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PeterR

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Posts posted by PeterR

  1. Posted

    That's really weird that you can't fly. Here's what I did. 1. Download the package 2. Run fgsetup-0.9.3.exe and it'll install the files 3. Run FlightGear Launcher from the Start menu or fgrun.exe from the FlightGear-0.9.3binWin32 folder 4. Click the "..." button next to Executable and select FlightGear-0.9.3binWin32fgfs.exe 5. Click the "..." button next to FG_ROOT and select the FlightGear-0.9.3data folder 6. Click the Update button next to Airport to update the airport info in the launcher, then select the desired airport (to get more airports, you have to download the scenery for the desired area) 7. Click the Update button next to Aircraft to update the aircraft info in the launcher, then select the desired aircraft 8. Click the Control drop down list box to choose the desired controller 9. Adjust any other desired features (e.g. enhanced lighting and horizon effects in Features and 3D clouds in Rendering) 10. Click the Run button to launch the simAlso, make sure that you have OpenGL support for your video card. If your desktop spans more than one monitor, try switching back to a single monitor. I found that on my Radeon, games that use OpenGL don't like it when the desktop is on more than one screen.XMLAs for XML, even if you're not a codie, it's worth knowing because so many things use XML these days. Isn't too complicated, especially if you know some HTML. Here's a crash course.Things in XML are defined (marked up) by tags, just like in HTML. A tag consists of the tag name surrounded by less-than and greater-than characters: . Each item has a beginning and ending tag where the ending tag has a slash in it: . There's a special format for beginning tags that don't have an ending tag: . But, you can always use the format.For example, in FGFS, an aircraft's fuel level is defined with the level-gal_us tag. To define an aircraft with 20 gallons in the tank, you write it as:20Tags can be nested in order to build hierarchical structures of data. For example, that level definition applies to a tank; tank number zero, to be exact:20And that tank is a fuel object which is a consumable:20If you want two tanks, tank 0 and tank 1, just add another tank tag inside the fuel tag:2020And that's how things are defined using XML. Whether it's an FGFS aircraft definition, a Microsoft Office XML document, or a news web site's RSS data feed, it's all XML.Peter http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/PeterR.gifBFU Forums ModeratorRenegade/Seawolf Design Group (RSDG)

  7. Posted

    I haven't yet started on synchronising orbital planes and speeds. I'm currently focusing on the two ends: achieving a good orbit from a ground takeoff and moving the glider between docking ports on the ISS. Once those work fine, I'll be moving on to syncing.Have you tried the DeltaGlider II? It's still a beta version but has so many cool buttons and switches as well as several auto-pilot programs. It's all spread across three panels. Very cool! You can download it here:http://orbiter.dansteph.com/download/DeltagliderII_Setup.phpMake sure you have OrbiterSound 2.5 installed first. And, for best results, run Orbiter at 1152x864 or higher so you don't have to pan left/right to see all the stuff on the panels.Peter http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/PeterR.gifBFU Forums ModeratorRenegade/Seawolf Design Group (RSDG)[table border=2 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=1][tr][td][table border=0 cellpadding=8 cellspacing=0][tr][td bgcolor=#6f0000]http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/logo75t.gif[/td][td align="center" bgcolor=#FFFFF6]Bush Flying Unlimited"At home in the wild"Looking for adventure? Come join us! * [link:bfu.avsim.net|Web Site] * [link:www.cafepress.com/bfu,bfu2,bfu3,bfu4|BFU Store] * [link:bfu.avsim.net/join.htm]Join!][/td][/tr][/table][/td][/tr][/table

  8. Posted

    Hi Ansgar,Actually, I haven't tried the helicopters. Thanks for reminding me! I've flown a lot of helicopter games and sims so if they're better than FS, that should be a lot of fun. That's a big benefit of supporting a variety of FD engines. The beauty of the system is that the individual aircraft defines which engine to use. So, the user doesn't have to deal with those details. FGFS just runs the plane with the required FDE.I think it's a great idea and a wonderful experiment to port one of your aircraft to FGFS! At least the model and FD. It would certainly be a good looking one.It would be nice if the FU scenery could be ported but I don't know if the mapping systems are compatible. I think the FGFS world is curved vs. the flat one of FU.You know what would be an interesting direction to take FGFS? Make a version that could read FS mesh, scenery and aircraft models and textures. Of course, the FD data would not be portable but you can't have everything ;-). However, being able to leverage all the existing freeware for FS would be a big leap forward!Anyway, with regard to FU 2&3 scenery development in the early days, all we had was FLED. I don't know if you've used it but it's clunky and crashes easily if you're not extra careful. I guess the state of FGFS is kind of like that too--a work in progress with lots of potential but not yet for the masses. Then, when Gideon started releasing his tools, things really started to take off. Remember that 747 that someone ;-) ;-) ;-) was able to coax out of the sim? Who would've thought we'd have something like that!If you do embark on that experiment, I'll be very interested to hear all the gory details! A little experiment here and there could result in surprising revelations.Peter http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/PeterR.gifBFU Forums ModeratorRenegade/Seawolf Design Group (RSDG)

