• 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.

***V1.6.3 RELEASED***

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Now that I'm back from my holidays, I will pick up development of SODE in the upcoming weeks. The focus will be set on visual docking guidance systems.
Prior to my holidays, I have implemented a means to compile the xml files into a custom format so as to "hide" the details. This is meant for developers, who don't want to give away their xml information to others.
 
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A feature I have always missed in FS has just been implemented in SODE: Pilot Controlled Lighting using the Push-To-Talk button!
I tried to build a 3-step-controller supporting different intensities as described in the FAA's AIM.
For example, keying your mike 3 times within 5 seconds will turn on low intensity lights, 5 times the medium intensity and 7 times the high intensity lights.
The intensity is coded within different models (e.g. same mdl file using different textures for the halo effect).
A 15min timer is also included, that will turn off the lights when elapsed.
Of course, simple on-off lighting is also supported.

I will write a little article proposing a technique to create airport lighting. This is inspired by the way FlyTampa has managed to create runway lights in their latest sceneries using custom halo textures (instead of BGL_LIGHT or effects). By the way, the demo PAPI Light included in SODE already uses this technique.
I consider this technique as very efficient and perfectly suitable with SODE (e.g. one single mdl file for the entire runway lighting instead of multiple single lights).

-Jeff
 
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I have written a small DirectSound engine into SODE to enable sounds to be played for triggered animations, so those hangar doors won't open silently anymore :laughing:
 
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Hello,

After a break, I am picking up development of SODE again. Besides fixing a bug within the sound engine, I am experimenting with an own Jetway engine. The initial results look promising; SODE solves the IK problem and correctly drives the jetway to the aircraft door. There is still alot of work to do until this feature will be released and of course I will keep you posted.
 
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Hi all,

I was in the process of rewriting a good part of the code to fix a memory leak issue. During this task, the sound-engine was redesigned and made much more efficient and robust. The jetway engine has been tested by two volunteers and with their feedback, it has grown into a stable system now, which I'm preparing to release shortly.
 
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Version 1.2 featuring the Jetway Control System is now released!
I made separate installers for the various platforms. Please test the FSX:SE and P3D installers if they work, as I don't have them on my machine. I just modified the registry keys for them...

Custom jetway hood and 3dsmax support is nearly finished and will come with Jetway SDK V1.1 update.

When you install the samples, there will be three test jetways ready at the ramp of LSZG, Grenchen, Switzerland.

Get it here!

[EDIT] The initial zip archive of the Jetway SDK had an old SODE_modeldef_entries.xml file in it. I have reuploaded the zip with the correct file now. You only need to update the xml entries in the modeldef.xml. Sorry for the unconvenience.[/EDIT]


Enjoy!
 
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Version 1.2.1 released!

This minor release improves overall stability with the SimConnect server.

NEW FEATURES:
  • SimObjectDisplayEngine.ini settings file: Customize certain settings of the Display Engine, such as Jetway Sound enable/disable, AI aircraft detection, Connection Watchdog enable/disable and custom secondary text-menu hot key!
  • In-game text-menu now sorts the triggerable objects according to their distance to the user-aircraft. The closest object is on top of the list.
Check out the change log.

Uninstall V1.2.0 first before installing this version.
 
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I just wanted to inform that some substantial changes have been made to SODE and especially to the Jetway Control System:
  • Jetways are controlled differently within SODE in order to get rid of the pause commands SODE was sending to properly initialize the animation. This means the jetway model must be recompiled using the upcoming SDK1.1 Jetway creator script.
  • Jetways and VDGS are organized in a new parking position (refered to as "Stand") structure. This will allow a more intelligent presentation of available stands on an airport (similar to GSX's parking selection menu). This however requires to rewrite your XML files so that your jetway placement code is encapsulated in a new Stand structure. Within that same stand structure, you can add a VDGS.
  • You can now provide a static model for your jetway, which will be swapped with the fully animated one once the corresponding stand has been selected. This mechanism boosts performance quite a bit on large airports with many jetways!
  • I am collaborating with fsdreamteam to realize the integration of SODE jetways into GSX. GSX users will then benefit from fully integrated jetway operations at airports having SODE jetways.
With all these changes, SODE will jump to V1.3. I must highlight that jetways compiled with the old script will not animate correctly in the future version. I'm sorry that I had to break the backwards compatibility, but I there was no other way.
I can't announce a release date yet, as we're still working on integrating GSX and SODE. Once that is completed and tested, I will inform you here.

