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FlightGear Newsletter April 2021: Difference between revisions
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1) Add a few 2020.3.8 screenshots. 2) Mention the work on an experimental rendering pipeline by Fernando
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FlightGear 2020.3.8 LTS has been released with an '''experimental''' 1st rollout of [[OSM2City]] buildings, roads and other objects for the entire world. Objects that are in the Open Street Map (OSM) database will be present. Automatic generation for areas without objects is disabled for this release. | FlightGear 2020.3.8 LTS has been released with an '''experimental''' 1st rollout of [[OSM2City]] buildings, roads and other objects for the entire world. Objects that are in the Open Street Map (OSM) database will be present. Automatic generation for areas without objects is disabled for this release. | ||
See [[Changelog 2020.3#2020.3.7|change log]] - included are improvements to Europe agriculture appearance, update to random scenery objects such as farm or industrial buildings and silos, California regional definitions improvements (now active), and updated water depth data (bathymetry). | See [[OSM2City 1st Worldbuild|'''1st World-build of OSM2City''']] for information on what's included, and tips on performance/troubleshooting. | ||
See 2020.3.8 LTS [[Changelog 2020.3#2020.3.7|change log]] - included are improvements to Europe agriculture appearance, update to random scenery objects such as farm or industrial buildings and silos, California regional definitions improvements (now active), and updated water depth data (bathymetry).<gallery mode="packed-overlay" widths="480" heights="200" caption="2020.3.8 LTS improvements. Click to enlarge."> | |||
File:Innsbruck at night in FlighGear with OSM2City worldbuild 03.jpg|alt=Innsbruck at night in FlighGear with OSM2City worldbuild|Innsbruck OSM2City | |||
File:Madrid at dawn in FlightGear 2020.x with the 1st world-build of OSM2City 01.jpg|alt=Madrid at dawn in FlightGear 2020.x with the 1st world-build of OSM2City 01.jpg| Madrid at dawn, OSM2City | |||
File:Rolling agricultural lands stretching away to the horizon in southern France in FlightGear 2020.x 02.jpg|alt=Rolling agricultural lands stretching away to the horizon in southern France in FlightGear 2020.x|Southern Europe - rolling agricultural lands stretching to horizon | |||
File:FlightGear 2020 - Overlooking San Franciso International Airport (KSFO), California with OSM2City output (FlightGear 2020) 02.jpg|alt=FlightGear 2020 - Overlooking San Franciso International Airport (KSFO), California with OSM2City output (FlightGear 2020| California - San Francisco OSM2City | |||
File:Airport keep at San Franciso International Airport (KSFO), California with OSM2City output (FlightGear 2020) 01.jpg|California regional definitions - airport keep | |||
</gallery>Release builds now include {{Wikipedia|Appimage}} for Linux. See this discussion of [[Hardware recommendations#Recommendations for FlightGear in 2021 .282020.3 LTS.29|hardware recommendations]] for modern FlightGear - although it is for 2018.3 LTS and doesn't cover the new experimental OSM2City (see the OSM2City page info for perfromance tips). | |||
=== Homepage news posts on 2020.3 LTS === | === Homepage news posts on 2020.3 LTS === | ||
There is a [[2020 LTS Keflavik news post draft|draft page]] here for submissions of material for posts on the homepage about changes to FlightGear, Aircraft, Addons etc. since 2018.3 was released, with screenshots. The points are the important thing, don't worry if your English is not perfect. If you need suitable screenshots for the homepage ([https://www.flightgear.org/category/tours/ examples]) for a specific craft or feature that aren't already available ([[:Category:Screenshots at high settings|1]] , [https://wiki.flightgear.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Screenshots_at_high_settings&filefrom=SOTM+2020-03+Mystic+Misty+by+GinGin+%28Space+Shuttle+on+launchpad%2C+Florida%29.jpg#mw-category-media 2] , [https://forum.flightgear.org/viewforum.php?f=88 3]) in the wiki or forum, you can try asking in the forum [https://forum.flightgear.org/viewforum.php?f=19 media] section. | There is a [[2020 LTS Keflavik news post draft|draft page]] here for submissions of material for posts on the homepage about changes to FlightGear, Aircraft, Addons etc. since 2018.3 was released, with screenshots. The points are the important thing, don't worry if your English is not perfect. If you need suitable screenshots for the homepage ([https://www.flightgear.org/category/tours/ examples]) for a specific craft or feature that aren't already available ([[:Category:Screenshots at high settings|1]] , [https://wiki.flightgear.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Screenshots_at_high_settings&filefrom=SOTM+2020-03+Mystic+Misty+by+GinGin+%28Space+Shuttle+on+launchpad%2C+Florida%29.jpg#mw-category-media 2] , [https://forum.flightgear.org/viewforum.php?f=88 3]) in the wiki or forum, you can try asking in the forum [https://forum.flightgear.org/viewforum.php?f=19 media] section. | ||
