FS One development?

[pivlrs]

Although it seems to get bashed around here quite a bit, I have FSOne and think it's pretty good. Especially at the $99 price - hard to beat it.

BUUUT... there hasn't been ANY update in over 6 mos. I'd really like to see some new models added - especially a discus hand launch glider - and maybe a minor patch to fix the occasional crash (seems that it doesn't handle graphics drivers/hardware 100% correctly).

I sent them a query some time ago, and got the standard "we don't pre-release information" line.

Does anybody out there have any inside scoop on InertiaSoft? Are they still alive or is FSOne a dead end?

[dbcisco]

What I hated about FS-One is the lack of aircraft. Even FMS is for superior to FS-One IMHO (unless you just want pretty graphics). It is also why I never bought a Hanger 9 plane. I figure if they put the same effort in their planes they aren't worth much.

[Albatross1]

I also like FS One but I'd like to see more development too ... or at least tools that we could use to create public, shareable aircraft. I don't have any inside scoop. The FS One development guys used to cruise here and at RCU but I haven'tseen much commentary from them lately.

I've been working on some alternate panos to give it a bit of a different flavor/variety but some other planes is all that is missing. I'd alsolike a t-tail sailplane in there. I find that FS One is pretty good for gliders, allowing aerotow, hand launch (not discus), winch and histart.

As far as FMS goes, it isn't bad and the wide selection of aircraft is good but I didn't get the feeling that it was very realistic. It all depends on what you prefer and expect ... everybody is different.

Cheers,
Dave

[pivlrs]

What I hated about FS-One is the lack of aircraft. Even FMS is for superior to FS-One IMHO (unless you just want pretty graphics). It is also why I never bought a Hanger 9 plane. I figure if they put the same effort in their planes they aren't worth much.

I think the physics in FS One is much better than FMS, and therefore it is a better tool to stay in practice.

In my opinion, the number of airplanes isn't all that important - the main point, to me at least, is to keep the thumbs tuned up. But you've gotta cover all the types of aircraft so that your customers can practice their style of flying. FS One has enough electric planes, it has enough trainers, it has enough acro nitro planes, it has enough helis, but it has enough thermal gliders. But it doesn't have any hand launch gliders. That's my gripe.

The fact that the FS One guys used to hang out here, but no longer do, might be a bad omen...

Why not open up the models so the community can contribute?

[dbcisco]

I think the physics in FS One is much better than FMS, and therefore it is a better tool to stay in practice.

In my opinion, the number of airplanes isn't all that important - the main point, to me at least, is to keep the thumbs tuned up. But you've gotta cover all the types of aircraft so that your customers can practice their style of flying. FS One has enough electric planes, it has enough trainers, it has enough acro nitro planes, it has enough helis, but it has enough thermal gliders. But it doesn't have any hand launch gliders. That's my gripe.

The fact that the FS One guys used to hang out here, but no longer do, might be a bad omen...

Why not open up the models so the community can contribute?

FMS physics are not set in stone, you just need the seperate graphical par editor (aircraft PARamater editor). It is free as well.

[pivlrs]

FMS physics are not set in stone, you just need the seperate graphical par editor (aircraft PARamater editor). It is free as well.

This thread has nothing to do with FMS. Or crrcsim, or sss or any other sim. They all are good, and have their place - just not in this discussion.

[rpstar]

I've been working on some alternate panos to give it a bit of a different flavor/variety but some other planes is all that is missing. I'd alsolike a t-tail sailplane in there. I find that FS One is pretty good for gliders, allowing aerotow, hand launch (not discus), winch and histart.

Cheers,
Dave

You can add your own panos? I'd love to have those.

I agree with the comment above that we need more aircraft. The openness of RF is the one thing I like most about it over FSone. I wish also they would open up fsone to community development.

[Albatross1]

Hi rp,

For sure, adding your own pano is actually pretty easy. You can also edit the graphics of the stock aircraft and you can adjust the order that things appear in the various menus (eg. for transmitters or aircraft or flying fields. All very easy and described in the FAQ's at the Inertiasoft website.

One thing that would really help with user customization would be a really clear description of what the various physics and other parameters are and what typical ranges of values should be for certain aircraft.

Here is the link to that page http://inertiasoft.com/fsonefaq/index.html

When I get mine set up I'd be happy to share them if it doesn't violate some copyright rule. So far the photos I've been using are downloaded from Flickr for my use. I haven't tried taking my own pics because I haven't got around to it yet. Some people have though and you can see examples of what they've done in some of the various threads here and elsewhere. One guy even recreated his own garage for heli practice.

cheers,
Dave

[rpstar]

Hi rp,

For sure, adding your own pano is actually pretty easy. You can also edit the graphics of the stock aircraft and you can adjust the order that things appear in the various menus (eg. for transmitters or aircraft or flying fields. All very easy and described in the FAQ's at the Inertiasoft website.

One thing that would really help with user customization would be a really clear description of what the various physics and other parameters are and what typical ranges of values should be for certain aircraft.

