FlightGear Newsletter February 2022

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February 2022

We would like to emphasize that the monthly newsletter cannot 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.

The new Visual Editor makes editing the wiki as simple as using a Word-processor, and even easier than using the forum as you don't even need to know the syntax for a url. Just hit the 'edit' link and start.

Development news

Core Profile support / replacing ShivaVG

Here is a comparison between ShivaVG and ShaderVG.Look at the Canvas Dialog top left and particularly the vertical airspeed bars

Here is a comparison.Look at the Canvas Dialog top left and particularly the vertical airspeed bars

See Shiva Alternatives for the main article about this subject.

We need to remove PUI and change the Canvas not to use ShivaVG (Canvas Path back end), to be ES2 compatible or Core-profile compatible.

To support Canvas on OpenGL Core profile, the plan is to migrate from Shiva to ‘something else’ which implements the required drawing operations. Unfortunately two of the probable solutions (Skia from Chrome and Cairo from Gtk) are both enormous and a pain to deploy on macOS and Windows.

See also Unifying the 2D rendering backend via canvas.

As part of the Core profile migration, we need to replace ShivaVG (which is the functional guts of Path.cxx) with a shader based implementation, ideally NanoVG, although Scott has indicated this might not be as easy as originally hoped.

Early experiments (patch [1]) in 02/2022 with ShaderVG were promising and suggest, that it ‘kind of sort of’ works, that’s already less work than integrating NanoVG.

For the time being, it's not a one on one drop in replacement but it works quite nicely.

To learn more, see Shiva Alternatives.

FlightGear 2020.3.12 released

Bug-fix release 2020.3.12 is now available, containing small bug-fixes in many areas. You can find the Changelog here

Included in this release is a back-port of the generic combined ALS procedural lights and Compositor lights update which allows aircraft developers to easily add all the light effects for a single light for all renderers (classic pre-ALS sprite lights, ALS procedural lights and Compositor scenery illuminating lights) with a single call. More information can be found in the wiki. By including this in version 2020.3.12 this code is forward and backward compatible between FlightGear releases.

Note  FlightGear is currently undergoing a lot of huge changes. More importantly: Adopting OSG 3.6+, moving to the OpenGL core profile, WS 3.0, Osm2city buildings, Photoscenery and Compositor shadows & lights. In addition, adopting OSG 3.6 means that the experimental CompositeViewer Support can be more widely enabled and tested (it is already enabled by default on next). Also, as part of the CompositeViewer effort, Canvas FBO rendering is in the process of being moved out of the scene graph into dedicated viewer-level cameras, which provides better support/integration with OSG threading and fixes the long-standing issue where Canvas textures were being rendered twice per view unnecessarily due to the original new/far camera scheme. Furthermore, to support Canvas (actually CanvasPath/all SVG handling) on Core profile, the plan is to migrate our Canvas Path backend from Shiva to ‘something else’ (see Shiva Alternatives) which implements the required drawing operations, unlike Shiva, ShaderVG or NanoVG can target Core-profile OpenGL. It is likely the non-shader code path (fixed-function pipeline) will also go away in the next twelve months (~ early/mid 2022). We tried to communicate this: 2020.3 is the last release that will work on really old hardware: 'next' and future releases will need a more modern machine with an OpenGL 4 / DX12 class GPU. 'next' is work-in-progress: likely 12 or 18 months before it becomes a release. In that time the build dependencies, minimum system requirements, performance baseline and basically everything else are going to change (and keep changing). Of course, we'll try to make it work on as wide a range of hardware as possible, but right now we don't know, and it would be incorrect to speculate or promise anything. (Eg, we cannot say 'an Intel 4000 will work but an Intel 3000 won't - we have no idea!) If 'next' works for someone, that is great, but if you want stability, stable FPS and compatibility with older hardware, there is an easy answer: use 2020.3. That's what we recommend for everyone who wants to fly and enjoy flying. The macOS and Windows nightly builds are now running OSG 3.6.5, so people can hopefully start testing WS3.0 Also, be aware that the binary builds also switched to OSG 3.6, so that may have an FPS impact as well (either higher or lower…)

In the hangar

The Pilatus PC-9M and it's variants have undergone a big overhaul adding the brand new PC-7 MKX and pulling in the PC-21 in the process. Besides a lot of small 3d model changes, the structure is optimized by sharing more 3d objects and animations are improved. There are also some small 3d cockpit improvements implemented.

