FS Software Process, Development, and Quality

[ahuimanu]

The State of FS Development

I'll try to keep this simple as I'm hoping for dialog.

By now, after 30 years in existence, and perhaps 20+ where an ancillary 3rd-party add-on scene/market has been afoot, I've taken some time to reflect on the software processes for making flightsim add-ons.

Over the past 10 years, the bar for add-on quality has raised substantially and we've seen exquisite new highs in achievement, some retirement/withdrawals from the community, and a change in nature towards commercial endeavors.

The point I am working towards is: what progress has the development community made in realizing common standards and practices? We've certainly enjoyed an official Software Development Kit from Microsoft (and it was free for quite a while to boot). We've benefited from fusillade of cool and useful tools. However, in most cases (the wonderful efforts of FSDeveloper notwithstanding), the software processes for FS development work still seems to be largely without method and without process. Even as we commonly compensate many developers now for their work, be it from high or even middling quality, I don't detect that the commercialization of the community has lead to improved or mature processes which can be used used to ensure a timely and defect-free product of exceeding quality.

In fact, FS development still seems every bit a dark art (okay, it's certainly more "grey" since 2000 or so) than it was when I bought my first addons around 1990.

What gives?

I know that we had a pause and a period where we thought our franchise was dead, but what has been our progress over the years? Are we where we should be? Are we behind? What?

Towards a Premise

As I try to characterize my premise concerning the nature of FS development, please allow me to reflect on another software development community: Linux.

I think about Linux, which, as a software concern, is younger than FS, but also dominates in its league/niche (as does FS). Of course, I'm not comparing cathedrals to cathedrals here, but Linux and MSFS are comparable as being representative of their respective areas. Linux has a development community which is exemplary in so many ways (not perfect, but admirable) and I wonder what we could learn from them?

Yes, I know that Linux is open source, essentially powers substantial parts of the WWW, and has a user base that far outstrips MSFS, but both represent quite distinct communities.

Why does information concerning Linux development flourish and, on the other hand, why is information regarding developing for MSFS so difficult to aggregate? Why do we not develop consistent traditions of development that allow newbies, or even those cross-migrating from other traditions of development, to get a handle on things?

Witchcraft

I believe some of the problem may be that our development habits arose from sorcery, alchemy, and just plain old witchcraft in general. When I think about the paucity of development tools in the 1990s, when many of our luminaries (past and present) got their start, I realize that our traditions started from those who had to "hack" into a closed and proprietary source in order to get any voodoo working.

In this sense, these folks perfected a "craft" where traditions, despite and also according to very open places like fsdeveloper, freeflight design, etc., remained very word-of-mouth, in-the-known, and heirloom in nature.

I think developers became used to living in these tribes where information didn't leak out enough, or didn't leak out in a conjoined and organized fashion. On top of that, we have a very closed environment to develop for where the most appealing results are still obtained from sorcery (direct memory techniques like FSUIPC), alchemy (weaving a tapestry of multi-SDK and non-SDK techniques), and witchcraft (each "chef" with their own secret ingredients).

The Potential is There

The thing is, the potential to cover the earth and skies in MSFS with all manner of things is there. But the "craft" approach isn't likely to get us there as a unified process doesn't exist. For instance, it was only when ModelConverterX was released did I think that scenery models could really be done quickly. This is because Sketchup is such an insanely intuitive tool. I realize that this is just a set of tools, but it represents a far easier path to get the "middling" among us to develop.

We have the WHOLE WORLD to populate and yet, we're so far from getting that done. We have a constellation of cool aircraft to make and yet it seems like that list is barely dented.

