Re: [Flightgear-devel] Rating System Redux
Hi all, just pushed ratings for my vehicles to Git (wow, didn't know I had that many (uninished) vehicles! This year I didn't start new aircraft IIRC, I'm now finishing up my existing ones instead, as I should have done in the past years...). Anyway, I came across some issues with the rating system: Certain vehicles do not have a cockpit. For example my jetman, which is basically a man hanging under a pair of wings equipped with jets. How would one give this man a cockpit- rating?! Maybe cockpit should mean instruments and controls? In that case I can give this man a rating: the ignition switch and parachute handle are missing from the model. For now I gave him a 3, but I'd like to hear opinions and see a note being added to the wiki on how to deal with such issues. It isn't as easy as If your aircraft does not have a given system, ignore it for the purposes of rating ;) I think the alpha-range is rather big, compared to the others. There is an awfull lot of difference between a total=0 aircraft and a total=8 (eg. Model=3, FDM=3, Cockpit=0, Systems=2). I don't care if my vehicles end up low in the completness-rating (I consider my best aircraft early production) but I do feel offset to see my aircraft end up next to an empty hull. Adding in a 0-4 rating would be nice IMO; we can call that pre alpha. Just some Monday afternoon ideas :) Cheers, Gijs -- EditLive Enterprise is the world's most technically advanced content authoring tool. Experience the power of Track Changes, Inline Image Editing and ensure content is compliant with Accessibility Checking. http://p.sf.net/sfu/ephox-dev2dev___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Rating System Redux
Gijs, Some comments inline. Vivian -Original Message- From: Gijs de Rooy [mailto:gijsr...@hotmail.com] Sent: 13 June 2011 13:17 To: FlightGear Development list Subject: Re: [Flightgear-devel] Rating System Redux Hi all, just pushed ratings for my vehicles to Git (wow, didn't know I had that many (uninished) vehicles! This year I didn't start new aircraft IIRC, I'm now finishing up my existing ones instead, as I should have done in the past years...). Anyway, I came across some issues with the rating system: 1. Certain vehicles do not have a cockpit. For example my jetman, which is basically a man hanging under a pair of wings equipped with jets. How would one give this man a cockpit- rating?! Maybe cockpit should mean instruments and controls? In that case I can give this man a rating: the ignition switch and parachute handle are missing from the model. For now I gave him a 3, but I'd like to hear opinions and see a note being added to the wiki on how to deal with such issues. It isn't as easy as If your aircraft does not have a given system, ignore it for the purposes of rating ;) If the model has no cockpit (correctly) then it gets a 5 (totally realistic). If it's missing a couple of switches, then that's a 4 2. I think the alpha-range is rather big, compared to the others. There is an awfull lot of difference between a total=0 aircraft and a total=8 (eg. Model=3, FDM=3, Cockpit=0, Systems=2). I don't care if my vehicles end up low in the completness-rating (I consider my best aircraft early production) but I do feel offset to see my aircraft end up next to an empty hull. Adding in a 0-4 rating would be nice IMO; we can call that pre alpha. Just how many systems are there - this must be a 4 as well? So that would become 3 + 3 + 4 + 4 = 14 = early production. Good enough for me :-) Just some Monday afternoon ideas :) Cheers, Gijs -- EditLive Enterprise is the world's most technically advanced content authoring tool. Experience the power of Track Changes, Inline Image Editing and ensure content is compliant with Accessibility Checking. http://p.sf.net/sfu/ephox-dev2dev___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Rating System Redux
Vivian wrote: Just how many systems are there – this must be a 4 as well? So that would become 3 + 3 + 4 + 4 = 14 = early production. Good enough for me J My 2nd point wasn't about the Jetman ;) But yeah, I do think the Cockpit might be a 4 rather than a 5 then. Will wait for some more opinions. -- EditLive Enterprise is the world's most technically advanced content authoring tool. Experience the power of Track Changes, Inline Image Editing and ensure content is compliant with Accessibility Checking. http://p.sf.net/sfu/ephox-dev2dev___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Rating System Redux
Gijs wrote: Vivian wrote: Just how many systems are there - this must be a 4 as well? So that would become 3 + 3 + 4 + 4 = 14 = early production. Good enough for me :-) My 2nd point wasn't about the Jetman ;) But yeah, I do think the Cockpit might be a 4 rather than a 5 then. Will wait for some more opinions. Now how was I meant to guess that :-)? -- EditLive Enterprise is the world's most technically advanced content authoring tool. Experience the power of Track Changes, Inline Image Editing and ensure content is compliant with Accessibility Checking. http://p.sf.net/sfu/ephox-dev2dev___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Rating System Redux
On Monday, June 13, 2011 06:12:04 AM Gijs de Rooy wrote: Vivian wrote: Just how many systems are there – this must be a 4 as well? So that would become 3 + 3 + 4 + 4 = 14 = early production. Good enough for me J My 2nd point wasn't about the Jetman ;) But yeah, I do think the Cockpit might be a 4 rather than a 5 then. Will wait for some more opinions. I approach all of the catigories with the thought that I am rating how complete the model is in that catigory. For example for Systems if I rate it a 4 then it should have it's over all sustems about 75% complete. Then same for other other catigories. The descriptions on the wiki page are more like a guild to help with what types of things belong in each catigory and the info there is very helpful for normal aircraft. Things like the jetman are sort of corner cases but it wouldn't hurt to add info to the wiki about how these types of things shuold be rated. So your jetman is missing a few things from the cockpit but if there should be 5 things in the cockpit to make it complete and it has 4 (or 10 and 7) then it is it is a 4. Hal -- EditLive Enterprise is the world's most technically advanced content authoring tool. Experience the power of Track Changes, Inline Image Editing and ensure content is compliant with Accessibility Checking. http://p.sf.net/sfu/ephox-dev2dev___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Rating System Redux
