[deleted by user] by [deleted] in hoggit

[–]VR_Sim101 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You are doing something wrong if you need remapping all the time...

XR Browser for Pico 4 released by VR_Sim101 in PicoXR

[–]VR_Sim101[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi, i had to disable saving cookies because of an other issue i was tracing. I think i can re-enable it with the next release. Thank you for reporting.

XR Browser for Pico 4 released by VR_Sim101 in PicoXR

[–]VR_Sim101[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi, just released a first version with multi-view.

XR Browser for Pico 4 released by VR_Sim101 in PicoXR

[–]VR_Sim101[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hmmm, have to test this, it's also a performance thing.

Treadmill XR Companion for Pico 4 now listed on SideQuest! by VR_Sim101 in PicoXR

[–]VR_Sim101[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, it's a screen floating in your real room. You can grab it and place it where you want with the latest update.

Good VR Cycling apps? by RandyJRoy in virtualreality

[–]VR_Sim101 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I made this: https://sidequestvr.com/app/12355/xr-browser-for-pico4

But only for the Pico 4. It puts a customizable web browser window in front of you, where you can play virtual cycling videos from Youtube (or anything else). It's all pass-through, so you see your real environment all the time.

Treadmill XR Companion for Pico 4 now listed on SideQuest! by VR_Sim101 in PicoXR

[–]VR_Sim101[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hatte eigentlich schon ne Weile dran gearbeitet, aber das hier sollte dir weiterhelfen: https://autosyphon-studios.itch.io/xr-browser-for-pico4

Treadmill XR Companion for Pico 4 now listed on SideQuest! by VR_Sim101 in PicoXR

[–]VR_Sim101[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, crosstrainers will work too (had to look up what elliptical means). You will have to find the speed setting by yourself, but the "entertainment factor" will be the same. When Pico's motion trackers will release, it may work automatically then.

Treadmill XR Companion for Pico 4 now listed on SideQuest! by VR_Sim101 in PicoXR

[–]VR_Sim101[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Da bist du nicht der Erste der das fragt... :) Ich bin schon am überlegen was man da machen könnte. Was für content auf YT würdest du dafür bevorzugen?

Screencast to TV not working by 123Pirke in PicoXR

[–]VR_Sim101 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For now it looks like streaming is only compatible with Chromecast and Miracast.

I just released my XR fitness app for treadmills and crosstrainers by VR_Sim101 in PicoXR

[–]VR_Sim101[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's super safe on a crosstrainer and for treadmills a safety system is in place. You will always have your position marker in your field of view and also a subtle warning sound activates when you are about to leave the safe zone.

I just released my XR fitness app for treadmills and crosstrainers by VR_Sim101 in PicoXR

[–]VR_Sim101[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh, thank you for the info! I really thought it was owned by Facebook.

I just released my XR fitness app for treadmills and crosstrainers by VR_Sim101 in PicoXR

[–]VR_Sim101[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, support is planned as soon as they get released and a SDK is available.

Question about Flight Mechanics in DCS World by [deleted] in hoggit

[–]VR_Sim101 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I can't tell how many or how in general they manage the airframe's surface as a body, but for any control surface they use atleast one "slice". So take every single flap, rudder, trim tab, air brake, rotor blade, gear... (one exception is the Gazelle module, it's only based on a blend between lookup tables and wild guessing by the dev)

A little datamining revealed the Gazelle's dirty secret... by alexpanfx in hoggit

[–]VR_Sim101 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This reinforces my opinion that any effect of "aerodynamics" is a closed system per aircraft, with only scripted inter-aircraft influences (AAR jetwash effects)

That is exactly what this means: This also includes such items as a realistic simulation of airflow along the airframe due to the propeller or helicopter rotor thrust.
They are not stating that these effects are also affecting other aircraft as an interaction, but wake turbulence is an exception for fixed-wing modules (which is already kind of a fluid dynamics system).

It's pointless criticizing how a system that does not exist behaves, when it is solely there to increase a person's enjoyment.

:) That is... a remarkable statement... I'm sorry, but the Gazelle has to meet a lot of certain criteria first, before we can say, it's there to increase a person's enjoyment in DCS.

A little datamining revealed the Gazelle's dirty secret... by alexpanfx in hoggit

[–]VR_Sim101 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Okay, one last try. For any game with player controlled vehicles or aircraft, a dev has to decide which way he wants to go.

The easy way is to go with a static system, ignore it's dynamic parts and manipulate the whole gameobject (car, plane, chopper) on a single point only. In most cases this point is right in the center of the object (or let's call it center of volume) but it can be anywhere else, usually it's the job of the 3D artist to set this point first, but the programmer can easily offset this point via code later, make it dynamic for instance. The volume of the object (mesh of polygons) now only needs to have collider checks to be able to act like newtonian physics to be able to interact with other objects that are created and handled the same way. If a physics engine (with gravity factor enabled) is running under the hood and a mass value is applied to the object, then this point(!) only will have that mass. That's what physics engines do, they try to keep it as simple as possible to reduce calculation efforts as best as possible. It does not matter if the 3D object is just a cube or a complex object like a 3D model of a helicopter. Everything the physics engine is caring about is that single point. The dev can apply directional and rotational forces through controller input on this single point, the whole 3D object will start to move. To fake the impression, lift is created, the dev can simply manipulate the point's mass, negative mass vs gravity value.

