This is the initial commit for a reworked environment controller.
The main intention is to decouple the individual modules like
metar fetch, metar properties, environment interpolation etc.
to make it easier for other weather module developers to modify
environment settings.
As a side effect, the dialogs for weather-scenario, weather-conditions,
clouds and precipitations have been merged into a single dialog
The new A/P implementation does not contain the hardcoded "helper" functions
anymore. The properties created in these helpers are now generated by
autopilot components defined in generic-autopilot-helper.xml which is
included by default in preferences.xml
If /sim/menubar/autovisibility/enabled is true, show the menubar when the mouse hits the upper edge of the window and hide the menubar on click outside a pui element.
Incorporated changes to effects file syntax. Changed Till's landmass
to mix in the base terrain texture. Some shader cleanup.
Also, add a GUI control for enabling shaders.
can lead to extreme performance reduction in a relatively short time.)
Let's set the default mode to "off".
Users can turn on the various components of this features according to
their own preferences and those preferences are then autosaved.
- Removes the cloud type re-use code - I think they aren't worth the graphical artefacts that they cause in light of Tim's improvements
- Changes the transparency of the clouds. Previously, the clouds were transparent at 0m distance, opaque at 200m, then gradually more transparent to the fog limits. This meant they were generally quite transparent. Now, they are opaque from 200m to 15km, then become transparent at 20km. A side effect of this is that the current textures could probably benefit from being made slightly transparent to improve the blending of the sprites against each other.
- Replaces simple shader attributes with vectors (this was missed out of the last patch by mistake)
- Includes Yon's Fog update code (Thanks!)
- Fixes a bug since 1.0 where --enable-real-weather-fetch stopped the other weather scenarios from working.
This provides the following enhancements & bug fixes
- Fix the chequer-board bug.
- Add proper cloud coverage function - so scattered clouds are now truly scattered.
- Add real-time control for visibility range.
- Use a limited set of clouds rather than generating a completely new Geode for each cloud. This saves sorting and display time.
- Add controls to Rendering dialog to allow fine-tuning of the number of sprites, cloud visibility and the number of different types of cloud.
- Add some variance to the sort back-off to avoid all clouds being sorted at the same time.
- Pack attributes into vectors for performance
- Re-order the cloud type determination code so that if a cloud layer could either be stratus or cumulus, cumulus is used.
- Lowered the cloud level in the standard cloud configuration slightly so a cumulus layer is generated rather than stratus.
These last two mean that you should see some 3D cumuli if disabling real weather fetch.
My thanks to Yon Uriarte for his help with performance work.
(/sim/rendering/precipitation-gui-enabled) *and* if the aircraft wants it
(/sim/rendering/precipitation-aircraft-enabled). Some aircraft model rain
on the windshield and want to turn rain off for interior views.
- new parameter naming (left/right instead of min/max; signs are ignored)
- fix wrap-around skips
- use regular constructor so as not to confuse people ;-)
If a <view> contains a <limits> block, then a view handler gets attached to
it, which limits head turns to a given range, whereby headings beyond a given
threshold cause an additional sideways movement. This is turned off by default
for now.
distracting blury when viewed from nearly edge on (as runway textures almost always are.) This can be adjusted to individual preferences with the
--texture-filter={0,1,2,4,8,16} command line option.
- Update redout level every frame
- Replace reading of properties every iteration with listeners
- move -onset and -complete properties into a parameters subtree
are set in controls.nas since ages)
controls.nas: avoid repeated querying of /sim/input/selected/engine[*]
properties; this isn't supposed to change at runtime and is a rather
costly process, especially in axis handlers
- Disable the 737 AI demo (because it uses the user 737-300, which is
currently not part of the base package).
- New version number
- Add some more 747 size parking areas at KSFO.
These are then skipped with view.stepView(n), unless the second, optional
argument is set to 1: view.stepView(n, 1);
Whether a view is enabled or not, is saved in $FG_ROOT/.fgfs/autosave.xml
(system views) or $FG_ROOT/.fgfs/aircraft-data/<aircraft>.xml
- allow turning on/off extra widgets for developers (HUD dialog: colors,
rendering dialog: visualization of shadow edges), and to turn on/off new
- property key handler ('/'-key)
Both features are off by default, and their state is saved to autosave.xml.
