Changelog 3.6

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Unfortunately, due to various circumstances and problems, it was decided that the FlightGear v3.6 release would be skipped (see FlightGear Newsletter November 2015),[1] and that the development focus would shift to the FlightGear v3.8 release. In addition, through debates raised by the delays leading up to the cancellation, it was decided to pursue the automation of the release cycle through the use of scripts in the FlightGear build server.

Although not a true, official version, FlightGear v3.6 Release Candidate contains many exciting new features, enhancements and bug fixes. Highlights include a reduced base installation size, a new integrated Qt-based launcher, improvements to the built-in web UI, cockpit shadows without Rembrandt, and massive improvements to the Cessna 172P.

If users want to download the 3.6 Release Candidate (which may be unstable), they can do so here.

Major enhancements in this release

Project Organization

Core

  • Interactive traffic system re-enabled, having been disabled by mistake some releases previously.
  • Various security improvements, including the disabling of system.fgfsrc.

Launcher

The aircraft page of the Qt launcher for FlightGear 3.5 as rendered on Windows 7.

The built-in Qt launcher is available for all of FlightGear's supported operating systems.

Aircraft Modeling

JSBSim

  • Sync with the latest version of JSBSim.
  • The pitot angle can now be tweaked with the <pitot_angle> tag in the <metrics> block.
  • The refuel rate is now configurable with the <refuel-rate> tag in the <propulsion> block.

Atmospheric Light Scattering

  • The addition of 3D grass to the random vegetation system.
  • Tree shadows.
  • Interior cockpit shadows.
  • Interior glass reflections, frosting and fogging.
  • Interior panel backlighting.
  • New thruster effect (can be used for afterburners flames, rockets, etc.).

Usability

  • Many improvements to Phi, the built-in web interface.
  • GUI cleanup to improve support for multiple GUI styles.

Scenery

  • Regional texture definitions for Florida, Brazil, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Southeastern Asia.
  • stgmerge tool added to merge objects in a scenery tile into a smaller number of meshes.

Highlighted new and improved aircraft

Misc/uncategorized

Bug fixes

  • See our bugtracker for a list, albeit incomplete, of the bugs fixed in this release.
References
  1. Torsten Dreyer (Nov 30th, 2015). Re: [Flightgear-devel] Fate of 3.6 and features for 3.8.