Re: [Flightgear-devel] AI Aircraft Models
On Tuesday 08 November 2005 16:27, Harald JOHNSEN wrote: > > It's a quick hack, I try to find plausible surface/gear position > depending on the ai aircraft attitude. > From the aircraft_demo ai, you can see the 733 gears animation just > after take-off : > http://sites.estvideo.net/tipunch/flightgear/images/fgfs-screen-130.jpg > From a scenario posted on the user list not long ago, a cessna taking > off (ailerons and one flaps) : > http://sites.estvideo.net/tipunch/flightgear/images/fgfs-screen-135.jpg > and a bit later on final with 3 flaps : > http://sites.estvideo.net/tipunch/flightgear/images/fgfs-screen-134.jpg > Looks cool. There is some rudimentary support for this type of animation in the AI scenario files, but I don't think it is fully implemented yet. Cheers, Durk ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] AI Aircraft Models
Durk Talsma wrote: On Monday 07 November 2005 18:53, Harald JOHNSEN wrote: Durk Talsma wrote: I'm trying to work out this idea a bit further and then we can see how it combines with the animations code. The most important animation is probably gear up/down, because that's quite visible. Flap extension/retration would probaly also be quite visible. Cheers, Durk I was about to commit a few lines of code for those animations (AIAircraft class only). Hi Harald, Sounds interesting. Could you give us clue what your code does? Cheers, Durk It's a quick hack, I try to find plausible surface/gear position depending on the ai aircraft attitude. From the aircraft_demo ai, you can see the 733 gears animation just after take-off : http://sites.estvideo.net/tipunch/flightgear/images/fgfs-screen-130.jpg From a scenario posted on the user list not long ago, a cessna taking off (ailerons and one flaps) : http://sites.estvideo.net/tipunch/flightgear/images/fgfs-screen-135.jpg and a bit later on final with 3 flaps : http://sites.estvideo.net/tipunch/flightgear/images/fgfs-screen-134.jpg Harald. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] AI Aircraft Models
On Tue, 2005-11-08 at 08:39, Erik Hofman wrote: > Josh Babcock wrote: > > > possibly the Colditz glider to follow it. BTW, how come the Colditz > > never made it into CVS, IIRC it's GPL, and I personally thought it was a > > pretty neat little project. Anyway... > > The last message I saw about this subject indicated it wasn't ready for > inclusion. After that it became silent. > That's because I (the FDM writer) suddenly had to learn how to write Windoze device drivers and ran out of free time! Josh did a great job of the 3D model. The whole thing looks good and flies OK. I wasn't totally sure about the alignment of the 3D model with the reference points for the FDM, but hey, it may not be perfect but it's perfectly usable. I'll be quite happy for the Colditz Glider to be part of 0.9.9 It will benefit from a catapult launch system (apparently the aircraft carriers have such a thing now?). I tried using a short-duration low-powered rocket in the FDM to achieve a similar effect, but never managed to get the coefficients right. Help yourselves at ftp://tallyho.bc.nu/pub/steve/flightgear/colditz_20050908.tgz I can't put in CVS myself: (no permission). If it does go into CVS (or anywhere else) please delete the subdirectories 'Docs/' and 'Images/' because they contain all the research materials I pulled together in order to build the thing in the first place and are not GPL. Similarly, "thumbnail.jpg" in the top directory isn't mine either. Everything else is by me or Josh Babcock and we're both happy that it's GPL. FYI: The 'Images/' directory is every photo of Colditz Castle that I could find on the web. I was wondering if there was enough information there to do a reasonable 3D scenery mockup of the castle to be added to the default FGFS scenery of that corner of Saxony. Never got past the first stages though. Steve. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] AI Aircraft Models
Josh Babcock wrote: possibly the Colditz glider to follow it. BTW, how come the Colditz never made it into CVS, IIRC it's GPL, and I personally thought it was a pretty neat little project. Anyway... The last message I saw about this subject indicated it wasn't ready for inclusion. After that it became silent. Erik ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] AI Aircraft Models
On November 4, 2005 04:23 pm, Durk Talsma wrote: > So, for starters, I would like to explore > some models of the more popular airliners series, i,e., the Boeing 7[0-8]7, > Airbus A3[0-8]0, and any [McDonnel] Douglas aircraft (and Fokkers of > course :-)). I'd build them myself If I had shown any signs of talent in > the field of 3D modeling :-(. > > Cheers, > Durk I have data on every single aircraft of Airbus. I just need the time to be able to work on them. On November 5, 2005 03:22 am, Durk Talsma wrote: > On Friday 04 November 2005 23:40, Christian Mayer wrote: > > Wouldn't it be better to add those models to the existing (and yet to > > come) "high"-poly models as a different LOD? > > Would be possible, but aircraft loading and unloading time is going to be > an issue. Unless we can move the aircraft loader into a separate thread, or > come up with a very sophisticated multiframe aircraft loader, I would > prefer to start with using something that