--- On Fri, 3/10/08, Martin Spott wrote:
> gerard robin wrote:
> > And others JSBSim updates within PRE_OSG_PLIB_20061029
> >
> > Updating that branch , is not going backward :)
>
> Maintaining this branch for such a long time, including the
> pile of work that had been spent to get the 1.0 release out, has
> been the biggest distraction and waste of developer resources since
> I'm monitoring this project (which counts approx. 9 years now),
Gerard: - What I am about to say is not aimed at you personally - it is a
general comment. I apologize for not speaking enough French that I can provide
an accurate translation.
I've avoided commenting on this thread, and the many similar threads that have
appeared over the past year because I don't feel they are productive, or to the
benefit of the project. Nevertheless, as one of the people who argued for the
initial move to OSG and a minor contributor of OSG code (random objects,
trees) I feel it is necessary to speak.
I know that everyone on this list has the best interests of the FlightGear
project at heart, but the almost constant harking back to PLIB, and sniping on
the progress of OSG have had a corrosive influence on the project and have
dissuaded contributions.
To give some background to the following comments: I am certainly not a good
coder - just ask Melchior about some of my Nasal code ;). Prior to my OSG
contributions, I had done some small Nasal enhancements, a couple of (rather
rough) aircraft, and some weather interpolation code (for which I required
significant help - thanks once again).
However, it only took me around 3 man-days of effort to implement random
objects in OSG, having done no OSG coding, and little C++ previously. The
shader-based trees took about another 5 man-days. I got a _lot_ of help from
Tim Moore, but the bottom line is this:
_In a very short time, an average coder was able to implement a useful
enhancement to FG using OSG_
Coding in OSG is much easier than in PLIB, and means that anyone with some C++
knowledge can do something useful. You don't need to be an OpenGL guru.
There is absolutely no way that I could have contributed equivalent graphics
code to FG using PLIB. For example, Harald's PLIB 3D cloud code implemented
Impostors (effectively painting a texture at run-time) from scratch, while OSG
provides these for free. The only difference is that his code worked, while the
OSG code crashed ;)
For those that are not familiar with the graphics internals (which may account
for most of the people complaing about OSG progress!), PLIB requires writing
very low level OpenGL code to achieve anything useful.To be able to make a
significant graphics contribution to OSG FG requires an order of magnitude less
skill than PLIB. To use an FG metaphor - imagine writing all your Nasal scripts
in C.
If we had remained using PLIB, as well as the supportability issues (PLIB being
effectively dead) the pool of graphics coders would have been even more
restrictive than it is today.
With less sniping from the side-lines and more encouragement, I am sure that
more contributors would have appeared, and we would have already released v2.0,
with 3D clouds, shadows, heat-haze and more animations than you can shake a
(OSG-shader) stick at. On a personal level, I have been dissuaded by some of
the comments and expectations of people for 3D clouds on- and off- list.
If I may provide a second bottom line: If people really want to maintain
FlightGear on PLIB they are welcome to - fork the project. Otherwise,
contribute what you can, and realize that promoting a positive atmosphere on
this list is the easiest way to encouraging FlightGear's continual development,
especially in the field of graphics.
Everyone is well aware that OSG-FG is behind PLIB-FG in eye-candy. Criticizing
progress is inappropriate if you are not prepared to put in the work to fix it.
Excuses such as "I don't know C, otherwise I'd..." are just that - excuses.
Leaning C++ and OSG is just a step up from Nasal ;)
-Stuart
PS: Despite all of this, I'm going to be looking again at 3D clouds using
Shaders instead of Impostors.
PPS: The above is not meant to be a personal attack on anyone. I realize that
from an aircraft-developers perspective we don't appear to have made much
progress, and the differences between PLIB and OSG are frustrating.
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