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Post by MarkH on Apr 24, 2016 16:09:00 GMT
It should be fairly obvious where this is going   |
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Post by ScottB on Apr 26, 2016 13:34:54 GMT
That's really going to be nice, Mark. Enjoyed your latest video too.
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Post by MarkH on Apr 26, 2016 17:09:05 GMT
That's really going to be nice, Mark. Enjoyed your latest video too. I hope so! I will hopefully get to fire up those screens in the next couple of hours and check they look okay. If not, some re-thinking will be in order. As a fall-back option there is just enough room to mount them both in landscape side by side if I need to... |
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Post by MarkH on May 2, 2016 20:35:40 GMT
It's coming along...   |
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Post by ScottB on May 3, 2016 15:45:23 GMT
That point of view provides a much better sense of what it's like to be in the pilot seat. The main monitors look less washed out (as opposed to an angle view) and the whole thing looks even more like an actual cockpit. Amazing how realistic the whole thing looks!
So, for the most part, you really only need Track IR yaw and pitch axis to spot landing strips, right?
Seems I recall a VOR navigation video but can't remember, how do you make in flight adjustments to your instruments? (Edit: think I spotted the rotaries.)
On my single instrument monitor, I had to darken the screen considerably, even with a black background as it seemed a little too bright especially in a dark room. Have you noticed the instrument monitors brightness distracting from the rest of your panel/main monitors, especially with the instrument monitors closer to you? I chose to place mine behind the main monitors for that reason (among other things) which, unfortunately, isn't at all like a real cockpit. I'm thinking an instrument overlay might help a little with that.
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Post by MarkH on May 3, 2016 17:54:20 GMT
That point of view provides a much better sense of what it's like to be in the pilot seat. The main monitors look less washed out (as opposed to an angle view) and the whole thing looks even more like an actual cockpit. Amazing how realistic the whole thing looks! So, for the most part, you really only need Track IR yaw and pitch axis to spot landing strips, right? (Edit: think I spotted the rotaries.) Seems I recall a VOR navigation video but can't remember, how do you make in flight adjustments to your instruments? On my single instrument monitor, I had to darken the screen considerably, even with a black background as it seemed a little too bright especially in a dark room. Have you noticed the instrument monitors brightness distracting from the rest of your panel/main monitors, especially with the instrument monitors closer to you? I chose to place mine behind the main monitors for that reason (among other things) which, unfortunately, isn't at all like a real cockpit. I'm thinking an instrument overlay might help a little with that. Yes, things are a bit too bright. If you watched the previous video (or the one before it) you would have seen the instruments on a light grey background, like the real Twin Otter Extended panel, and this was much worse! So we went with the darker colour to make it better in low light. Russ (Air Manager guy who is making the gauges) wanted to keep some tone in the background for the bezels and screws, so I think this is a good compromise. The gauges are still bright but I will be able to turn down the brightness as you suggest. BUT...one of the things the AM guys have in the pipeline is gauge lighting. This will hopefully give realistic and dimmable lighting effects for day/night. It ought to be possible with the same technology to vary the brightness of individual gauges independently of the lighting effects. No timescale on this but their current priority is moving the rendering to OpenGL and ditching Java. Given the overall 'cartoony' look of the panel I am definitely edging towards an overlay, although probably not with any controls on it in the first instance. Just some 3mm or 4mm MDF if I can find the right tool to cut nice holes in it. This panel isn't complete BTW, it's waiting for a bunch of other things - mainly the annunciators. All my controls are still there (yes, you can just see the tops of the rotary controls at the bottom of the second pic! I don't like the panels I moved around last time so I built a new A/P panel to the right of the main screen. You can see it's quite low-rent - built with MDF covered in sticky plastic and with DYMO labels! But it works great. I will probably ditch the current Autopilot/Fire panel and put the radios back where they were (and move the Start panel back over to the right). Oh yeah, and the TrackIR. You are right - sort of. My first instinct was to just disable the TrackIR pitch axis but the Twin Otter's side windows are quite a bit lower than the front one so you do need to look down a bit. I have currently just reduced the amount of movement but I can still look up and down a bit. It would be nice if the TrackIR software allowed the axis curves to be connected in more complex ways so, for example, the pitch axis was only effective when the yaw axis was out to one side. (That's probably gibberish but I know what I mean!) So a few more things to do, but we're nearly there! I am trying to fly it around now and it's pretty cool. |
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Post by ScottB on May 3, 2016 20:14:47 GMT
So, for the most part, you really only need Track IR yaw and pitch axis to spot landing strips, right? It would be nice if the TrackIR software allowed the axis curves to be connected in more complex ways so, for example, the pitch axis was only effective when the yaw axis was out to one side. (That's probably gibberish but I know what I mean!) Nope. Not gibberish at all. In fact, I was originally going to ask if that was possible! I was considering doing something similar, thinking that I could use my XKeys/EZDOC combination for any infrequent downward panel views not available on my EFIS/instrument monitor. Pointless though if Track IR won't cooperate, plus I still enjoy seeing the virtual panel while flying. Again, we are back to that massive (side) vertical and horizontal field of view missing from sims! I'm guessing that limiting your pitch axis makes head movement feel less chaotic too. (now, that's probably gibberish)
Are the Air Manager instruments reasonably responsive to your rotary encoders? Any lag, for example? Discrepancies?
Your getting really close!
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Post by MarkH on May 3, 2016 20:33:47 GMT
Are the Air Manager instruments reasonably responsive to your rotary encoders? Any lag, for example? Discrepancies?
Yes, everything responds really well. That said, I understand that v2.2 will introduce a big performance as OpenGL replaces Java. But for now there's no significant lag as far as I can see. Discrepancies? Well that depends on the implementation of the gauges. A project like this needs a lot of reverse-engineering to figure out the Lvars and what they do but I think Russ has pretty much nailed it. |
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shram
Almost Aviator
Posts: 11 
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Post by shram on May 25, 2016 10:31:39 GMT
Mark,your gauges look so fantastic ,it's very good quality. Did you make it by yourself? Have you got a chance to share it with me?
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Post by MarkH on May 25, 2016 17:14:06 GMT
Mark,your gauges look so fantastic ,it's very good quality. Did you make it by yourself? Have you got a chance to share it with me? Thanks. I did not make the gauges, they were made (are being made) by Russ Barlow of Sim Innovations. The project isn't complete yet so I don't know whether Russ is ready to share them, but you can ask. I suggest you go over to the Sim Innovations forum and ask about the gauges there. |
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shram
Almost Aviator
Posts: 11
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Post by shram on May 31, 2016 9:16:02 GMT
thanks a lot
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