is simple from the start. > > Cheers, > Durk Having done multiple Level-of-Details for the MD-11, using multiple models for different Level-of-Details don't really excite me. Beside, when one is inside an airport, where planes are lined up wingtip by wingtip, such a scheme doesn't really reduce polycount by much, if at all. In my opinion, it would be more flexible and more efficient to have a single high-poly model for the aircraft instead. If the model is divided into sufficient number of objects, then it would be a simple matter of hiding more and more objects as the aspect ratio of the aircraft decreases. For example, a wing can be divided into the following components: wing +leading edge - +slats - - +top portion - - +bottom portion - - +sides - +slot of slats +middle portion - - +front spar - - +rear spar - - +top portion - - +bottom portion +trailing edge - +spoilers - - +top portion - - +bottom portion - - +sides - +flaps - - +leading edge - - +sides - - +remaining portions One can hide the objects starting from the bottom-most of the tree, and work toward the root of the tree as the plane becomes more and more out of range. One can also hide objects that are hidden, such as the bottom of the spoilers and the leading edge of the flaps when the plane is in a clean configuration. The latter ability will be very useful when the AI Aircraft is inside an airport. Ampere ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] AI Aircraft Models
Durk Talsma wrote:
> On Monday 07 November 2005 14:20, Josh Babcock wrote:
>
>>Durk Talsma wrote:
>>
>>>On Friday 04 November 2005 23:40, Christian Mayer wrote:
>>>
Durk Talsma schrieb:
>To get AI traffic going in the forseeable future, we could use quite
>a few low-polygon count aircraft models in various paint schemes. So,
Wouldn't it be better to add those models to the existing (and yet to
come) "high"-poly models as a different LOD?
>>>
>>>Would be possible, but aircraft loading and unloading time is going to be
>>>an issue.
>>
>>Good point, but I still like Christian's idea. Maybe we should settle on
>>a standard name for low poly models. I already like to include lots of
>>LOD in my models, and it is no problem to simply pull out the low poly
>>versions and save them under a different xml file. If we could come up
>>with a standard that included the following, it wouldn't be that hard to
>>follow through:
>>
>
> I've been playing a lot with the organization of some FS98 MDL files I
> downloaded over the weekend, and came to the conclusion that this might
> indeed be a good idea. One thing I thinking about aiming for is to create an
> {aircraft}-set.xml like file for the AI aircraft, that acts as both a wapper
> for the animations, models, textures, and also contains the traffic pattern
> associated with these aircraft. More specifically, what I'm thinking of is
> one xml file, that associates a model with a particular texture directory
> (a.k.a. paint scheme, a.k.a. skin, a.k.a. livery :-), which also contains the
> routing table for all aircraft of this type/livery.
>
> I'm trying to work out this idea a bit further and then we can see how it
> combines with the animations code. The most important animation is probably
> gear up/down, because that's quite visible. Flap extension/retration would
> probaly also be quite visible.
>
> Cheers,
> Durk
>
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>
Hey, that's great. I don't have any time to help on this, but if you
come up with some sort of system I will adapt the b29, Canberra and
possibly the Colditz glider to follow it. BTW, how come the Colditz
never made it into CVS, IIRC it's GPL, and I personally thought it was a
pretty neat little project. Anyway...
Josh
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Re: [Flightgear-devel] AI Aircraft Models
On Monday 07 November 2005 18:53, Harald JOHNSEN wrote: > Durk Talsma wrote: > >I'm trying to work out this idea a bit further and then we can see how it > >combines with the animations code. The most important animation is > > probably gear up/down, because that's quite visible. Flap > > extension/retration would probaly also be quite visible. > > > >Cheers, > >Durk > > I was about to commit a few lines of code for those animations > (AIAircraft class only). > Hi Harald, Sounds interesting. Could you give us clue what your code does? Cheers, Durk ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] AI Aircraft Models
Durk Talsma wrote: I'm trying to work out this idea a bit further and then we can see how it combines with the animations code. The most important animation is probably gear up/down, because that's quite visible. Flap extension/retration would probaly also be quite visible. Cheers, Durk I was about to commit a few lines of code for those animations (AIAircraft class only). Harald. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] AI Aircraft Models
On Monday 07 November 2005 14:20, Josh Babcock wrote:
> Durk Talsma wrote:
> > On Friday 04 November 2005 23:40, Christian Mayer wrote:
> >>Durk Talsma schrieb:
> >>>To get AI traffic going in the forseeable future, we could use quite
> >>>a few low-polygon count aircraft models in various paint schemes. So,
> >>Wouldn't it be better to add those models to the existing (and yet to
> >>come) "high"-poly models as a different LOD?
