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Re: eurofighter typhoon

Postby Algernon » Fri Aug 20, 2010 3:53 pm

By the way, this is a very helpful website for cockpit functions: http://www.cockpits.net/website/EF2000descr.html
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Re: eurofighter typhoon

Postby almursi » Sat Aug 21, 2010 12:22 am

Algernon wrote:I really feel this aircraft moving ahead now. almursi, if it's alright with you I will continue with the sound package, and also, would it be okay to tackle the Nav Lights? I want a small, simple modelling/texturing/animating excercise to learn on and I think that's about the right size job! I could also do the afterburners while I'm at it. What do you think?


Hi, fantastic :D , if I've made some changes on cockpit (such as the afterburner LED) was out of necessity for testing.

For there to be minimal coordination, I explained that at this time I copied the sound files (from seakawk) to the folder eurofhighter/Sounds, I renamed the seahawk-sound.xml to typhoon-sound.xml and sound files are in Sounds/Samples. From here, you can are free to make any changes that you like in Sounds, while you use the same file typhoon-sound.xml to define/load the samples. However, there are some things (like alarms) it is necessary to include via the nasal scripts, but that can be integrated gradually.

Nav Lights and afterburners is ok :) (I was going to start with it, so I can take care of other things).

Link about cockpit is a real gem 8) . But design is not as easy ... :? (many hours doing tests) Right now I'm seeing how to integrate 3d generic instruments on the MFD, and seems to begin to understand how it works.The truth is that the design basis of Alex was pretty good. We only need the textures, which makes it not look good, and extend the panel (I think I can do it easily) to incorporate the buttons (such as the hook) that are below the MFD screens, and incorporate the missing (pedals, stick, throttle, etc). Another idea would be to start from the beginning, but I think it is better to use the old design of Alex.

Algernon wrote:I'll certainly read the GIT article on the Wiki, and try and get up and running with it. Compiling and the like has never worked very well in my head, but I'll have a crack at understanding how to use GIT cos I'm sure there are some cool things in that version not in FGFS 2 which I use. Thanks for the link!


In git you have three projects. fgdata includes everything that is not the source code (of fg and simgear). For fgdata no need to compile :mrgreen:. There are many ways to collaborate on a project in GIT. For example, sending -me at the moment- differences via email (thus there is no need to download the 2 gigs of fgdata), with the utility diff, which with a howto is very easy to handle. If someone prefers fgdata download full, use the command git seems to be somewhat complicated, but I hope to make a simple howto to share the different changes.

Regards.
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Re: eurofighter typhoon

Postby Algernon » Sat Aug 21, 2010 2:08 pm

Firstly, if you were going to start on the afterburners, please go ahead, as I'm not moving nearly as quickly through the graphics bits as I did through the sound (although the sound will take me a while to polish, I am a broadcast sound engineer so I want to get it absolutely right!). I've got some nice nav lighting in, borrowed from the Harrier and adapted, working out how to do the strobes is taking more time, but I'm getting there gradually. I could also start work on a custom electrical system, seeing as it currently uses the generic one, which would tie in well with your work in the cockpit.

I am very keen to learn about MFD creation, but made little progress so far. To properly finish the lights, I must include cockpit switches, and conveniently, they are the first row of switches on the right-hand side panel. So I could perhaps make a start by creating and animating that row, as I'm discovering I need a much better basis in 3D design than I have, and need to learn to use Blender, SketchUp doesn't seem to do object names very well.

I agree that Alex's design basis is good, I'd like to see how well things like the multi-lamp indicator panel (top left) fit in so as to still be useable, but if the scale is okay, all is good.

I'll polish up the lights, sounds and electrical system - by all mean go ahead and do the afterburners, you will probably do a better job than me! Eventually, I think the engine nozzles on the main model need a bit of attention, so they don't appear blocked off right at the end - basically a hollow nozzle with a photo texture I suppose is the end result we want to look realistic. Not an immediate issue, but something to bear in mind, because it spoils an otherwise very nice model.
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Sending changes via email with diff

Postby almursi » Sun Aug 22, 2010 12:43 am

Hi Algernon,

One way to share the changes into typhoon.ac is very handy to save our changes aside, something very easy in blender (for example, I chose the hook from other model, save it as hook.ac and I recovered after when I opened typhoon.ac).

For sending (complete) changes, It can serve to send the result of running this command:

Code: Select all
# diff -Naur oldtyphoon newtyphoon >changedtyphoon.diff


diff -Naur : Command diff, standard unified output, include binary, report of new files and recursive
oldtyphoon : Dyrectory of original typhoon or known version
newtyphoon : Working directory where the changes have been made
>changedtyphoon.diff : pipeline output to changedtyphoon.diff

Send by mail: changedtyphoon.dif (with .zip or .gz format), brief summary of changes (autor & email you want to appear publicly in git), typhoon version which compares with (1 from Alex, or later releases 1.2, 1.3, 1.3b, etc.).