/sim/current-view/dynamic-view. There are additionally <dynamic-view>
settings per view, but those only enable it for that view if it's
globally turned on.
populated are: KHAF, KHWD, KOAK, KSJC, and KSFO. Includes traffic for
two to three major US based airlines for each aircraft type. Traffic
is included for the 737, 747, 767, A320, A333, and an assorted selection
of smaller aircraft.
are. /sim/view[0] .. /sim/view[99] are reserved for the system, the rest
can be used by aircraft. That way nobody has to update all configs only
because a generic view was added.
us3_mbrola doesn't lack some phonemes, causing interrupted messages
- use us2_mbrola for the pilot (seems to be rather complete, too;
pity that the female voice us1_mbrola sounds so ugly :-)
by debug.nas to turn on/off syntax coloring for dumped data (which
is desirable as compound data types can fill several screens with
rather hard to read data). Unfortunately, it can't be reliably deduced
from the OS whether ANSI colors are available or not.
- move "multiplayer chat" properties to where they belong
preferences.xml gui/menubar.xml gui/dialogs/rendering.xml
Added Files:
Nasal/multiplayer.nas gui/dialogs/chat.xml
gui/dialogs/chat_full.xml:
the data part of Stuarts multiplayer/chat patch
many as you like, but not at runtime. Some aircraft may especially want to
change the first ("day") color, as the predefined green is IMHO a bit dark
and should possibly be more white-ish.
correctly to an existing Boeing 737 (the new 737-300). Also updated
the aircraft_demo.xml to reflect this change. Added an initial version of
a logical ground network file for KSFO airport.
aircraft *-set.xml files. Otherwise someone could offer an aircraft
for download that sets the host to one of their machines and lets a
nasal script write arbitrary information there. (Not that we had a lot
of sensible information. Yet.)
switch-position=1, so let's set it here for all others. This shouldn't be
done in aircraft *-set.xml files (unless there's a *very* good reason),
because this overwrites the settings that were made by the --dme option,
and thus breaks it.
mf:
- some minor modifications to Stuart's version :-)
- select all engines per default. This may seem less realistic (who starts
all engines on the b29 at once?), but it'll prevent oodles of bug reports.
And those who want it realistic shouldn't rely on engine 1 being selected
by default, anyway, but rather actively select every single engine.
Also: this new behavior is in line with the original intentions (see cvs
log to preferences.xml -r1.51)
Limit the maximum time we spent in the simulation loops.
That means, if the /sim/max-simtime-per-frame value is strictly positive
you can limit the maximum amount of time you will do simulations for
one frame to display. The cpu time spent in simulations code is roughtly
at least O(real_delta_time_sec). If this is (due to running debug
builds or valgrind or something different blowing up execution times)
larger than the real time you will no more get any response
from flightgear. This limits that effect. Just set to property from
your .fgfsrc or commandline ...
local changes. People are used to modifying this file, and seem helpless
without it. Further explanations will be added to README.Joystick.html.
The dummy entry is necessary because EasyXML aborts without at least one
entry, and segfaults without <PropertyList> entry.
This adds a TACAN instrument to the inventory. Range and bearing are calculated
to the TACAN or VORTAC beacon selected by means of the Channel Selector in the E
quipment/Radio pull-down menu.
A TACAN beacon has also been added to the aircraft carrier Nimitz (channel #029Y
).
Changes
=======
- shadowvolume.cxx, renderer.cxx :
- reduced the polygon offset a bit to eliminate some artifact ;
- changed again the cleanup code for objects inside a tile because it could crash on rare occasion ;
- the culling of shadow casters has been rewritten to traverse the scene graph, it should be
a bit faster when there is a lot of objects ;
- the range selector was not correctly handled, sometimes the wrong LOD was casting shadows.
- added the option to display aircraft's transparent objects after the shadows, this will
reduce the problem of shadows being hidden by the transparent object (propeller disk,
rotor, etc). A side effect is that aircraft's transparent objects won't receive shadows
anymore. This is usually a good thing except when the aircraft use a 'transparent'
texture where it should not. A transparent texture in the plib context is a texture
with an alpha channel or a material with alpha <= 0.99.
- model.cxx, animation.cxx, shadowvolume.cxx :
- added an optional <condition> under the <noshadow> animation
- tower.cxx
- correct a rare bug where all occurences of the aircraft are not deleted from the
departure list causing a crash in FGTower::CheckDepartureList function.
Changes
=======
New volumetric shadows for FlightGear.
There is now two new checkboxes in the rendering dialog to enable/disable shadows
for the user aircraft and for static scenery objects (ie those defined in the .stg files).
AI and random objects are not handled for the moment.
known bugs
==========
- ghost objects
This is another update for the cloud code, a lot of lines but this time I have started to add the doxygen doc.
