rpbartle

I was reading the CNET blog, as mentioned in post #182 above, and was interested to read that an alpha version is going to be released to the test team soon. I know that they are still early on in development but they are further forward than I had initially anticipated.Unangst is also quoted as saying "The company is offering few details on Flight, but Unangst said that it is looking to appeal to flying enthusiasts with the realism, accuracy, and fidelity they expect, but also imagines including other types of gameplay that might appeal more to novices."I'm very much looking forward to hearing more about Flight! Lets hope its gives us and the numerous add-on developers some form of platform that can be built on for the future.Ralph

Well done indeed to the lads and what an edge of the seat game!! Who would have thought at the start of the tournament that they could get this far!Ralph.

Luis,Thanks very much for the new release.I've been trying this out to see how the photo ground textures work and it seems to work great. SBuilderX now makes the whole process of loading and tiling the "background" Images that much easier and with the use of the Resample tool in the SDK we should now be able to place our own custom photo scenery into FSX.Thanks again for the great work on SBuilderX.Kind regards,Ralph.

This topic sure takes me back!Although I am not sure, I think my first taste of the MS flight sim was for the Atari ST and version MS FSII. However I recently found my old Acorn Atom in a cupboard it was bought in 1980 and hand built! My very first game was a 747 emulator, it looks nothing like even the early FS games but sure was fun at the time.I've posted a screen print of 747 running in an Atom emulator. If anyone is interested I can scan the instruction manual to give you a taste of what the game was really like!Ralph

Brian,Thanks for your post about this problem. However, I am not sure that the drifting problem is just limited to the tow plane.For the last couple of days I have had extreme problems taking off at various small airfields (eg KTRK) because of serious drifting off to the left. I thought at first it was side winds, but I have set the weather to Fair and the problem repeats. I thought about the joystick a Saitek Cyborg 3d, but have recalibrated and it's still there. I have also turned off the stcik and flown by mouse but the problem it still there.The problem is so bad that no matter how much right rudder I put in the plane drifts sideways before I have even taken off.What is strange is that I can then move to KSEA and the plane will fly no problems at all. If anyone has any idea about what I might be doing wrong I would welcome some help.By the way apart from the above problem I'm having a great time with FSX, its a superb addition to the FS line and certainly gives us plenty of potential for the future.Ralph.

Mech,I'm afraid I couldn't get the middle mouse button (scroll wheel) to activate the VC. Have you managed to try out Visualmouse, and if so what do you think of it?I would be interested to hear from anyone who has TrackIR as to how the Webcam/Visualmouse combination compares.Ralph.

Guys,I have tried a number of ways to get Visualmouse working in FS9 by linking to the movement of the joystick hat and have had no luck.I can get it to work in fs9 by reassigning the left/right/up/down pan keys to any keys not being used by FS9. Then go into visualmouse and assign the "4 keys" to the ones choosen in FS9. Run Visual mouse but using the 4 Keys (keep) Switch. When in FS9 virtual cockpit the head movements will pan you around, but the movement is jerky and not very satisfactory.HOWEVER for anyone that has either the FSX demo or beta I would STRONGLY recommend giving this program a try. Whilst I haven't used the TrackIR hardware you might find that that the results achieved by the methods I described in my first post above are a good compromise.If I find out a better way to link this into FS9 I will post again.Ralph.

Robin,I think you are on the right track in using the hat control to link into Visualmouse. Unfortunately I am not sure that in FS9 theres anyway to remap the hat control to either the mouse or other keys (unless anyone else has any idea).I am trying again with using either Active Camera and the "4 keys" option in Visualmouse and will let you know how I get on.Thanks,Ralph.

Hi Robin,After further tinkering with the program it seems that you do not need to use the "4 Keys" option. I believe you can simply leave the default Switch set up option of "cursor".However I can only currently get this to work with FSX, since FS9 doesn't have the mouse pan option:( I will however try this with active camera and will post another message to let you know how it goes.Thanks,Ralph.

zswobbie,Thanks for your post about this interesting program.I downloaded Visualmouse and tried it on the beta of FSX and I am pleased to say that it does work! With practise you can pan around the virtual cockpit using head-movements, its quite amazing.To get this to work you need to use the "4 keys (keep)" option in visual mouse. Then re-define the 4 keys to the cursor keys. Then when in FSX and in the cockpit you will need to activate the mouse pan option using shft-o. Then activate visualmouse and switch back to FSX and you should see that your head movements pan around the cockpit.I'm off to try this a bit more and will post any further refinements. I will also look to see whether I can get it working in FS9 and will let you know.Thanks for the heads up on this wonderful program.Ralph.