Please send me a private mail that I provide my e-mail (I do not mean to prevent the arrival of spam :D ).

However, git is a tool flexible enough, so the next days (if I can) I will explain how to handle a typhoon simple folder under git. And send (and receive) changes via email. (About receive: The use of the patch utility seems to have limitations when handling subdirectories -at least the standard versions- so it is necessary to fix it by hand, a problem that is solved in git.)

Regards.
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Work on git

Postby almursi » Tue Aug 24, 2010 10:30 pm

Hi, I reset the merge request on git, I sent ahead of time. As soon as I can send sound files (which now will not let me) I think the package is complete, at least the current working version 1.4, which you still need one hundred thousand details :D (and it's still on working). At least the changes already seen in the source-tree. Regards.
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Re: eurofighter typhoon

Postby Gijs » Tue Aug 24, 2010 10:33 pm

almursi, I looked at your merge request, together with Jester (he can commit things to Git actually, I cannot) and we "discovered" that it does overwrite the current Typhoon. In order to get it commited, you probably want to make sure that the original author agrees with your changes...
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Re: eurofighter typhoon

Postby almursi » Tue Aug 24, 2010 11:03 pm

Gijs wrote:almursi, I looked at your merge request, together with Jester (he can commit things to Git actually, I cannot) and we "discovered" that it does overwrite the current Typhoon. In order to get it commited, you probably want to make sure that the original author agrees with your changes...


Hi, in this moment I stop again the merger :P . My first idea was to make another version, it'is easy to make a separate directory (so I'm not crazy between the two versions) and ask for Alex :D. (EDITED: path of files is still bad, it's only a temporary solution) Regards.
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Re: eurofighter typhoon

Postby almursi » Wed Aug 25, 2010 6:15 am

Hi, I made the necessary changes for the two versions can coexist. So we can apply merge smoothly :mrgreen:. On the other hand I have already sent a note to Alex, asking what he thinks. Regards.
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On working release 1.4

Postby almursi » Thu Aug 26, 2010 9:11 pm

Hi, this is Typhoon (on carrier) - on working- release 1.4:

DivShare File - etyphoon_carrier_1_4.zip
(For those who do not want to wait to git :). This is a large package -5.3 MB- to include the sounds and some textures on work -which we generally smaller for packages-.)

Right now we are working on the lights (Algernon) and the textures of the engines.

In YaSim I've been testing some options. Notice that confused the stall speed, and are not knots but km/h: on 80kt stall! (and not 130 kt :D). (The material in this plane are carbon fiber and aluminium, so it has a speed so low, I think.) However the lower speed also becomes more unstable, so it's still advisable to make the approach 130kt.

Regards.
Last edited by almursi on Sat Sep 25, 2010 1:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: eurofighter typhoon

Postby Algernon » Fri Aug 27, 2010 4:45 pm

This is a great improvement on the last release, and it's only going to get better.

I have some feedback from the FGUK forum in summary form, we have an obvious vested interest in the Eurofighter and a few club members are working toward contributions:

1) The FDM tweaks almursi has accomplished have brought the aircraft performance up to near-realistic handling characteristic for the airframe. It is possible to pull a 12g turn, for instance, which in reality would not happen as the aircraft's systems prevents it from performing that far outside of its envelope. Is the simplest way to keep it within it's limits adjusting the FDM to suit, or is it possible to put some kind of simple translation script somewhere? I really don't know what the possibilities here are.

2) Some people are experiencing rapid frame-rate drops - it happened to me in the vicinity of another player's MP Eurofighter, suggesting it could be graphics-heavy, even for reasonable performing machines. Could this be to do with the instrumentation, it has quite a lot of nice MFD gizmos but to my knowledge they are not set to be ignored when out of visible range. I will have a go at putting in the code and see if it improves.

But it's an awfully fun aircraft to fly now, and is looking a lot better - I am just waiting until I get the use of a decent pair of monitor speakers for finishing off the sounds package, and also have a few more lights.
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Re: eurofighter typhoon

Postby almursi » Fri Aug 27, 2010 9:51 pm

Hi, Yes, it is only a small improvement, however, are tasks that are not very visible, but they have many hours of work behind :) .

