EXPANSION OF DEVELOPMENT BASE PERSONNEL THROUGH EDUCATION
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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.
sent from my mi5 using Tapatalk
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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.
Copy - wilco!
Chill is a skill I actually master!
Cheers!
/Jaws
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So you suggest to supress the TarRef entirely (?) no point to keep it alive if unused and out to date.
I know I’m a couple of days late on this, but I’m getting caught up after a few days away.
I hardly ever use the tac ref. The most useful part of it no longer works (RWR tones) so I usually refer to “The Vault”, which is a threat guide for BMS that TeeSquare made and posted a while back. It is in PDF, and like said above, can be accessed when in the pit on a secondary device or Alt+Tab.
Here’s a link for anyone interested that might have missed it… https://www.benchmarksims.org/forum/showthread.php?26874-Threat-Guide&highlight=Vault
Cheers
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I am developer and a game engine hobbyist. I am impressed with what the BMS dev team has accomplished considering most of it is during their free time. I am writing this more for the people who are willing to contribute and do not know where to start.
First out of courtesy to spare BMS dev time assume it takes a lot of time to manage projects with inexperienced developers. It requires teaching and code reviews. So being prepared when offering your contribution is a good thing.
Good developers are curious and tenacious so I decided to post some links for people to know what they may be getting into.
First get the FreeFalcon code from github: EDIT By I-Hawk - No links to the FF open source repo please
Assume that parts of the BMS code will share some ancestry with that code. Don’t stare at the code but at least be able to tell what part of the game is written where. For example terrain, campaign, flight sim, AI, memory.If terrain is what you want to do then start here.
http://vterrain.org/
Look at Rendering, LOD, papers and implementations. Most papers are written by PhDs, but at least learn different terrain representations and rendering techniques. Unfortunately most of those papers are outdated because they are not up to the modern GPUs capabilities.The best paper and implementation I have found so far is this so you can skip all of the above:
http://www.frostbite.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Chapter5-Andersson-Terrain_Rendering_in_Frostbite.pdfFinally for large worlds floating point arithmetic is not accurate enough. As a rule of thumb with 32bit floating point representation you have 7 decimal digits of accuracy regardless of decimal point. So read about rebasing the origin for large world, even better look here:
https://www.microsoft.com/Products/Games/FSInsider/developers/Pages/GlobalTerrain.aspxAs you can see that is a lot of information and mastering each piece can be a Phd thesis, but just being familiar with the problems and solutions I think is interesting enough.
Best, -
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.
That’s the spirit!
Getting people to work on 3D models will improve the sim a lot, as BMS is always making progress in the 3D models department, but for sure we don’t have capacity to take care of EVERYTHING that needs updating in the DB, because there are 100s of models probably that require some love.
The best paper and implementation I have found so far is this so you can skip all of the above:
http://www.frostbite.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Chapter5-Andersson-Terrain_Rendering_in_Frostbite.pdfNice link, thanx!
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Technical details for 3D modelling:
This is a list of visible exterior features that change position / appearance while the aircraft is in operation and might be overlooked by a 3D artist unless thorough and experienced. This is not meant to be exhaustive (yet) and therefore anyone that wants to add to it, please comment. Once complete and exhausted it will become part of the guidelines for 3D modelling. Until then, feel free to point out everything I have forgotten and would need to be modeled.