On Monday, June 13, 2011 05:16:59 AM Gijs de Rooy wrote: Hi all, snip I think the alpha-range is rather big, compared to the others. There is an awfull lot of difference between a total=0 aircraft and a total=8 (eg. Model=3, FDM=3, Cockpit=0, Systems=2). I don't care if my vehicles end up low in the completness-rating (I consider my best aircraft early production) but I do feel offset to see my aircraft end up next to an empty hull. Adding in a 0-4 rating would be nice IMO; we can call that pre alpha. Just some Monday afternoon ideas :) Cheers, Gijs I am not sure that I am bothered by this since for the most part users will not be interested in alpha models. But you are right the alpha staus implies that the model is in a state where it could be tested by users and there are models in GIT that are not that far along. The other possibility is that we discourage including a status rating until such time that the model is user testable. This also makes it possible, with some work to the download page, to exclude models with no status from appearing on the download page. This way aircraft devs would be able to control when their model appears on the download page. Hal -- EditLive Enterprise is the world's most technically advanced content authoring tool. Experience the power of Track Changes, Inline Image Editing and ensure content is compliant with Accessibility Checking. http://p.sf.net/sfu/ephox-dev2dev___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Rating System Redux
Hi Stuart and all, http://wiki.flightgear.org/Formalizing_Aircraft_Status We have some (too few!) aircraft providing documentation / tutorials, i.e. how to start, how to use instruments... I like extremely detailed/realistic aircraft, and I'm not asking everyone to provide cheating autostart options. But realistic FDMs/cockpits/... are still of little use when people don't know how to use them. So, wouldn't it be a good idea to make the level of documentation/tutorials part of the new rating system? Especially since that's certainly of interest to new users (new to FG, or just new to the aircraft). So, how about adding Documentation and Tutorials rating section, like: 0: no documentation/tutorials available 1: aircraft key bindings dialog available, basic documentation included (i.e. readme.txt) 2: tutorials on basic aircraft operation available (at least start-up) 3: advanced tutorials available (start-up, autopilot, approach/landing configuration) 4: highly advanced training tutorials available (i.e. covering emergencies/engine-failures etc) You can certainly argue on how many points these are worth (compared to FDM/cockpit realism etc). But it shouldn't be ignored completely. Any thoughts? cheers, Thorsten -- Simplify data backup and recovery for your virtual environment with vRanger. Installation's a snap, and flexible recovery options mean your data is safe, secure and there when you need it. Discover what all the cheering's about. Get your free trial download today. http://p.sf.net/sfu/quest-dev2dev2 ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Rating System Redux
On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 6:56 PM, ThorstenB wrote: Hi Stuart and all, http://wiki.flightgear.org/Formalizing_Aircraft_Status We have some (too few!) aircraft providing documentation / tutorials, i.e. how to start, how to use instruments... I like extremely detailed/realistic aircraft, and I'm not asking everyone to provide cheating autostart options. But realistic FDMs/cockpits/... are still of little use when people don't know how to use them. So, wouldn't it be a good idea to make the level of documentation/tutorials part of the new rating system? Especially since that's certainly of interest to new users (new to FG, or just new to the aircraft). You may have seen that I've proposed putting it at least partly within the Systems rating, as really it is related to operating those systems. Thus far, my proposal is that for a Systems:3 rating, there must be either in-sim instructions or a tutorial for the correctly modelled engine startup. I think that is reasonable, and will allow new users to at least start the engine, if not get into the air. We could extend that such that for each of the modelled systems for a given rating there must be either - in-sim help/checklist - in-sim tutorial - referenced documentation elsewhere (Manual, wiki, freely available PoH) Does that seem reasonable or too draconian? The problem with having it as a completely separate rating is that when calculating an overall status for the aircraft it dilutes the other ratings (in particular FDM) unless one starts weighting the different ratings. -Stuart -- Simplify data backup and recovery for your virtual environment with vRanger. Installation's a snap, and flexible recovery options mean your data is safe, secure and there when you need it. Discover what all the cheering's about. Get your free trial download today. http://p.sf.net/sfu/quest-dev2dev2 ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Rating System Redux
On Friday, June 03, 2011 11:45:26 AM Stuart Buchanan wrote: On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 6:56 PM, ThorstenB wrote: Hi Stuart and all, http://wiki.flightgear.org/Formalizing_Aircraft_Status We have some (too few!) aircraft providing documentation / tutorials, i.e. how to start, how to use instruments... I like extremely detailed/realistic aircraft, and I'm not asking everyone to provide cheating autostart options. But realistic FDMs/cockpits/... are still of little use when people don't know how to use them. So, wouldn't it be a good idea to make the level of documentation/tutorials part of the new rating system? Especially since that's certainly of interest to new users (new to FG, or just new to the aircraft). You may have seen that I've proposed putting it at least partly within the Systems rating, as really it is related to operating those systems. There are some things that should be covered in the in-sim help or a pilots handbook that are related to the FDM such as Vne, stall speeds, service ceiling and the like. So perhaps there is an FDM component to this as well but this is probably a nit and having it covered in the Systems catigory seems OK to me. Thus far, my proposal is that for a Systems:3 rating, there must be either in-sim instructions or a tutorial for the correctly modelled engine startup. I think that is reasonable, and