoyed" with the newer flight models either. They went "downhill" from the FLY2K V88's. Does anyone here see a great improvement? Because if it's so, then I missed it... And let's face it, the requirements to get this sim running properly has to be an exercise of patience & love of a product! Just look at the FAQ's regarding patch after patch with everything in between! Add patch,.... change,delete, change! And when that doesn't work.... start over! :-( I'm still getting "jerk" motion fps on my Athlon 1900XP when encountering certain airport or scenery areas. It just switches from fluid fps to around the "dreaded 4". NO----------------- I don't think it's a matter of the general public not knowing these great features. It's more a matter of the general public already knowing what FLYII suffers from! :-( L.Adamson

[Guest]

Hi TonyI share the point of view about the economical aspect. But some of us are dedicated to freeware and we will continue this way for several reasons. What can we do to improve the SIM. OK, the most difficult part is the documentation for any given aircraft. Some weeks ago, I did post a request for permission to have a copy of some B747 sound, in reply to a related post. I did not get any answer. Not a big deal, but thing would improve if those having some data would kindly reply yes or no, when developper put requests in the forum. Now, for your help, the best for a starter, is to work in team with those having already experience in some area.I did work with many simmers (sometime several weeks) after they contact me by mail, mainly for modeling. So I put again my name in this area, and I always give answer (albeit sometime delayed due to business trip). Bart would respond too. For your DLL project, I know at least that Laurent Claudet at ROTW and Matthew Horridge would answer too.For painting, the professionals are Pete Steerling, Brandon Clark and they answer call for guidance too.There are more peoples willing to help and I have just named a few with which I have had contact. In fact, any creator is.So, set your mind on a project, contact us and things will roll :)RegardsJean

[Guest]

PSSorry, I mispelled Brenton Clark name. Hope he will forgive me.Jean

[Guest]

If I may just chime in here,I think a lot of Fly!2 developers moved on to MSFS2002 simply because there is no longer the support we used to get from TRI, meaning, if TRI gave up on the sim then its obvious the Fly!2 developers (not all) will also give up.Simple as that really, and who can blame them.I am still holding my breath for the new patch to be released, the water issue is my main concern. I would also like to have the ability to make animated models, how many times has this been requested ? - many times and never a straight answer.Forgive me if I sound a little off, I`m not, I am just shooting from the hip.ROTW are to be commended for their hard work, I don`t know how they contribute so many first class addons.Andy

[Guest Dean]

>I think a lot of Fly!2 developers moved on to MSFS2002 >simply because there is no longer the support we used to get >from TRI, meaning, if TRI gave up on the sim then its >obvious the Fly!2 developers (not all) will also give up. Since the support from the MSFS development team is nonexistant I don't think that is the reason. It is pure market share. Whether your a freeware developer or a comercial developer there is just a whole lot more consumers over in the MSFS camp. Most all of the developers have chimed in periodically that they prefer working with Fly II but to what purpose if your product is going to get 50 times more downloads with MSFS?

[Guest]

I disagree,MSFS has been around for a lot longer than Fly!, Fly! (the original) had ongoing support from the Tri team - and look at the results.Take Jak. F from HITW, I would love to see a new Fly!2 Sky! from him, but he won`t (as I understand it) relaase anything because of Fly!2`s shortcomings which only Tri can fix.Look at PMDG, still waiting for a patch to enhance the 757 and fix the nightlighting. Some scenery designers can`t continue with scenery projects because of the water under runway problem, again - we need Tri`s support.It goes on and on.Andy

[Guest]

There was also a post a while back, about using the Fly! community to build "routes" to fly around in.Some people would tackle hi-res scenery, others would build the TM scenery, etc., for a given route say, New York to Chicago.That seemed a very good idea to me, but not much has been posted on the idea since. Perhaps the author could start building a list of volunteers?Just a thought; I love Fly2, but even more, I love this community of people who seem to accomplish the impossible.

[Guest]

A few thoughts:Once the Mac patch is complete, there may be an increased showing by the Mac Users for third party add-ons. I am going to start creating some airports because fortunately I have Photoshop and a high end modelling software program. What I don't have a lot of is time which is why I appreciate the vast amount work done by ROTW, the Aussies, PMDG eventhough there's the Mac problem, Grant, Pete, Scott (NY Area), the guys modelling all of northern Europe and of course Rich when he has the time. After posting my intentions, Dan Martin from the Ontario Fly! group said that he would help with any file translations and Biber Salsa send a whack of helpful info. I have zero programming knowledge so I agree if there were some simple documentation for converting files for MAC users then there might be an increase in third party add-ons.I think TIME and the number of FLY! users is what limits the number of add-ons. If there was a Fly! Scenery Library Site that you could add and download 3d scenery models it may be a whole lot easier for everyone to generate their own local airports. It could be similar to the available scenery generator in FLY! II - you'd just have more to choose from (it could also include other city scapes, carriers & ships, heli-ports or even famous landmarks for sight-seeing) - for example look at this site.http://www.GreatBuildings.com/types/models...ial_models.htmlPersonally, I don't have the time to fly the thousands of aircraft that seem to exist for MS2002 or download the vast # of airports produced.I like the time frame between each new release of aircraft and scenery - it gives you the chance to try them-out except maybe for Pete Sterling's re-paints which he seems to be able to do in his sleep!!Peter Oulton