Here is the link to that page http://inertiasoft.com/fsonefaq/index.html

When I get mine set up I'd be happy to share them if it doesn't violate some copyright rule. So far the photos I've been using are downloaded from Flickr for my use. I haven't tried taking my own pics because I haven't got around to it yet. Some people have though and you can see examples of what they've done in some of the various threads here and elsewhere. One guy even recreated his own garage for heli practice.

cheers,
Dave
Thanks. Very helpfull. I never realized you could make your own scenery. I'm very happy about this as I love the way the planes fly in FSOne. I hope they don't go away. :)

[rpstar]

Hi rp,

For sure, adding your own pano is actually pretty easy. You can also edit the graphics of the stock aircraft and you can adjust the order that things appear in the various menus (eg. for transmitters or aircraft or flying fields. All very easy and described in the FAQ's at the Inertiasoft website.

One thing that would really help with user customization would be a really clear description of what the various physics and other parameters are and what typical ranges of values should be for certain aircraft.

Here is the link to that page http://inertiasoft.com/fsonefaq/index.html

When I get mine set up I'd be happy to share them if it doesn't violate some copyright rule. So far the photos I've been using are downloaded from Flickr for my use. I haven't tried taking my own pics because I haven't got around to it yet. Some people have though and you can see examples of what they've done in some of the various threads here and elsewhere. One guy even recreated his own garage for heli practice.

cheers,
Dave
I'm looking at the FAQ but no hint was given on how to break your image into tiles. Have you done this? If so, what software did you use? Thanks.

UPDATE: It looks like Imagemagick can do this. I'll give that a try.

[Albatross1]

Hi rp,

ok, I'll try to describe it .... it depends if you are starting from a set of individual photos that you first have to mesh together to create a 360 degree panorama (360 deg around x 180 deg vertical) or if you maybe already have the full panorama in one piece.

Starting with the latter ... if you have the panorama already in one piece, it needs to follow the rules they outline. I have found that it essentially needs to have the resolution of being twice as wide as it is tall if you use only 2 rows of tiles when you cut it up. If you use 3 rows then it would be 3 times wider than high etc. In other words, for 2 rows, it could be 2048 pixels wide x 1024 pixels high, or 4096 pixels wide x 2048 high or 8192 x 4096. You might be able to do other combos but let's stay with this for now. Once you have that single image, say 4096 x 2048 for the sake of discussion, you will need to divide it into a bunch of square tiles like1024 x1024. This can be done easily using Gimp 2 which is a downloaded freeware photo editing program (just google it). You can also use photoshop etc if you want. The individual tiles need to be saved as individual images named n the order described inthe FAQ.

If you don't already have the full panorama,you will need to create that before slicing it up into equal tiles. To create it, you will have to stitch together your regular individual photos. Those photos will have to be taken so that they essentially catch the whole sphere of your view (i.e. 360 deg around horizontally x 180 deg vertically). This means a few rows of 360 deg from ground to sky, along with a shot at the bottom low point and at the apex high point. This is the part that I have avoided so far but in theory it should be pretty straight forward. This link is to a great site that tells you everything you'll need to know about making the pano http://www.panoguide.com/howto/panoramas/shooting.jsp . The one you will want to create is called an 'equirectangular pano'. The stitching is done using some special programs like the free one at this link http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch.html .

There's another thread here that I saw for creatingpanos for Phoenix or AFPD or something and it was actually pretty similar in principle. I'll see if I can find that and post the link.
Dave

[Albatross1]

Hey rp,

I had written you a pretty good message and my router died.

Here some other links that might help you with creating the custom pano's. It's pretty interesting that the approach seems to be pretty similar for all of the sims. I haven't figured out the collision stuff yet in FSOne.

If you're going to download the pano already created, I like flyx in these threads have been looking for panos that are as big as possible in resolution and generally at least 4000 x 2000.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28541023@N05/favorites/ (a set of equirectangular, freeware panos potentially suitable for sims, but not necessarily big enough ... could try resizing some)

http://www.flickr.com/groups/equirectangular/pool/ (The whole set of Flickr equirectangular panos to sift through)

http://www.gimp.org/downloads/ (Gimp 2 download)

http://hugin.sourceforge.net/ (an equirectangular pano stitcher to use with GIMP 2)

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=819287&highlight=panorama (good comments)

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10140518&highlight=pano#post10140518 (more helpful comments)

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?p=9183003&highlight=pano#post9183003 (and more here but these maybe redundant)

cheers
Dave

[Steven S]

I'm looking at the FAQ but no hint was given on how to break your image into tiles. Have you done this? If so, what software did you use? Thanks.

UPDATE: It looks like Imagemagick can do this. I'll give that a try.

I'm not sure if your app as a feature to automatically break up an image into tiles, but most programs will have some sort of Gridline Setup as well as Snap to Grid. The grid lines can be used to divide up the image into the number of tiles you want. With Snap to Grid turned on, I use the Mask tool to mask off a tile, Copy it, Paste it as a new image, and then save it. Then I mask off the next square, etc...

Steve S.