will allow new users to at least start the engine, if not get into the air. We could extend that such that for each of the modelled systems for a given rating there must be either - in-sim help/checklist - in-sim tutorial - referenced documentation elsewhere (Manual, wiki, freely available PoH) Does that seem reasonable or too draconian? This strikes me as an OK approach. As the systems being modeled get more complex and/or numerous having everything covered by in-sim help/check lists is not feasible (IE. the help text becomes too big). But there is also a need for more documentation as more systems are added to the model. Having some basic aircraft help (perhaps startup, take off and landing check lists along with some other basic info) and referring users to a pilot's handbook that covers in detail how these systems work IRL should be enough to satisfy this requirement. For many aircraft getting the pilots handbook is not hard but it can take some research to find. I had considered adding the pilots handbook to my aircraft directory in a Docs subdirectory since it has been put in the public domain by US.gov (IE. no IP issues - something that will not be the case for all aircraft). But the best of the handbooks available is fairly large (around 54 meg) and I am a little hesitant to add it since adding the handbook almost doubles the download size of the aircraft. I didn't even think about this when rating my aircraft since I had assumed that most if not all aircraft with with a shot at something beyond a beta rating would either have extensive in-sim documentation or a pilots handbooks would be available. For me adding this requirement to the rating system would not affect how I scored my model but it may impact others. The problem with having it as a completely separate rating is that when calculating an overall status for the aircraft it dilutes the other ratings (in particular FDM) unless one starts weighting the different ratings. -Stuart -- Simplify data backup and recovery for your virtual environment with vRanger. Installation's a snap, and flexible recovery options mean your data is safe, secure and there when you need it. Discover what all the cheering's about. Get your free trial download today. http://p.sf.net/sfu/quest-dev2dev2 ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Rating System Redux (was Re:Flightgear-devel Digest, Vol 61, Issue 12)
On Tuesday, May 31, 2011 03:02:09 PM Vivian Meazza wrote: Hal, I can't follow your logic - because there are some aircraft that need a lot of work, the system shouldn't recognize advanced features in other aircraft that do have them? I should have been clearer - Sorry. What I was trying to say is that we shouldn't need special cases to include this type of stuff in the rating. I also disagree with Stuart that such advanced features are nice-to-haves and add little to the simulation - why the hell are we including them then? Do the stores so nicely added to the P-51 add nothing? These add a lot. I treated them as systems and included them in Systems rating. Seemed like the right way to handle this stuff to me. On the other hand, the ability to change liveries adds to the model? Sure doesn't wring my withers, but I suppose the airliner aficionados (and I'm not one) absolutely must have that. I agree with this (IE. that liveries only make sense for some models). Stuart changed the External Model category to make liveries optional to get a 4 or above. The P-51 is a superb model already, and at a reasonable frame rate here - about 75% of my benchmark figure. The yasim p51d gets about 35 FPS on my older system (it's probably a mid level system by todays standards) and the jsbsim version gets about 22 FPS under the same conditions. Considering how much more detail there is in the JSBSim cockpit I think it does OK frame rate wise. It would benefit from a tutorial on the start procedure - It does have a complete startup check list/procedure in the aircraft specific help that is basically copied from the pilots manual. The startup is fairly simple (comparable to a single engine GA aircraft) so most users should be able to get it running by reading the startup check list/procedure. but apparently that would win no points either. That seems to be a missed opportunity too. I agree that the quality of the aircraft specific help and the existence of tutorials needs to be factored into the rating system some how. I suppose the P-51 FDM is accurate - but I find it not all that pleasant to fly. There is a high pilot work load during take off and initial climb out and this makes things unpleasant during those part of a flight. Once up to or above normal climb speed and trimmed it becomes fairly easy to fly. It also can be a handful in high G maneuvers since it will snap if there is a yaw angle as you approach stall. You can appoach stall at fairly high speeds in high G maneuvers without blacking out. FG pilots will likely find this behavior surprising since the JSBSim P-51D is the only FG aircraft I know of that will do this. But after the pilot gets used to this behavior it gives the pilot a level of feedback near stall that is very useful. I would say that you have probably slightly underrated its score. I may have been overly critical with my ranking but I have a very long todo list and I am acutely aware of how much work remains to be done. I think this is a common situation among those who are trying to create very high quality models and I also believe that most individuals trying to create high quality models will tend to underrate their own models. I think this is a good thing since it sets a very high bar. In the final analysis - the system currently proposed is only marginally better than the current wet finger in the air method. I think we are falling a bit short here in our aim to be both objective, and to tell users more about the available aircraft. This I don't totally agree with. The system is far from perfect but at least we have a documented rating system that is somewhat objective and fairly easy to do. We can improve on it going forward to make it more complete and what we have now is a good starting place and is clearly better than the wet finger in the air method. In particular, the failure to tell users that they need a powerful system to use a model, and something about the difficulty of use, is going to disappoint and or frustrate users. I think these are separate issues from rating model maturity. Hal -- Simplify data backup and recovery for your virtual environment with vRanger. Installation's a snap, and flexible recovery options mean your data is safe, secure and there when you need it. Data protection magic? Nope - It's vRanger. Get your free trial download today. http://p.sf.net/sfu/quest-sfdev2dev___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Rating System Redux (was Re:Flightgear-devel Digest, Vol 61, Issue 12)