[Guest Dean]

>I'm still at a loss regarding these "great features". IMO, >FLYII generally went backwards from the original & FLY2K. >Graphic resolution is basically stuck at 1024*768 without >adding additional problems. Low resolution isn't truely >appealing on my 22" monitor when I'm running 1600*1200 with >the other sim. I've never been "overjoyed" with the newer >flight models either. They went "downhill" from the FLY2K >V88's. Does anyone here see a great improvement? I'm still getting "jerk" >motion fps on my Athlon 1900XP when encountering certain >airport or scenery areas. It just switches from fluid fps to >around the "dreaded 4". I'm not sure there is a sigificant change one direction or the other as it relates to the feature set of Fly versus Fly II. I don't think the flight models have changed much from the V88, at least on the Navajo which is what I fly the most and the 1024x768 resolution issue pertains to both. The biggest change in fly II, at least for me, was in the generic hi-res textures and how they could be incorporated into TS2. Other than the extensive 3D modeling appeal of MSFS, the 2D textures do not come near what is available in Fly II with TS2. I do think you hit on a key point with MSFS and that is you have the hardware to crank it up and enjoy the eye candy to it's fullest. I have a middle of the road Athlon 800 and I never could crank all the settings up high enough to appreciate FS2002 to it's fullest. Since my daughter is getting ready to go to college and will need a computer, I see an opportunity for me to upgrade my hardware so I'll probably try "the other sim" again. ;) The sudden drop to 4 fps is being caused by a high res A/C being loaded as an AI A/C and taking up the one 1024 texture slot available. Disabling AI traffic eliminates this. Hopefully, if there is another patch, this may get fixed. BTW Larry you left the H out of IMHO. Hmmm....... :)

[Guest Dean]

>I disagree, >>MSFS has been around for a lot longer than Fly!, Fly! (the >original) had ongoing support from the Tri team - and look >at the results. >Take Jak. F from HITW, I would love to see a new Fly!2 Sky! >from him, but he won`t (as I understand it) relaase anything >because of Fly!2`s shortcomings which only Tri can fix. >>Look at PMDG, still waiting for a patch to enhance the 757 >and fix the nightlighting. >>Some scenery designers can`t continue with scenery projects >because of the water under runway problem, again - we need >Tri`s support. >>It goes on and on. >>Andy Andy,I understand your points and they are valid but my point was that MSFS offers no support to the 3rd party developers, period. So manufacturer support for the developer is not the reason they are switching to FS2002.

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day Tony,You've got it all wrong mate. There is still plenty of development work going on for Fly! II.Just because there is not a new aircraft every week doesn't mean nothings happening. Why all the doom and gloom??? I could list at least six aircraft in various stages of production.DC-3AerocommanderL-1011DC-10AirbusCessna CitationB737ATR-42 It takes a long time to produce a quality product.Just for info as far as I'm aware ONLY STUDIO 3D MAX can be used to produce aircraft for Fly!II If any budding developer knows different then I stand corrected.If you are a programmer then how about writing a plug in/converter to convert truespace files to a format that can be imported into the Fly! editor! Chris Wallace started to write one but it never came to fruition. If you contact him he may help you. As it stands if you don't have the expensive sotware then you can't make flying models.That's the main reason that there are so few people making aircraft. I think you may be able to make static models with truespace but not certain.Cheers,Roger @YSSY

[Guest]

Hi Tony,I'm still around, though demands on my time certainly have affected my participation. I still try to answer questions that would otherwise be unanswerable by anyone but me, but many of the questions posted are either well documented or easily handled by the community (i.e. at least 3 times a week someone reports the "vertex failed" error under DirectX, or asks which add-ons/patches they should install, etc.)I'm still working on another Fly! II patch, but all the work has to be done from my home on my own time. When you factor in my work schedule, family commitments, and health maintenance, even making small changes take large amounts of time. I've committed to the Mac guys to get them up to patch 230, which is currently under development, as well as other core changes (such as the PMDG fixes they requested from me). I can't commit to a release date yet because I never know what tommorow will bring. Just when I think I'll have a few days to work on things uniterrupted, something will happen that will require my attention.Rich