=== Data Distribution Services Update: Property tree support === | === The road ahead === | ||
''See [[FlightGear Newsletter February 2021#Help%20Wanted|'''Help Wanted''']].'' | |||
There are a lot of big projects that are currently under way - see the [[FlightGear Newsletter January 2021#The%20road%20ahead|January newsletter]] for details for some of these projects. A lot of work (but not all) is already on the next branch (i.e. nightly builds). There is a lot to check out if you are curious - power users can run [[$FG HOME#Parallel%20installs%20of%20FlightGear|multiple installs]] of FlightGear in parallel. To contribute to any aspect of these projects, get in touch via the "[[Mailing lists|fg-devel]]" mailing list. | |||
Nightly builds with some of the big changes are available at [http://download.flightgear.org/builds/nightly/ download.flightgear.org] as usual. | |||
Please report bugs and issues via the sourceforge tickets system if you come across any on the next branch, or LTS. | |||
==== Data Distribution Services Update: Property tree support ==== | |||
{{Main article|Data Distribution Services Support}} | {{Main article|Data Distribution Services Support}} | ||
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All this is 'next' only. <ref>https://sourceforge.net/p/flightgear/mailman/message/37263034/</ref> | All this is 'next' only. <ref>https://sourceforge.net/p/flightgear/mailman/message/37263034/</ref> | ||
=== New rendering pipeline for Compositor === | |||
Fernando has been experimenting with adding new rendering features, using the capabilities of the [[Compositor]] - new [[HDR Pipeline|pipeline]] page. The work is "''*very*'' ''experimental''", as Fernando said. It has not been released on next as of writing - although a ''very limited'' prototype is intended to be added to FlightGear next branch. The new renderers will assume a higher version of OpenGL, which is one of the many big projects that are being worked on, | |||
The Compositor is a framework to define rendering pipelines - so far the work has been to port the ALS renderer to the new framework and add the distinguishing features of the old unmaintained Rembrandt renderer like shadows and environmental light definitions without being slow. The idea is to port existing features to ensure everything works - the next preview release or LTS will transition to the Compositor. The new work builds on top. It investigates changing the physical model of aircraft surfaces (to something involving a version of PBR), adding lighting of surfaces from light bouncing off surrounding surfaces including real-time reflections, and implementing a new way of doing HDR algorithm using the new physically based surface model. Some tunable artistic glow (know as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_(shader_effect) bloom]) is also supported. The new pipeline is built on top of existing work, and will use the fast shadows and lights added to the ALS port. Fernando hasn't found a way to re-use occlusion data (finding what is visible in the view and what isn't, and culling invisible geometry) between passes in current Open Scene Graph (OSG), so he is using a deferred rendering approach in the prototypeto overcome this OSG limitation - it means that anti-aliasing is restricted to post-processing that looks at the rendered image and tries to detect edges and blur them to remove jagged lines. | |||
The current plan is to support {{Wikipedia|GlTF|GlTF}} (Graphics Language Transmission Format) as an alternative for 3d models in future - it supports the new surface model. glTF files support binary data, and will be smaller than AC files. | |||
As Fernando said, this is all very WiP and experimental, and an investigation of various options like a lot of development. Plans can change. There is no timeline, and progress can vary based on availability of volunteers. | |||
[[HDR Pipeline#Gallery|WiP screenshots]] - keep in mind this is very proof of concept using existing art not especially designed to take advantage of the new surface models, and it only works on aircraft carriers / over the sea. It's not an end-user demo of how a craft designed for these pipeline features will look when done, and shows features that people familiar with rendering and what's been tested can pick up on. | |||
== Related Software tools and projects == | == Related Software tools and projects == | ||