> >
> > Would be possible, but aircraft loading and unloading time is going to be
> > an issue.
>
> Good point, but I still like Christian's idea. Maybe we should settle on
> a standard name for low poly models. I already like to include lots of
> LOD in my models, and it is no problem to simply pull out the low poly
> versions and save them under a different xml file. If we could come up
> with a standard that included the following, it wouldn't be that hard to
> follow through:
>
I've been playing a lot with the organization of some FS98 MDL files I
downloaded over the weekend, and came to the conclusion that this might
indeed be a good idea. One thing I thinking about aiming for is to create an
{aircraft}-set.xml like file for the AI aircraft, that acts as both a wapper
for the animations, models, textures, and also contains the traffic pattern
associated with these aircraft. More specifically, what I'm thinking of is
one xml file, that associates a model with a particular texture directory
(a.k.a. paint scheme, a.k.a. skin, a.k.a. livery :-), which also contains the
routing table for all aircraft of this type/livery.
I'm trying to work out this idea a bit further and then we can see how it
combines with the animations code. The most important animation is probably
gear up/down, because that's quite visible. Flap extension/retration would
probaly also be quite visible.
Cheers,
Durk
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Re: [Flightgear-devel] AI Aircraft Models
Durk Talsma wrote: > On Friday 04 November 2005 23:40, Christian Mayer wrote: > >>Durk Talsma schrieb: >> >>>To get AI traffic going in the forseeable future, we could use quite >>>a few low-polygon count aircraft models in various paint schemes. So, I'd >>>be interested to know if anybody with reasonable 3d modeling skills would >>>be interested in contributing in this field. Although the traffic system >>>shouldn't be limited to commercial airliners, this is probably the area >>>I'd be working on mostly initially. So, for starters, I would like to >>>explore some models of the more popular airliners series, i,e., the >>>Boeing 7[0-8]7, Airbus A3[0-8]0, and any [McDonnel] Douglas aircraft (and >>>Fokkers of course :-)). >> >>Wouldn't it be better to add those models to the existing (and yet to >>come) "high"-poly models as a different LOD? >> > > > Would be possible, but aircraft loading and unloading time is going to be an > issue. Unless we can move the aircraft loader into a separate thread, or come > up with a very sophisticated multiframe aircraft loader, I would prefer to > start with using something that is simple from the start. > > Cheers, > Durk > > ___ > Flightgear-devel mailing list > Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org > http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel > 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d > Good point, but I still like Christian's idea. Maybe we should settle on a standard name for low poly models. I already like to include lots of LOD in my models, and it is no problem to simply pull out the low poly versions and save them under a different xml file. If we could come up with a standard that included the following, it wouldn't be that hard to follow through: - a naming convention for the AI/multiplayer version XML file - how many levels of detail to include and how many polys each - how much animation is acceptable to include, and what properties will drive those animations (gear and control surfaces basically, maybe some other stuff can be passed for common animations like wing sweep, engine exhaust and the concord's nose) That way, flyable planes get all the heavy stuff: panels, high poly count, sounds, extensive animations, neat Nasal routines, and all the models get a completely separate slimmed down version that can be used for planes that don't need to cater to a pilot (on the local machine at least) So for instance, I could create b29-low-poly-set.xml and b29-low-poly.ac to go along with the myriad other stuff that the b29 is made up of. The xml file would contain nothing but a description, the basic animations and "none" or some such listed as the FDM. The ac file would have however many LOD levels we settle on, and be referenced by the xml file. Once someone has gone to the trouble to make a plane that has LOD, moving this stuff over should be trivial. We just need to standardize it so that the AI and multiplayer systems know how to use them. And there's nothing to stop you from making a model that's nothing but the slimmed down version. With the "none" FDM it could just be filtered out in any frontends, and additionally FG would refuse to load it for flying. If this sounds feasible, I can cook up an example for you all to review. Josh ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] AI Aircraft Models
