FlightGear Newsletter February 2012

From FlightGear wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This newsletter is a draft.

Feel free to contribute! Or read the latest edition.


Magagazine.png
Welcome to the FlightGear Newsletter!
Please help us write the next edition!
Enjoy reading the latest edition!


We would like to emphasize that the monthly newsletter can not live without the contributions of FlightGear users and developers. Everyone with a wiki account (free to register) can edit the newsletter and every contribution is welcome. So if you know about any FlightGear related news or projects such as for example updated scenery or aircraft, please do feel invited to add such news to the newsletter.

Development news

A new instrument: Vertical Situation Display

Omega95 has created an entirely new instrument type for FlightGear, a so called "VSD" (Vertical Situation Display). This was done entirely in scripting space using Nasal and XML animations. He's basically proven everbody wrong who ever claimed that complex instruments couldn't yet be created in scripting space. Apparently, he managed to create this instrument in less than 24 hrs, his first question related to this was about accessing trigonometric functions from Nasal, shortly thereafter he posted screen shots depicting his VSD. To read up on the whole discussion, please see [1]. There's work ongoing to turn his project into a new tutorial for the wiki on creating complex instruments in scripting space: Howto: Implement a Vertical Situation Display in Nasal.

Omega95's VSD instrument

Heads up: Project Rembrandt

As many of you may have heard already, Fredb is currently making huge progress on adding shadows to FlightGear in Project Rembrandt. Now, F-JJTH ported the P92 to use the new system and posted a youtube video demonstrating Project Rembrandt at work.

EmbedVideo was given an illegal value for the alignment parameter "Project Rembrandt at work". Valid values are "left", "center", "right", or "inline".

Interview with a contributor (NAME)

In each edition we have an interview with a contributor. Suggestions for possible questions are available on interview questions, you are invited to come up with new questions and interview ideas obviously! Anyone is free to write an interview (with him-/herself or others) for next month's newsletter! If you'd like to help interview a contributor or get interviewed, please do consider adding yourself to the list of interview volunteers! To keep this going and less awkward, we are currently trying to come up with the convention that former interviewees become next month's interviewers.

  • How long have you been involved in FlightGear?
  • What are your major interests in FlightGear?
  • What project are you working on right now?
  • What do you plan on doing in the future?
  • Are you happy with the way the FlightGear project is going?
  • What do you enjoy most about developing for FlightGear?
  • Are there any "hidden features" you have worked on in FlightGear that new users may miss?
  • What advice can you give to new developers who want to get started on their first aircraft/new feature/Nasal script?

More questions are being collected here: Interview questions.

Stay tuned for next month's interview, featuring FlightGear contributor XXXXXXXX

Snapshot releases

Every now and then, easy-to-install development snapshots are created (usually, twice montlhy). These snapshos depict a recent state of the development version of FlightGear. By using them users can test out features that will be included in the upcoming release. Testers are encouraged to file bugs at the issue tracker.

The snapshot can be download via the links at the bottom of this page: http://www.flightgear.org/download/. Updates and feedback can be found at the forum.

Nasal for newbies

New software tools and projects

FlightGear addons and mods

In the hangar

All the way back in May 2011, we addopted a new status-rating system for aircraft. So far, only a few have actually been rated, as can be seen in the list 'hockenberry' set up at Google Docs. If you're an aircraft developer and your aircraft is/are not on the list, please consider rating their status. All you'll need to know/do is described at Formalizing Aircraft Status. If you'd just like to get started contributing to FlightGear, this would also seem like an excellent way to get started.

New aircraft

Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR.1

Harrier GR.1 model

Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR1 is a private project by pjedvaj, it was not intended to replace or update the existing British Aerospace Harrier. It has a detailed 3D model, animations and RAF livery. Instruments and HUD are fairly authentic. The aircraft has working ADEN guns and basic fuel and weight control. FDM is adapted from the original BAe Harrier, internal and external fuel tank capacities are modified to match the GR.1 version.

Updated aircraft

Cessna 337G Skymaster

General view of the new Cessna 337G Skymaster cockpit

The Cessna 337G Skymaster from the Spain-Latinamerica "Vive FlightGear" factory have received a major update. The new cockpit is now totally modelled, almost buttons and knobs are functional, animated, and properly labeled for easy identification. New custom sounds, lights, controls, a Bendix/King avionics pack capable of full IFR and night navigation, 2 new HQ liveries and the first FlightGear's working ELT (Emergency Locator Transmitter) are part of this great improvement on a FlightGear aircraft.

Liveries

Scenery corner

Airports

Aircraft of the month

Airport of the month

Screenshot of the month

Suggested flights

Aircraft reviews

Wiki updates

New articles

<DynamicArticleList>

 type=new
 count=10

</DynamicArticleList>

New aircraft articles

<DynamicArticleList>

 type=new
 count=10
 categoryRoot=Aircraft

</DynamicArticleList>

Most popular newsletters

<DynamicArticleList>

 type=hot
 count=5
 categoryRoot=FlightGear Newsletter

</DynamicArticleList>

Community news

FlightGear on YouTube

New tutorials and screencasts

Forum news

Multiplayer

Virtual airlines

FlightGear events

Useful links

And finally ...

Contributing

One of the regular thoughts expressed on the FlightGear forums is "I'd like to contribute but I don't know how to program, and I don't have the time". Unfortunately, there is a common mis-conception that contributing requires programming and lots of free time. In fact, there are a huge range of ways to contribute to the project without needing to write code or spending days working on something.

For ideas on starting to contribute to FlightGear, you may want to check out: Volunteer.

Call for volunteers

  • The OpenRadar project is looking for a new maintainer.
  • The FGFSPM (FlightGear Package Manager) is looking for a new maintainer.

Did you know

...that you can use expressions to create complex animations of objects in your 3d models or even drive them from multiple properties? Usually, an animation looks like this

 <animation>
     <type>translate</type>
     <property>foo/bar</property>
     [..]more elements[..]
 </animation>

You can add a scaling factor or an offset to it, but that's basically all you can do that way. If you want to animate your object following a complex function, most people create complex Nasal scripts to compute the driving properties, probably not knowing that there is another way to achieve the goal: Expressions. Here is an example for a translate animation depending on two properties and the cosine function

 <animation>
     <type>translate</type>
     <expression>
       <product>
         <property>/my/factor-property</property>
         <cos>
           <deg2rad>
             <property>/my/angular-property</property>
           </deg2rad>
         </cos>
       </product>
     </expression>
     [..]more elements[..]
 </animation>

A rich set of predefined functions is available, including almost all those you have on your scientific pocket calculator.