FlightGear Newsletter April 2016

This newsletter is a draft. Please feel free to add content that you think will be of interest to the FlightGear community. You can read the latest newsletter at FlightGear Newsletter March 2016.

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April 2016

Development news IR vision Scenery LOD rationalization In the hangar Melbourne Motor Design Alpha One Bombardier Q400 Parachutist

Scenery Corner Barcelona Community News FGPromo: A FlightGear Promotional Video

Contributing Translators required FlightGear logos Screenshots Screenshot of the Month

Development news

IR vision

The ALS rendering framework has been upgraded to allow filtering of the final output. This includes in-sim adjustments of brightness and gamma as well as perhaps more exciting features like night vision and especially the IR vision mode.

This mode is not just a black-and-white rendered mockup of an IR camera, but it shows genuine temperature differences based on solar input, thermal inertia of different materials and more. Also, modelers can assign emissive temperatures to objects which are then consistently rendered.

Read more at ALS infrared vision…

Scenery LOD rationalization

Previously, the LOD ranges of random objects, trees, buildings and STG objects were set variously by materials.xml and fixed values. This was very inconsistent and wasn't controlled by the user. They have now been made consistent to use the /sim/rendering/static-lod/rough property which can be set from the LOD GUI dialog. There are a couple of impacts of this:

• Scenery developers, and particularly those doing regional materials should not set the "tree-range-m" for random vegetation or the "range-m" property for random objects.
• Scenery models should not use the LOD animation to control when the entire model becomes visible - this is now set appropriately by the sim itself. It may still be valuable to use the LOD to hide small details.

In the hangar

Melbourne Motor Design Alpha One

Alpha One by Melbourne Motor Design

Alpha One by Melbourne Motor Design has been released. Download link and information are available here (Melbourne Motor Design - Alpha One)

Bombardier Q400

Bombardier Q400 remodelled

The Bombardier Q400, former dhc8-400 by Alex Park has received a major update including fully remodelling and new systems by Florian K and D-ECHO. You can follow the development on the github repository: https://github.com/D-ECHO/Q400

Parachutist

Skydiver model with Ram-Air Parachute

The comprehensive free-fall skydiver model by Creare is now included in FGAddon. In addition, a ram-air parachute flight-dynamics model has been added. This means, the model has two separate Flight Dynamics Models in one package which are both active when the parachute is deployed. With this combination you can now start a free fall decent at 12,500 feet, manoeuvre your way down to about 2,000-2,500 feet, deploy the parachute with the ⇧ Shift+d key and then glide your way down. At about 50 feet pull down full to slow down the decent and gently touch the ground. A possible next step which has been suggested is to include the Walker model.

Scenery corner

Barcelona

Barcelona scenery improvements:

• 3D objects optimisation
• More Static buildings around
• More shared objects
• New wiki entry

Community news

FGPromo: A FlightGear Promotional Video

After more than 5 months of hard work, FGPromo, a video showing off FlightGear at its finest, has been released!

Contributing

Translators required

	The FlightGear Wiki still needs help for translating it into various languages. If you are interested in making the FlightGear Wiki multilingual, you can start by looking at Help:Translate.
	Le wiki de FlightGear a toujours besoin d'aide pour être traduit en différentes langues. Si vous êtes intéressé par le rendre multilingue, commencez par lire Help:Traduire.
	Das FlightGear Wiki braucht noch Hilfe für sie in verschiedene Sprachen zu übersetzen. Wenn Sie bei der Herstellung der FlightGear Wiki mehrsprachiger interessiert sind, können Sie, indem Sie auf Help:Übersetzen beginnen.
	De FlightGear Wiki kan nog steeds hulp gebruiken bij het vertalen van artikelen. Als je interesse hebt om de wiki meertalig te maken, raden we je aan om een kijkje te nemen bij Help:Vertalen.
	La wiki de FlightGear todavía necesita ayuda para traducirla a varios lenguajes. Si estás interesado en hacer la FlightGear wiki multilingüe, entonces comienza en Help:Traducir.
	La wiki de FlightGear encara necessita ajuda per traduir-la a diverses llengües. Si esteu interessat en fer la wiki de FlightGear multilingüe, llavors comenceu a Help:Traduir.
	A wiki de FlightGear ainda necessita de ajuda para traduzi-la em vários idiomas. Se estás interessado em tornar a wiki de FlightGear multi-lingual, por favor começa em Help:Traduzir.

FlightGear logos

If you want some graphic elements for your FlightGear-related site (such as a hangar or YouTube channel), please feel free to visit FlightGear logos for a repository of logos. And if you have some art skills, please don't hesitate to contribute with your own design creations.

Screenshots

The FlightGear project always needs screenshots, which show features that were added since the last release. These should be of good quality, especially in content and technical image properties. It is therefore recommended to use the best viable filter settings (anti-aliasing, texture sharpening, etc.). More info at Howto:Make nice screenshots.

Screenshot of the Month

Voting has started for the FlightGear Screenshot of the Month April 2016. You can submit your vote at this topic. The winner will be announced in the finished version of the newsletter.