Algernon wrote:1) The FDM tweaks almursi has accomplished have brought the aircraft performance up to near-realistic handling characteristic for the airframe. It is possible to pull a 12g turn, for instance, which in reality would not happen as the aircraft's systems prevents it from performing that far outside of its envelope. Is the simplest way to keep it within it's limits adjusting the FDM to suit, or is it possible to put some kind of simple translation script somewhere? I really don't know what the possibilities here are.


This should be handled through the AFCS, so we have to wait until we can develop it. Also, the FDM can be improved. The first corrections were important, so that the solution is solved in half the time (or less, via the test program for YaSim). Now I'm driving variables that are complex for me, so it's possible that I can not get much better: such as thrust vectoring, which include the latest versions of engines. But I still hope to find solution for the slats. Also we could improve the position of weights and tanks, which right now just trying to keep the airplane to nose up when braking. Until we have the opportunity to advance the AFCS, as to the limits on g, it is very easy to turn on the red / black screens, if we want to fly within the limits "humans" (but is a matter of taste, I prefer to enjoy without limitations , bearing in mind that I just over 1g, in real life, I get very ill :mrgreen:). But the most interesting is when we can finally have the "panic button" to automatically stabilize the plane (as in the real plane).

2) Some people are experiencing rapid frame-rate drops - it happened to me in the vicinity of another player's MP Eurofighter, suggesting it could be graphics-heavy, even for reasonable performing machines. Could this be to do with the instrumentation, it has quite a lot of nice MFD gizmos but to my knowledge they are not set to be ignored when out of visible range. I will have a go at putting in the code and see if it improves.


It's due to scripts of the radar -and hud- (I think). It is a problem that also appears in the harrier and other similar models, so perhaps we could find one who has solved better and try to imitate. Meanwhile I do not think it hard to switch them off by default, and include buttons to activate it in the cockpit.

Regards.
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EFA Typhoon - Upper Left Panel

Postby Algernon » Wed Sep 01, 2010 11:55 am

You know how developing one thing for an aircraft necessarily requires you to think about other things, for instance cockpit implementation? Well, in addition to working on the remaining lights (when I can face Blender again), developing the MIDS panel and having a fiddle with the autopilot, I've been thinking about this panel too. I feel it's particularly useful for adding in-cockpit control to certain systems, where in real life they would be VTAS activated and just indicated on this panel. I'm particularly thinking of the autopilot, but also things like countermeasures could be integrated. I think small departures from absolute realism to improve in-cockpit functionality is very worthwhile. Here's my suggestion for what can actually be achieved in FlightGear as it is at the moment (all buttons/indicators illuminate green to show they are switched 'in', except the Master Caution):

Image

1. Master Caution - eventually could be tied into a faults system, I suppose.
2. "Shoot" - not sure if we could implement this or not
3. Autopilot/Autothrottle indicator - I suggest we actually make AT a button, with AP being an indicator when any autopilot modes are engaged.
4. Autopilot Heading Hold
5. Autopilot GPS Track Follow
6. Autopilot Altitude Hold
7. Autopilot Terrain Following Altitude
8. Autopilot Auto Climb - playing with this at the moment. Basically, engages autothrottle (with reheat if required, standard autothrottle does NOT engage reheat/burners) at current airspeed and pulls up into 30/40 deg climb to altitude hold setting, then disengages autothrottle (and reheat if used) and switches to Altitude Hold.
9. Autopilot Auto Attack - I suspect this is near impossible in FG for now, so I recommend we change this to Autopilot TACAN hold.
10. Autopilot Auto Approach - Concorde does it brilliantly, why can't we? ;)
11. - 18. Radar Warning Receiver - most of these are probable impossible to do, but some basic form of Radar Warning might be possible over MP, eventually
19. - 22. Electronic Countermeasures - I think almursi mentioned ECM before now, so I'll leave the ideas for that to him.
23. MIDS. Power to the MIDS system (which I'm already working on) - in FG Typhoon, powers down/up the MIDS panel.
24. NAV. Autopilot Nav1 Hold
25. AIDS - No idea, doesn't sound very nice though

And after that, I don't think any are likely to be relevant, so they could either simply be replicated as indicators to maintain realism, or we could reassign them to functions which our aircraft IS capable of. Rad1 and Rad2 could simple disable COM1 and COM2 respectively if we wanted them to actually do something.

Probably quite a lot of code for this panel, but simple in terms of animation and executing commands. What do you think? Your comments and ideas appreciated! :)

PS:
almursi wrote:Meanwhile I do not think it hard to switch them off by default, and include buttons to activate it in the cockpit.