On Sun, 6 Nov 2005 09:43:20 -0200, Rodrigo wrote in message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > There�s lot of flightplans for lots of carriers designed by indepedent > simmers > on usual flight sim sites: www.avsim.com , www.fsfreeware.com , > www.flightsim.com > so, no need for PAI flight plans. > About models and flightplans, there�s a nice general aviation site on > http://www.ultimatega.com/ > Also, great jetliners models on http://www.ai-aardvark.com/ > Although, in my opinion, would > be better to keep low polygons on FlightGear... > Not sure if it�s possible to convert on FlightGear, but SquawkBox and > FSSinn programs have thousands of models. > Finally, there�s a new group releasing complete packages of > flightplans and models for FS: http://www.world-of-ai.com/ > Don�t think would be a problem for them to allow to use in FlightGear. > My 0,02 cents:-) .._using_ them is usually no problem, because their "EULA" contractual terms usually allow "end users" usage. ..our problem is when their terms clash with our GPL terms on distributing the source code and allowing commercial use. This is best solved with the authors using the GPL too, and they can dual license their stuff as they please. Groklaw.net has _plenty_ more. .."what's wrong with the GPL?" Ask Microsoft as a freelance journalist on behalf of some news rag and smell the fear. ;o) -- ..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt... ;o) ...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry... Scenarios always come in sets of three: best case, worst case, and just in case. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] AI Aircraft Models
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Jon Stockill schrieb: > Innis Cunningham wrote: > >> I would think we are better ploting our own course this may mean we are a >> bit light on to start off with but with people helping it would take >> no time at all. > > > Lots of airlines provide timetables in PDF format - fed into pdftotext > and parsed with a bit of perl we should be able to build up a reasonable > amount of data fairly quickly. Worst case is the formatting is horrid > and it all needs to be done by hand - it's still not gonna take forever > if there's a few people involved. > > Is there any documentation on the current AI schedule formats anywhere? > I'll have a look at a couple of timetables tomorrow and see what I can do. The Star Alliance offers the timetable for *all* their airlines at http://www.staralliance.com/ under "travel tools" in various digital formats - including regular updates. Once we've got an import filter we could allways have up to date comercial traffic for daily 15000 flights... CU, Christian -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (MingW32) iD8DBQFDbfMjlhWtxOxWNFcRAhzhAJ9th+cIddap2FjldMuFRKd0JW25eACdGu7D JWGwJ30AapYbYy8Ino0MXCk= =iwpz -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] AI Aircraft Models
There´s lot of flightplans for lots of carriers designed by indepedent simmers on usual flight sim sites: www.avsim.com , www.fsfreeware.com , www.flightsim.com so, no need for PAI flight plans. About models and flightplans, there´s a nice general aviation site on http://www.ultimatega.com/ Also, great jetliners models on http://www.ai-aardvark.com/ Although, in my opinion, would be better to keep low polygons on FlightGear... Not sure if it´s possible to convert on FlightGear, but SquawkBox and FSSinn programs have thousands of models. Finally, there´s a new group releasing complete packages of flightplans and models for FS: http://www.world-of-ai.com/ Don´t think would be a problem for them to allow to use in FlightGear. My 0,02 cents:-) - Original Message - From: "Jon Stockill" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "FlightGear developers discussions" Sent: Saturday, November 05, 2005 11:44 PM Subject: Re: [Flightgear-devel] AI Aircraft Models Innis Cunningham wrote: I would think we are better ploting our own course this may mean we are a bit light on to start off with but with people helping it would take no time at all. Lots of airlines provide timetables in PDF format - fed into pdftotext and parsed with a bit of perl we should be able to build up a reasonable amount of data fairly quickly. Worst case is the formatting is horrid and it all needs to be done by hand - it's still not gonna take forever if there's a few people involved. Is there any documentation on the current AI schedule formats anywhere? I'll have a look at a couple of timetables tomorrow and see what I can do. Jon -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.362 / Virus Database: 267.12.8/162 - Release Date: 5/11/2005 ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] AI Aircraft Models
Innis Cunningham wrote: I would think we are better ploting our own course this may mean we are a bit light on to start off with but with people helping it would take no time at all. Lots of airlines provide timetables in PDF format - fed into pdftotext and parsed with a bit of perl we should be able to build up a reasonable amount of data fairly quickly. Worst case is the formatting is horrid and it all needs to be done by hand - it's still not gonna take forever if there's a few people involved. Is there any documentation on the current AI schedule formats anywhere? I'll have a look at a couple of timetables tomorrow and see what I can do. Jon ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] AI Aircraft Models