Moreover, many of our "pro-level" development houses seem to lack any sort of software development process method: many duplicate the creation of the same aircraft, many seem to move through projects haphazardly, and many release products with serious defects. Wouldn't, perhaps, a little consortium go a long way? Perhaps pool efforts to achieve the greatest possible combined outcome? We exist in a kind of "pre-industrial" mode where each craftsman is, laboriously, producing the same goods, by hand, over and over again. The "factory process" model seems to have eluded us for the most part. Want a Smiths FMS or a Honeywell ACARS? you can't license of buy it from an outfit that specializes in it, you've go to build it yourself. This sort of replication of effort explains why, proportionally, it is just as long and painful to get high-quality transport-category aircraft to market as would be the case in reality. This soft of modularization, and intra-developer ecosystem is probably what we need to get it off the ground. Why not this sort of specialization? I know we have examples here and there (RealityXP, ISG, etc.), but not enough to really get us moving.

Etc. You get the point (I hope).

That wasn't short at all

Okay, that wasn't brief. So, here's my point: why does the development community for Flight Simulator still generally lack common traditions of software development? Why do we not have a more unified process model and why do we lack easily-adopted practices and standards?

Are we so small and insignificant that we can't develop the critical mass required for cohesion? Are we so born of craft methods that a wider tradition isn't possible?

We have a platform to populate an entire world out there in the software "ecosystem" that is FSX and I feel like what's available only scratches the surface. Would maturing our processes help? Or, do we have the best possible environments and frameworks now?

I am not trying to troll with this, I'd really like to know. I realize that FSX is nearly 5 years old now, and I realize that there is information on FS Development available. However, according to my craft premise, it is spread all over the place, presented in varying (and, at times contradicting) levels of clarity and quality, and just feels disjointed.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading. Again, I am really interested in thoughts and ideas on identifying stable traditions of development that allows greater output that is consistent in quality. In the early days, the number of techniques were fewer and freeware seemed to be more common. It felt like it was somewhat easier to get into it. Now, I'm not so sure.

 

[WarpD]

The amount of information available to all is limited because the FS addon market is competitive. Developers compete and thus are careful about how much information they share with other potential competitors.

It used to be that if "Developer A" put out product... no other developers would release the same product... as example: a Boeing 767. However, that got 'killed' a long time ago and now it seems there are some developers that directly attempt to redo another developer's 'best' product(s) in an attempt to grab a portion of the sales market.

In short... the developer community isn't what it used to be and probably will never be again.

 

[delivery guy]

each craftsman is, laboriously, producing the same goods, by hand, over and over again

I notice that too...

i am taking my 5 years of skill and going full realism. I know write my own custom XML codes, so i have unlimited 3d gauges. FSX ACCEL allows you to use unlimited
poly's and make high quality parts in your VC. Slowly the aircraft do get better.
I have noticed many older developer's who no longer are with us.

Was there a down fall or rise in the last 10 years...?

Yes it has slowly lowered due to that there was a new sim every 2 years.
This is the longest period from FSX2006 to MF2011. Should be available this
October....

Creating good aircraft and scenery is monkey do monkey see. There are only old tutorials floating around. I like making things most can't do! My next plane
project, I plan on finding a source to the aircraft for photo real textures and sounds. So I will stay with Light aircraft, with high quality and full realism.....

i am updating this plane i made last year. Going full realism...
Feature and some pics:

Starts you at 19,000 hours.
Keeps perfect track of your total engine time.
Back lighting controlled through recog. (So I have 2 sets of wheels...)
Custom tooltip stretched out: (Cessna Engine Hours 19153.445643)...So you can see it's moving....So far 153.4 hours of testing time. Sometimes the engine is running while I am working on something!
I added a small amount of rust on the glass.......hehe

DG

 

[arno]

Hi,

These are interesting questions. I think there are a number of reasons why I think there is no fixed process of FS development:

• The market is really small and most people do this as a hobby. Even when paid it is often not a full time job for them.
• The process and techniques used have become much more complex in the last years. That means that many of us are still learning new things daily, while FSX is out for 5 years or so already. This also means that not a single person can make on addon, terrain, objects, airport design are all areas that require different knowledge. This even scatters the knowledge even more and maybe there is not even one single process to make addons.
• Another factor I think is that a lot of the development work is more artistic in sense and not more programming. So that makes it more a human judgement if something is good or not.

