• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
    • Questions about aircraft design can be posted in the Aircraft design forum
    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

Some videos needed for presentation...

n4gix

n4gix

Resource contributor
Messages
11,674
Country
unitedstates
I've been asked to give a 30 minute presentation on "what I do for a living" which of course means discussing developing aircraft and avionics systems for flight simulators. This will be given next Friday evening at my monthly Lake County Amateur Radio Club meeting, the which for my sins I have been elected Vice-President and Program Director for 2017.

I would like to show several short videos illustrating the modeling process (or at least a short segment of such), as well as some civil and military aircraft while running in the sim.

Does anyone have any links to such videos and/or suggestions on what might make an otherwise boring 30 minutes a bit more interesting?
 
Bill,
Well, you don't have much time. I imagine YouTube is full of videos like you are after. Better yet would be screenshots from your computer of things you are working on. Or strip down some of your models and show how you put them together. Or or actually have your software open and do a few things on a model.
You say the sim will be running. What equipment will be showing the sim? Good would be a big flat screen TV. Better yet would be a projector showing on a screen or wall. Easy for me to say because I own all the equipment to do so.
We are guys after all. So bigger is part of the "wow factor", and helps make up for any lack of content. You enjoy what you are doing, so come across that way. Sell it, brother. I bet these guys would love a crack at flying one of your planes.
 
There should be quite an assortment of videos featuring your company's (finished) projects on Youtube.

Since MSFS was the main drive for the subject of my master thesis, I simply brought my laptop to one of the initial meetings with my professor, demonstrated FS9 to him, talked about engine modeling in the simulator and made a point of how difficult it is to obtain real world data that can be converted into MSFS' engine tables. I had his approval for the subject before, but it was quite a nice way to drive my point home.
 
Does anyone have any links to such videos and/
Click to expand...
A - The Internet is full of videos that show just that Bill. Here are a few examples
>
>
>
..but I do not think you want to uses somebody else work do you Bill?

..or suggestions on what might make an otherwise boring 30 minutes a bit more interesting?
Click to expand...
B - TIP: Never assume anything about your audience.
Instead you should email then and simple ASK THEM if they have anything specific that they would like to know/see from yours truly. That feedback gives you a nice (couple of) targets to work against, to fill your 30 minutes with absolute modelling joy.. since I think you are creating very beautiful things

C - What you also could do is show the entire process from blueprint to ready-to-fly 3D model
- What has ignited you as a person and/or to start with a new project
- How to find the blueprints of an new aircraft model?
- Where to look for more resources, data (images, pictures, walk-arounds, photos, cut-away-drawings, books, flight-characteristics)?
- How you start to model a plane
-> what do you do first, what to do do later?
-> why you decide to do it this/that way?
- How to build an .AIR-file from zero?
- How to build a 2D panel and a 3D panel?
- How to decide to use an existing gauge / create a new one yourself?
- How you test-fly your own creations?
.. and so one..
Do you think all of this passion can be fit into 30 minutes Bill?

D - You can also see this presentation as a "MilViz sales-type-of-presentation"
Get out there and show your stuff!

Remember: In 30 minutes you could be the person that is able to ignite that same passion you have in your audience Bill.
Once you drop the [boring] label and show your passion, give'm a little peek behind the MilViz curtains, and you will be amazed what kind of effect you can have on your audience. Do it for yourself, show your passion to the audience.

I'm looking forward on the feedback you got from this nice change to show yourself ;-)
 
Thanks for the suggestions guys. First off, my only laptop is so ancient that I have to keep it plugged into the wall wart. The battery will only hold enough charge for about fifteen minutes or so. Also, it's barely powerful enough to run FS9 at roughly slide-show speed. That's not what I need to make any positive impressions!

Secondly, I will be using a little projector onto a 65" screen which has its own set of constraints.

Thirdly, there's no Wi-Fi available in the Emergency Management Center where we hold our meetings, meaning whatever I need will perforce be on a thumb-drive.

Fourthly, the only real reason I'm giving this presentation is because I didn't have time to find some other victim (er, presenter) for this month's meeting. :rotfl:

So far my "plan" is to rely on static screen shots along with some dialog explaining points of interest, with two or three short videos illustrating mesh construction in Max 2012, application of textures, and finally the finished product in FSX and/or P3D. Since some of my avionics work is used in the Redbird simulators, I thought I'd show a short video of them being used in real world training.

Keep in mind too that the majority of my club members are - like myself - retired elder gentlemen who's major interests are radio and electronic technology. I only need to keep them awake for 30 minutes or so. ;)
 
You've got to include some animations! There's a good, though repetitive one of the CaptainSim 777 landing gear.



Most of those I've found are much too long: I was nodding off before they'd finished... If there was enough time, some judicious editing of downloaded videos might be in order.

edit: I tried a little chopping with an example off YouTube converted to MP4 and edited in Windows Movie Maker. It's surprisingly easy to do. And to delete afterwards – copyright!!
 
Last edited:
Why not show not so much what you do for a living as what you do so much to teach others. Since it is your radio club, what you do to earn a living may not mean as much as what you do for others. This would be much more presidential with spin. I for one would give a testimonial.
 
hairyspin said:
You've got to include some animations! There's a good, though repetitive one of the CaptainSim 777 landing gear.

[video]
Click to expand...

Rear wheel sink into the ground upon touchdown. Worst add-on plane ever!*





*Before I get flamed by the PMDG fanboys: I was kidding and know about the limitations in MSFS' contact point system that produces the landing gear behaviour.
 
