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Postby FokkerCharlie » Tue Aug 21, 2007 5:41 pm

Hello, again!

See above latest progress on the F50. A couple of questions:

1- I've been making the engine instruments work, and AJ, you mentioned that the engine model appeared to be a piston. Are you sure? It looks to me like a turbine, with N1, N2 etc showing on FG internal properties, but does also have EGT, which is very strange. The JSBSim file also describes a PWC125B, which is correct, although without a prop. If any aircraft modellers are interested in modelling a prop, then le me know, and I will be happy to provide details.


2- Is there an easy way of converting degrees F to C for digital instrument gauges? Factor and Interpolate are fine for analogue dials, or converting F to C is more tricky as there's no direct proportionality between the two.

3- The fuel flow panel include a digital display of aircraft AUW, is this one of the properties that FG can provide? If so, where is it?

4- What is the best way of doing cockpit lighting? At night, the Fokker is currently completely dark!

Thanks in advance.

Cheerio!
Charlie
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Postby Ampere » Wed Aug 22, 2007 7:59 am

FokkerCharlie wrote:2- Is there an easy way of converting degrees F to C for digital instrument gauges? Factor and Interpolate are fine for analogue dials, or converting F to C is more tricky as there's no direct proportionality between the two.

Nasal?

FokkerCharlie wrote:3- The fuel flow panel include a digital display of aircraft AUW, is this one of the properties that FG can provide? If so, where is it?

What's AUW?

FokkerCharlie wrote:4- What is the best way of doing cockpit lighting? At night, the Fokker is currently completely dark!

I wish Harald could do something about this. :lol:

We are still missing landing lights and it is near impossible to do internal cockpit lighting.

By the way, I got stuck with writing reports for the past weeks and wasn't able to model anything. Now that the reports are finished, may be I can find time this weekend and look at the CRT's for you. :wink:
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Postby FokkerCharlie » Wed Aug 22, 2007 10:48 am

Hi Ampere

Sorry - AUW is all-up-weight. Total weight of aircraft, payload, fuel etc at any given moment.

Glad to hear that you might be able to look at the CRTs- if you need any more info beyond the pictures I uploaded a while ago, let me know.

Are all the aeroplanes in FG dark at night, then?

Cheerio!
Charlie
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Postby ajm » Wed Aug 22, 2007 5:44 pm

Hi Charlie, nice progress; glad to see you're still keeping at it. I've been pretty busy for the past while and not able to dedicate much time to modelling (or writing tutorials)...

FokkerCharlie wrote:1- I've been making the engine instruments work, and AJ, you mentioned that the engine model appeared to be a piston. Are you sure?

I wasn't aware of mentioning pistons - if I did, it's certainly not what I meant to write :-) I think I said that it wasn't a turboprop engine, because they weren't available in JSBSim until recently (and there's still only one example, AFAIK). You're quite right, it's a plain old turbine.

2- Is there an easy way of converting degrees F to C for digital instrument gauges?


As Ampere says, nasal is unavoidable when doing a detailed model; the good news is, it's normally not too painful and expands your possibilities in an amazing way... I hope this might start you on your way with nasal;
http://wiki.flightgear.org/flightgear_wiki/index.php?title=Creating_a_simple_nasal_script

Of course, after I finished it I noticed that there is now much better information on nasal on the wiki than there was the last time I looked :-)

3- The fuel flow panel include a digital display of aircraft AUW, is this one of the properties that FG can provide? If so, where is it?

Maybe you'll find suitable numbers under /fdm (inertia, perhaps?)

4- What is the best way of doing cockpit lighting? At night, the Fokker is currently completely dark!

Hmm. That's not as easy as it might be; however, it's not impossibly difficult, either. Basically, lighting is "faked" by making surfaces emissive with a "material animation". The animation can be controlled by a property of your choice, which can act as a switch or dimmer; this is actually pretty flexible, as in several aircraft (lightning, dhc2 for example) the panel light brightness is affected by the condition of the battery or electrical system.

Let me know if you need more info on that.
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Postby Ampere » Wed Aug 22, 2007 11:47 pm

ajm wrote:I hope this might start you on your way with nasal;
http://wiki.flightgear.org/flightgear_wiki/index.php?title=Creating_a_simple_nasal_script

It's completely empty. Are you sure that's the right page?
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Postby AndersG » Thu Aug 23, 2007 12:09 am

Ampere wrote:
ajm wrote:I hope this might start you on your way with nasal;
http://wiki.flightgear.org/flightgear_wiki/index.php?title=Creating_a_simple_nasal_script

It's completely empty. Are you sure that's the right page?