On Tuesday, May 31, 2011 10:26:18 PM Robert wrote: I absolutely agree with Vivian. The users should know about planes that need much resources (CPU, RAM, VRAM). This value should not influence the total score. I think how much compute power is needed and how difficult a model is to use/fly are seperate subjects from the status/maturatity of the model. In general models that are more mature will tend to require more compute resources and also will be more difficult to use/fly for aircraft of similar complexity IRL. Ease of use of the models should reflect how difficult the aircraft is to fly IRL at least for mature models. New users, particularly younger ones, sometimes think that FG is a game rather than a simulation and assume that how it presents aircraft should be arcade game like. I have seen a number of forum threads that started off with something along the lines of I just started using FG today and I tried to fly complex high performance aircraft and I always crash during take off Invariably the next post will point out that complex high performance aircraft requires a lot of skill and experience to fly and will ask the user if he has tried the C172P or some other basic aircraft. The OP will reply no but I will. Then they report that they were succesful with the more basic aircraft and are happy with FG. IRL you don't climb into the pilots seat of a complex high performance aircraft for your first flight ever and expect to walk away in one piece. Why would this be different for FG and why would FG users expect it to be different? Having a difficulty rating someplace visible to users is a good idea since it might clue in at least some new users that they probably need to start out with something easy to fly usless they fly complex aircraft IRL. So I agree ratings for difficulty of use and how much compute power is needed should be seperate from the status since these have nothing to do with model maturity. Maybe using the total score is not a good idea at all, because some users prefer the eye candy and don't worry about frame rate too much, others prefer an accurate FDM and a high framerate. So the total score doesn't tell the whole story! The overall status is for backward compatibility. It is displayed in fgrun and on the download page already. Also the most mature models will have eye candy, complex system modeling and a high quality FDM. So I think it does tell most of the story and users can infer how much compute power is needed for a given level of real life aricraft complexity from the status rating. A very simple aircraft (IE. Piper Cub or sail plane) of any status probably will run fine on a low to mid level system. But a highly complex aircraft that has a mature model (production or above) will probably require a high end machine to get good frame rates. It's not really rocket science as it just requires some common sense to figure out. But I don't see any reason not to also include information about required compute power for each model. But the idea of showing the user individual scores (FDM, Systems, Cockpit, 3d model, + needed resources) is a good one! What do you think? At this point users have to look in the XML files to see the FDM, Systems, Cockpit and External model scores. These are not visible in any UI or on the download page. So at this point only users who understand how things are setup in FG will be able to find this information and more work will be needed to make it available to nave users. Another issue is for the needed resources and difficulty rating to make sense there needs to be documentation on how to create the ratings and a description some place for user so that they can understand what these mean. Hal -- Simplify data backup and recovery for your virtual environment with vRanger. Installation's a snap, and flexible recovery options mean your data is safe, secure and there when you need it. Data protection magic? Nope - It's vRanger. Get your free trial download today. http://p.sf.net/sfu/quest-sfdev2dev___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Rating System Redux (was Re:Flightgear-devel Digest, Vol 61, Issue 12)
Adding to Hal's comments: On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 7:21 PM, Hal V. Engel wrote: On Tuesday, May 31, 2011 03:02:09 PM Vivian Meazza wrote: I also disagree with Stuart that such advanced features are nice-to-haves and add little to the simulation - why the hell are we including them then? Do the stores so nicely added to the P-51 add nothing? These add a lot. I treated them as systems and included them in Systems rating. Seemed like the right way to handle this stuff to me. Yes - these are now covered by the Systems rating, which feels like a much better place than my original suggestion of External Model. It would benefit from a tutorial on the start procedure - but apparently that would win no points either. That seems to be a missed opportunity too. I agree that the quality of the aircraft specific help and the existence of tutorials needs to be factored into the rating system some how. I was having a think about this myself today. I don't think having a tutorial is critical for a particular rating, but I do think that the start procedure should be documented in-sim, either in the aircraft help or as a tutorial. Accurate startup procedure is already a criteria for a System:3 rating. I propose that we change this to read Accurate startup procedure, documented in-sim (aircraft help or tutorial) Does that sound sufficient? Of course, this doesn't cover all the other procedures that we might want documented, but it is common to all (powered) aircraft. In the final analysis - the system currently proposed is only marginally better than the current wet finger in the air method. I think we are falling a bit short here in our aim to be both objective, and to tell users more about the available aircraft. This I don't totally agree with. The system is far from perfect but at least we have a documented rating system that is somewhat objective and fairly easy to do. We can improve on it going forward to make it more complete