MOVABLE AERODYNAMIC SURFACES
Airbrake(s)
Thrust reverser (e.g. Viggen)
Lift disruptors or spoilers (e.g. B-52)
Movable canards (e.g. JAS-39, Eurofighter, Rafale) not to be confused with non-moving canards (e.g. Mirage III S)
Elevators
Ailerons
Flaps
LE Flaps (Leading Edge Flaps)
Flaperons
Elevons
Slats (retractable)
Rudders
Elevator trim
Aileron trim
Rudder trim
All moving tail (e.g. SR-71, YF-23)CANOPY / COCKPIT RELATED FEATURES
Canopy and mechanism (slide, rotate up, rotate to the side, rotate forward)
Retractable access ladder (e.g. F-18 )
Broken canopy bubble (after bailing out)
Detached canopy (after bailing out)
Extended ejection seat rail (and removal of ejection seat after bailing out)
Rear periscope (e.g. MIG-25 and 31 during take-off / landing)
Canopy rear view mirrorsAIRFRAME
Doors
Hatches
RadomesAIR INTAKE RELATED
Shock spikes (e.g. Mirage 2000)
Shock ramps (e.g. F-15)
Bleed / Bypass Air Doors (e.g. F-15)
Air inlets (e.g. F-15)
Secondary air inlet (e.g. MIG-29 upper surface of LERX)
Inlet covers (e.g. MIG-29 at takeoff)ENGINE RELATED
1st stage compressor of most turbines (exceptions would be stealth A/C and turbines with a concealed 1st stage e.g. AH-64, Mi-28 and others)
Tiltrotors (V-22 Osprey)
Propeller blade feathering (e.g. C-130 with an engine shut down during flight)
Propeller blade reverse pitch (e.g. C-130)
Cyclic (all helicopters with single or tandem rotors e.g. UH-1 Huey)
Conventional helicopter tail-rotors (x-rotor, ductfan, other)EXHAUST RELATED
Exhaust outlet (all afterburning turbojets)
NOTAR helicopter tails
TVNs Thrust Vectoring Nozzles (e.g. F-22, Su-37, MIG-35 OVT)SWING-WING DESIGNS
Variable geometry wings (e.g. F-111, F-14, MIG-23)REFUELLING RELATED
Retractable refueling probes (e.g. F-18 )
Refueling ports (e.g. F-16)
Refueling booms (KC-10)
Refueling pods (F-18, KC-135)LANDING GEAR RELATED
Retractable landing gear (e.g. F-16)
landing gear covers (note the exemption of not fully covered landing gear on the KA-50/52 main gear)
Recovery hooks (e.g. F-16, F-18, F-4, A-6)
Drag chutes (e.g. SR-71, Mirage 2000)
Nose wheel (turn / spin / move up/down)
Main wheels (spin / move up/down)WEAPON BAY RELATED
weapon bay doors (e.g. F-117, F-22, F-35, PAK-FA and most bombers B-52, Tu-160, Tu-95 etc)
weapon bay launchers (F-22, F-35, possibly others)COUNTERMEASURES
Towed arrays/decoys (e.g. Eurofighter Typhoon)FOLDING WING / ROTOR BLADES
Folding wings or rotor blades (almost all naval versions of aircraft employ one method or another to do so e.g. F-14, F-4, A-6, SeaHawk, SeaKing)LIGHTS
Taxi lights
Anticollision beacon lights
Navigation lights (Steady)
Navigation lights (Strobe)
Formation lights
Position lights
Logo lights
Wing lights
Landing lights
Runway turn-off lights
Wheel well lightsThank you Rybo for alerting me to the fact!
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Commercial aircraft aren’t the only ones with logo lights
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Technical details for 3D modelling:
CANOPY / COCKPIT RELATED FEATURES
Canopy and mechanism (slide, rotate up, rotate to the side, rotate forward)
Retractable access ladder (e.g. F-18 )This is actually a modeling trick. There is no dedicated “retractable ladder” SWITCH or DOF.
Broken canopy bubble (after bailing out)
Detached canopy (after bailing out)
Extended ejection seat rail (and removal of ejection seat after bailing out)
Rear periscope (e.g. MIG-25 and 31 during take-off / landing)
Canopy rear view mirrorsI’m not sure what you mean here, but there is no dynamic rear view mirror display.
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Using a code base that BMS is related to may help someone work on a feature and perhaps have a chance of it fitting into BMS without a major rewrite, but that’s quite a leap of faith (putting aside the questionable claim that freefalcon is BSD licensed too)
For programmers out there willing to volunteer time, are there any suggestions as to where their skills could be best applied to benefit BMS/community?
Are there any side projects/tools/utils that need building, replacing/updating which can be done without access to the BMS source?
Or, are there any code features that could be developed against another project like free falcon or flightgear that the BMS devs believe wouldn’t need that huge a change to then bring over to BMS and would provide a developer a way to show they can deliver the feature?
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This is actually a modeling trick. There is no dedicated “retractable ladder” SWITCH or DOF.
I am not sure what you mean by modelling trick. I am referring to the canopy and that it should be able to be presented both closed on the 3D model, as also open, whether it slides open, or rotates up, forward or to the side on hinges.
Someone inexperienced might create the canopy in the closed position and never model its visible mechanisms when in the open position. The intention of this list is to serve as a checklist to the 3D artist that is not as “airplane savvy” as others.
The same goes for the retractable ladder of an F-18. Its there for climbing into the cockpit mainly when used in a maritime role on an aircraft carrier, but sometimes also on land. If the final 3D model is made properly, then Falcon CAN include e.g. a “walk up to the aicraft” sequence if it so desires, or a splash screen of your loaded aircraft waiting for you with its canopy open and all the aerodynamic surfaces in the downward position.
I hope you are not misunderstanding me now.
BTW Where did I mention DOF (Degrees Of Freedom)?
I’m not sure what you mean here, but there is no dynamic rear view mirror display.
When you look at the cockpit arch of e.g. the Mirage 2000 from a position that is behind it, you will see both the mirrors I am talking about as also the reflection of the sky if you are standing lower than the cockpit while outside of it.