EXPANSION OF DEVELOPMENT BASE PERSONNEL THROUGH EDUCATION
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Not sure if its already been said here
but a lot of what the OP posted has and is being done already we have dedicated Data / DB guys who Co-Ordinate with the Coders
a lot of work is going on behind the scenes so if it seems some functions or architecture is not being worked on I can assure you most of it is do we post about whats to come no and for good reasons IMO as you can imagine the threads come saying "Oi you said this would be in or that would be in blah blah “” when it could just be down to code complications anyone who has seen the code knows how all over the place it is
We provide IMO a very informative Documentation on how to use the systems etc. etc. and community members provide really useful videos on these as well
The code itself needs to be kept to the core dev team as per this thread https://www.benchmarksims.org/forum/showthread.php?26408-4-33-1-will-release-shortly-what-you-need-to-know-and-how-to-be-prepared.
That being said there is nothing stopping IMO a group who wish to create a Theatre / Tools / Models / or any other update as is already the case will they become part of the main installer possibly see the FAQ section for details on what we need for that.
Point is we do bring in guys from time to time usually the ones that have shown their work and reached out.
Hope that helps little
It does help. Alot. If not for any other reason than that of establishing intentions and well meant decisions-actions. I also recognize very well at what is said in the FAQ that stating commitment of what will go into the next iteration/version will only cause premature excitement and a ****storm of questions. It is very well said that “instead of working with the code we [the dev team] would spend our time answering questions”.
As I already said, I don’t seek to be in the core dev team or any other team for that matter. I am here because I volunteer my time and energy to help improve this flight sim… not unlike alot of other people that have already been working on it for years or even decades.
When everything is all said and done, I - or anyone else - don’t have a reason and especially no right to complain about what is being given to use for free.
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General statements - Regarding the bubble - I suggest to anyone to d/l and go over the relevant sections in the RP5 manual. Most of what’s written there is still valid:
http://www.maverick.webd.pl/pliki/F4_RP5_User_Manual.pdfRegarding BMS “choice” to use the L2 resolution and not L0, is mainly because with L0 and the existing rendering we get severe Z-Fighting issues between terrain vertices (Because of the higher resolution). Although it looks same, the rendering of the Terrain in BMS was actually rewritten compared to older versions of Falcon (e.g water normal mapping, no LODing/Popping and of course no Far tiles used).
Rendering of the current Terrain is segmented yes, i.e only what needs to be rendered is loaded at a given moment, but that’s mainly because of the texturing, we are executing a draw call for any texture that is involved in the current render frame, in other words drawing the terrain requires a HUGE amount of draw calls, not because of mesh resolution but because of the texturing.
Well, I said earlier that finding interest in the terrain is true for the 2 of us, so it’s not low priority, I assure you that
Yes it probably is complicated, but complicated never stopped us
I-Hawk, the way I see it, the first hurdle we need to overcome is the code co-dependencies and limitations. You seem to know more about this than me. Can you think of a way to teach more than just one person certain skills to allow them to help with what i understand is something like “spaghetti code”?
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Heya
sometimes its easier to explain if you see it for yourself
Have a look around the net you can find various versions of Falcon code I know its not the latest but it is a good starting point to see what a mess it truly is.
from personal experience latest isn’t much better (mainly from me before I-Hawk says it ) but a lot has changed or just updated to cleaner code.
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Heya
sometimes its easier to explain if you see it for yourself
Have a look around the net you can find various versions of Falcon code I know its not the latest but it is a good starting point to see what a mess it truly is.
from personal experience latest isn’t much better (mainly from me before I-Hawk says it ) but a lot has changed or just updated to cleaner code.
I really need to understand this:
Are you implying that over the years the core dev team is performing a complete re-write of the original code by approaching one feature after another?
