David/Plib developers, I believe we are in the same situation with the plib patches which allow more than 3 concurrent sounds to be played. I believe these are only in the 1.5.x tree. So, that would be another reason to roll out plib-1.6.0 ...
I recall some sort of confusion and misunderstanding last time we made this request and I'd like to avoid that if possible. Pushing out a new stable release can be a lot of work, so before we ask too agressively we need to make sure we are close to being ready to roll out a corresponding version of FlightGear that actually requires these changes. I will say that even the current flightgear release would benefit from the ac3d smoothing patches and also from the > 3 concurrent sounds patch. Regards, Curt. David Megginson writes: > I've run into some philosophical problems about how to handle plib. > Right now, plib has two technical problems loading AC3D models: > > 1. The models are not smoothed. > > 2. Alpha transparency in a texture is not respected (unless the > entire object is partly transparent, which looks stupid). > > I have a new C172 model ready with windows and a propeller disk, but > both of these features require a plib patch to fix #2 -- otherwise, > the windows and propeller disk are entirely opaque. The models also > look crude and chunky without a patch to fix #1. > > I thought that I might avoid these problems by converting the model to > plib's native ssg format, pre-smoothed, etc., but unfortunately that > uncovered another plib bug -- the SSG model loader does not respect > the ssgTexturePath, so textures for an .ssg model are not loaded > unless you launch FlightGear from the directory containing the > textures. I tried every format that plib supports, systematically, > and in the end none but AC3D preserved all of the model, including > textures and texture alpha information (and then, only with my > patches). > > My patches are inelegant and oversimplistic, so Steve Baker might not > want to add them to the plib CVS (the AC3D loader really needs a major > structural overhaul, not just a few pieces of duct tape). Even if he > does accept them, though, they will be available only in the CVS > version of plib, and as a policy, we avoid dependencies on prerelease > versions of plib. That means that anyone who builds FlightGear with > the latests released plib version will still have opaque windows (from > the outside) and an opaque propeller disk at high RPM. > > Comments? Suggestions? I guess the best possible outcome would be > for the plib people to incorporate my patches (or improved versions) > and then put out a new official release very soon, which we can > require for our next official release. The worst possible outcome is > for us to have to distribute patches against plib in the FlightGear > distro and to require people to build FlightGear with a patched > version. For now, my plib patches are available at > > http://www.megginson.com/flightsim/plib-smoothing.dif > http://www.megginson.com/flightsim/plib-transparency.dif > > I'll add my new model to the FlightGear base package repository, since > CVS developers are capable of managing patched plib trees, but might > have to roll back if there are a lot of complaints. > > > Thanks, and all the best, > > > David > > -- > David Megginson > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > _______________________________________________ > plib-devel mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plib-devel -- Curtis Olson IVLab / HumanFIRST Program FlightGear Project Twin Cities [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Minnesota http://www.menet.umn.edu/~curt http://www.flightgear.org _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
