Jason leaves ACES

You might already have read this on his blog, but Jason Waskey is leaving the ACES team (and MS as well). This happens more often of course, so why do I blog about it this time? That is because Jason was the first ACES team member that I ever had contact with. A few years ago now, I suddenly got a PM at a forum if I was interested to betatest FS2004. This PM was send by Jason and of course you can understand that I was very happy with this offer at that time.

So Jason, good look with your new job in art.

(Finally) another ModelConverterX update

It has been much too long ago that I wrote about the ModelConverterX tool. Or actually it was also much too long ago that I programmed on the tool. But since last week I have been making some progress again. That is partly because I have a little more time now that all the travelling for work (and for vacation) has finished. And also because I need to tool for a little test case I am working on.

For that test case I am trying to convert all the 3D API objects of an old scenery into the FSX MDL format with this tool. To make my life easier I have also added a function to make a XML placement file from the old SCASM file that contains all the Macro calls. Other improvements I have added are direct export to MDL format (XtoMDL is called for you by the tool) and the ability to batch convert objects, so that you do not have to load them all manually.

In the next days I will have to test this new functionality a bit more and I guess during that testing I will hit some new bugs as well. But I expect a new alpha release somewhere during the Christmas vacation.

More on SP2

After making my last post, I realized some information was still missing. So here are two interesting things:

  • Jon Patch put a nice overview of the changes on his blog (thanks to the information Phil provided as well).
  • I did not see an SDK update that goes with SP2, so the developers out there might want to wait a while, or else if will break stuff like your Object Placement Tool.

FSX SP2

For those of you that do not have the FSX Acceleration Pack, MS had now released SP2 for FSX. I think you should certainly consider installing this service pack, as it will also bring some performance benefits and other bug fixes.

Wiki getting alive

Over the last few weeks the FSDeveloper Wiki had become more and more alive. I am very happy to see that more people have started to add and edit the content of the Wiki. So be sure to check the Wiki now and then, as a lot of useful development related information is being collected there. And if you have some more knowledge to add to the Wiki, you are more than welcome to do so of course.

Microsoft ESP

I know this is old new, and I guess you must have read about this multiple times already by now. But as I think it is still very interesting I am writing this blog post about ESP. ESP is a new simulation platform that Microsoft has recently announced and it is based on the same simulation engine as FSX. Or to quote the description from Microsoft themself: 

“Microsoft ESP is a
visual simulation platform that brings powerful, high-fidelity simulations to
widely available, low-cost Microsoft Windows®-based PCs. Organizations that
rely on Microsoft ESP can improve their workforce readiness more efficiently
and cost-effectively than with traditional computer-based animation or
simulation tools. Combined with its developer-friendly Software Development Kit
(SDK), Microsoft ESP provides government and commercial entities and modeling
and simulation specialists with an affordable, portable, and highly extensible
platform for training and learning, decision support, and research and
development modeling.

Simulations built on
Microsoft ESP can engage users in immersive experiences with very realistic
land, sea, and air environments—making them ideal tools for training. With a
high-speed Internet connection, up to 30 users, including students, instructors,
and support personnel, can participate simultaneously in Microsoft ESP
simulations from any location in the world. In addition, the platform’s
built-in analysis and full playback capabilities facilitate evaluations of crew
performance, mission planning, and decision-making.”

I find this a very interesting product, as the use of the FSX engine can also have great benefits for non-entertainment use. For example at work we sometimes already use FS2004 as a quick visual for our simulations, simply because it covers the entire world by default. That is not something that can be said about any image generator. This can save us a lot of time in having to design or update visual database to include a certain area. And also with the FS SDK tools it is possible to add new data faster to FS than for most other image generators. And another interesting reason to use FS is that because it has been designed for entertainment usage, the resulting graphical image is a lot better in general.

So the fact that Microsoft has now announced a professional version of FS sounds very interesting, given the benefits I mentioned above. I have also written before about my efforts to convert between FS and OpenFlight (the format used in most other image generators). Now with ESP I see a lot more connections between the FS and the “professional” world and I am certainly looking forward to explore those new options. So hopefully I can report some more interesting things later on.

Back home from Florida

This weekend I arrived again at home after my trip to the I/ITSEC in Orlando for work. I have got rid of most of the jetlag by now, although I guess it will take me a few days to get back on speed with the forums and emails again. The fact that we celebrate Sinterklaas here this week also means I have to spend some time on writing a poem and buying some presents.

So I guess it will take till next week till I am fully up and running again. After all the travel of the last months I am looking forward to be home a little bit more, so that I can get some progress again on the tools and techniques I am working on. 

Perfect timing

As you might have read in my previous post, I am packing to travel for my work. And just at this moment it seems that the FSDeveloper site is not accessible. I have already contacted support of the host, but as the server is in the US they are still asleep I guess. So hopefully they can fix things soon. Once I have arrived in Florida I will try to check again if everything is working.

Almost travel tired

Last week I arrived home from my trip to the DevCon and FanCon, so by now I have got rid of the jetlag and have catched up with all things at home again. But today I will leave again for a trip, for work this time. We are going to the I/ITSEC. Although I will probably spend most of my time in the boot of our company, to take care of the simulators we will demonstrate there, I also hope I can see the interesting things other companies have to show.

With all that travelling lately, it has been a bit harder to find time for my FS activities. Keeping up with the forum activities has not been so bad, but I have had a bit of trouble to find time to program on new or updated tools for FSX as well. I hope that will improve a bit when I get back from this trip, as this seems to be the last trip for a while. And also the Christmas holidays are approaching.

But now I better pack my suitcase and go to the airport.