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Plane & ground textures high or low resolution ?

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Re: Plane & ground textures high or low resolution ?

Postby Johan G » Fri Oct 25, 2013 9:26 am

stuart wrote in Sun Oct 20, 2013 11:33 pm:...We don't need the interior or instruments for AI/MP aircraft. Removing those elements would reduce the graphics card occupancy to 2MB, and save additional model loading/animations. (Actually, there's a subtlty here that I'm ignoring - we have code to defer loading for model files until they come within range, so a well designed aircraft with suitable LoD set up shouldn't load instruments until you get close)

We already have a mechanism to do that: Models under AI/Aircraft.

So, I think the answer here is for aircraft developers to create AI-specific versions of their aircraft. It's pretty straightforward , doesn't require any core development, and has the significant advantage of meaning that users don't need the full aircraft installed to see other flyers using the aircraft in the MP environment.

We have touched this a couple of years ago. Though I did not do anything with the information I got, this topic was a bit of an eye opener to me, due to being the first time I heard of that use of AI/Aircraft: Extreme lagg with multiplayer.

I had to use Google to find that topic, using the search string "multiplayer AI models site:www.flightgear.org/forums", since the forum wont let one search for either of "AI" "aircraft", "model" or "models", probably due to the size of the search database would then have.

I did one thing though: Moving some data/Aircraft/<aircraft> directories to data/Aircraft/Aircraft (disabled)/<aircraft>. It is reversible, which can be useful for events and such.


EDIT:
I think this possibility is something that only very few of the aircraft developers are aware of or are made aware of; it seems to be fairly undocumented, quite possibly requiring reading through the source to to get a grip on.* For example I seem unable to find anything on it in data/Docs/AI_doc.html or README.multiplayer as well as on the wiki, except for briefly in Standard aircraft structure#Multiplayer Notes.

* In another context, mapping MP aircraft to an ICAO type designation for use in OpenRadar (sorry Wolfram for getting sidestepped so long :oops: ), I remember trying to figure out what bit of information the multiplayer system used for identifying which aircraft to show. The only clue I got was these two sentences in a PM from Wolfram:
wagnerw wrote:...I am not completely sure how this information is created. It is a path and ends with '.xml', but there is no '-set' in it...

It took many fruitless hours of looking through various data/Docs/README.* files befor resorting to looking through various source files for about two hours before figuring out that the multiplayer system did not use data/Aircraft/Aircraft, neither Aircraft-set.xml (which I thought would be obvious till I saw Wolfram's comment above) or <description>Aircraft</description>. Instead a path to an xml file with animations and a path to the model(s) or the path to the .ac (or other file format) model directly is used. In other words the contents of <model><path>Path</path></model>, which seems a bit relevant in the current context, as that path is the one to be used by an AI model for use in multiplayer (if I am right, though I have not checked the source yet :wink: ).
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Re: Plane & ground textures high or low resolution ?

Postby DFaber » Fri Oct 25, 2013 11:17 am

Johan G wrote in Fri Oct 25, 2013 9:26 am:I think this possibility is something that only very few of the aircraft developers are aware of or are made aware of; it seems to be fairly undocumented, quite possibly requiring reading through the source to to get a grip on.* For example I seem unable to find anything on it in data/Docs/AI_doc.html or README.multiplayer as well as on the wiki, except for briefly in Standard aircraft structure#Multiplayer Notes.


Personally, I think tha AI/Aircraft Directory has disadvantages. An Aircraft Developer has to maintain an Aircraft in two places. Obviously, the Model XML files for the Player- and the AI-Aircraft differ, which means every change has to be done twice. Livery over MP requires the User to actively copy new Liveries to the AI Models Livery Directory, eventually resizing them to profit from the System at all. Long time it hasn't been clear which way the AI Models get distributed. I don't know wether they are part of the base package today (I'm a GIT User).

A clear Advantage of the AI System is the possibility to map Aircraft in case of a name change. Long ago the Name of the bf109g Model file changed from bf109 to bf109g. An additional AI/Aircraft/bf109.xml file referenced the correct bf109g.xml now.

A clever layout of the Aircraft can give a reduced Load on MP too. Low resolution Liveries can be distributed along with the Aircraft and an additional Low Poly Interiour can be loaded via MP in Place of the High Poly one. This can even be changed during runtime by setting a property for e.g. Dual Control.

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Re: Plane & ground textures high or low resolution ?

Postby helijah » Wed Oct 30, 2013 11:14 am

Hi all,

AI aircraft is actually a major problem. Now, it is obvious that we should not use models designed to fly in the AI folder. Long ago, some people have asked me AI aircraft. So I modeled a few models (see : http://helijah.free.fr/flightgear/meetings.htm

StuartC has right, only the outside is important for AI. One and texture 1024x1024 (even in 512x512) are sufficient.

Obviously if your PC can to run FG in 2048x2048x32bit with 32 GB of RAM it's fine, and high resolution textures can be necessary. But who, here, is able to have this type of machine?

Regards Emmanuel
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Re: Plane & ground textures high or low resolution ?

Postby Gijs » Tue Dec 03, 2013 11:08 pm

Hi Emmanuel,

I don't think pushing hundreds of MBs of liveries to fgdata is the right solution... We have a livery database for that: http://liveries.flightgear.org

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