The following is addressed to anyone capable of answering (I-Hawk, Malc, Ninja, Cloud 9, other):
One more thing:
From what I understand the terrain portion of the code has not been touched too much or at all. Would it be possible - while working with a version other than the one the BMS dev team works on - to catalog all the co-dependencies and limitations of it to speed up the process of bringing to life a new cleaner and hopefully expandable or at least more detailed version of terrain? If, so, what version would be the closest a. to what the BMS team is working on and b. to the goal of using a finer geometric mesh and a much higher number of tiles concerning texture without affecting the simulation and game play?
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I really need to understand this:
Are you implying that over the years the core dev team is performing a complete re-write of the original code by approaching one feature after another?
Seems to me like you are trying to put everything in order, but if you know how software works, then you should know the core stuff is usually tied. And in dependency of the complexity level, things may be more or less complicated to manage. Falcon code is an example of a complicated code project. Add to that the fact that it was touched over the years by many folks and which not always tried to do things the right way - As in many cases during software development you are hitting a concrete problem and there are 2 or more ways to solve it, usually there is the easy and short way which we call “Hack” or “Kludge”, and there is the harder but the better ways to do it.
I’m not an expert to the real deep stuff of MP and bubble but believe me, the guys who worked on that stuff to allow BMS the stable MP we have today, they really had to bust their ass off in order to make that work, as this stuff isn’t trivial to manage, not at all.
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Yeah kind of let me try and explain from my perspective
A lot of the original code still exists this is true but over the years and different groups it has changed soooo much that If you compare codes for example SP3 - whatever other code base there is available Good and bad coding practice had been applied.
You will notice a huge difference remember originally it was in C or C# over the years we have been adding features or totally rewriting them to fix a bug or improve on what was there and these normally get transferred into C++ as well as Library’s being added or removed is there more that can be done hell yes and I am always amazed with the rest of the guys enthusiasm to add a new feature or fix a bug that has been there since day 1.
From what I understand the terrain portion of the code has not been touched too much or at all. Would it be possible - while working with a version other than the one the BMS dev team works on - to catalog all the co-dependencies and limitations of it to speed up the process of bringing to life a new cleaner and hopefully expandable or at least more detailed version of terrain? If, so, what version would be the closest a. to what the BMS team is working on and b. to the goal of using a finer geometric mesh and a much higher number of tiles concerning texture without affecting the simulation and game play?
you can read between the lines here
I know for sure some have taught themselves on graphics rendering code where their main aim is to help improve on the rendering side of things over my head but I been doing other things mainly on the GUI side of things which btw sends shivers down other coders backs lol just because it has always been on the dark side of the code.if I get a chance over the weekend I will see if I can compile a list of what is to come or something like that if I can I am 100% sure most coders look at the if you could have one thing thread
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Seems to me like you are trying to put everything in order, but if you know how software works, then you should know the core stuff is usually tied. And in dependency of the complexity level, things may be more or less complicated to manage. Falcon code is an example of a complicated code project. Add to that the fact that it was touched over the years by many folks and which not always tried to do things the right way - As in many cases during software development you are hitting a concrete problem and there are 2 or more ways to solve it, usually there is the easy and short way which we call “Hack” or “Kludge”, and there is the harder but the better ways to do it.
I’m not an expert to the real deep stuff of MP and bubble but believe me, the guys who worked on that stuff to allow BMS the stable MP we have today, they really had to bust their ass off in order to make that work, as this stuff isn’t trivial to manage, not at all.
I-Hawk, thanks for the explanations and your time.
Where do we start?
Where do we help?
How do we help?Since you mentioned at least You and Me - and from what I understand several others that would be willing to help - do you have any estimate about how much it would take to have some kind of understanding about what can be changed in a positive way towards the goals I mentioned? And are those goals even valid given that the existing code imposes limitations that most of us - me included - don’t quite understand?
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For starters i have already started the falcon editor manual.
First goal is to give basic usage and structure to the newb user. It will be enriched as i go along and implemend object oriented procedures like add new weapon or rack.
Everyone is invited to contribute with plain text pics or videos.
I’ll try to host the html version somewhere so ppl and devs can have a look and kick me when im wrong or i forget things.
