[Flightgear-devel] Re: Flightgear-devel Digest, Vol 7, Issue 34

[Michael Matkovic]

Message: 2
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 16:07:15 +1100
From: Michael Matkovic <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Flightgear-devel] Multiplayer Server RFC -- Current Status
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
Could you describe the --headless option (Phase 1 changes)?
Sounds a little like what I'm trying to get Flightgear to do.
/
/I was hoping to have multiple airplanes (each controlled by an individual program), each being updated 
once per video render instead of having independent execution frequency. Using version 0.9.2's multiplay 
option, I can get a number of planes visible but the 'once per video render' update still needs some
work. Til now I've been viewing the group of planes from one of the players' views. I'm not sure if
this idea can be done, but (considering what I'm trying to do) is it possible to have flightgear toggle
between each player's view? For instance, starting up several 'players' but only having one screen...
and being able to switch between each player's view. Sounds like a weird idea? maybe I should back 
on the coffee :-P

thanks,
Mick.




------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 00:47:27 -0500
From: "John Barrett" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [Flightgear-devel] Multiplayer Server RFC -- Current
        Status
To: "FlightGear developers discussions"
        <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain;       charset="iso-8859-1"
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Matkovic" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, November 10, 2003 12:07 AM
Subject: [Flightgear-devel] Multiplayer Server RFC -- Current Status

 

Could you describe the --headless option (Phase 1 changes)?
Sounds a little like what I'm trying to get Flightgear to do.
/
/I was hoping to have multiple airplanes (each controlled by an individual
   

program), each being updated
 

once per video render instead of having independent execution frequency.
   

Using version 0.9.2's multiplay
 

option, I can get a number of planes visible but the 'once per video
   

render' update still needs some
 

work. Til now I've been viewing the group of planes from one of the
   

players' views. I'm not sure if
 

this idea can be done, but (considering what I'm trying to do) is it
   

possible to have flightgear toggle
 

between each player's view? For instance, starting up several 'players'
   

but only having one screen...
 

and being able to switch between each player's view. Sounds like a weird
   

idea? maybe I should back
 

on the coffee :-P

   

"headless" would be "without any graphical display at all"

multiplayer does multiple planes in the scene, but expects the controlling
logic for all but the local plane (none in the case of headless) to be
handled by processes over the network
I would VERY much like to see the ability to have a plane instance not
attached to an OpenGL scene updating at a set frequency (for AI driven
planes at the server, rather than at the client) -- given that, having the
plane able also to attach to an existing scene would achieve the 1st half of
your requirements (attach as many planes as you like), then the input
routines would need to be isolated from a specific plane instance, and made
able to attach to any locally running plane instance via a menu
for starters, we would need:

1. local plane instances that can operate with or without a local OpenGL
scene, optionally with PSL scripting for AI
2. keyboard/mouse/joystick interface isolated from the plane instance, with
the ability to attach to any local plane instance (i.e. you could detatch
from all planes and only the menus would be active, or you could be
attached)
What this gets us:

1. a running FGFS instance can have multiple planes without multiplayer,
with the planes scripted if desired to play out a scenario (civilian
scenario: cope with a plane invading your airspace while on approach/combat
scenario: obviously :) blow them outa the sky :) )
2. running headless connected to a multiplayer server, the FGFS instance can
handle multiple AI driven planes in the world on behalf of the server,
creating a distributed server environment for larger simulations (would take
a little tweaking of the multiplayer code to cope with multiple plane
instances at the client, but very possible, and quite desirable IMO)
Are any of these abilities in the current code, or how much work are we
looking at to make it work this way ??




------------------------------

 

At the moment, the mods to our FlightGear include our own protocol which 
freezes execution until a socket connection is established.
Once the external controller code connects, FlightGear starts up the 
simulation. This works great for a single plane. Its also works for two
using --multiplay. Only problem is, I have to start up 1 FlightGear 
session per plane.
With the two planes on screen (running identical code / settings), one 
of them would fly off into the distance which seemed strange since I 
expected
they'd fly side-by-side.
I'm not too keen to start modifying the code, firstly because I'm still 
getting familiar with the internals of FlightGear, and secondly I'm not 
sure if
someone else would be doing the same coding. It would be good to have 
some sort of co-ordination (if possible) to know how many people are doing
what... *my two cents*

Looking at the other posts (apart from the politics etc...) I'd also 
like to see some sort of feedback from FlightGear if one plane would (at 
the very
least) clip another (collision detection). Is there some way of 
introducing component failure, ie. similarly to how you can issue a 
command to
alter fuel levels. This would come in handy for what I'm doing!



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