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October 2020

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) is welcome to contribute to the newsletter. 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

CompositeViewer

Progress is being made on enabling Flightgear to use OpenSceneGraph's CompositeViewer.

This allows Flightgear to have multiple top-level windows showing independent views of the scenery, and will also allow implementation of things like cockpit rear-view mirrors and cockpit displays of external views (tail cams, gear view etc).

For details, please see: CompositeViewer Support

New software tools and projects

FGCom-mumble

FGCom-Mumble aims to provide a mumble based FGCom implementation. This will simulate radio communications in a seamless frequency spectrum.

The project aims to be easy to use: Pilots just install the plugin, open mumble, join a channel on a mumble server and start using their radio stack in Flightgear.

The development is discussed in the FGCom-mumble topic on the forum  . Releases can be downloaded from GitHub.

The project also has a flightgear wikipage: FGCom-mumble

Current state

September was busy mainly developing a standalone GUI based radio client. This has been finished in the new 0.6.0 release early October.

Aside from various bugfixes, fixed memory leaks and an additional mumble API update, this release features:

  • Static noise volume at bad signal quality conditions have been tuned down further
  • Proper 8.33kHz/25kHz spacing is now modelled. The radios have to supply their spacing mode using the new UDP field COM<n>_CWKHZ. This also simulates channel overlap to nearby 8.33 channels if the radio is in 25kHz mode (defaults to 8.33 mode).
  • The statuspage and mumble comment show the tuned frequency (channel) instead of the calculated real wave frequency now, which makes it more user friendly
  • The UDP and plugin IO interfaces now better check maximum field lengths (32 characters, remainder is truncated)
  • Releases will be debug builds until we reach the 1.0.0 milestone release; this will help in debugging in the field.
  • ...and finally we have a standalone radio GUI client now, that can simulate arbitary radios and even features a map based location picker :)


Open tasks

The plugin is principally functional with the latest API. As the mumble project introduces further changes to the API, i will integrate them.

To conduct further and broader testing, we probably need to wait for mumble 1.4.0. As this is probably still a long time out, early testing under linux is welcome. Also, I still have no idea if the windows plugin loads, so someone with a windows build environment is most appreciated to compile mumble and try the plugin.

The issue tracker still lists some points, but those are either minor ones or are not implementable at the current time. Nonetheless, please see trough the items, maybe you can lend a hand. Also, some code review is welcome! Especially the memory management needs some more eyes as there still may be memory leaks.

Trying it out yourself

As mumble 1.4.0 is still in the pipeline, you need a self compiled mumble (and murmur) from the Krzmbrzl:plugin-API branch to test this out. If you additionally want to run the server side bots, you also need lua-mumble. Detailed installation descriptions are laid out in the readmes.

It would be cool if someone with a public server could try to setup that, so I can verify the readme files are correct and we get an online test bed. Testing can be conducted without flightgear when utilizing the shipped RadioGUI client.

In the hangar

Updated aircraft

  • The Cessna 182S (git version) got some bugfixes, especially with the wheel chocks being stuck at cold&dark state. Also, the Radio stack is in the process of beeing replaced with the Bendic KX165-A, so we have support for 8.33 channels now. Damage support is still in the works, too.


AI

The AI team makes FlightGear more realistic, colorful and lively every month. You can support the important development of Interactive Traffic and contribute at the FlightGear AI subforum  .


Scenery corner

New Photoscenery patches

Nathaniel is working on a set of patches to add photo scenery support to FlightGear:

It works by replacing the normal scenery texture with satellite orthophotos when they're available. It's compatible with ALS, as well as the default renderer, and works with existing scenery. I have instructions, including links to patched FlightGear and SimGear, as well as a patch for the base data package, at github

A few examples of the Kansas scenery with photo texturing are posted in the forum.

As a result of some comparisons pictures which showed the difference between good custom scenery and the photo scenery Erik took the opportunity to better color match the supplied textures for hue, saturation and brightness. Here's an example of the color matching effort.

vnts also stepped in and gave the whole regional texturing scheme a make-over and improved the airport grass textures world wide considerably.




Community news

FlightGear on Facebook

Since early December 2010, FlightGear has an official Facebook page. If you have a Facebook account please feel free to join the page.

FlightGear on Instagram

In January 2018 the @flightgear_sim Instagram account was brought back to life. If you've got nice screenshots to be featured, feel free to contact the maintainer  .

FlightGear on FlightSim.com

Flightgear has also a sub-forum on flightsim.com - just like the commercial flightsims. It is an opportunity to showcase what FG can do, get people curious and answer any questions they may have with regard to the software or the project.

Multiplayer events

Contributing

Translators needed

  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 benötigt immer noch Hilfe bei der Übersetzung in verschiedene Sprachen. Wenn Du Interesse daran hast, das FlightGear Wiki mehrsprachig zu machen, dann fang mit dem Help:Übersetzen an.
  De FlightGear Wiki kan nog steed 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 百科仍然需要志愿者将其翻译为各种语言。如果你有兴趣让FlightGear百科支持更多语言, 你可以查看 Help:Translate.

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

If you want to participate in the screenshot contest , you can submit your candidate to this subforum  . Be sure to see the first post for participation rules. For purposes of convenience and organization, after all the entries have been submitted, a new forum topic will be started containing all shots in an easy-to-view layout. The voting will then take place there. Once the voting has finished, the best screenshot will be presented in the Newsletter.

Thanks for reading FlightGear Newsletter October 2020!

References