Misc
====
- corrected a bug when RTT is not available, the current rendering context was
altered
- if RTT is not available then 3d clouds are not drawn at all
- impostors lighting is now recomputed when the sun changes position
- distant objects are no more seen in front of clouds
- blending of distant clouds is a bit better now
- litle optimization of code (uses a less cpu time)
- use layer wind speed and direction (no more hardcoded wind)
- fov is no more hardcoded
Changes
=======
- clouds (cu only) are dissipating/reforming (experimental)
- compute a turbulence factor that depends on surrounding clouds and type of
clouds (experimental)
- clouds shapes are defined in cloudlayers.xml
- type of clouds present in a layer is also defined in cloudlayers.xml
- cloud layers are generated from metar and other misc. data (in progress)
- added a rain effect around the viewer (enabled in the rendering dialog and
when the metar property says so)
- added a lightning effect (enabled in the rendering dialog) : cb clouds spawn
new lightnings
- added a dialog to select from different weather source : metar/property,
a 'fair weather' environment and a 'thunderstorm' environment.
There are two <dme> entries in preferences.xml, resulting in two dme branches
under /instrumentation/ (dme[0] and dme[1]). The serviceable property is only
set for the second entry (dme[1]), and that one is not connected to the dme
module. Solution: Remove the first <dme> entry, and set the index explicitly
to 0 for the remaining <dme> entry.
Here are files to get automated contrails working. I've set up contrails for
the 737, using my simple, untextured contrail model. Vivian has made another
contrail model, but I'm still trying to get his to work. I'm hoping others
will try to make contrail models also.
Here's some code that defines a top to thermals. When the top of a thermal is
reached the strength is phased-out linearly over the next 100 feet of
altitude. At first I tried just capping the thermal at the top, but the
change in thermal strength was too fast for the FDM to handle well.
Included is a new version of the thermal scenario that includes a top
(height-msl) to the thermal. The default value is 5000 feet.
After applying the attached patches (based on latest CVS) you should
have a new option available within your version that should also
show up using fgfs --help, the syntax is:
fgfs --min-status={level} --show-aircraft
whereas "level" can be anything between
"alpha","beta","early-production" and "production"
Of course running something like
fgfs --min-status=alpha --show-aircraft
should not return any aircraft right now, as none of the
current aircraft definition files in your base-package is using the
required
<status></status>
tag - but you can easily give it a try by adding something like
<status>alpha</status>
The tag should be placed as a sub-tag within <sim> - so directly behind
the <description> tag would be just fine and straight-forward.
This will modify menubar.cxx/hxx so that it exports the
entire menubar (from menubar.xml) to the property tree, so that it can
now be changed dynamically using Nasal's setprop() instruction and
afterwards running a newly added fgcommand to update the menubar
based on those changes using the appropriate menubar path within
the property tree.
By default the menubar from menubar.xml will be stored within:
/sim/menubar/default
Erik:
I have moved the loading of menubar.xml into preferences.xml and
made sure that the menubar is destroyed every time a new menubar
is created.
Instrumentation and systems are now configureable from xml files. The two
generic configurations generic-systems.xml and generic-instrumentation.xml
configures the systems and instrumentation as it was hardcoded. You can
override the generic configurations in a similar way as you override the
autopilot configuration.
I've included the latest fixes to the Traffic Manager/AI flightplan generation
code. Most of the code changes are in AIFllightplan.cxx. This is the code
that runs without depending on predefined FlightPlans in
#FG_ROOT/Data/AI/Flightplans.i
As suggested by Dave, I've also added a new property in
preferences.xml: /sim/traffic-manager/enabled, which is used to control
whether or not the traffic manager is active.
I'm still working on a few more 737 traffic patterns, those are going to take
a little longer, so I didn't want to wait sending in this code.
Finally, I haven't put much effort into ensuring "aeronautical correctness" in
this version yet. The code works on my system, but what the AI plane do may
actaully be quite rediculous. But I'd like to leave that for the next
version.
Here's some new AI stuff.
1) AI objects must now be defined in a scenario file, not in preferences.xml
or a *-set file. (Of course this doesn't prevent objects from being created
dynamically, as with Durk's traffic manager).
2) A new demo_scenario file is attached. It creates 3 aircraft, a sailboat,
and a thunderstorm.
3) Objects without flightplans live forever.
4) FGAIShip::ProcessFlightplan() is not yet implemented.
5) preferences.xml should now define only <enabled> and <scenario>
Don't know if this was intentional, but since revision 1.128
(2003/10/01 21:15:55; david; "Add some whitespace, and initialize
the new ADF subsystem.") the ADF isn't initialized with useful
frequencies any more. It should be something in the bay area.
379 is for BRIJJ again (in the glide slope of KSFO) and 341 is
for RORAY (KOAK). Don't know what the standby frequency was before.
controls in the cockpit vs. which wheels they apply to. FlightGear now
sets /controls/gear/brake-left, /controls/gear/brake-right, and
/controls/gear/brake-parking. It should be up to the FDM to sort out
which wheels under which circumstances are affected by these controls
and ultimately what happens to the physical motion of the aircraft.