If the coder of FE wants to implement the file as help with keys or keywords we must come to an arengement so it will be easy for him. Not that needed but it would be neat to mouse over a button or frame name and a kind text confuses u to death… [emoji38]sent from my mi5 using Tapatalk
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I know of at least one real world F-16 pilot that offered to help improve the avionics and bring them closer to what is actually in the jet and he was more or less ignored. To put it bluntly, they don’t want our help.
There are things in recent BMS updates that came from feedback from real world F-16 pilots. The CZ highlighting when you move your cursor is one that comes to mind but I know there are more. There’s a list of things provided from real world F-16 guys around avionics (non-classified of course) - the team just hasn’t got to them all yet. It’s not from a lack of having the information.
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There are things in recent BMS updates that came from feedback from real world F-16 pilots. The CZ highlighting when you move your cursor is one that comes to mind but I know there are more. There’s a list of things provided from real world F-16 guys around avionics (non-classified of course) - the team just hasn’t got to them all yet. It’s not from a lack of having the information.
Definitely and that’s great to hear, I look forward to the future, I think what he was trying to get across was simply how difficult it actually is to get on the team, that even an F-16 pilot who had the ability was passed over in this case. This thread has been very interesting at one point I thought for sure it was going south, but I was wrong. The development team and moderators have been super generous on this one, it is much appreciated watching the team rise to the occasion and sharing knowledge with the new guy. Very impressed
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I-Hawk, thanks for the explanations and your time.
Where do we start?
Where do we help?
How do we help?Since you mentioned at least You and Me - and from what I understand several others that would be willing to help - do you have any estimate about how much it would take to have some kind of understanding about what can be changed in a positive way towards the goals I mentioned? And are those goals even valid given that the existing code imposes limitations that most of us - me included - don’t quite understand?
Well, when I said you and me, I mainly spoke about the interest in improving the Terrain
But unfortunately, the task itself is to be done with coding access, so there isn’t really not much to share and only say that hopefully the future will become better.
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There are things in recent BMS updates that came from feedback from real world F-16 pilots. The CZ highlighting when you move your cursor is one that comes to mind but I know there are more. There’s a list of things provided from real world F-16 guys around avionics (non-classified of course) - the team just hasn’t got to them all yet. It’s not from a lack of having the information.
Mavericks, SPI, TGP and probably more stuff that I already forgot
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Well, when I said you and me
Don’t let AB or is it now AD see that he get jealous
/me sneeks back to the shadows
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Well, when I said you and me, I mainly spoke about the interest in improving the Terrain
But unfortunately, the task itself is to be done with coding access, so there isn’t really not much to share and only say that hopefully the future will become better.
Precisely my point.
Could the same task be approached through a different version of Falcon, older FreeFalcon, Falcon AF, OpenFalcon, other? Would that even be useful or would it just be double the effort?
If nothing can be done at the moment on behalf of the users that have no access, I suggest at least setting up a pipelines for complimentary work while the core dev team tries to comb the spaghetti code concerning terrain.
That means that the average user falls into 4 different categories:
a. Those with coding skills we should at least try to employ on non-critical code tasks (ideas anyone?).
b. Those with 3D skills
c. Those with 2D skills
d. Those with no skills (they can still help)We can setup pipelines concerning 3D models and do preliminary work concerning terrain (Group b.).
We can setup pipelines concerning textures of 3D models and terrain (Group c.).
We can help Dee-Jay with the Tac-Ref (Group d.).I would suspect that Dee-Jay’s pipeline would be the easiest and be described something like:
1. Decide on a common format for storing / handling text entries.
2. Find approved sources of information for each weapon system.
3. Decide on what information will be included in the Tac-Ref for each weapon system (specs, capabilities, doctrine, other, history of weapon system?)
4. Obtain permissions to copy-paste material, or if denied re-write in own words taking note of the source for credits and reference.
5. Store and hand over to Dee-Jay.If I have forgot anything, Dee-Jay already doing this should point it out before the typing begins because he would be receiving text entries from more than just one user.