So would we need such a process? That is an interesting question. Since I think maybe developers do this for fun in their spare time I doubt it. Many people just start to make something because they like to try. Adding a process might make it even harder to enter this hobby. Those people are not interested in making constant quality addons, they are interested in making an object or airfield for their own usage. From that they might grow into sharing their work.

I think what we more need is easier to use tools, so that it becomes easier again to start developing addons. Now you need to learn quite a lot of complex things.

 

[Francois]

Okay, that wasn't brief. So, here's my point: why does the development community for Flight Simulator still generally lack common traditions of software development? Why do we not have a more unified process model and why do we lack easily-adopted practices and standards?

Interesting question, and having been part of this hobby since BEFORE its beginning (I got into it on a mainframe, long before PC's, and Microsoft, were born), I think I can reply most questions. Maybe not satisfactorily, but still...


First and foremost: almost ALL of the developers are
1) doing it 'on the side' of real life, in one way or other
2) are hobbyists first, artists second... and most often NOT programmers
3) there is no cohesion in the 'industry' and it is way too small to introduce any serious professionalism

So ANY standards, procedures, production methods that may exist, ONLY exist with individual developers, individual developing groups, and individual small companies. If at all.
And most are competing for honor and a few dollars. The ones that are really trying to make a substantial income ('substantial' as a relative term indicating something far below minimum wages in the real world) will most vehemently protect what they 'discovered'.

Are we so small and insignificant that we can't develop the critical mass required for cohesion? Are we so born of craft methods that a wider tradition isn't possible?

Yes to the first. Partly yes to the second, but also irrelevant because of the first.

We have a platform to populate an entire world out there in the software "ecosystem" that is FSX and I feel like what's available only scratches the surface. Would maturing our processes help? Or, do we have the best possible environments and frameworks now?

Things will continue to improve, as they have over the past 25+ (Mircosoft)years. But I don't expect any industrial, overall changes top appear unless driven by MS - or any other major corporation for that matter.

I am not trying to troll with this, I'd really like to know. I realize that FSX is nearly 5 years old now, and I realize that there is information on FS Development available. However, according to my craft premise, it is spread all over the place, presented in varying (and, at times contradicting) levels of clarity and quality, and just feels disjointed.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading. Again, I am really interested in thoughts and ideas on identifying stable traditions of development that allows greater output that is consistent in quality. In the early days, the number of techniques were fewer and freeware seemed to be more common. It felt like it was somewhat easier to get into it. Now, I'm not so sure.

No, it is NOT easier to get into (I've tried myself several times over the past 25 years. FS5 was my last effort... then real life took over my spare time. I am now trying again, after having lost my 'real life' job and starting an 'FS Company' back in 2002.
It has NOT become simpler, technique has jumped again, and proper and clear documentation is lacking as much as ever, in spite of ACES' last effort at the SDK.
Demand has gotten more complex too, you cannot get away with a simple project anymore.

So that is, in fact, total contradictory. You need more knowledge, more skills, more hardware and more professional software to make the same project as 10 years ago. You also need more time ad more money, literally.

That is why you see much LESS development, less people in the business, and less amateurs OR pro's doing freeware.


You also mentioned the word 'consortium'.
Well...... forget it.

Been there, done that. It has been tried numerous times and it just won't work. Too much diversity, too many free souls, too much competition, jealousy even in some cases, and too many opinions.

Also, and I can tell you thins from the point of view of the professional IT manager and executive that I was in my previous life, it is impossible almost to get the developers from this 'industry' to work along any kind of 'planning'. Mainly because they do it 'on the side' and real life (real job, family, health) usually takes over a few times in any project.
Also, for many of them doing commercial products it is a hobby first and income second. As soon as it starts to smell too much of 'work' they will quit and go back to freeware or to other hobbies.