and what we have now is a good starting place and is clearly better than the wet finger in the air method. I think this is certainly a step in the right direction. The system isn't perfect, and I'm sure there are some aircraft that will end up under-rated and some over-rated, but it will certainly sort the wheat from the chaff and give new users and idea of what to expect from a given aircraft. If a new user looks at early production aircraft, they should get a very good impression of the quality available from FG. The perfect is the enemy of the good. - Voltaire (but A witty saying proves nothing. - Voltaire) -Stuart -- Simplify data backup and recovery for your virtual environment with vRanger. Installation's a snap, and flexible recovery options mean your data is safe, secure and there when you need it. Data protection magic? Nope - It's vRanger. Get your free trial download today. http://p.sf.net/sfu/quest-sfdev2dev ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Rating System Redux (was Re:Flightgear-devel Digest, Vol 61, Issue 12)
Hal, I can't follow your logic - because there are some aircraft that need a lot of work, the system shouldn't recognize advanced features in other aircraft that do have them? I also disagree with Stuart that such advanced features are nice-to-haves and add little to the simulation - why the hell are we including them then? Do the stores so nicely added to the P-51 add nothing? On the other hand, the ability to change liveries adds to the model? Sure doesn't wring my withers, but I suppose the airliner aficionados (and I'm not one) absolutely must have that. The P-51 is a superb model already, and at a reasonable frame rate here - about 75% of my benchmark figure. It would benefit from a tutorial on the start procedure - but apparently that would win no points either. That seems to be a missed opportunity too. I suppose the P-51 FDM is accurate - but I find it not all that pleasant to fly. I would say that you have probably slightly underrated its score. In the final analysis - the system currently proposed is only marginally better than the current wet finger in the air method. I think we are falling a bit short here in our aim to be both objective, and to tell users more about the available aircraft. In particular, the failure to tell users that they need a powerful system to use a model, and something about the difficulty of use, is going to disappoint and or frustrate users. Vivian -Original Message- From: Hal V. Engel [mailto:hven...@gmail.com] Sent: 30 May 2011 23:45 To: flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Flightgear-devel] Rating System Redux (was Re:Flightgear-devel Digest, Vol 61, Issue 12) On Monday, May 30, 2011 12:47:41 PM Stuart Buchanan wrote: I don't have a good answer for the other items. Some are nice-to-haves that enrich the simulation experience but don't impact simulation of flight itself, but others (such as a co-pilot) are more important for multi-crew aircraft. Call them all advanced features. That could be a/the criterion for advanced production I'm not sure. The Advanced production bar is already very high - two 5s and two 4s. I'm not sure if any aircraft will actually gain it! I would expect that at this point only a few aircraft out there are close to or are advanced production quality. It is a very high standard and any aircraft that is that far along should really stand out. I would expect that most of the most advanced current models only need perhaps 1 or 2 points to get there but adding points when the models are that far along is a lot of work. But I would be surprised if there were more than a handful of aircraft that were far enough along to only need 1 or 2 points to become advanced production. I think I agree with Stuart that having some things called advanced features does not add much if anything to the system particularly when we have so many models that are missing many basic things. An example of one that is close but needs more work is the p51d-jsbsim model. It only needs to improve the external model (add livery support to go from a 3 to a 4) to get to production status and then add one more point in cockpit, external model or systems would make it advanced production. Currently it has the following ratings: rating FDM type=int5/FDM systems type=int4/systems model type=int3/model cockpit type=int4/cockpit /rating The 3D modeling stuff is not my strong suit but I do have new more accurate 3D models for the fuselage and wing (including flaps and aileraons) for the P-51D that I created a while back. I have also more accurately modeled the cooling inlet passages and the oil and coolant radiators so that these will look correct (once textured) when looking into the cooling inlet. I need to uvmap all of this stuff now and this is where I get stuck as I can't figure out how to do this so that the resulting uvmaps can be used to create livery support. Having a nice user friendly uvmap for the fugelage and wings is more or less nessary to move ahead with libery support I think. For Systems adding emergency gear release support, oxygen system support, full cooling system support, VHF radio support, rear warning radar support, IFF support and some missing electrical system stuff would increase this to a 5. The 3D models for the controls for all of these systems are already in the cockpit. One comment about systems. For the P-51 series there are two cooling doors that are used to control cooling airflow. One for the engine coolant and one for the oil cooler. JSBSim has support for the coolant door controls but not for the oil cooler door controls. I have the automatic coolant door stuff modeled but not the automatic oil cooler stuff because of this. I also need to add manual overides for these at some point (the controls are in the cockpit but currently only allow for automatic control). What I am getting at is that some systems can not be fully
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Rating System Redux (was Re:Flightgear-devel Digest, Vol 61, Issue 12)