Thanks for the explanation of your background circumstances Bill. Wishing you good luck and a lot of fun, despite all the technical limitations ;-)
 
hairyspin said:
edit: I tried a little chopping with an example off YouTube converted to MP4 and edited in Windows Movie Maker. It's surprisingly easy to do. And to delete afterwards – copyright!!
Click to expand...
Yes, too many of them are way too long and boring! How does one download/save from YouTube? I don't see any option when right-clicking on the video... o_O
 
How does one download/save from YouTube? I don't see any option when right-clicking on the video
Click to expand...
There are several ways to do this Bill:
A - Via an offline YouTube downloader software like these ones
https://search.yahoo.com/search?p=youtube+downloader&ei=UTF-8&fr=chr-greentree_ff&ilc=12&type=635779
- go to Youtube and find a good video you want to use
- copy and past the link to your youtube video into the offline Youtube downloader
- give the downloader a location where to store the youtube video
- done

B - Via the installation of the FlashGot browser plug-in (works perfectly inside the Firefox browser):
- https://flashgot.net/]/url] After F... or usb drive... en voila ... 1 Youtube To Go
 
Ronald said:
There are several ways to do this Bill:
A - Via an offline YouTube downloader software like these ones
https://search.yahoo.com/search?p=youtube+downloader&ei=UTF-8&fr=chr-greentree_ff&ilc=12&type=635779
- go to Youtube and find a good video you want to use
- copy and past the link to your youtube video into the offline Youtube downloader
- give the downloader a location where to store the youtube video
Click to expand...
Ugh! That download is dangerous! There are at least 9 "other programs" that get downloaded and installed before the YouTube Downloader. It took me several hours to get rid of them...

...only to find out this morning that the YouTube Downloader Guru v9.0 fails to successfully download and convert the videos I want. :censored:

However, the "good news" is that there is a website that will do the conversion for you and provide a download button to save the .mp4 file anywhere you choose:

http://www.clipconverter.cc/

You don't have to capture entire videos, either – if you only want to download a chunk, for example because you're using it for criticism or review, you can specify the start time and end time for the file conversion.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Hi Fr.Bill,

If you want some short videos, you can download the trial version of "Replay Video Capture" which in Demo mode, will allow you to capture and record video any video from your screen for up to two minutes. There are some handy YouTube download plugins available through Firefox, but they download the entire video. With RVC, you can push Record and Stop to get just a clip.

Cheers
Gary
 
Thanks for the recommendation, Gary. Had I not found the website I linked to above, my last resort was to set up my camera and record my own video directly off my dev computer's monitor! :laughing:
 
To download a YouTube video, try this.

  1. Step 1: In your Browser, go to "https://www.youtube.com" and open the video that you want to download. ...
  2. Step 2: Go to the address bar and add “ss” (without the quotes) before YouTube then press enter. ...
  3. Step 3: Choose Your desired Format and quality.
  4. Step 4: Now Click on " Download " and download your video
 
You don't have to download their software, the free download of a video I tried is fine. Mp4, medium quality.
I don't usually download youtube videos this way. but it works.
 
Unfortunately, after having visited that suggested site, every browser I have has been infected with all sorts of nasty things. I can barely even get here to type this message without having to fight through dozens of popup, redirects, and such stupid shite! Fortunately for me, I've got other, non-infected computers I can use to complete gathering materials for tonight's presentation.
 
Drat! I would never suggested something that I hadn't tried myself without problem. I had no warnings from my ad blocker or my AV from that site. I am extremely sorry that you had this happen. I use a lot of freeware and it is very annoying to have to weed through all the junk just to get to the program safely.
For what it's worth, my ad blocker blocked 16 ads on the page we are on now. No idea what that means.
 
As a follow up, the presentation last night went off with a few hiccups since the projector was giving fits, but was nonetheless well received. The audio on the video clips wasn't being heard (again, a projector problem), so I had to "narrate" them as best as I could remember.

Amazingly, no one fell asleep and many questions were asked, which I was able to answer. Before I began I apologized in advance for the less than polished presentation and described my computer woes briefly. I asked if there were any pilots present. When one fellow answered in the affirmative, I appointed him the group's "BS Detector." That was good for a few chuckles!

Another cause of some fumbling around was my stupid laptop computer. I despise those silly 'touch pad' controls for the mouse; give me a real mouse any day. :yikes:

The presentation followed this rough outline:
  1. Described modeling software and gave a very abbreviated explanation of vertices and tri-polys, quads, and mesh texturing. Very brief explanation of C++ and XML gauge creation.
  2. Explained brief history of MSFS, how MS abandoned FS entirely, and licensed software to both DTG for 'entertainment' and Lockheed-Martin for 'serious sims.'
  3. Showed some pictures of typical home simulator set ups.
  4. Introduced Redbird's line of simulator platforms, along with pricing. Waited for the folks to retrieve there jaws and put back in place.
  5. Moved on to describe and illustrate the seven 'numbered' professional simulators, and the four 'lettered' professional simulators and showed video clips of each existing type.
  6. Showed a six minute video of a B747 simulated trip from Sydney to Heathrow, followed by a A320 simulated flight.
  7. Showed a $25k level B home simulator the owner built in his basement.
  8. Ended with a picture of a burned out hulk of a Level C simulator (recent fire that destroyed the sim).
BTW, I did manage to get my dev computer disinfected yesterday thanks to Malwarebytes, which found 823 PUPs (should be called DUPs IMHO).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top