Hope this sheds some lights in your darkness

 

[=Hollywood=]

Back when FSX was in beta I did have this crazy idea of starting an ISO type standards organization where we each didn't have to keep re-inventing the wheel.

The thought went somewhere along the lines of there's a warehouse of 3D parts that can be used for aircraft, one example being tyres/tires. In real life there are a few companies making say light aircraft tyres/tires. Why not have a warehouse where we can each access commonly used parts to help speed up our processes and lead to a uniform standard.

One example of that would be street lighting, in fact any lighting system in FS. In the real world there are color temperatures measured in degrees kelvin. Most of the simulator world are trying to emulate that but the variations are many and varied as each developer differs. One thing I'd love to see is a repository of information about what color to make a mercury vapour lamp, a high pressure sodium lamp, a low pressure sodium lamp et al.

I think potentially the possibility of an FSISO could exist but right now the world economy is something affecting everyone and it's not high up on the priority list...

Just my 2 cents...

 

[scruffyduck]

I will keep my comments simple since my views are already covered above.

I am also not convinced that there can be some cohesive process. After all many of us do different things that require different ways of doing things. Most are one person operations so their process is the way that it works for them - there is not so much need to a cohesive process in a development environment where the designer, developer, marketer etc all reside in the same head. I can imagine that for many the overhead of a formal process (and there is one) is too much anyway.

For myself I develop software and yes I use a 'standard' development process that works for me. I have in the past run teams of IT professionals running into the 100's - in that case we did need consistency and a clear process that everyone understood.

 

[Tejal Bernardo]

running into the 100's - in that case we did need consistency and a clear process that everyone understood.

Amen, that is the point, there are usefull tool for scenery development, but I not have yet a clear vision of all this, anyone could'nt doubt of the potential of this simulator, but only as personal point of view always when making sceneries, you left with a little bitter taste, such hard is the process and confusing ¡¡, of course , very good article above by the way.

 

[n4gix]

You also mentioned the word 'consortium'.
Well...... forget it.

Been there, done that. It has been tried numerous times and it just won't work. Too much diversity, too many free souls, too much competition, jealousy even in some cases, and too many opinions.

Oh yes! Remember the attempt made several years ago just after the Developer's Conference in Redmond, WA?

AVSIM even hosted a invitation-only conference forum that saw a brief flurry of high hopes and expectations, only to dribble down to a vast, echoing desert within a few short months.

In fact, I just checked and it seems that the staff finally got around to nuking the old, dusty forum entirely.

Others have touched on this obliquely, but in my humble opinion, the chief problem is simply information dilution. The web has become such a huge wasteland of duplicated efforts that it has become almost impossible to keep track of information any longer.

Well, there's information dillution and then as an ancillary to that issue is another one which might best be termed tunnel vision. I've noticed many times that so many who wish to become involved in some form of development, whether it be scenery, aircraft, or gauge programming, become so mind-blind that they latch onto one website's forum and never bother looking anywhere else!

In fact, without naming any specific web forum, I've noticed that some are as much as two YEARS "behind the times" with regards to things flightsim related...

 

[Francois]

Yes, I remember WA, and the attempt that Arnie Lee made here in Amsterdam a few years later....

 

[Heretic]

1) MSFS is not Linux

Linux was an open source project from the start. From experts for experts (and those willing to become one). MSFS is primarily consumer-oriented, say kind of a "hop in and fly" experience, while commercial branches of Linux are just there as a consequence of the openness of the whole concept. Both of these concepts give way to vastly different user bases, but in terms of development and user interaction, MSFS exhibits the following characteristics...


