Presentation Recipe: Difference between revisions

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=== X-Windows Setup ===
=== X-Windows Setup ===


This recipe used "multi-head" mode. This is left as an exercise for the reader.
This recipe used "multi-head" mode. With a Linux Catalyst 8.9 (Driver version 8.53 or later) and FireGL cards, this is as simple as
 
aticonfig --initial=dual-head --adapter=all


=== Flightgear Setup ===
=== Flightgear Setup ===

Revision as of 00:27, 20 September 2008

This presentation recipe is intended to be very prescriptive about what you can do or a demo. The original demo recipe has been modelled on a similar one done at Siggraph.

The presentation isn't so much a formal presentation, but what is needed to have flightgear running in a booth.

This recipe can (should) be also used as a "this is what FlightGear can do" demonstration as well.


Scenario

The basic premise is that you don't want a demo to crash or involve a lot of time with people controlling the system rather than selling your wares. The basic premise is that the system can run unattended for a number of days without needing either a pilot or a technician on hand to babysit the system.

Of course there will always be a Top Gun that walks past and wants to fly, the restart of the demo should be trivial as well...

This demonstration would be also suitable for benchmarking flightgear on different hardware as well as showing users what is possible for a new install.

Video

Here is a video in a simple 4+4 configuration.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brG3-yyvv9Q

Hardware

For this particular demonstration recipe, a single Linux machine with an AMD Phenom 9550 processor with 4 FireGL v5600 cards with a AMD RD790 chipset, each running 2 displays for a total of 8 displays.

The layout used was a 4+4 layout as shown below

 +-+-+-+-+
 | | | | |
 +-+-+-+-+
 | | |X| |
 +-+-+-+-+


3+5 layout as shown below would be slightly better since the all cameras are offset from the centre screen (indicated by an X).

   +-+-+-+
   | | | |
 +-+-+-+-+-+
 | | |X| | |
 +-+-+-+-+-+

If space is tight, then a 1+3 configuration is good as well, like this URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPO-9sf8HJ0

   +-+
   | |
 +-+-+-+
 | |X| |
 +-+-+-+

Software

This recipe is based on the CVS version of FlightGear as of 9 August 2008.

Operating System

This recipe calls for Linux, the above example used Ubuntu 8.04 and the ATI Proprietary Linux Graphics driver.

X-Windows Setup

This recipe used "multi-head" mode. With a Linux Catalyst 8.9 (Driver version 8.53 or later) and FireGL cards, this is as simple as

aticonfig --initial=dual-head --adapter=all

Flightgear Setup

Ideally, setting FlightGear up for a demonstration sholdn't be onerous, but the under the hood configuration of flightgear is quite imposing. Follow this description to get flightgear running in this demo.

  1. Config file

The stock configuration file from CVS for data from July 2008.

==== Maximum Eyecandy ===
Turn on maximum eyecandy (maximum LOD, scenery, AA, etc).
Cameras and Screens

With CVS OSG based flightgear (basicaly CVS flightgear from July 2008), you can set up multiple cameras as using the repeated sections of the code below.

...

Prerecorded Flight Data

This is probably most important part. Most people suck at flying aircraft with a mouse and keyboard, so having prerecorded data is must. The data used in this demo was http://www.jentronics.com/fgfs/flight2.out.gz.

Use this data with flightgear is achieved with the following command

...

Choosing the Aircraft Models

Depending on your audience, a model best suited to that audience should be chosen. The models at Suggested Aircraft is a great place to start. For the flight in the video, a F-15 wa s used (f15c3d to be precise). Again if the flightgear could focus on models covered by this recipe it would be great.

Running the Demo

Commandline

Use the command as follows

 ./fgfs --enable-fullscreen --generic=file,in,25,flight.out,playback,repeat --fdm=external --aircaft=f15c3d

This runs flightscreen with the primary screen as fullscreen, using a 25 cycles/sec data from a playback file called flight.out, and repeats forever. Using the f15c3d aircraft.

User interaction

The demo is on rails, the only thing that can be changed is the view by pressing "v".

Wishlist

To make a demonstration of FlightGear even more compelling there are a few things that would make life a lot easier, and also take less explaining for the floor staff.

Multicore

Currently, a high end system is going to have 1 or 2 Quad-core processors. Seeing a 25 fps frame rate with a system load at 25% is a little bit sad. Working out where multiple cores can be used within flightgear would make life a lot nicer :).

Preloading

Since we are talking about multicore systems, one of those cores could at-risk pre-load the geometry and textures well before flightgear needs them. This prevents the annoying stalls on the first pass through the recorded demo.

A library of flightdata

Having some nice tours of several favoured areas would be a great help. Getting the flightdata referred to above took quite a lot of smooth talking on IRC :).

More Traffic

Flying on your own is interesting, but having other things in the air is even better. Having this recipe updated with extra links to data would be great.

More Eyecandy

Without multiple monitors, FlightGear looks quite simplistic. Use of shaders and other visual touches would add to FlightGear's appeal.

More Models

Adding more models and improved textures in the area the precorded data goes would go a long way in improving the visual experience.

Runtime Aircraft Changing

Different people like different aircraft, being able to change aircraft mid-flight would be great - particularly if you are using precorded data.

Runtime flight data Changing

Being able to switch between pre-recorded data and free-flying would be a great asset to flightgear. This is lower on the priority list, having this is a nive to have, but shouldn't be necessary with the right recorded flightdata.