FlightGear Newsletter March 2010

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Welcome to the March 2010 edition of the FlightGear Newsletter.

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 of next month and every contribution is welcome.

From the developers

The experimental urban effect. Notice how the 2D city textures appear to be 3D!

Shader experiments

FlightGear developer Fred has been experimenting with the shaders recently. Although he is not yet completely satisfied with the results, the video examples below are worth watching.

Basic map display.

Map Dialog

James is working on a GUI navigational map, which shows information from the GPS and navigation/airport database in a dialog box - similar to the map windows in other flight-simulators. The results aren't as beautiful as Atlas, but are useful for quickly finding a nearby airport or VOR, and for graphically showing waypoints from a route. The code is also a test platform for creating in-panel cockpit displays using similar technology in the near future, and it's already possible to switch the map to show the aircraft track (from the GPS) heading 'up' the screen. In the mode the map can be used as simple navigation display, to stay on a route or align with a localizer.

See this wiki page for further information on the current status (and bugs) of the code, and some basic instructions.

Google Summer of Code

GSoC is an effort by Google, Inc. to promote Open Source Software and education by bringing students together with experienced developers as their mentors for the summer (northern hemisphere). Google pays the student a stipend, the student learns by participating in real software development, the project gets code and maybe a new developer who'll stay around and benefit the project into the future.

It seems like each year since GSoC started, someone says "Hey, wouldn't it be great if FG participated?" Then several people agree but all quickly realize it's too close to the application deadline to get anything done. Curt agrees that we should make a serious effort to prepare for the 2011 GSoC well in advance, stating "We need a couple dedicated people to step forward and take charge here. Otherwise we'll be sayin' the same things at this time next year."

Willie has stepped forward in an organizational role, forming a sister IRC channel, #FG-GSoC at irc.flightgear.org, looking around for would-be mentors and working our GSoC wiki page.

The F-117 Nighthawk with the experimental lights.

Light cones

Until now, aircraft landing lights in FlightGear were not much more than a decoration since they did not cast any light on objects in their path. Lauri has implemented experimental light cones which illuminate everything within its range. It's a great step forward for realism, though there are still some aspects of it that need work. For example, other aircraft turn white when they enter a light cone. This is still an exciting development and we can be sure that the dev team will work out the kinks in short order.

In the hangar

New aircraft

The following aircraft were added to CVS in March and will be available for the mass with the next stable release of FlightGear. Some of them might be available in private hangars; downloads links are between brackets.

The Concorde in the new Qantas-Livery.

Concorde liveries

EA-7201 worked on extra liveries for the Concorde, making the liveries of almost all orderers available! If you have the newest version of the Concorde (version 2.6) you are able to use them. See the Concorde in new liveries from airliners like Lufthansa, United Airlines, Japan Airlines and even Air Canada! You can download all these beautiful liveries at this link.

Scenery Corner

Dubai scenery 1.png

Dubai is coming up

Dubai has one of the most recognisable coastlines in the world. Thanks to a couple of inovative projects, including the Palm Islands (islands in the shape of a palm) and The World (islands together forming a worldmap). In FlightGear none of these were visible. Gijs started drawing these islands and the ever growing populated areas, to be used in FlightGear. A preview of the yet to be released scenery can be seen in the screenshot on the right.

Wiki News

FlightGear wiki moved to a new server

Many FG wiki users have recently been annoyed by frequent 503 errors when attempting to view a page. The reason for this was the large number of daily visitors to the wiki. Many visitors is a great sign of health for the project, but it was just more than the server could handle. After three months of this, the wiki was moved to a new server on the 10th of March. This appears to have eliminated the 503 errors. Please contact the wiki admin if they or any other problems with the wiki occur.

Community News

Changes in the forum

Gijs de Rooy has become an administrator at the FlightGear Forum. In addition to moderating the forums (surely a maddening task at times), Gijs has already made some significant improvements to the forum organization. A re-styling of the -currently default- forum look is in the works.

Another multiplay server

Thanks to Charles Ingels (cbz026), there is another multiplayer server in France! This brings the total number of servers to 13, of which 10 in Europe, two in North-America and one in Asia.

Again, we would like to emphasize the importance of connecting to the correct server. The multiplayer servers are interconnected, so you do not need to connect to a specific server in order to see other pilots who are on that server. However, since server02 is overloaded (too many people use that one), not all pilots are shared between the servers. For best performance it is very important connect to the server that is geographically closest to you, has the lowest latency (ping time) or is the least busy.

The complete list of servers and more information about multiplayer is available in the Multiplayer howto.