2) Users are idiots

Provocative title, yes.
While FS9 and all episodes before were trouble-free to run, FSX needed a bit of thinking out of the common MSFS envelope to perform right. Even today, it requires a few .cfg edits to perform at its best. This, and other quirks, in turn leads to a constant stream of the same questions because people in their mindset are unwilling to do some research, be it via a forum search or Google or Bing. (Whoever says he/she hasn't ever heard of Google and what it does is a liar.)
Replying to those inquiries (because no one is left to die dumb, after all) requires time and effort from one or more other people. Time, which could be spent differently (e.g. developing or rescuing the planet).
Granted, everyone surely thinks he/she is special, but chances are other people before them had the same problem or inquiry. This is where the "Search" button comes in handy to let the algorithms do the thinking. Also, it nets the rewarding "Oh.", "Ah!", "Ha!" or similar moment at the end.
If not, one can still ask. But the homework has to be done first.


3) The SDK is just a bonus

While ACES has delivered probably the pinnacle in terms of SDK documentation for FSX, the whole thing is just a bonus that nets a shelf-life extension and more sales for the base sim and was always second priority during development. Hence, while explaining the technical aspects of most elements of FSX content (aircraft, scenery, sound, etc...) it doesn't provide a starting point for beginners. The point of grasping the functions of any immediately related third party tool and the realtion of their functions to get their plane into the sim is up to the user alone, which in turn, leads to a perceived "wall" that has to be climbed to see the result of one's desire in the simulator.
This "wall", subsequently, is what many people are scared of when they consider doing things for FSX for a second. It also makes settling for pre-processed solutions (aka add-ons) more attractive than actively trying to derive their own.


4) Payware-Freeware segregation

The MSFS addon landscape is divided. One half sees the demand for certain add-ons and the willingness of other users to spend money on it and thus decide to spend anything from weekend afternoons to 24/7 fulfilling market demands. On a full-time basis, this pays for the bills, on a part time basis it might make for a holiday or new PC.
Then there's other people who do the same, but don't charge for their work because they do things separated from market demands.
Further differences between those camps are in the (subjective) area of "quality" and the areas of competition and customer support.

- Quality:
"Quality" is directly tied to competition. If a payware developer doesn't deliver a "quality" product, chances are that he'll lose customers as a consequence. "Quality" includes things like systems modeling, high resolution textures, smooth, detailed meshes, quality sound sets and the occasional feature that no other competitive product has. All to establish a reputation and hence secure market shares.

- Competition:
As indicated above, payware developers are subject to competition and changing market demands to make (part of) their living. And, as stated, competition is directly tied to "quality". The implementation of previously unseen or rarely seen features into the products is necessary to be one step ahead of the (potential) customers, for the purpose of building up a fixed customer base to secure profits.

- Customer support:
More necessary than often considered. The degree of customer support can be debated though, as time spent perfecting product A with patches is time wasted making project B which nets some money. Customer support alone can be a pretty demanding and time intensive (see point #2 above), but rewarding task as it can secure and extend the reputation and public image of the company.

To put this into relation, freeware products are generally *not* subject to any of those three areas. Since there is no money involved, developers owe nothing to the user and determining the appropriate "quality" and customer support is entirely up to the developer. This is sometimes misunderstood by users. Also, there is no real competition involved in making freeware. If there's two different renditions of a project out there, the only thing dented may be one's pride when the "other" version has higher download numbers.

So what does this mean?

The payware-freeware segregation actively hinders exchange between both of these camps - with a few notable exceptions. Payware developers, under the premises of "quality" and competition, need to actively guard their techniques and new features to secure market shares, while freeware developers, well, do whatever they want to. So while the payware department can assimilate new techniques and features openly discussed and developed by freeware developers, it takes certain factors to get it the other way around.
First of all, two of the most well known payware developers to actively engage in discussions in the fields that make up developing aircraft for MSFS are Bill Leaming and Bill Ortis. Both of them go out of their way helping newcomers getting their models together and also actively pursuing an exchange of ideas between both camps.
E.g. if it wasn't for Bill L.'s constant engagement in the whole development community, other developers would, for example, still be scratching their heads trying to figure out bone-based landing light splashes. It was just because of him that VRS publically described the method behind this landing light concept. Bill had helped the guys at VRS in the past, so the article was a friendly payback which, in turn, benefitted quite a few people (me included).
This, however is really just an exception and not the norm and it's unlikely to change in the future.
Generally, the only thing payware *can* do for advancing general development is inspiration. If a product contains a new feature setting it apart from others (see "competition"), one could try to emulate it in one's own product, if one wants to. But this, in turn, leads to a lengthy, tiring "innovation" process most are not willing to go through as it contains a ton of trial and error.
Of course, it would just be easier if the payware dev descibed the feature in detail, but then again, who would want to voluntarily give away one's monopoly?

