Changelog 3.0: Difference between revisions

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==Upcoming FlightGear Changelog==
==Upcoming FlightGear Changelog==


The FlightGear development team is happy to announce the v3.0 release of FlightGear, the free, open-source flight simulator.  This new version contains many exciting new features, enhancements and bugfixes.  Highlights in this release include improved usability, better terrain rendering and a fully scriptable 2D rendering system.
The FlightGear development team is delighted to announce the v3.0 release of FlightGear, the free, open-source flight simulator.  This new version contains many exciting new features, enhancements and bugfixes.  Highlights in this release include integration of the FGCom voice communications client within the simulator, improved terrain rendering, faster scenery loading, and improved usability.
 
In the 4 years since FlightGear V2.0.0 was released in February 2010, FlightGear has developed enormously:
* The Rembrandt rendering system provides real-time shadows and lighting
* Advanced weather simulation, including frontal systems, thermals, lift and cloud formation based on mountain ridges.
* Built-in on-the-fly terrain loading
* Massively improved terrain rendering, with region-specific terrain, random buildings, shader effects, improved object and tree placement.
* Built in multiplayer client and voice communications allowing users to join and leave multiplayer sessions in-sim.
* Useability improvements including in-sim joystick configuration UI, map.
* A fully scripted 2D rendering system allowing easy creation of complex UIs, glass cockpit instruments and more.


Founded in 1997, FlightGear is developed by a worldwide group of volunteers, brought together by a shared ambition to create  
Founded in 1997, FlightGear is developed by a worldwide group of volunteers, brought together by a shared ambition to create  

Revision as of 21:28, 23 January 2014

This changelog is a draft.

This changelog is currently being written for the next FlightGear release. To see what it being worked on, check out Changelog 3.0.0. Feel free to help! If you are aware of any FlightGear related changes, please add them to the changelog.
It's a good idea to check the newsletters since the last release, and the git commit history. To view the changelog for the most recent release, please see Changelog 2.12. We also encourage people to help by translating the changelog and appreciate all contributions, however please keep in mind that this changelog is not yet final!



Upcoming FlightGear Changelog

The FlightGear development team is delighted to announce the v3.0 release of FlightGear, the free, open-source flight simulator. This new version contains many exciting new features, enhancements and bugfixes. Highlights in this release include integration of the FGCom voice communications client within the simulator, improved terrain rendering, faster scenery loading, and improved usability.

In the 4 years since FlightGear V2.0.0 was released in February 2010, FlightGear has developed enormously:

  • The Rembrandt rendering system provides real-time shadows and lighting
  • Advanced weather simulation, including frontal systems, thermals, lift and cloud formation based on mountain ridges.
  • Built-in on-the-fly terrain loading
  • Massively improved terrain rendering, with region-specific terrain, random buildings, shader effects, improved object and tree placement.
  • Built in multiplayer client and voice communications allowing users to join and leave multiplayer sessions in-sim.
  • Useability improvements including in-sim joystick configuration UI, map.
  • A fully scripted 2D rendering system allowing easy creation of complex UIs, glass cockpit instruments and more.

Founded in 1997, FlightGear is developed by a worldwide group of volunteers, brought together by a shared ambition to create the most realistic flight simulator possible that is free to use, modify and distribute. FlightGear is used all over the world by desktop flight simulator enthusiasts, for research in universities and for interactive exhibits in museums.

FlightGear features more than 400 aircraft, a worldwide scenery database, a multi-player environment, detailed sky modelling, a flexible and open aircraft modelling system, varied networking options, multiple display support, a powerful scripting language and an open architecture. Best of all, being open-source, the simulator is owned by the community and everyone is encouraged to contribute.

Download FlightGear v3.0 for free from FlightGear.org

FlightGear - Fly Free!

Major enhancements in this release

Aircraft Modeling

  • All glider models have now Total Energy compensated variometers.

Environment

  • the high-quality ocean shader effect now makes use of a global sea depth map to render shallow ocean in a different color

Transponder

Performance

Portability

Improved modularization


Atmospheric Light Scattering

Atmospheric Light Scattering (ALS) is an optional rendering framework for Flightgear which puts emphasis on faithful rendering of light and fog in the scene. It also utilizes procedural texturing techniques for the terrain, allowing to render cm-sized details on the terrain surface.

Recent improvements include:

  • significant work on a more natural appearance of a low haze or fog layer which includes now altitude variations
  • atmosphere rendering beyond the lowest fog layer takes now actual aloft visibility into account, leading to a blurred horizon
  • the horizon line is now rendered with angular variations, simulating different vertical extent of air layers far away in the atmosphere
  • the wake shader rendering the waves generated by a ship has been ported to ALS
  • the high-quality ocean shader effect now makes use of a global sea depth map to render shallow ocean in a different color



Improved performance, reduced memory occupancy

Usability

  • Tab key is used to cycle mouse modes: aircraft control, view control, idle
  • TerraSync is pre-configured and works as is without user configuration required

Multiplayer/Network

  • FGCom
    • FGCom is integrated in FlightGear
    • FGCom standalone is automatically installed with FlightGear
    • FGCom standalone is available for Mac, Linux, Windows without compilation required
    • Documentation: FGCom_3.0

Internationalization

Scenery

  • Scenery 2.0
  • Updated navigation data

Flight Planning and Route Manager

Canvas System

The "canvas" system is FlightGear's fully scriptable 2D rendering system, which makes it possible for users to easily create new instruments, HUDs and even dialogs and custom GUI widgets using FlightGear's built-in scripting language Nasal (which looks really similar to JavaScript). The Canvas can also be used for the creation of complex glass cockpit displays like navigational displays and other MFDs, none of this requires rebuilding FlightGear from source or writing C++ code.

Canvas improvements in this release include:

Nasal Scripting

  • As part of the Canvas/NavDisplay and MapStructure efforts, Tom has implemented a fast method for running delta queries for spatial searches (positioned queries), which speeds up complex searches [1]
  • HTTP bindings [2]
  • A new Nasal library has been added for implementing specialised soaring instruments. The library currently supports Total Energy compensated varios as well as Netto, Super Netto (aka Relative) and Speed Command variometers.

Documentation

  • PDF/LaTeX docs of the internals of the Nasal engine (C code) have been added to $FG_ROOT/Docs. Also see [3].

AI Improvements

Regional Textures

Regional texture definitions have been added for Scandinavia, Corsica and Ascension Island and updated to agree with the World Scenery 2.0 for Iceland.

In addition, regional textures are now available for Europe, the Caribbean, Greenland, Indonesia, the Middle East, Madagascar, the United Kingdom, Hawaii and Tropical South America.


Highlighted new and improved aircraft


Other

  • Additional joysticks and rudder pedals are supported out-of-the-box:
    • Logitech Flight System G940 (joystick, pedals and throttle)


Bug fixes

  • See our bugtracker for an extensive, yet incomplete, list of the bugs fixed in this release.