I think this is the intended page:
http://wiki.flightgear.org/flightgear_w ... 22nasal%22

Cheers,

Anders
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Postby fatty » Thu Aug 23, 2007 4:24 am

Are all the aeroplanes in FG dark at night, then?

I think ajm definitely explained it better than I could, but just to give an example:
787 lights dimmed:
Image
787 lights full:
Image
Maybe you could look at that aircraft for some ideas.
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Postby ajm » Thu Aug 23, 2007 8:19 am

AndersG wrote:I think this is the intended page:
http://wiki.flightgear.org/flightgear_w ... 22nasal%22


Thanks Anders, I completely forgot that I renamed it :oops:
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Postby Golf Foxtrot Sierra » Thu Aug 23, 2007 4:30 pm

I deleted the file arc.rgb by mistake. Sorry. You can get it on http://golffoxtrotsierra.741.com/arc.rgb . I have also updated the file http://golffoxtrotsierra.741.com/787.zip .
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Postby fatty » Fri Aug 24, 2007 4:00 am

Well sorry to hijack the thread but ^ if you're the author of the 787 I'd like to say I think you've done a nice job with it and I really enjoy flying it.
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Postby Gijs » Mon Aug 27, 2007 9:58 am

Hello (for the first time in 2 months)!

I've had a very bussy time (vacation, school, a broken computer etc.) so I haven't did anything for your project :oops:. I'm so sorry!! Because i'm not very good at English it's a bit difficult for me to follow the project after so many weeks of absence. But if you have something to do for me: I would like to help.

When I take a look at the progress pictures it looks very good!! Keep on going!!

Cheers,
Gijs
Airports: EHAM, EHLE, KSFO
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Postby FokkerCharlie » Mon Aug 27, 2007 12:07 pm

Righty-ho!

There's plenty of new stuff for me to have a look at there, then. The Nasal tutorial is good stuff- it's really useful to have a nice, gentle starting point.
I'll also have a look at the material animation shortly, too, so thanks for the pointers there- I'll have a look at the docs, and see if I can figure it out from there!

Gijs, good to have you back, I'm sure there's something that you can contribute with your modelling skills, I'll have a look.

Cheerio!
Charlie
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Postby Ampere » Mon Aug 27, 2007 10:52 pm

Gijs wrote:Hello (for the first time in 2 months)!

I've had a very bussy time (vacation, school, a broken computer etc.) so I haven't did anything for your project :oops:. I'm so sorry!! Because i'm not very good at English it's a bit difficult for me to follow the project after so many weeks of absence. But if you have something to do for me: I would like to help.


Hey, welcome back!

I think FokkerCharlie is still waiting for the CRT's and gauges with cylindical frame in the center.
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Postby Gijs » Tue Aug 28, 2007 9:00 pm

Ampere wrote:I think FokkerCharlie is still waiting for the CRT's and gauges with cylindical frame in the center.
What?! Srry :oops: i'm not so good in the things in airplanes. Where can I find them and how do they look?
Airports: EHAM, EHLE, KSFO
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Postby FokkerCharlie » Tue Aug 28, 2007 10:18 pm

Hi again -

I knew I'd forgotten something- AJ, the JSB engine model seems to say it's a turbine engine, with thrust produced directly, which presumably means that it exempts itself from the vagiaries of a propeller! Anyhoo, a battle for another day.

Ampere, Gijs- not sure what you mean by the cylindrical frame instruments, however, the CRTs do still need doing, not sure whether that's more a modelling or programming exercise, however. Other things you might like to look at, Gijs:
- Trq guages, with movable bugs and tapes
- A new altimeter, the one installed currently is borrowed from the 747
- Radio/Nav/ADF boxes- there are a total of 6 of these very similar in the flight deck. I'll check there's good photos available by tomorrow eve.
- The flight mode panel (FMP), which occupies most of the glareshield. I don't think there's a good photo of this, I'll arrange one tomorrow.
- A few other things!

Finally, as an when you make a model, it would be a great help to keep the textures with dimensions powers of two, eg 256x512, 128x1024 etc.

Once again, good to have you back on board.

Cheerio for now
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