Durk Talsma writes On Saturday 05 November 2005 01:42, Paul Surgeon wrote: > > It's a pity we can't use something like the Project AI aircraft packages. > It's a lot of work modeling dozens of aircraft types and liveries. > I agree. I've been trying to contact the folks at project AI at least five times to see if we could set up some kind of collaboration, and every time I'm getting an error saying that the contact address doesn't exist. That's a pity, because I'm a great fan of their traffic packages and AI aircraft for MSFS. Speaking strictly personal, I'm not so enthousiastic about their organizational structure and legalities though. I would think we are better ploting our own course this may mean we are a bit light on to start off with but with people helping it would take no time at all. Having used Project AI when it first started I would think we are better off not having any thing to do with them. Durk give me a yell if you want aircraft converted and also I have a light 737 around here somewhere if you want that but I would think you have it from when we were playing around with it some time back.The MSFS aircraft may have some structure that they use for animation that we could strip out plus some models have no gear Cheers, Durk Cheers Innis ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] AI Aircraft Models
On Saturday 05 November 2005 01:42, Paul Surgeon wrote: > > It's a pity we can't use something like the Project AI aircraft packages. > It's a lot of work modeling dozens of aircraft types and liveries. > I agree. I've been trying to contact the folks at project AI at least five times to see if we could set up some kind of collaboration, and every time I'm getting an error saying that the contact address doesn't exist. That's a pity, because I'm a great fan of their traffic packages and AI aircraft for MSFS. Speaking strictly personal, I'm not so enthousiastic about their organizational structure and legalities though. Cheers, Durk ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] AI Aircraft Models
On Saturday 05 November 2005 00:26, Innis Cunningham wrote: > Hi Durk > > >From: Durk Talsmawrites > > > > > >interested to know if anybody with reasonable 3d modeling skills would be > >interested in contributing in this field. Although the traffic system > >shouldn't be limited to commercial airliners, this is probably the area > > I'd be working on mostly initially. So, for starters, I would like to > > explore some models of the more popular airliners series, i,e., the > > Boeing 7[0-8]7, Airbus A3[0-8]0, and any [McDonnel] Douglas aircraft (and > > Fokkers of course :-)). I'd build them myself If I had shown any signs of > > talent in the > >field of 3D modeling :-(. > > Camil Valiquette has given permission for his aircraft to be used in FG.I > would > think any of his FS98 aircraft might be usefull. > That's interesting. I started browsing www.flightsim.com this morning and came up with a fairly complete set of Boeings (727 through 777), and airbuses (A300, A330, A340, and A380) made by Camil Valiquette. Tomorrow, I'll try and see if I can get those to load into TrafficGear. Thanks, Durk ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] AI Aircraft Models
On Friday 04 November 2005 23:40, Christian Mayer wrote: > Durk Talsma schrieb: > > To get AI traffic going in the forseeable future, we could use quite > > a few low-polygon count aircraft models in various paint schemes. So, I'd > > be interested to know if anybody with reasonable 3d modeling skills would > > be interested in contributing in this field. Although the traffic system > > shouldn't be limited to commercial airliners, this is probably the area > > I'd be working on mostly initially. So, for starters, I would like to > > explore some models of the more popular airliners series, i,e., the > > Boeing 7[0-8]7, Airbus A3[0-8]0, and any [McDonnel] Douglas aircraft (and > > Fokkers of course :-)). > > Wouldn't it be better to add those models to the existing (and yet to > come) "high"-poly models as a different LOD? > Would be possible, but aircraft loading and unloading time is going to be an issue. Unless we can move the aircraft loader into a separate thread, or come up with a very sophisticated multiframe aircraft loader, I would prefer to start with using something that is simple from the start. Cheers, Durk ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] AI Aircraft Models
On Friday 04 November 2005 23:23, Durk Talsma wrote: > I've been playing a bit with loading different aircraft and different paint > schemes. To get AI traffic going in the forseeable future, we could use > quite a few low-polygon count aircraft models in various paint schemes. So, > I'd be interested to know if anybody with reasonable 3d modeling skills > would be interested in contributing in this field. Although the traffic > system shouldn't be limited to commercial airliners, this is probably the > area I'd be working on mostly initially. So, for starters, I would like to > explore some models of the more popular airliners series, i,e., the Boeing > 7[0-8]7, Airbus A3[0-8]0, and any [McDonnel] Douglas aircraft (and Fokkers > of course :-)). I'd build them myself If I had shown any signs of talent in > the field of 3D modeling :-(. It's a pity we can't use something like the Project AI aircraft packages. It's a lot of work modeling dozens of aircraft types and liveries. Paul ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
RE: [Flightgear-devel] AI Aircraft Models
