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I Must Ask This Question

I take it you've tried and ruled out AI Flight Planner, Michael?

I was annoying Francois the other night, trying to convince him to get a developer to make a flight plan randomiser to make my life easier doing that Mustang traffic that no-one replied to me about. ;)

The reality is, though, that for most things you don't want a randomiser. So I use AIFP then, if I want to create multiple identical flightplans (say to get a fighter flight to do the same thing), I'll copy and paste the plan I have already created in notepad and edit the aircraft ID, before loading them back into AIFP to compile them.

...I just don't have any FSX native AI-specific models to compile them for. :wavey: ;)
 
One problem is that the FSX SDK is not well written. Alot of unanswered questions(this is where the FS world really shines, the help and info we all share to overcome the SDK flaws)
Overall, building for FSX was not much harder for me than FS9. But then again, I don't include every bell and whistle in my planes. I'm freeware, don't have to. This keeps things simpler, and enables me to produce more planes. I guess if I went payware, I would have to include EVERYTHING, and that would be a huge task.

Put Put, oh, how I remember 8 sided fuselages, 800 poly limit, and AF99.
It was big news when AF99 was upgraded to allow (hold yer hats)12 sided fuselages!
Ever had BAO Flightshop, AF99's father?
 
No, I started modeling when AF99 became available. I remember taping transparencies of 3 views to the monitor screen because you couldn't use backgrounds. I remember having temper tantrums with the point editor. Do you realize we had to manually enter the XYZ of every corner of every polygon! I think I was number 1 or number 2 in line for FSDS when it first arrived.

Paul
 
I remember taping transparencies of 3 views to the monitor screen because you couldn't use backgrounds
Click to expand...
Damn you! For bringing back those memories! Honestly, I did the same thing for my CFS1 planes.:ernae: Oh, how technology advances...
 
Animating everything can be difficult, such as wheels that are mounted on a landing gear that is folding up, where you must spin it in the correct direction in key frame points, while it its mounted to a landing gear at an angle, and with the landing gear raising up.
Click to expand...

Bill,

Depending on what you're modelling in you don't have to have animations start at Zero, for instance you could have the wheels spin from keyframe 0 to 100 and then the retraction sequence for the gear from 100 to 200. Then in the animation manager enter the respective start and finish frame numbers, the sequences are still the 100 frames long but you're not trying to do everything at once. Took me a while to figure that one out...
 
IanP said:
AI and user aircraft are two entirely different kettles of fish - however the AI models are far easier to produce, which is why I am so baffled as to why no-one at all does them for FSX.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say that. Getting the maximum out of the minimum amount of polies is fairly challenging.

And all those LODs...
 
PutPut said:
No, I started modeling when AF99 became available. I remember taping transparencies of 3 views to the monitor screen because you couldn't use backgrounds. I remember having temper tantrums with the point editor. Do you realize we had to manually enter the XYZ of every corner of every polygon! I think I was number 1 or number 2 in line for FSDS when it first arrived.

Paul
Click to expand...


YIKES!!!!!!!!

Thank the Lord I didnt have that to work with, lol.. Goodness. I had FSDS when it was released. For a year, I was never able to put a plane in FS, as my graphics card couldnt build the model in FSDS during compiling. But I made a ton of models in FSDS in the mean time. It was fun to learn to make 3D models. (My first entry into the CAD world software).


@Piglet,

I agree. Instructions are extremely important. They should be able to walk you through step by step by step so that ANYONE could do it. Not just programmers with code experience, that also work with 7 texture materials and all. Complete walk throughs. (Do you know I still cant get FSTools to work in FSX? I can in Gmax, but not the tools that go 'in' the Sim itself. They will not work according to the instructions given).


Bill,

Depending on what you're modelling in you don't have to have animations start at Zero, for instance you could have the wheels spin from keyframe 0 to 100 and then the retraction sequence for the gear from 100 to 200. Then in the animation manager enter the respective start and finish frame numbers, the sequences are still the 100 frames long but you're not trying to do everything at once. Took me a while to figure that one out...

SkippyBing
Click to expand...


Roger that. Thanks for the tip Skippy. I could also just detach the parts and animate, then reattach at the proper keypoint where the part is back to proper angle with the parent.


I remember finding out about Boolean in Gmax... That was it man. My computer crashed and I thought. This time, I am learning Gmax no matter what. One heck of a long 2 months, but man, what modelling power. Round windows!!!!!!!!!! Cutting out things from in a Polygon!!!!!! Extruding out Edges!!!!! Whewwwwwwww! Power, baby...
 
IanP said:
The one thing that really does surprise me for FSX is the total lack of interest in modelling for AI, which still seems to be entirely centred around, focussed on and intended for use in FS9.

That is one area where you will not find freeware FSX-native development and are entirely limited to payware. I don't even pretend to understand why.
Click to expand...

Quite simply, I think most FSX users are not able to run a full suite of AI on their machines. To do so, they'd have to turn down the settings to something equivalent to FS2002, which sort of defeats the purpose of running FSX.
I think perhaps FSX appeals to a different market segment entirely.
 
Wing_Z said:
Quite simply, I think most FSX users are not able to run a full suite of AI on their machines. To do so, they'd have to turn down the settings to something equivalent to FS2002, which sort of defeats the purpose of running FSX.
Click to expand...

Actually, I run 85% of WOAI, RATS, GA and some custom traffic and I still manage to get acceptable FPS (15-20) at medium airports in a native aircraft with a light add-on scenery.
Most of the rest of my settings are set to max, with the LOD radius and autogen objects over the top.
Sure, places like ORD, BOS and JFK are worse with 8 FPS, but I think with all aircraft as native models I could recover some additional 5 to 8 FPS.

I'm pretty sure more native AI would make more users run AI suites.

UT2, TrafficX and MyTraffic '09 made a good start, but - at least in UT2 - not every model included is native.
 
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