DHC-6 Twin Otter development

[SurferTim]

I understand. I had to do the same when putting radio volume control knobs in the Citation-X. Couldn't have done it without it.

Is a compositor flag available like Rembrandt lighting used to have? Or do you use the FG version? I think it t would be good to have both ALS and Compositor available for a while.

[WoodSTokk]

I dont think so, but if you use a older version than 2020.4, the Compositor lights will not work and doesnt rise a error.
On the other side, if you use 2020.4, Compositor interpret Rembrandt lights and i can see landing and taxi lights.
But we can distinguish between Rembrandt and Compositor via '/sim/rendering/rembrandt/enabled'.

Other findings:
there is no white position light (nav-light) on the tail. Do you know where that exactly is?
there are landing and taxi lights, but i cant find it on the model. Does both lights use the same spotlights in the wing leading edge?
the taxi light moves in conjunction to the rudder. Have the DHC6 moving lights in real life?

[SurferTim]

I'm not certain about the position of the lights. On the version I modified, I SWAGed it. Scientific Wild-Ass Guess. I don't look at the external views much. Pilot, center, and copilot are the only views I use. As long as they lit the runway in a usable fashion, I was good with it.

IRL, the taxi light is attached to the nose wheel strut, so it turns with the nose wheel. I haven't checked other versions for this. The one from the link below in my signature has a turning taxi light. The Citation-X has the same type taxi light attached to the nose wheel strut.

[WoodSTokk]

I'm not certain about the position of the lights. On the version I modified, I SWAGed it. Scientific Wild-Ass Guess. I don't look at the external views much. Pilot, center, and copilot are the only views I use. As long as they lit the runway in a usable fashion, I was good with it.

IRL, the taxi light is attached to the nose wheel strut, so it turns with the nose wheel. I haven't checked other versions for this. The one from the link below in my signature has a turning taxi light. The Citation-X has the same type taxi light attached to the nose wheel strut.

Ah, okay, thats plausible, i havn't thought on lights on the strut.
I currently investigate the xml files from your Github.
Will search for pictures and videos for the white position light on the tail and the behavior of the beacon.

[V12]

I tried build next release with D/C script, but my effort ended with this error :

Code: Select all

[ 98%] Building CXX object src/Main/CMakeFiles/fgfs.dir/sentryIntegration.cxx.o
/home/rado/flightgear/fgmeta/flightgear/src/Main/sentryIntegration.cxx: In constructor ‘flightgear::SentryAllocErrorSupression::SentryAllocErrorSupression()’:
/home/rado/flightgear/fgmeta/flightgear/src/Main/sentryIntegration.cxx:570:5: error: ‘perThread_reportAllocErrors’ was not declared in this scope
  570 |     perThread_reportAllocErrors = false;
      |     ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
/home/rado/flightgear/fgmeta/flightgear/src/Main/sentryIntegration.cxx: In destructor ‘flightgear::SentryAllocErrorSupression::~SentryAllocErrorSupression()’:
/home/rado/flightgear/fgmeta/flightgear/src/Main/sentryIntegration.cxx:575:5: error: ‘perThread_reportAllocErrors’ was not declared in this scope
  575 |     perThread_reportAllocErrors = true;
      |     ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
make[2]: *** [src/Main/CMakeFiles/fgfs.dir/build.make:89: src/Main/CMakeFiles/fgfs.dir/sentryIntegration.cxx.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [CMakeFiles/Makefile2:2812: src/Main/CMakeFiles/fgfs.dir/all] Error 2
make: *** [Makefile:163: all] Error 2


When I buid stable release 2020.3.10 with unmodified D/C script, I obtain white digits on A320family.

[SurferTim]

FG2020.3.10 does not have the OSG text fix, so the Garmin GPS is unreadable, and some instruments will be white rather than the normal neon orange.. That is corrected in FG2020.4.0. The download_and_compile script worked great here. This i what I used for FG2020.4.0 on Ubuntu 18.04.

Code: Select all

./download_and_compile.sh -j4 OSG SIMGEAR FGFS DATA

[V12]

I used same command, D/C script ended with upper noted error. When I used modified script and compiled 2020.3.10, numbers are orange - problem solved.
I'm on the LUbuntu 20.04.

[WoodSTokk]

@SurferTim
I made some progress. All exterior lights are working with ALS procetral lights, ALS secondary lights, Rembrandt and Compositor.
Found also some other errors and fixed it. I set the blink behavior of strobes and beacon according to videos.
And yes, the DHC-6 has a white position light on the tail

There are some bugs that i investigate in the next days.

[SurferTim]

NICE! Looks like a great improvement. I see it appears to light the grass area.
Let us know when it's ready.

[WoodSTokk]

I have done some changes:
- reworked the exterior lights (Rembrandt [<= 2020.3], ALS procedural lights, ALS secondary lights, Compositor [>=2020.4])
- changed the Collins radios to my new model and animations from the Citation II
- the displays of the radios and DME are now light up also if the knob is at 0%, but the knob control the brightness of the displays
- the comm radios know operate in 8.333 kHz spacing
- fixed the radio dialog
- fixed the wheel chocks (wasn't visible)
- some minor fixes that i had found on my way

You can download it from http://lepanto.at/download/flightgear/dhc6p.zip
Please check if you find some bugs.
If all is working, you can push the changes to your Github repo.

[SurferTim]

That is AWESOME!
First flight the lights look great! Many thanks!
Let me fly it for a few, then I'll upload it to my Github page.

Edit: Uploaded to my Github site. The link is below in my signature.

[scarymovie]

Hi guys,

Good to see that another enhancements are made to the Twin Otter.

Tried it and it was impressive!!! However, the cabin lights and flightdeck lights are still not working on my 2020.4. Is this a known issue?

Thank you and regards.

[SurferTim]

I'm aware of the flight compartment light fail in FG2020.4.0.
I haven't had a chance to look for the problem up til now.

[WoodSTokk]

Rembrandt can handle this with normal lights and because Rembrandt calculate blocking light it works very well.
Compositor on the other hand calculate also nice lights, but it doesnt check for blocking because its a expensive task.
If the light is to bright, it will shine through the body and on the ground.
Therefor, developer should use lightmaps for interior lights.
I have never build lightmaps so i havn't changed or even investigate it.

[SurferTim]

Here's the odd part. The fgaddon Twin Otter interior cabin/flight deck lights still work with FG2020.4.0.
I'll look into the difference.

Edit: The interior lights still work. I still have to find where the switch is located. The interior lights are enabled/disabled at
sim/multiplay/generic/float[10]
If I activate that property with the debug feature by setting it to 1.0, the interior is lit for a blink, then something sets it back to 0.
The fgaddon version does in fact set that property to 1 when the flight compartment switch is set to "on".