I absolutely agree with Vivian. The users should know about planes that need much resources (CPU, RAM, VRAM). This value should not influence the total score. Maybe using the total score is not a good idea at all, because some users prefer the eye candy and don't worry about frame rate too much, others prefer an accurate FDM and a high framerate. So the total score doesn't tell the whole story! But the idea of showing the user individual scores (FDM, Systems, Cockpit, 3d model, + needed resources) is a good one! What do you think? -- Simplify data backup and recovery for your virtual environment with vRanger. Installation's a snap, and flexible recovery options mean your data is safe, secure and there when you need it. Data protection magic? Nope - It's vRanger. Get your free trial download today. http://p.sf.net/sfu/quest-sfdev2dev___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Rating System Redux (was Re: Flightgear-devel Digest, Vol 61, Issue 12)
On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 8:30 PM, Vivian Meazza wrote: Stuart Thanks for addressing the points that were hammered out over on the IRC channel. I think the modified system could work. Just a few points remain: There is no penalty for including systems, such as an AP, where none existed on the original. There's not an explicit penalty. but I think Hal has addressed this in the notes for the System criteria: Ignore systems not present on the aircraft IRL. If the real aircraft doesn't have a system (e.g. autopilot), the FG model shouldn't have either and if all systems in the real aircraft are modeled then it scores a 5 even if it is a very simple aircraft. I'm not sure how much of a problem this is. If someone chooses not to disable the generic autopilot for a vintage aircraft, it will have no effect on pilots who choose to fly realistically (they simply won't use it). If the system is exposed in the cockpit, then it is covered by the rating for accuracy of cockpit - a KAP140 in the Sopwith Camel would obviously not be worth a 4 or 5 cockpit rating. That is correct - but it doesn't follow from the criteria quoted above. I've added No unrealistic systems to the System-3 rating criteria, with an exception for autopilot. I've also attempted to provide some useful guidance notes. We're talking here about the difference between a 4 or 5 External Model rating, where we're trying to differentiate between a good external model and one that is as realistic as possible. I think we should differentiate between them if possible, but I'm struggling to think up some objective criteria. Photo-realistic? model resolution of 5cm? Perhaps we end up providing subjective criteria, or some additional guidance in this case? I think guidance - livery shouldn't be a criterion for realism, but it might form part of it. Realism is the goal. I've modified the rating and guidance as follows: # 4: Accurate 3D model with animated control surfaces, gear, prop, livery support (if applicable). # 5: Highly accurate 3D model (down to minor components such as control rods), with animated control surfaces, gear, prop, livery support, tyre smoke, shader effects. Objectively differentiating between a 4 and a 5 is very difficult. As a guideline, a 5 model is as realistic as possible given the available rendering technology. I don't have a good answer for the other items. Some are nice-to-haves that enrich the simulation experience but don't impact simulation of flight itself, but others (such as a co-pilot) are more important for multi-crew aircraft. Call them all advanced features. That could be a/the criterion for advanced production I'm not sure. The Advanced production bar is already very high - two 5s and two 4s. I'm not sure if any aircraft will actually gain it! Of course, we're trusting that aircraft developers are going to apply the rating criteria accurately to the best of their ability. Yes - I think perhaps a bit of spot-checking to keep us all honest? Assuming this gets widely adopted, I think it'll be self-policing. Users are going to notice if an aircraft falls below the general criteria. Oh and, finally finally - the model with the highest score might be so good that the framerate means that it can only be used on high-end systems or away from detailed airports. This limitation should be noted somewhere. I don't have a good answer to that. Does that become criteria for a 5 in External Model? I think this ends up back as something subjective. I think we need some form of bench-mark - perhaps the default model at KSFO with certain (all?) features enabled. The aircraft to be rated scores a % framerate above or below this norm? Thinking aloud here a bit. Perhaps that's a bit too fancy. I think that's going to vary so much between graphics systems, plus I'm not sure that graphics degradation is linear - it always seems to fall off a cliff for me :) If enough people rate their aircraft and we can use it to provide a better download page for the upcoming release, it will succeed. Let's hope - some aircraft developers have an awful lot of aircraft to rate. Given his standardized workflow, I think Helijah will be able to apply pretty much the same rating to most of his new models, and retrospectively fit his existing aircraft as well. Hal V. Engel wrote: Hadn't thought about that at all. I've added it to the criteria for a 4 rating. I would treat these as just another system. I think the systems catigory is a difficult one because of how much difference there is between very simple aircraft (think sailplane) and a very complex one (think Concorde). This makes it very difficult to have a rating system that results in similar scores for aircraft that have proportionally complete systems but that are of very different complexity. I am not sure how to improve this but I think it is important to keep it simple. I've moved the
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Rating System Redux (was Re: Flightgear-devel Digest, Vol 61, Issue 12)
On Monday, May 30, 2011 12:47:41 PM Stuart Buchanan wrote: I don't have a good answer for the other items. Some are nice-to-haves that enrich the simulation experience but don't impact simulation of flight itself, but others (such as a co-pilot) are more important for multi-crew aircraft. Call them all advanced features. That could be a/the criterion for advanced production I'm not sure. The Advanced production bar is already very high - two 5s and two 4s. I'm not sure if any aircraft will actually gain it! I would expect that at this point only a few aircraft out there are close to or are advanced production quality. It is a very high standard and any aircraft that is that far along should really stand out. I would expect that most of the most advanced current models only need perhaps 1 or 2 points to get there but adding points when the models are that far along is a lot of work. But I would be surprised if there were more than a handful of aircraft that were far