What to do about all this?

First of all, every new major commercial flight simulator with a SDK isn't going to change the root cause of point #4. If there's a market and money to be made, people will jump on it and we'll end up in the same segregated developer circles. It's like that and nothing can be done about it, except by having the developer of the base simulator ban any commercial use of add-ons make for their sim. But this would be an unwise move, as any high "quality" add-on equals at least one sold extra copy of their FS. Bought by people just to fly this add-on.

Point #1 can't also be changed, unless you go open source from the start. In terms of FS, this means contributing to the FlightGear project or any other sim of this kind that might pop up in the future.

This leaves us with points #3 and #4, which have the most potential to change the current userbase dynamic. And the solution is:

Make a Wiki!

Seriously! Do not, under any circumstance, underestimate the power of a wiki!

A wiki can cover everything from base sim requirements, installation, tips and tweaks to highly specialized feature development. The wiki on FSDev is a great start, but highly underused and underdeveloped.
A centralized Flight (Simulator) wiki provides a highly accessible collection of knowledge benefitting everyone stumbling upon it in one of a million ways. Thanks to input from all sides, article content can be actively streamlined, updated and discussed to deliver the perfect informative experience.
Instead of helping people with seemingly individual problems and thus repeating the same answers to the same questions and inquiries over and over again over the course of years, you can simply provide an article with rough guidelines and how-tos. Everyone can read it and have the answer to their inquiry way faster than by signing up and waiting for a reply.
Don't worry about inaccuracies. If others think they have a better technique or found errors in yours, they'll just discuss, edit or expand the article.
This, in turn, saves the experienced developers the time and effort to reply to these inquiries and makes for spending more time developing (if only half an hour a day).
A further benefit is a raised appeal of others to climb the "wall" mentioned in point #3 as the wiki provides an easily accessible ladder (or the C4 charge to blow a wall through).

So basically, a wiki could be the remedy to the perceived "overspecialization" needed in properly running and expanding flight simulators.
A proper wiki could raise the appeal of making content for the simulator and, most importantly of all, destroy the common misconception that developing is "black magic", "too demanding" and whatever else outsiders say about it.


Enough text now, I need to write a wiki article.

 

[Francois]

Yes, well, excuse me, but isn't a Wiki as good as its content?

And then why, following your analysis , would ANY professional developer write his secrets in it only to be picked up by competitors and freeware developers who would then ruin the market?

And I agree on Bill and Bill's extreme generosity in this area. But there are more forums than just SOH and FSDeveloper and more people equally helpful, in fact.

 

[hairyspin]

A good many years ago I read Steve McConnell's "Code Complete" on software development. Now I'm not a professional programmer, just a hobbyist but his picture of software development in industry as an incredible mix of professional rigour, fair to middling practice and just plain hacking (bodging) has stuck with me ever since.

I find the same in FS development, although very few examples of professional rigour spring to mind. Most of us are self-taught and those who depend on this for some or all of their living are more concerned with getting the work done and out the door than spending a couple of weeks mastering some new methods. I see the same in my own work (real life, not FS): get the job done, get paid and get on to the next one - finesse is interesting but doesn't always earn you more in a year. Just how many ways are there to build a realistic-looking wing? And then blend it in to the wing root?