  9. Posted

    I agree that more focus would certainly help. As you said, it's similar to what happened with Linux when a few companies decided that variety is nice but some decisions had to be made on what would be in a distribution to lock it down into a product. Well, there are still more iterations before 1.0.Now, back to our regularly scheduled program. :-)Peter http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/PeterR.gifBFU Forums ModeratorRenegade/Seawolf Design Group (RSDG)

  10. Posted

    I don't know if it would be faster to make it yourself but I like the idea! In fact, it would be good to allow the user to select any number of different "screens" for the display and assign them to (1) separate keys, (2) just a single one for cycling, or (3) two keys to cycle forward and back.Note: In your quote, "fallyng" should be "falling".Peter http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/PeterR.gifBFU Forums ModeratorRenegade/Seawolf Design Group (RSDG)[table border=2 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=1][tr][td][table border=0 cellpadding=8 cellspacing=0][tr][td bgcolor=#6f0000]http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/logo75t.gif[/td][td align="center" bgcolor=#FFFFF6]Bush Flying Unlimited"At home in the wild"Looking for adventure? Come join us! * [link:bfu.avsim.net|Web Site] * [link:www.cafepress.com/bfu,bfu2,bfu3,bfu4|BFU Store] * [link:bfu.avsim.net/join.htm]Join!][/td][/tr][/table][/td][/tr][/table

  11. Posted

    I just took my first flight in the Glider last night. I found that it's much easier to address the difference between the periapsis and apoapsis distances than fighting the vertical velocity and eccentricity. Until you reach a circular orbit, Vvel continues to change depending upon whether you're approaching the narrow part of your non-circular orbit or the wide part. So, what I did was this:1. Make sure that you have the Orbit mode on one of the MFDs.2. When you reach periapsis, the solid dot on the orbit, apply prograde thrust (in the direction of flight). You'll see that your eccentricity (Ecc) drops and the periapsis distance (PeD) increases toward the apoapsis distance (ApD).3. Turn off the thrusters as soon as your Ecc starts to go back up or you'll negate your efforts.4. Wait until you get to periapsis again and repeat. Eventually, PeD will be near or the same as ApD and Ecc will be at or near zero. Then, your Vvel will also be near or at zero since your orbit is no longer eccentric.I guess you could also apply retrograde thrust at the apoapsis point (the hollow dot on the orbit) to reduce the ApD in addition to prograde thrust at PeD but I didn't try that. I would think that would get you a circular orbit sooner but I'm just a newbie at this space flight stuff.Peter http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/PeterR.gifBFU Forums ModeratorRenegade/Seawolf Design Group (RSDG)[table border=2 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=1][tr][td][table border=0 cellpadding=8 cellspacing=0][tr][td bgcolor=#6f0000]http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/logo75t.gif[/td][td align="center" bgcolor=#FFFFF6]Bush Flying Unlimited"At home in the wild"Looking for adventure? Come join us! * [link:bfu.avsim.net|Web Site] * [link:www.cafepress.com/bfu,bfu2,bfu3,bfu4|BFU Store] * [link:bfu.avsim.net/join.htm]Join!][/td][/tr][/table][/td][/tr][/table