enough along to only need 1 or 2 points to become advanced production. I think I agree with Stuart that having some things called advanced features does not add much if anything to the system particularly when we have so many models that are missing many basic things. An example of one that is close but needs more work is the p51d-jsbsim model. It only needs to improve the external model (add livery support to go from a 3 to a 4) to get to production status and then add one more point in cockpit, external model or systems would make it advanced production. Currently it has the following ratings: rating FDM type=int5/FDM systems type=int4/systems model type=int3/model cockpit type=int4/cockpit /rating The 3D modeling stuff is not my strong suit but I do have new more accurate 3D models for the fuselage and wing (including flaps and aileraons) for the P-51D that I created a while back. I have also more accurately modeled the cooling inlet passages and the oil and coolant radiators so that these will look correct (once textured) when looking into the cooling inlet. I need to uvmap all of this stuff now and this is where I get stuck as I can't figure out how to do this so that the resulting uvmaps can be used to create livery support. Having a nice user friendly uvmap for the fugelage and wings is more or less nessary to move ahead with libery support I think. For Systems adding emergency gear release support, oxygen system support, full cooling system support, VHF radio support, rear warning radar support, IFF support and some missing electrical system stuff would increase this to a 5. The 3D models for the controls for all of these systems are already in the cockpit. One comment about systems. For the P-51 series there are two cooling doors that are used to control cooling airflow. One for the engine coolant and one for the oil cooler. JSBSim has support for the coolant door controls but not for the oil cooler door controls. I have the automatic coolant door stuff modeled but not the automatic oil cooler stuff because of this. I also need to add manual overides for these at some point (the controls are in the cockpit but currently only allow for automatic control). What I am getting at is that some systems can not be fully modeled because of limitations in the FDM being used and aircraft authors should rate these as complete systems if they have modeled everything that is possible with the existing FDM support. For Cockpit adding the fuselage fuel tank and guage, a few missing placards, the arm rest, the map bag and improved texturing would pretty much get it a 5. For some aircraft it may never be possible to get the FDM rating high enough to get more than a 2 or 3 simply because the data needed to do that is not available. These aircraft will never be able to get beyond an early production status unless the author finds a source for the needed information. Hal -- vRanger cuts backup time in half-while increasing security. With the market-leading solution for virtual backup and recovery, you get blazing-fast, flexible, and affordable data protection. Download your free trial now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/quest-d2dcopy1___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Rating System Redux (was Re: Flightgear-devel Digest, Vol 61, Issue 12)
Stuart Thanks for addressing the points that were hammered out over on the IRC channel. I think the modified system could work. Just a few points remain: There is no penalty for including systems, such as an AP, where none existed on the original. There's not an explicit penalty. but I think Hal has addressed this in the notes for the System criteria: Ignore systems not present on the aircraft IRL. If the real aircraft doesn't have a system (e.g. autopilot), the FG model shouldn't have either and if all systems in the real aircraft are modeled then it scores a 5 even if it is a very simple aircraft. I'm not sure how much of a problem this is. If someone chooses not to disable the generic autopilot for a vintage aircraft, it will have no effect on pilots who choose to fly realistically (they simply won't use it). If the system is exposed in the cockpit, then it is covered by the rating for accuracy of cockpit - a KAP140 in the Sopwith Camel would obviously not be worth a 4 or 5 cockpit rating. That is correct - but it doesn't follow from the criteria quoted above. I don't think it's unreasonable for vintage aircraft to have access to a radio, for example. A modern pilot flying a vintage aircraft would carry a hand-held. Yes - it depends on whether we are modeling the original, or a currently flying example. I've never quite made up my mind on that one. The use of shaders etc. may or may not enhance the realism of the model and in some cases could be used inappropriately. This is a subjective assessment, and perhaps could be removed from the points system. Livery support is not necessarily an enhancement - it is not appropriate for all models. We're talking here about the difference between a 4 or 5 External Model rating, where we're trying to differentiate between a good external model and one that is as realistic as possible. I think we should differentiate between them if possible, but I'm struggling to think up some objective criteria. Photo-realistic? model resolution of 5cm? Perhaps we end up providing subjective criteria, or some additional guidance in this case? I think guidance - livery shouldn't be a criterion for realism, but it might form part of it. Realism is the goal. I'm not clear if you are awarding points for underwing stores and the like. Hadn't thought about that at all. I've added it to the criteria for a 4 rating. We have additional features such as co-pilot/RIO over MP, Wingmen, Formation Control, Tutorials, Aircraft Specific Help, Contrails, Vapour Trails, and there are probably some I missed. Contrails Vapour trails should probably be covered by the external model, I think. I could add them (along with tyre smoke) as criteria for a Model 5 rating? Yes - tyre smoke is a generic facility - there is no reason for it not being added to a model. I don't have a good answer for the other items. Some are nice-to-haves that enrich the simulation experience but don't impact simulation of flight itself, but others (such as a co-pilot) are more important for multi-crew aircraft. Call them all advanced features. That could be a/the criterion for advanced production And finally - the points system could award a high status to a poor