Scenery corner

Osm2city

The next osm2city worldbuild went live on Sunday the 27th. This build brings trees, updated osm source data and resolved conflicts with in the meantime added scenery objects.

Help wanted

Post LTS work

After the 2020.2 release, some work lies ahead to improve the LTS and to help us pave the way for migrating to the OpenGL Core profile - any help would be greatly appreciated.

This may for example include:

• Switching to the OpenGL Core profile:
  • Helping retarget Canvas.Path to get rid of Shiva
  • Porting the legacy HUD system to become Canvas based
  • Help retarget the 2D panels system to become Canvas based
• Checking that aircraft work with the LTS and documenting any major problems
• Include ffmpeg libraries in Windows and Mac builds, to enable built-in video encoding.
• Cppunit effort and FlightGear Headless (see Testing)
• Deboosting FlightGear

Please get in touch via the developers mailing list to learn more. See Post FlightGear 2020.2 LTS changes and 2022.X Release Plan for more details.

World Scenery 3.0

The FlightGear project is in the process of exploring how Virtual Planet Builder can be adopted. For details, see: World Scenery 3.0 roadmap

Aerial (drone) photos for Terrain textures

Wanted: good top-down aerial photos to create textures from to use with the procedural Regional Texturing system. Drones with cameras are ideal. People with access to drones are in a good position to take high-quality photographs.

A particular need as of 2020 is photos of agriculture (farm lands) from different parts of the world.

Good GPLv2 compatible photos suitable for textures are hard to find, and an easy way is for people to take photos of their region. Flightgear's procedural systems can do a lot with less art content, so photo contributions can strongly improve visuals.

See: How to: take photos of terrain for textures. For examples of final textures: see /data/Textures/Terrain. e.g. UK countryside.

You can get in touch via the Scenery forum or the flightgear-devel mailing list

Photos of trees for textures

Wanted: good quality photos of different trees and vegetation from various parts of the world. Flightgear's vegetation system can handle multiple layers of trees and bushes.

Strong shadows should be avoided. Each tree should be against a background of a different colour: sky (preferably) , clouds , or buildings. This allows the tree to be separated from the background in a photo-editor like GIMP.

See: How to: take photos of vegetation. For examples of final textures: see /data/Textures/Trees. e.g. Coniferous.

You can get in touch via the Scenery forum or the flightgear-devel mailing list.

Submissions of labels for craft

Wanted: Submissions of labels (tags) giving a rough description of aircraft - Metadata tags. A quick read of a craft's Wikipedia page will normally be enough to set labels. This info will be searchable from the launcher GUI. For example, filtering craft by propulsion like single-propeller or 4-engine jet craft, or by a manufacturer like Airbus or Grumman, or by speed like supersonic craft, or craft by era like WW2. A list of tags is here - more can be added if needed. To add tags to craft yourself, the tags are stored in the set-xml file.

A list of FGAddon craft needing tags is here. See this forum thread to submit tags. The flightgear-devel mailing list or the craft's maintainer can also be contacted.

Windows Package Maintainer

The core team needs help from Windows users able to maintain a good working Windows build. This process already exists to support our Nightly and Release builds, but we are seeking additional help to keep it in good working order. The ability to compile FG from source and some Windows batch scripting is a required skill. If you are willing and able to take up this role, please reach out to James Turner (mailing list), or get in touch via the forum

AI

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

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 flight sims. 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.

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 the this subforum . Be sure to see the first post for participation rules. For purposes of convenience and organization, at the end of the month or after 20 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.

Thanks for reading FlightGear Newsletter February 2022!

References