Hi Durk From: Durk Talsmawrites Hey Guys, The last couple of days I've been slowly but steadily progressing with my traffic editing tool, hereafter referred to as TrafficGear. I have a rough version of the aircraft selection choice menus working now. I've been playing a bit with loading different aircraft and different paint schemes. To get AI traffic going in the forseeable future, we could use quite a few low-polygon count aircraft models in various paint schemes. So, I'd be interested to know if anybody with reasonable 3d modeling skills would be interested in contributing in this field. Although the traffic system shouldn't be limited to commercial airliners, this is probably the area I'd be working on mostly initially. So, for starters, I would like to explore some models of the more popular airliners series, i,e., the Boeing 7[0-8]7, Airbus A3[0-8]0, and any [McDonnel] Douglas aircraft (and Fokkers of course :-)). I'd build them myself If I had shown any signs of talent in the field of 3D modeling :-(. Camil Valiquette has given permission for his aircraft to be used in FG.I would think any of his FS98 aircraft might be usefull. Cheers, Durk P.S., I believe that working on 3D models would be a great place to start for people who would like to start contributing to FlightGear. Would it be an idea to advertise this as such on the "Contributing" page on the FlightGear website. I'm happy to write a draft text to put on the website, if needed. D. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] AI Aircraft Models
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Durk Talsma schrieb: > To get AI traffic going in the forseeable future, we could use quite > a few low-polygon count aircraft models in various paint schemes. So, I'd be > interested to know if anybody with reasonable 3d modeling skills would be > interested in contributing in this field. Although the traffic system > shouldn't be limited to commercial airliners, this is probably the area I'd > be working on mostly initially. So, for starters, I would like to explore > some models of the more popular airliners series, i,e., the Boeing 7[0-8]7, > Airbus A3[0-8]0, and any [McDonnel] Douglas aircraft (and Fokkers of > course :-)). Wouldn't it be better to add those models to the existing (and yet to come) "high"-poly models as a different LOD? This would also help with multiplayer setups (assuming that all models get a very low poly setup as well) CU, Christian -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (MingW32) iD8DBQFDa+NXlhWtxOxWNFcRAjnMAJ9yv+kvqX0pLJvRKxGAUj9Iesau9ACfRHpt doz58/mJJZDhZADJLyTgOH0= =Qscd -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] AI Aircraft Models
On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 17:30:51 +0100 Durk Talsma <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > After solving the multiple copy problem, the AI system became a lot more > > flexible and I was able to load close to 1200 aircraft, but when > multiple aircraft came into view, I experienced some nasty problems, > including DList stack overflows. Reducing polygon count by creating > special AI versions of all our common aircraft (i.e. omitting the > cockpits, and instruments) reduced this problem further. You might consider increasing the size of the DList stack, and/or commenting out the warning written to the screen (the flood of warning messages slows things down dramatically all by itself). I understand that this isn't a decent solution, since one can't expect all the users to do this. But it's informative. I mention this because I ran into a similar problem after modifying some terrain with fgsd. Frederic commented that the DList stack size set by plib was arbitrary, and suggested increasing it and commenting out the warning. See the bottom of this message: http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=9861990 It would be interesting to see if that solves your problem. If so, and if there are no obvious deleterious effects (I'm ignorant about this stuff), maybe changing the stack size can be suggested to the plib folks. -c -- Chris Metzler [EMAIL PROTECTED] (remove "snip-me." to email) "As a child I understood how to give; I have forgotten this grace since I have become civilized." - Chief Luther Standing Bear pgprxYdWZ86i1.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] AI Aircraft Models
On Monday 29 November 2004 11:03, Chris Metzler wrote: > On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 07:29:02 +0100 > Durk Talsma <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > [ snip ] > > > Another thing I noticed is that when the AIModel subsystem loads > > multiple copies of an aircraft, separate copies of each model are loaded > > each time, instead of referencing to the already loaded copy in the ssg > > scene graph. Having multiple copies of a polygon heavy AI aircraft led > > to severe memory problems on my system. > > Wow. > > > For this and other reasons, I'm currently leaning toward favoring having > > a separate set of low-polygon count models for AI aircraft. > > Maybe I'm not following, but it seems like you're saying that the > problem is the multiple loading of the same 3D model (for each AI > aircraft) rather than reusing one existing copy in memory. Right? > If that's the case, it would seem like trying to minimize how bad > this is by using low-resolution models is not so much solving the > problem as working within it; and the best solution would be to get > plib to be able to only load the model once and to reference it > for additional aircraft. But maybe that's really, really hard? > > -c These are kind of additional complicating factors. Loading multiple copied