Concerning 3D terrain, I will research what is freely available for the future and give a heads-up so everyone knows, in this thread. After that, we can decide on how it will be used. Last time I downloaded version 2.0 of Flightgear’s terrain it was 80+ GBs of terrain data. So I think its safe to guess that they are using NASA WorldWind with or without modifications (without most likely because you wouldn’t mess with that size of a dataset without good reason). There are a few other options and I am aware of some companies that MIGHT offer high(ish) resolution terrain in exchange of publicity / advertisement.
Concerning 3D vehicle models, the way I see it, its either digitize, model, or both. I also think that my initial approach of going for the highest possible accuracy model is correct so that its avoided making the models twice. The high-end stuff can always be simplified to fewer polygon versions.
The same applies for real-world objects such as buildings, bridges, harbors, power line towers, etc etc.
Finally, those with 2D skills can pick up from where finished 3D models leave off (skin the plane / missile launcher / truck / whatever) and also collect and prepare the landscape colors DB for the terrain depending on position (seaside, plain, hill, foot of mountain, mountain, summit), season (winter, spring, summer, autumn) and time of day / night.
Naturally, those with coding / 3D / 2D skills need to be put to work on their specific skillsets and everyone regardless of skillsets on their spare time need to type along with those that don’t have any special skills as mentioned.
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To not shy away anyone for not being qualified enough, I´l start signing up for duty in category D. Other then a crappy J35J half way done in 3dsmax, I´m left to the skills of my profession: pedagogic skill. I volunteer to gather info on anything that can be used in Tacref.
Cheers!
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To not shy away anyone for not being qualified enough, I´l start signing up for duty in category D. Other then a crappy J35J half way done in 3dsmax, I´m left to the skills of my profession: pedagogic skill. I volunteer to gather info on anything that can be used in Tacref.
Cheers!
I know you want to help just as everyone else reading this thread. I suggest you hold back until we finalize details with Dee-Jay. He has more experience and we haven’t heard his opinion on all this. If you just set out to start “executing” without deciding from where you will collect the data and other details, you may end up doing everything twice.
Sit back and have a cup of coffee. I am sure Dee-Jay will show up sooner rather than later and let us know what he has in mind. Its been his baby all along anyway.
And one more thing… Since your primary skill set is pedagogic, you owe to be involved in the manuals. You have skills. Not sure how good your English is though.
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World Wind is an API, this would constitute a re-write of the terrain system, from scratch, including everything it ties into (Which is everything, because Terrain governs geo-position/GPS/avionics etc…). It is also designed to be used on a connected environment to draw most of the data and imagery directly from the NASA servers real time. To do what you are alluding to would essentially be to create a modified private Data Server inside the BMS executable (Or as a standalone like IVC) to act as a local data server every time you start the game, which IS a supported feature of the API, but not typically the intended use. The upside to this however, would be that you could set it up to download the required imagery from the NASA servers during installation, and not have to include it as a piece of the Falcon installation package. But it would also be a 6-8 month minimum project for a team of full time developers. It would be nice, but I think there are better, more feasible solutions for BMS. Just my opinion though, someone else may have a different view where terrain is concerned.
I had looked into it [WorldWind] some 5-10 years ago. It offered options to export as DEM at least. From DEM, there are probably at least 20.000 programs made by surveying universities that translate DEM into anything, including XYZ and CSV. To be honest I wouldn’t feel comfortable with adding a network connection as a requirement to the game. Maybe package with a standard Terrain DB and expand at users choice. But I am not saying that a different approach is invalid or anything.
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Coders are an extinct species in the community.
There are exceptions like weather…There was a huge discusion about keeping up with bms versioning and database compatibility between curent theater DB and newer BMS versions that might have DB alterations that demand from scratch theater DB rebuild which is an overkill.
ITO guys and Eghi iirc have worked on a wonder miracle with mathlab but it remains a mystery.
For the rest of the theater devs such occasions draw back theater progress and in one case one team ceased operation.Another is Falcon Editor some areas are leading to no info like empty windows where u expect something.
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