  12. Posted

    Hi Ansgar!Thanks for your report. I agree with many of your statements and it's because of these things that FGFS needs help. Coordination and planning is key to effective use of resources during development of anything, big or small, but especially when it's as big and complex as a flight sim. I don't know if the FG team has experience developing games or stuff for other flight sims or not.I too tried out the latest version on Windows which resulted in a joystick issue with hat on the Microsoft Sidewinder 3D Pro Plus. I found out that Windows and Linux don't always report nor interpret joysticks the same way. Even the joystick name can be different. Apparently, no one used this stick on Windows so they didn't realize that the hat was misconfigured. Many of the joystick configurations appear to be optimized for non-Windows platforms (since most people use FGFS on non-Windows operating systems). Changing the axis assignments (e.g. hat on 6 and 7 for Windows instead of 4 and 5 for Linux) in the config file for my stick fixed the control problem.I didn't try all the planes, just the 3D Cessna 172P with the virtual cockpit. It was pretty cool as all the controls were operational with the mouse. I agree that there are too many so-so planes instead of just a few really good ones. But from what I saw, they don't seem to have people that are really into making high-res planes. A lot are ported from FS '98.The 3D model for the plane is easily painted using Paintshop Pro (or any other program that reads/writes SGI bitmap format) and I was able to double the size of the aircraft texture without having to touch the 3D model. Voila! More texture detail. That was nice. Straight stripes were a problem on the C172, as I've seen happen on planes for other sims, but that needs to be corrected in the 3D model.512x512 original size texturehttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/46467.jpg1024x1024 texture replacement. Stripes are same number of pixels wide.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/46468.jpgI'm not sure what you meant about needing a Java editor for the XML files. I just used Notepad. However, jEdit is a fantastic Java-based editor that I use for programming and HTML on Windows and Linux. I highly recommend it, especially if you do cross-platform work like I do. It's better having the same tool on all platforms. (http://www.jedit.org)Since this sim hasn't yet reached version 1.0, there's of course more to be done but, as you said, it sure has come a long way. Focusing their efforts on showcasing the sim's abilities would be good for drawing end users but I find the platform itself is okay for development.Remember that since it is under GPL, if a group of people want to build it differently (e.g. concentrate on a few planes, key features, smaller area), then they can take the source code and go in their own direction. I don't know if there are enough people to cover the various parts in order to do something like that.Even though I'm not affiliated with the FG team, I appreciate the time you spent on it. It would be great if more people could help the project in order to more quickly get the sim to the point we wish it was at already. Imagine what FU3 life would be like without Gideon's tools!Peter http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/PeterR.gifBFU Forums ModeratorRenegade/Seawolf Design Group (RSDG)

  13. Posted

    There's no need to use Cable Select. When two IDE devices are on the same cable, just set one to Master and the other to Slave. Often, people will put CDROM/DVD drives on a separate cable from their hard drives to avoid performance degredation, although I don't know if that's still an issue with UDMA hard drives.Peter http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/PeterR.gifBFU Forums ModeratorRenegade/Seawolf Design Group (RSDG)[table border=2 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=1][tr][td][table border=0 cellpadding=8 cellspacing=0][tr][td bgcolor=#6f0000]http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/logo75t.gif[/td][td align="center" bgcolor=#FFFFF6]Bush Flying Unlimited"At home in the wild"Looking for adventure? Come join us! * [link:bfu.avsim.net|Web Site] * [link:www.cafepress.com/bfu,bfu2,bfu3,bfu4|BFU Store] * [link:bfu.avsim.net/join.htm]Join!][/td][/tr][/table][/td][/tr][/table

  14. Posted

    If Windows thinks your partition is compressed, it might be corrupt. Are you able to start Windows in Safe Mode? If so, try running setup from Safe Mode. I've had Windows 98 wipe out almost every file in its own directory and, in a separate incident, the entire partition. Fortunately, I always isolate Windows in its own partition, as it looks like you do too.If you can't get Windows running, then running setup outside of Windows will require you to reinstall applications in order to create all the required registry keys.Are you familiar with using FDISK? If so, does it show that the partitions look normal? If you have Norton Utilities, the Disk Doctor (if they still have that tool) will be able to detect and correct an invalid media descriptor byte which can cause problems reading the drive.Peter http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/PeterR.gifBFU Forums ModeratorRenegade/Seawolf Design Group (RSDG)[table border=2 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=1][tr][td][table border=0 cellpadding=8 cellspacing=0][tr][td bgcolor=#6f0000]http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/logo75t.gif[/td][td align="center" bgcolor=#FFFFF6]Bush Flying Unlimited"At home in the wild"Looking for adventure? Come join us! * [link:bfu.avsim.net|Web Site] * [link:www.cafepress.com/bfu,bfu2,bfu3,bfu4|BFU Store] * [link:bfu.avsim.net/join.htm]Join!][/td][/tr][/table][/td][/tr][/table