The MFD on/off switches are already in the cockpit model, but we could perhaps use one of the spare buttons on this panel to turn off the HUD?
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Re: EFA Typhoon - Upper Left Panel

Postby almursi » Thu Sep 02, 2010 10:48 am

Hi, only I do a few comments:
Algernon wrote:
2. "Shoot" - not sure if we could implement this or not


I would say is equivalent to what you have in other models, when you have active weapons bay. The mauser is closed by default (on right between wing/fuselage mount point).

9. Autopilot Auto Attack - I suspect this is near impossible in FG for now, so I recommend we change this to Autopilot TACAN hold.

Could assert with TACAN, but is similar to an approach to a point with a certain proportion of speed and altitude, which is necessary for ballistic calculations.

11. - 18. Radar Warning Receiver - most of these are probable impossible to do, but some basic form of Radar Warning might be possible over MP, eventually

If you look at models like the f14b, you'll see that there's things done. In fact you have a RWR between generic instruments ...

19. - 22. Electronic Countermeasures - I think almursi mentioned ECM before now, so I'll leave the ideas for that to him.

No, the ECM/TWR was the way I was testing RWR radar (not much, the truth is there but still do not know if it works). First, put the missing boxes under the wings, which is not very difficult (for me it's easy to create these objects, not as the slats :mrgreen:). And then I think it would be funny to do an animation for flares and metal burrs. But the star would be "towed decoy": that is to be able to "paint" another model behind us. :D

25. AIDS - No idea, doesn't sound very nice though

DASS - Defensive Aids Sub-System, have this mounts points:
1 Front laser warner
2 Front missile warner
3 Flare dispenser
4 Chaff dispenser
5 Wing tip ESM/ECM pods
6 Rear laser warner
7 Rear missile warner
8 Towed decoy

I fear that the FG model varies a few things the original model. For example puts analog instruments where the transponder. And it may already be outdated, with respect to the Tranche 1 and Tranche 2.

Algernon wrote:The MFD on/off switches are already in the cockpit model, but we could perhaps use one of the spare buttons on this panel to turn off the HUD?


It's on MIDS (Hud is a MIDS subsystem). Switch off is below the screen in the real model, that in FG is unused.

Regards.
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Re: EFA Typhoon - Upper Left Panel

Postby Algernon » Thu Sep 02, 2010 11:10 pm

Cool, some good information, thanks :)

almursi wrote:Could assert with TACAN, but is similar to an approach to a point with a certain proportion of speed and altitude, which is necessary for ballistic calculations.

Okay, so that stays in - quite exciting!! - and so does the RWR - that will also be cool, I haven't ever flown the F-14 but thinking about it, it

ECM/TWR was the way I was testing RWR radar (not much, the truth is there but still do not know if it works). First, put the missing boxes under the wings, which is not very difficult (for me it's easy to create these objects, not as the slats :mrgreen:). And then I think it would be funny to do an animation for flares and metal burrs. But the star would be "towed decoy": that is to be able to "paint" another model behind us. :D

Okay, I understand now - these would all be submodels, yes? I have never used any weapons systems on FG this far, so I don't know much about how they work, but in my basic logic I guess this can be made to work by sending an adjusted radar position property over multiplayer. Flares could be very interesting! I hope the F-22 Raptor development is moving at the same pace that we are, so we can put them up against each other ;)

DASS - Defensive Aids Sub-System

Also, I get that now, it's kind of tied in with the ECM then? I haven't researched that too deeply, I'm concentrating on engines and power sources for my current task list.

I fear that the FG model varies a few things the original model. For example puts analog instruments where the transponder. And it may already be outdated, with respect to the Tranche 1 and Tranche 2.

I think we'll be hard-pressed to make it bleeding-edge accurate immediately, but I think a cockpit which looks mostly right, and can provide as much functionality as is possible within the limits of the software (at least, that's the plan) will be good enough for a while :)

In terms of the cockpit, though, basically I'll provide electrical outputs for all of those things, with buttons on the panel unless otherwise stated somewhere in this thread, and that sets us up for the future. So there are a couple of places that we can alter the buttons which, in real life, do things that just wouldn't matter in FG, and change them to convenient functions (like Nav1 autopilot mode), is that okay?

It's on MIDS (Hud is a MIDS subsystem). Switch off is below the screen in the real model, that in FG is unused.

Okay, so do we put in that switch between the HUD and the MIDS power button, or do we just leave people to use the 'h' key?

Hope you're resting well...
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Re: eurofighter typhoon

Postby almursi » Fri Sep 03, 2010 1:55 am

Hi, for technical reference:
http://www.eurofighter.com/eurofighter-world/publications/technical-guide.html

It is quite simple (for my taste too much) but it describes the basic systems.

With the rest I found solutions to some things, like the slats or the canopy (using aircrafts.doors). Many errors are due to simple typos in the name of the properties. :D

Regards.
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