Hi, On Tuesday 10 November 2009 02:48:00 pm Torsten Dreyer wrote: > Curt wrote: > > I recognized Martin, Torsten, and Durk in the pictures. I assume Durk
Correct assumption. I guess you know a little about my other hobbies... :-) FWIW, there are a few notes below the pictures, occasionally giving hints as to who is who. :-) > > was behind the camera. I *really* like this shot: > > > > http://www.xs4all.nl/~dtalsma/FSWeekend/web/34.html Thanks, always nice to hear! My personal favorite is the one of the Saab Viggen at night. > > > > These guys don't look so scary in real life: > > > > http://www.xs4all.nl/~dtalsma/FSWeekend/web/40.html They look just tired. Especially, I know that I do. :-) > > > > I'm really impressed with the amount of hardware you guys drug in there > > and setup. The full panel with LCD instruments looked great ... > > projectors ... this has to be the most impressive display of FlightGear > > stuff in one spot so far to date! The t-shirts look awesome. :-) > > > > Great job guys! > > > > Curt. > > This was my third year presenting FlightGear at FSWeekend. Comparing the > outcome, I think we attracted not only many people to FlightGear but also > raised some commercial interest. At least I had some promising talks with > hardware manufacturers, like cockpit and instrument builders, asking > questions about how to interface to FlightGear. Interestingly, most questions I got were about hardware; 1) whether we used the matrox tripple head (answer: No, we use two dual head video cards, with each head configured to drive a separate screen; then in FlightGear we define three separate camera's each projecting to a dedicated screen; in case of one machine, we've connected the fourth screen to the projector, using a similar trick. Oh, and by the way, all machines here are running linux). By this point, I usually began to realize that the person asking the question had been under the assumption we ran Microsoft flight simulator, on windows machine. Followup-question typically was: "How do I configure the matrox for... " 2. Saitek joysticks: A) whether I liked them, b) whether I'd had any problems configuring them. (Answers: A) Yes, b) no, just plug them in.) 3) Add-ons: Also quite a few questions concerning our aircraft were in referral to Microsoft FlightSimulator; in particular whether the Lockheed Constellation was update X of Package so-and-so. Usually this was a nice hook to start explaining that this was not Microsoft FlightSimulator, but an altogether different package. Regarding visitor comments, I'm still amazed at how Microsoft oriented this event is. In this respect, comments from visitors could probably be subdivided into three broad categories. 1) People expressing a pleasant surprise that there are alternatives to MS. 2) People who don't seem to notice tat we are not microsoft, and 3) people who mix-up "realism" with "nice-to-have but unessential graphical details". I noticed that I did begin to develop a bit of sales pitch, starting by the history of the project by stating that "with a combination of infinite optimism and naivety, we decided to make a better FlightSimulator than FS95 at the time, and that optimism has prevailed. Then, I usual say something about the central code repository, and that everybody is able to access the source code, modify it, and contribute back, but that development these days, is not limited to core program code, but also to the major task of building aircraft, scenery, buildings, and doing repaint jobs. Then, I typically pointed to the fact that over the last years, we've been working on switching over to OSG, and that the first signs of the new OSG graphics capabilities are showing up in FlightGear, by pointing at the clouds, which most people agree are probably the best in any simulator, as well as the new shader based dynamic sea, and snow lines. Then I usually close-off by telling a little about the scenery generation process, it's infra structure, and the central object database. > > What really impressed me, is the excellent stability of FlightGear built > from CVS a few days before the event. Not only the setup went absolutely > smooth, once up, not a single crash occured. My main fgfs instance was > running from 9.00 AM to 5.00 PM without a single hickup or even a restart. > Well done, developers! I've actually had one crash: Sunday afternoon, just before ending my final flight for the day, FlightGear exited with a segfault. Also, I once had to kill FlightGear due to a memory problem (or so it seemed; the OS was trashing pretty bad). > > I was especially impressed that it is possible to bring five individual > computers, more than 15 TFT monitors, yokes, joysticks, dozens of cables, > several USB hubs, a projector, network switches, a UMTS router, several > notebook computers and a coffee maker, hook it all up and have a working > multiplayer enabled FlightGear network running. Looking back, it seems quite surreal that it all worked. > > After having disassembled the booth, the attempt to stow everything in our > cars turned out to be quite a challenge. Especially Martins car was packed > to the last cubic inch and I wonder, how Durk survived the 1.5 hour trip to > his place. Fortunately no mass and balance calculations are mandatory for > cars ;-) By calculating power consumption estimates and talking about music... :-) It wasn't that bad actually. > > Thanks to Durk for all the preparation and to Frans from FSWeekend for > supporting us so much. > You're welcome. I would also like to express my gratitude to everybody who participated, showed up, be it in real life or on the multiplayer event, everybody who contributed a few bits and pieces for the multiplayer event, and everybody showing interest. Finally, I would also really like to thank Hans Janssen, who has not only been so kind to lend us the modem and projector, but who has also helped me a great deal setting up the booth on Friday. Hans couldn't make during the weekend, but I would consider him to be our sixth team member. Cheers, Durk ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