turned out to be a huge problem, so I fixed that after sending my first mail (code changes should be in CVS now; thanks Erik). However, eventually we still might have to need quite a variety of AI aircraft, especially when multiple liveries come into play. After solving the multiple copy problem, the AI system became a lot more flexible and I was able to load close to 1200 aircraft, but when multiple aircraft came into view, I experienced some nasty problems, including DList stack overflows. Reducing polygon count by creating special AI versions of all our common aircraft (i.e. omitting the cockpits, and instruments) reduced this problem further. There's still a lot of room for improvement, by optimizing model parameters and deleting models that are no longer used (not yet implimented), but it's also good to start thinking about ways of reducing polygon count for AI purposes. Cheers, Durk ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] AI Aircraft Models
On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 07:29:02 +0100 Durk Talsma <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > [ snip ] > > Another thing I noticed is that when the AIModel subsystem loads > multiple copies of an aircraft, separate copies of each model are loaded > each time, instead of referencing to the already loaded copy in the ssg > scene graph. Having multiple copies of a polygon heavy AI aircraft led > to severe memory problems on my system. Wow. > For this and other reasons, I'm currently leaning toward favoring having > a separate set of low-polygon count models for AI aircraft. Maybe I'm not following, but it seems like you're saying that the problem is the multiple loading of the same 3D model (for each AI aircraft) rather than reusing one existing copy in memory. Right? If that's the case, it would seem like trying to minimize how bad this is by using low-resolution models is not so much solving the problem as working within it; and the best solution would be to get plib to be able to only load the model once and to reference it for additional aircraft. But maybe that's really, really hard? -c -- Chris Metzler [EMAIL PROTECTED] (remove "snip-me." to email) "As a child I understood how to give; I have forgotten this grace since I have become civilized." - Chief Luther Standing Bear pgp50ta8Co7Ib.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
RE: [Flightgear-devel] AI Aircraft Models
Josh Babcock writes: > > There are automatic LOD reducing programs out there, but all the output that > I > have seen is ugly and only suitable to simple modeds viewed at a large > distance. Michael Garland author of the Terra package we use to reduce the Terrain data has an interesting method for LOD http://graphics.cs.uiuc.edu/~garland/software/qslim.html His students have taken this a bit further http://graphics.cs.uiuc.edu/~zelinka/pubs.html http://graphics.cs.uiuc.edu/~zelinka/software.html These methods aren't perfect but can be *very* helpful There is source available at the above links Norman ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] AI Aircraft Models
Boris Koenig wrote: Durk Talsma wrote: [...] For this and other reasons, I'm currently leaning toward favoring having a separate set of low-polygon count models for AI aircraft. The basic idea would then be to have a directory looking like this: data/Aircraft/AI/ I like the idea of having such a low-polygon repository of standard aircraft files, however they would certainly not only come in handy for the AI traffic part but also for other things like multiplayer functionality. So in that regard it might be worth to think about providing some sort of standard folder for all components that might actually make use of such (reduced) aircraft files - so that this isn't specific to the AI component itself ? which then has subdirectories for each aircraft. Like data/Aircraft/AI/777 > and within each directory there are subdirectories for various liveries for example: data/Aircraft/AI/777/American data/Aircraft/AI/777/KLM data/Aircraft/AI/777/United etc etc I like this, but I would propose that the standard place to put an AI version of an aircraft would be a subfolder of the actual model's folder. The parent folder could exist even if there was no flyable model, and the parent folder could likewise not contain an AI folder. This way a designer could build the AI and/or flyable models and then release them in one tarball. eg data/Aircraft/FooPlane/AI/American FooPlane: FooPlane-set.xml, Sounds, Model, etc. (or nothing but AI) FooPlane/AI: AI files FooPlane/AI/American: American Livery I think it sounds like a good idea, however I wonder whether *liveries* shouldn't be placed in some central location, specific to certain (fitting) aircraft models - independent of the AI stuff ? So that they can be found in some sort of default location and would hence be optionally available for either: AI traffic and/or user traffic or even other/future components. Then inside each of these livery subdirectories there would reside not only the texture files for the respective aircraft, but also all the traffic files for this aircraft. At least for the multiplayer functionality within MS FS it is nowadays a pretty common feature to allow users to pick a custom livery for their (online) flight - that would be another scenario where AI files would/could be accessed by NON-AI