The FSX sdk says that a good deal of expertise in Gmax or 3ds Max is needed to build models for the sim. If I'd read that four years ago I might not have started, but it's still true. Had I realised what gauge programming for FS9 or X really meant I might have been similarly discouraged, but ignorance was bliss for this noob modeller.

Consistent, professional discipline is likely only to appear when there's a well-developed academic framework for learning this trade, coupled with extensive and complete documentation of all aspects of FS development. The first is unlikely because this is a niche in the notoriously short-term games world. The second is not too likely because MS have to get the product out the door too.

Good thread ahuimanu!

 

[lionheart]

Now you need to learn quite a lot of complex things.

Arno

This is so true.

To make a plane, you must know;
* Mesh creation; working with smoothing, Vertices, Polygons, Edges, etc, etc.
* Mapping the parts of the plane
* Texturing, which is graphics generation
* Custom animations will require knowledge of XML language basics. Do you know how to write computer code? Do you know the basics? Have you ever opened up and created/modified code blocks?
* Creation or modification of airfile sets (two per plane) that enable the plane to fly properly as the real/actual plane.
* Creation of the panel, instruments layout, functionality, gauge graphics, manuvering and getting the instrument polygons to function in a Virtual Cockpit (VC).
* Sound production software if you are going to do a special soundpack for it.

That is one HUGE list of things to do in making a model.
* Code engineer or coder, code writer.
* Artist sculptor that works in virtual computer 3D design CAD engines (Gmax/Max).
* Artist in graphics, knowledge of how shading and shadows work, knowledge of how layered textures work, how to do airbrushing, stacking, effects, etc, etc, etc, etc....
* Aerodynamics engineering basics; how to tune a plane to fly correctly, and how to program/modify/setup the AIR file which is written in HEX format requiring tools to open them.

It is easy enough to create a mesh model. But paint it, map it, make it fly right, give it special animations, gauges that were just for that plane, proper airfiles....! ACK!


Now, you can simplify things, use existing gauges, sounds, basic textures that are just colors, no shading and rivets and things, and you can have a quick plane. But when you want all the cool bits, details, bolt heads in the cockpits, high definition gauges, LCD screens, vintage gyroscopes, click sounds, special sound packs for a straight Six Jumo 1928 engine, dynamics for a Harrier VTOL fighter jet, then you are talking some nearly 'super' sciences in the gaming industry. You have to know ALOT.......


Now... My thoughts were, 'why didnt the SDK come with 'sample materials' for use in Gmax/ Max. That would save a few weeks of learning how to make a wheel. Having plexi pre-made would help these new guys out soooooooooooooooo much. Having sets of scenes with all these plexi and aluminum and leather textures, pre-made, would launch people into making their planes alot faster.

Its commmon to see a nube come into this field (into the forum) asking for help on making Plexi. It was on week 2 that they broke down and joined a forum to figure it out. Some people do not even wish to relenquish their 'recipe's for a plexi material. That is how crazy the system is, how elaborate, how sophisticated it has become, how overly difficult it can be. 20 or 30 checks and sliders for a SINGLE material... single... Plexi......


Making things common should start at the SDK. Having an SDK that evolves would have been awesome, something similar to a 'factory SDK' wiki center managed by Aces and special people would have been nice. Arno now has one here. That helps out tremendously.


A single, centralized location for ALL information. (such as 'how do you set up Plexi).


I would like to mention Bill Leaming for his huge help in the FS world for us all that have needed questions answered that if they had not been answered, we may have not passed these obstacles.




Bill O.


EDIT:

And thanks to Luka, Wozza, and PropTrash (Doug), and MJahn for their help in making the new ULE (Unlimited Export System) for Gmax and FSDS FS2004 users. Awesome! God bless you guys.

 

[n4gix]

And I agree on Bill and Bill's extreme generosity in this area. But there are more forums than just SOH and FSDeveloper and more people equally helpful, in fact.

Oh, without question, there are quite a few others who're willing to share! Most of what I know now I learned through very through research via Google, Bing, Ask.com, et cetera, as well as haunting every flightsim "modeling, gauge programming, and texturing" forum I could locate. Also, asking questions and actually reading the answers.

