Out of bandwidth (again)

As you might have noticed the FsDeveloper website is down at the moment, because all bandwidth for this month has already been used. I had already asked the webhost for a few GB extra a few days ago, but it seems he has not added them yet. I am trying to get him to do this as soon as possible, so that the website will be available again. So hopefully the site should work again tomorrow.

As this is already the second month that we have this problem, we are currently looking at a more structural solution for this problem, as it seems buying the extra bandwidth when needed will not always work fast enough to keep the site running. So I hope this is the last month that we have this kind of trouble. I’ll keep you updated once the site is available again.

PS. Sorry for my lack of posts in the last weeks, I have been much to busy with other project (for example an Fs2004 scenery project, while I would prefer to spend my time on FsX now). But I should get a little more time in the coming weeks, so then I will also post more again (and finally have the time to fully explore FsX and write about that).
 

(It’s) time to explore FsX

First of all, sorry for my lack of posting the last time. I have been quite busy lately, so I have not had as much time as I would like to post about some interesting FsX things. But keep an eye on this blog, I hope to add some more posts in the coming days.

Now that FsX has been released, an interesting time for developers has come. We have the challange of exploring the differences and the new features that we can use in our developments. Especially for scenery designers I think the FsX scenery engine offers some cool new features, like the increased photo resolution on the mesh scenery.

So as you can image I am really looking forward to exploring all those new things. The new SDKs, the changed scenery MDL format, how to update my tools, etc. But unfortunately I also have some commitments to the [NL2000] project at the moment, for which I still have to finish some Fs2004 scenery work. Although I am absolutely not happy with that at the moment, I really would love to dive fully into FsX at the moment, I can't let the team down at this moment. So for the next few weeks, don't expect to much FsX activity from me yet. But after that I will certainly start working on updates for my tools and other interesting stuff.
 

Has FsX been released?

I guess so, this evening I already had multiple people on MSN complaining to me that the performance is so bad and that they are not happy with how it runs on their PC. Do they expect me to have a magic solution for that?

I guess we have to see if this complaining goes away once they have tuned their settings properly or not. Although I must admit that the performance of FsX is not great (especially not on my 3 year old PC), I never understand why people can't understand that more features and more cool stuff also means that the performance will be lowered a bit if you run it on the same hardware. It has always been like that with new versions of FS.

 

My tools in FsX

With the release of FsX coming closer now, I think it is time to give a little bit of information about how my tools will (or will not) work together with this new version. Please note that these observations are based on the beta version, so some things might still change a bit.

Library Creator XML and ObPlacer XML

Scenery created with these two tools basically still seems to work fine (apart from some issues in the beta that are hopefully fixed by now). There are some minor changes in the BGLComp XML format, so I might make an update for these tools to get them compatible with the FsX BGLComp as well.

MDL Tweaker II

The MDL files tweaked with this tool still seem to work (apart from some of issues I mentioned above already). So the tweaks do still function. But it seems the MDL format used for scenery in FsX has changed a lot. At the moment I can't say yet if we can tweak that new format just as easy and if this tool will be updated. But when using the Fs2004 gamepack we can still tweak and that is nice.

CAT

And finally there is CAT. Also here MDL files tweaked seem to still work. Although I had some trouble with certain triggers in the beta. I will have to explore this in the final version, but with a minor update to CAT it shoud be possible to get the conditional animations working in FsX as well (using the Fs2004 MDL format).

SDSX 

This is not one of my current tools, but the working name for a project we are currently discussing at FsDeveloper. Hopefully we get going on this project soon, as it will be a good replaced (and extension) for the functionality of my current tools. But then nicely integrated into one tool, designed for FsX and including a lot more cool stuff.

FsWeekend at Lelystad

Next month the FsWeekend will be held again in the Aviodrome aviation museum at Lelystad airport. As usual it should be a great event again. You can find a lot of people using flight simulators there, ranging from cockpit builders to region clubs of people flying together, from scenery designers to online ATC groups. So there is always something interesting to see. The ACES team is also sending someone over to promote the then just released FsX.

For addon developers planning to attend this event, have a look at this thread on the FsDeveloper forum as well. We are trying to organise a little developers meeting there.
 

New Wiki launched

Until now the launch of FsDeveloper has been a great success. Nick and I are very happy with the amount of discussion that is already going on. The site has also attracked a lot of well-known names already. So it looks our idea of creating a place where addon developers can have friendly discussions worked.

But not every part of the new site is finished yet. One of these parts was the Wiki. We have now installed new Wiki software (the one Wikipedia also uses) and all the articles from the old SceneryDesign.org Wiki have been transfered to this new one. Of course this new Wiki is for all addon development related tutorials, not only for scenery ones. So if you have a good aircraft or mission design tutorial, please add it to our Wiki!

 

FsDeveloper.com is live!

After a day of hard working, [Nick] and I have gotten FsDeveloper.com running. So please come over and have a look at this new community site for FS addon developers. We will use the next few days to check if all features are running correctly and to iron out small problems, and after that we will announce this new site more widely.

 

FsDeveloper

The last week [Nick] and I have been quite busy in getting our idea for a bigger community going. For those of you who missed the previous posts where we talked about this, let me start with a short explanation of the idea. The plan is to create a community for FS addon developers, it should be a place where they can discuss their (technical) issues with other developers. So the main focus is that it is for developers only, no normal users blaming you that you modelled that aircraft nose a few milimeters wrong or that your building is not completely correct. There are already enough forums that offer that kind of “services” to developers.

No, we want to create a community that has the same nice atmosphere as the current SceneryDesign.org community. But then not only for scenery designers, but for all addon developers. So it should become a friendly place, where everybody can be free to discuss his problems or ideas with other designers. No matter if you are a freeware or a commercial developers, a newbie or an expert. In the end such a sharing of ideas and experiences is of great benefit to any designer and will improve the available addons for the end users.

One of the reasons to start this community now, is of course because FsX is just around the horizon. And the new possibilities it offers (for example mission development and SimConnect) will certainly generate a lot of discussion. So therefore we think it is a good idea to provide a place for these discussions. And of course the changes in aircraft or scenery design will also generate enough discussions.

Another benefit of having a community of developers, is also that bringing a lot of them together also allows us to provide better feedback to MS. About wishes for future versions, problems with the SDKs, etc. If we can get a structured feedback about that (and we MVPs should be able to help there), we should be able to get even better addons in the future.

Of course not every developer will be interested in reading all parts of such a (big) community. That is why we will also provide portals for the different areas. So if you are only interested in scenery design, you can visit the scenery design portal. There you can find the news that would interest you and get easy access to the scenery design section of the forum. We will do the same for other areas, like aircraft design, missions, etc.

This sunday we will transform the current SceneryDesign.org forum into the new FsDeveloper.com forum. So stay tuned and expect some more news then.