components. So, even without having such or similar support within the near future I would still vote for a central "repository" that contains the aircraft specific stuff such as the textures/liveries & models for "LOWPOLY" aircraft - after all it would be merely a matter of adding another subfolder... That way those FG components that actually use the "LOWPOLY" stuff wouldn't need to fool around with the AI sub-directory. The traffic manager would then scan this directory and automatically load all the traffic files it would find here. This way, adding or removing AI aircraft would automatically adjust the amount of traffic generated. Any thoughts or ideas? My first thought concerning the last paragraph would be that it would probably come in handy not to statically use _all_ traffic files that are available within the AI folder but rather make this dependent on some simple property that allows adjustment of the AI traffic complexity and some other parameters. That way, one could have various traffic files without actually having to use them, one wouldn't even need to directly manipulate the files in that folder to control some basic options. Talking about low-polygon aircraft, it sounds like additional work for the aircraft maintainers to really maintain different models for the same aircraft types ? So I wonder what would be involved in artificially reducing the polygon count of an abitrary model at load/processing time, e.g. by using only a certain percentage of the 3D data and ignoring the rest ? If that logic isn't too simple one could still refer to the same (complex) polygon model but only use a subset of the data to render an accordingly reduced model ? There are automatic LOD reducing programs out there, but all the output that I have seen is ugly and only suitable to simple modeds viewed at a large distance. Josh ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] AI Aircraft Models
Durk Talsma wrote: [...] For this and other reasons, I'm currently leaning toward favoring having a separate set of low-polygon count models for AI aircraft. The basic idea would then be to have a directory looking like this: data/Aircraft/AI/ I like the idea of having such a low-polygon repository of standard aircraft files, however they would certainly not only come in handy for the AI traffic part but also for other things like multiplayer functionality. So in that regard it might be worth to think about providing some sort of standard folder for all components that might actually make use of such (reduced) aircraft files - so that this isn't specific to the AI component itself ? which then has subdirectories for each aircraft. Like data/Aircraft/AI/777 > and within each directory there are subdirectories for various liveries for example: data/Aircraft/AI/777/American data/Aircraft/AI/777/KLM data/Aircraft/AI/777/United etc etc I think it sounds like a good idea, however I wonder whether *liveries* shouldn't be placed in some central location, specific to certain (fitting) aircraft models - independent of the AI stuff ? So that they can be found in some sort of default location and would hence be optionally available for either: AI traffic and/or user traffic or even other/future components. Then inside each of these livery subdirectories there would reside not only the texture files for the respective aircraft, but also all the traffic files for this aircraft. At least for the multiplayer functionality within MS FS it is nowadays a pretty common feature to allow users to pick a custom livery for their (online) flight - that would be another scenario where AI files would/could be accessed by NON-AI components. So, even without having such or similar support within the near future I would still vote for a central "repository" that contains the aircraft specific stuff such as the textures/liveries & models for "LOWPOLY" aircraft - after all it would be merely a matter of adding another subfolder... That way those FG components that actually use the "LOWPOLY" stuff wouldn't need to fool around with the AI sub-directory. The traffic manager would then scan this directory and automatically load all the traffic files it would find here. This way, adding or removing AI aircraft would automatically adjust the amount of traffic generated. Any thoughts or ideas? My first thought concerning the last paragraph would be that it would probably come in handy not to statically use _all_ traffic files that are available within the AI folder but rather make this dependent on some simple property that allows adjustment of the AI traffic complexity and some other parameters. That way, one could have various traffic files without actually having to use them, one wouldn't even need to directly manipulate the files in that folder to control some basic options. Talking about low-polygon aircraft, it sounds like additional work for the aircraft maintainers to really maintain different models for the same aircraft types ? So I wonder what would be involved in artificially reducing the polygon count of an abitrary model at load/processing time, e.g. by using only a certain percentage of the 3D data and ignoring the rest ? If that logic isn't too simple one could still refer to the same (complex) polygon model but only use a subset of the data to render an accordingly reduced model ? - Boris ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