This however simply illustrates my major premise from earlier; the real problem is "information dilution."

 

[lionheart]

Centralized 'tutorials' would really help, like at freeflightdesign.net Their tutorials and code samples sections are really nice.

I remember David Eckert had (I think it was Dave) some very cool video online tutorials on how to make things for FS2000, FS2002. Man, that helped me tremendously.


Tutorials are brilliant when done with pictures and explains things really well. Having them in a single location is awesome.

 

[Xpand]

Well, I'm developing planes for FS since I was 12 (Back in 2005), although my FS experience goes back to the mid FS2002 era and my original planes (drawings) go back to when I was 9. I must say that I found gmax by pure accident in the FS9 CDs and man it was hard to understand! But then I got the hand of it and started making my own stuff... But because I'm one of those people that just can't keep themselves following the rules I only had fun making my own planes (The only real-life plane I had fun modeling was the MiG-21 which was basically my "make-to-see-level-of-modeling-experience" model and I made 10 versions of it until now) ... But I'm ranting here, what I mean is, the amount of info on how to make add-ons for FS, especially planes, is not plenty, close to that but still not enough, but it's hidden in so many ways that the rate of success in finding what I needed, when I started developing add-ons, was so low that I basically learned to make the add-ons by myself, creating my own tecniques on modeling. Until I found this forum which, when I moved my development to FSX, helped me a LOT in coping with the differences between FS9 and FSX and with the XML coding. Even though, I'm still a newbie and I have a huge amount of things I need to learn before I even think about calling myself a good developer. My biggest problem now is the lack of free time due to the university...


Still I help in what I can, even though my experience isn't enough, for example: It came to my knowledge that one guy I tought how to make things in gmax now works for Enigma Simulations! I was like: "really? Awesome!!"


More recently I found out this site that has written tutorials on how to make XML gauges! A life saver, because I wanted some custom XML gauges for my new plane!! I was almost having a nervous breakdown!
http://www.fs2x.com/Tutorials.htm

This is what helps the most at the beggining!

 

[Heretic]

Yes, well, excuse me, but isn't a Wiki as good as its content?

Hence: Write, write, write!

And then why, following your analysis , would ANY professional developer write his secrets in it only to be picked up by competitors and freeware developers who would then ruin the market?

I never implied that all kinds of secrets are to be put into the wiki. Covering the basics is the most important aspect and everything else is just optional and up to the developer.

But there are more forums than just SOH and FSDeveloper and more people equally helpful, in fact.

FFDS and such, I know.

Would be cool if we could bring them all together in one place.

 

[mdm248111]

Many people probably give up before they get started because they fear that it will be "too hard." Also, they may doubt the quality of their addon because of the quality of addons that are already available from established high-profile developers such as FlyTampa, Carenado, FSDreamTeam, etc. I agree with Arno in the sense that the easier that the tools are to use, the easier it is to make something- in my case, scenery. I believe that a great tool that does lots of things (ADE for example) is great to learn the basics, while offering a payware "expansion" for the people that are more "into" it. Arno's MCX offers great versatility, especially with the the expansion of Google Sketchup as a popular modeling tool, which many people find to be an easy to learn alternative to Gmax/3DSmax.

All that being said, I feel like the possibilities are being expanded with the greater selection of tools...however, as one of the very few youngins that are into developing for Flight sim, I see that most everybody of "Generation X" really cares very little about "that flying game," which is the depressing part. I have many friends, but very few know anything about FS, much less have a desire to want to develop addons.

Maybe "Flight" will get their attention

 

[Francois]

Yes, about 80% of 'regular simmers' are 50+ nowadays. But the same goes for people who love classic airplanes, old automobiles and such. I guess it has something to do with time, education and lack of passion to learn anything that is a tad more complicated than just watching and/or listening pre-canned entertainment.