--- Chris Wilkinson wrote: > Hi there, <snip> > > Flightgear should be focusing on making it easier for Joe Averages > like me to create new scenery and aircraft. The tools are available > but can be (for Linux users) incredibly difficult to install. Thats > one thing preventing me from fixing some really bad runway/taxiway > layouts in my local area.
You certainly aren't Joe Average, Chris. Unfortunately you are "cutting edge" whether you want to be or not :) Linux users who don't compile their own code are not as common as Windows users in the same position. I notice that a windows binary of Taxidraw is available, but not an equivalent for SUSE. Presumably you've tried compiling this and hit problems? > The river/sea boundaries are also a complete dogs bollocks, I'll translate this as "dogs breakfast" - over in the U.K. the "dogs bollocks" is a very positive term - i.e. "FlightGear is the dogs bollocks when it comes to flight simulation". > and a model of the Brisbane CBD I've built is a waste > of time because the river that winds around the CBD is really badly > defined in the default scenery. I didn't create nice models of CBD > skyscrapers to have them dabble their feet half way across a river. > > http://users.tpg.com.au/blobster/innaccurate-river.jpg It isn't a waste of time. As has been pointed out on the dev list, scenery generation is _hard_. In particular creating a framework where user modifications can be incorporated into the generic scenery easily is particularly difficult and people are working to get that right. What certainly would be a waste of time would be making scenery adjustments that aren't compatible with future scenery releases. Hence the work that Martin Spott and others are doing. Unfortunately TerraGear does require quite a bit of savvy to use and has a steep learning curve. I don't realistically see this getting any easier in the future. I suspect that the best you can hope for is a system where you download a small section of the world into a GIS viewer, edit it, submit it back to the scenery database and then wait for a new set of scenery to be generated. In case you haven't seen this before, see here for further details: http://www.custom-scenery.org/ > I have placed the buildings to within a few metres of the real thing. > The green lines represent roughly where the river banks should be. > At (1) should be a botanic gardens, and at (2) should be the Kangaroo > Point cliffs, a 30-40m drop down to the river. The use of 90m terrain > means the cliffs will never be a reality, but thats where the Joe > Averages come in to play. I can get some more accurate terrain data > for that area, but since I cannot get the terrain tools working its > a moot point. The tools are too complex for Joe Averages to install. > > > Good to hear about the 737s...don't suppose one can do anything but > wait. > > > > On the A340 issue, I do believe that VA's most common is the -600. I > > think the main user of the -500 is Singapore, who use it in their > > ultralong EWR-SIN route > > It would be easy for me to stretch the A340-500 model, but I'm afraid > it might just become another half-finished project, along with my > Brisbane/YBBN airport scenery, Christchurch/NZCH airport scenery, > 777-300 model, 737-800 model, Gold Coast Australia scenery, and my > Brisbane CBD scenery. > > I want to finish these projects, but now I find I cannot because the > tools are not able to compile/work on my openSUSE 10.2 system. I'm > completely in the dark about programming/coding so suggestions that > I learn to code will not be taken in good humour... :-) I think you are doing yourself a dis-service here. Animating an aircraft is always going to require some level of programming ability - analysis of the problem, encoding it into XML to do what you wish etc. I think the XML animation system is as simple as it can be. I guess one could write a plugin for Blender that would create animation scripts for a model, but it is probably more hassle than it is worth. If you are able to do XML animations, then with a bit of effort you should be able to move on to using Nasal for more complex animations. Luckily there is plenty of code to copy and look at. I suggest you take it one step at a time. > Thats my gripe for the month. Constructive discussion on this is > welcome, but defensive subjective criticism of what I've posted > will not be. You'll be lucky ;) Making FlightGear and it's associated tools easier to use is a very hard challenge. Rightly or wrongly, contributors in a position to make it easier to use often have other projects which are more interesting and more important to them. Additionally, they are alsmost by definition, experts. Changing mind-set from that of an expert to Joe Average is quie a challenge. I don't believe that creating aircraft/scenery is ever going to be anything that Joe Average will do - simply because Joe Average won't use FlightGear - he'll use MSFS. It is also no unreasonable to expect that anyone wishing to create an aircraft or scenery go through some sort of learning curve to understand what they are doing. After all, there is learning associated with flying in the first place. Learning is part of the fun! I got more out of learning how to create the Vulcan bomber than I did out of flying it. -Stuart ___________________________________________________________ All New Yahoo! Mail Tired of unwanted email come-ons? Let our SpamGuard protect you. http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. 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