If you're a commercial developer and want to test the V1.3 with the new jetway techniques, please send me a PM and I will inform you as soon a beta version is ready.

-Jeffrey
 
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Finally got some time to code again.

For a proper Prepar3Dv3 compatibility, I am trying to follow the guidelines set by Lockheed Martin concerning Add-On folder structure. To make things even easier, I decided to serve multiple platforms with the same, single SODE installation! This means however that you won't be able to use SODE with two sims running in parallel at the same time (the first one fired up will have SODE's attention ;-) ). But why should there be two sims running in the first place...

Also, I managed to alter the code to suppress multiple instances of SODE in case of multiple entries in the respective exe.xml. So this issue is one for the history books.

I think with all those changes, the entire structure will be leaner and easier to maintain also for the add-on developer, especially in multi-platform set-ups. There is only one single SODE path to deal with and that's it.
 
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SODE V1.3 Release:

With this release, major structural changes have been incorporated following the proposal of Lockheed Martin to install add-on content outside of the simulator's root folder (see P3Dv3 Add-On SDK).

I decided to follow this for all simulators with the benefit that one single SODE installation will serve all platforms together! So no more individual installers copying the identical content to different places on your hard drive.
This makes everything much cleaner and easier to maintain.

Downside of this structural change is that already installed add-ons using SODE must update their content (folder structure) to make it compatible with the new SODE V1.3.

Also, the Jetway Control System has undergone a major change that all existing SODE Jetways must be recompiled using the new scripts in order to work with SODE V1.3. On the other hand, with the new logic, the annoying "pause-command issue" is gone! :)

Furthermore, SODE does not allow multiple instances of itself running at the same time, so no more multiple SODE processes in the process explorer!

All in all, this is a big release, but I hope it will make the usage far easier for the future.

[EDIT] 3dsMax is now also supported for Jetway Creation! [/EDIT]

Get all necessary files here: SODE Download Page


P.S. In the background, the works towards a GSX integration is still in progress...I will keep you posted about this.

Visual Docking Guidance Systems:

As you know, SODE is developed as 'donationware' and I want to thank all donators for their contributions. Unfortunately, the SODE project has grown really big now with multiple companies using the module in their products. This also increases support time for me and some pressure to keep SODE up-to-date and bug-free. I have invested a lot of my 'hobby-time' into SODE and the returns from donations (for info: they did not surpass the triple-digit-mark) do not cover the expenses I have made so far for SODE (buying new Prepar3Dv3 to add support for that platform, website hosting cost).
That's why I decided not to give away the VDGS I have created for free, but to sell them as a separate commercial add-on. The distribution channel is still to be chosen and the price is not yet set, but it will be a small amount.

They are very complex SimObjects and simulate their real-world counterparts very closely! Also, SODE's VDGS logic is very sophisticated, e.g. supporting multiple stop positions for various aircraft types for each parking stand.
So far, I have modelled Safegate's SafeDock T2 and FMT's APIS++ VDGS:

SODE_SafeDock_VDGS.png SODE_APIS_VDGS.png

They are modelled in Blender and have ambient occlusion baked in and come with LODs. I will add the SafeDock T2S (I think this one has never been modeled for FS) and perhaps the T2's smaller version, the T3 for the first release.

Once you have purchased the VDGS pack, they are available/visible at all airports that have VDGS implemented by the add-on developer.

Best regards,
Jeffrey
 
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SODE V1.3.1 released.

Click here for details...

VDGS code by the way has been improved further, but the add-on package is not yet ready for release. I thought I'd wait until the major sceneries are ported over to V1.3.X before I release the pack.
 
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SODE V1.3.4 released

FSX-SteamEdition is now finally correctly detected for both single and parallel installation setups. Also some bugs were fixed in the process and a couple of enhancements added -> http://sode.12bpilot.ch/
 
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