model - there are no points awarded for the accuracy or the fidelity of the 3d model. E.G there is at least one model with afterburners modelled where none existed. I've updated the external model to include the world Accurate for ratings 3-5. Good Of course, we're trusting that aircraft developers are going to apply the rating criteria accurately to the best of their ability. Yes - I think perhaps a bit of spot-checking to keep us all honest? Oh and, finally finally - the model with the highest score might be so good that the framerate means that it can only be used on high-end systems or away from detailed airports. This limitation should be noted somewhere. I don't have a good answer to that. Does that become criteria for a 5 in External Model? I think this ends up back as something subjective. I think we need some form of bench-mark - perhaps the default model at KSFO with certain (all?) features enabled. The aircraft to be rated scores a % framerate above or below this norm? Thinking aloud here a bit. Perhaps that's a bit too fancy. Let's hope that this tool can help to bring some order out of the current chaos. We can but try. Certainly this seems to have a bit more momentum behind it than previous attempts, based on the feedback here and on IRC. If enough people rate their aircraft and we can use it to provide a better download page for the upcoming release, it will succeed. Let's hope - some aircraft developers have an awful lot of aircraft to rate. Vivian -- vRanger cuts backup time in half-while increasing
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Rating System Redux (was Re: Flightgear-devel Digest, Vol 61, Issue 12)
On Thursday, May 26, 2011 06:31:13 AM Stuart Buchanan wrote: On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 9:45 AM, Vivian Meazz awrote: Thanks for addressing the points that were hammered out over on the IRC channel. I think the modified system could work. Just a few points remain: There is no penalty for including systems, such as an AP, where none existed on the original. There's not an explicit penalty. but I think Hal has addressed this in the notes for the System criteria: Ignore systems not present on the aircraft IRL. If the real aircraft doesn't have a system (e.g. autopilot), the FG model shouldn't have either and if all systems in the real aircraft are modeled then it scores a 5 even if it is a very simple aircraft. I'm not sure how much of a problem this is. If someone chooses not to disable the generic autopilot for a vintage aircraft, it will have no effect on pilots who choose to fly realistically (they simply won't use it). On the p51d-jsbsim I have added a tuned autopilot but it is only available by using the menu system since the real thing (IE. my model is as it would have been in 1945) would not have one. But it is VERY useful for test flights so it was worth the effort to create it. I don't think this should result in a reduced Systems score unless it is exposed in the cockpit. So I agree with Stuart. If the system is exposed in the cockpit, then it is covered by the rating for accuracy of cockpit - a KAP140 in the Sopwith Camel would obviously not be worth a 4 or 5 cockpit rating. I don't think it's unreasonable for vintage aircraft to have access to a radio, for example. A modern pilot flying a vintage aircraft would carry a hand-held. I agree with this and as others have pointed out it depends on what you are modeling - IE. how the aircraft was back in the day or how it might be used today. These are really two different aircraft or at least two differenet configurations. The use of shaders etc. may or may not enhance the realism of the model and in some cases could be used inappropriately. This is a subjective assessment, and perhaps could be removed from the points system. Livery support is not necessarily an enhancement - it is not appropriate for all models. We're talking here about the difference between a 4 or 5 External Model rating, where we're trying to differentiate between a good external model and one that is as realistic as possible. I think we should differentiate between them if possible, but I'm struggling to think up some objective criteria. Photo-realistic? model resolution of 5cm? Setting up for liveries appears to be a significant non-trivial task although I have not looked into it in detail. If the model is intended to be of a specific aircraft as it existed at a particualr point in time then liveries make no sense for that model. On the other hand a particular aircraft may have a long history and using liveries would make it possible to model the same aircraft at different points in it's history. Perhaps we end up providing subjective criteria, or some additional guidance in this case? I'm not clear if you are awarding points for underwing stores and the like. Hadn't thought about that at all. I've added it to the criteria for a 4 rating. I would treat these as just another system. I think the systems catigory is a difficult one because of how much difference there is between very simple aircraft (think sailplane) and a very complex one (think Concorde). This makes it very difficult to have a rating system that results in similar scores for aircraft that have proportionally complete systems but that are of very different complexity. I am not sure how to improve this but I think it is important to keep it simple. We have additional features such as co-pilot/RIO over MP, Wingmen, Formation Control, Tutorials, Aircraft Specific Help, Contrails, Vapour Trails, and there are probably some I missed. Contrails Vapour trails should probably be covered by the external model, I think. I could add them (along with tyre smoke) as criteria for a Model 5 rating? I don't have a good answer for the other items. Some are nice-to-haves that enrich the simulation experience but don't impact simulation of flight itself, but others (such as a co-pilot) are more important for multi-crew aircraft. And finally - the points system could award a high status to a poor model - there are no points awarded for the accuracy or the fidelity of the 3d model. E.G there is at least one model with afterburners modelled where none existed. I've updated the external model to include the world Accurate for ratings 3-5. Of course, we're trusting that aircraft developers are going to apply the rating criteria accurately to the best of their ability. Oh and, finally finally - the model with the highest score might be so good that the framerate means that it