  15. Posted

    Check about four topics down in this forum:http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...190&topic_id=58Peter http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/PeterR.gifBFU Forums ModeratorRenegade/Seawolf Design Group (RSDG)[table border=2 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=1][tr][td][table border=0 cellpadding=8 cellspacing=0][tr][td bgcolor=#6f0000]http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/logo75t.gif[/td][td align="center" bgcolor=#FFFFF6]Bush Flying Unlimited"At home in the wild"Looking for adventure? Come join us! * [link:bfu.avsim.net|Web Site] * [link:www.cafepress.com/bfu,bfu2,bfu3,bfu4|BFU Store] * [link:bfu.avsim.net/join.htm]Join!][/td][/tr][/table][/td][/tr][/table

  18. Posted

    Dave,EDIT: Oops, Richard and I think alike but he hit Post before I did. Anyway, hope the links are helpful.For a relatively simple output device, check out the thread about small LCD panels connected to the parallel port:http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...2&topic_id=5214As for input, Leo has a new interface board he's designing:http://www.vif.com/users/leolacava/usb/plasma.htmlhttp://www.vif.com/users/leolacava/Peter http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/PeterR.gifBFU Forums ModeratorRenegade/Seawolf Design Group (RSDG)[table border=2 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=1][tr][td][table border=0 cellpadding=8 cellspacing=0][tr][td bgcolor=#6f0000]http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/logo75t.gif[/td][td align="center" bgcolor=#FFFFF6]Bush Flying Unlimited"At home in the wild"Looking for adventure? Come join us! * [link:bfu.avsim.net|Web Site] * [link:www.cafepress.com/bfu,bfu2,bfu3,bfu4|BFU Store] * [link:bfu.avsim.net/join.htm]Join!][/td][/tr][/table][/td][/tr][/table

  19. Posted

    I just took a look at the software that Timo wrote for the LCD display. Very nicely done! The config files enable you to choose the size of the display as well as what you want to put on it. Bravo, Timo!In the lcdinterface.ini file, what are the "multi" and "output" options for? Also, the file lists a third display, LCDdisplay2. How is that display wired with the other two and what do the "DISP" values for options "line1", "line2" and "line3" do on LCDdisplay2?Since my display is a 2x40, is it enough just to add a new section to the lcdpanel.ini file? I didn't see anywhere that assigned the available display geometries so I assume it'll just find all of them.e.g.[p class=dcplain][LCDpanel2x40]height=2width=40ddram=80 // hexcgram=40 // hexline0=00 // hexline1=40 // hexdl=10 // hexn=08 // hexf=00 // hexdelay0=20 // INIT 20msdelay1=3.28 // CONFIG 3.28msdelay2=0.01 // CONTROL 40usdelay3=0.01 // DATA 20usdelay4=0.04 // ENABLE 40us[/p][p class=dcmessage]The offsets for line 0 and 1 are the same whether the display is 16, 20, or 40 characters wide.Peter http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/PeterR.gifBFU Forums ModeratorRenegade/Seawolf Design Group (RSDG)

  21. Posted

    Yes, Rob. I have experienced the lack of rising air over water. I believe the FU2 manual mentions this. Ah, yes, here it is on page 22:"The strength and direction of updrafts and downdrafts are derived from the presence of stormy conditions, the time of day, the type of terrain you're currently flying over (i.e., water, city, etc.), and the topography of the terrain (i.e., flat or mountainous)."When a rain level is specified at the Quick Flight screen, storm conditions are activated which calculate the winds as if the player were flying within the leading edge of the storm. This means updrafts increase in intensity with altitude, until the upper cloud layer altitude is exceeded, at which point there's a slight downdraft. Eventually, the downdraft tapers off with altitude."At night, urban areas and water, being warmer than the surrounding land, will generate updrafts. During the day, water, which is cooler than the surrounding terrain, will generate downdrafts, which, once again, dissipate with altitude."Mountainous terrain will generate both updrafts and downdrafts proportional to the slope of the terrain, and the velocity of the prevailing winds at altitude. The windward side of the mountain (i.e., that side facing the wind) will generate updrafts, while the other (leeward) side will generate downdrafts. These updrafts/downdrafts dissipage with altitude."So, you may need to select some rain in the weather setting for maximum thermal effects.The FU2 manual is an excellent informational resource. In addition to the SF scenery, the manual makes the FU2 package worthwhile if you only have FU3.Peter http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/PeterR.gifBFU Forums ModeratorRenegade/Seawolf Design Group (RSDG)

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