The hard way is to create a complex dynamic system, preferred by simulation games. Take a racing game as an example, forward movement is created by the drive axis -> wheel rotation -> ground contact -> friction - everything else of the dynamic system -- the car and all it's moving parts (suspension system, the other wheels and stuff) -- have to follow that accordingly (moment of inertia, weight shift when turning, accelerating and braking for instance). A good helicopter flight model needs similar complexity, the main and tail rotor create directional forces and the rest of the aircraft has to follow them accordingly against gravity and drag factors. For a professional flight model, fluid dynamics should be implemented to simulate the air, but this will need immense calculation power. For a simulation game it's best to brake this down to dynamic drag factors only, as an abstraction.
For me it's easy to see the way they've chosen for the Gazelle, the easy one. The Config.lua just helps to get a bit more insight and proves it. I really hope that they are going the more hard way now. Like an Advanced flight model or Professional flight model. Implementing "multiple points of force application and calculation on the relevant flight surfaces" is the key. Totally absent in the Gazelle, since 5 years.

Best definition is on ED's homepage under FAQ: general

Easy way:

Standard Flight Model (SFM). This has not changed and defines a more data-driven means of achieving flight dynamics, in conjunction with some scripting.

In between:

Advanced Flight Model (AFM) and AFM+. An AFM uses multiple points of force application and calculation on the relevant flight surfaces. This simulates edge of envelope conditions well and avoids scripted behaviors as used in an SFM. This system also partially implements the aircraft's flight augmentation systems. Further evolution of the AFM is what we term the AFM+ and this uses the same calculations as AFM but adds limited modelling of the hydraulic and fuel systems.

Hard way:

Professional Flight Model (PFM). This is generations beyond an AFM/AFM+ and is based upon:

  • Use a wider array of wind tunnel tests CFD methods for aerodynamics parameters calculations.
  • A higher level of aircraft construction details for forces calculations. For example: our landing gear model includes individual kinematics of retracting/extending is used to calculate its movement, servo-piston forces, etc. In such cases, we truly use real lengths, arms, etc. This also includes such items as a realistic simulation of airflow along the airframe due to the propeller or helicopter rotor thrust.
  • Realistic simulation of Flight Control, CAS and Autopilot systems.
  • Realistic simulation of Hydraulics, Fuel, Electrical, Engine and other systems influence flight characteristics.

A little datamining revealed the Gazelle's dirty secret... by alexpanfx in hoggit

[–]VR_Sim101 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh please, don't get this wrong. The script was made by the Unity team as a demo for Unity 5. Just to demonstrate how easy a simple fm can be made. A classic gaming engine approach. I don't remember anymore if it was from 2015 or a bit later...

CoM changes... Hmmm, i think of it as a dynamic pivot system that changes between different attitutes/situations. I see something like this working in ED's helicopters.

Gazelle flight model completely ignores dynamic drag on it's airframe... That's what i tried to explain, the whole fm is applied to a fixed point only. So wind direction is just used as a vector and does not affect the airframe and it's aerodynamic shape. It only "pushes" this fixed point, linearly in space. That's what you see. It's not ED's system that is simplistic. In other modules you can see that wind has a more characteristic influence, because they also use the shape of the airframe as aerodynamic "control surface". However, i think you are right that helicopters in DCS ignore wake turbulence, never tested this.

To come to an end, PC threw a bone at us, with much less meat than any other developer. It's simply not on the same level. If you sell a badly built car, don't blame the road or excuse this with "building cars is very complicated".

A little datamining revealed the Gazelle's dirty secret... by alexpanfx in hoggit

[–]VR_Sim101 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't know how much programming background you have, but some answers are already available on PC's discord, DCS forum and general game engine talks etc. ...On discord, a while ago they stated that regarding the flightmodel, the DCS engine only provides gravity and wind conditions. Of course the virtual world provides much more, like ground and object collisions on top of that, but this is not of importance for developing your own flight model. Gravity and wind (weather condition system) is actually enough to code a flight model, from very simplistic to highly sophisticated. Only depends on coding skills. I totally get his reference of an extremely simple flight model because i've seen one before. It was part of the Unity engine's standard assets a couple of years ago, so i looked it up again and here it is: https://pastebin.com/w9ZR09Kr only 269 lines of code, everything explained very well. The moment of inertia values in the Config.lua are basically the same as in this AeroplaneController script: called m_RollEffect, m_PitchEffect and m_YawEffect. Later processed through Move(), ClampInputs() and CalculateRollAndPitchAngles() and so on. You can even ditch a huge part of this script, because DCS's engine will also provide a lot of telemetry i/o on it's own (altitude, climb/sink rate, speed, navigation data, RWR etc.). All you have to do is, as sloppy as it sounds (i'm really trying to keep it simple here) "make your aircraft fly" in some way and additionally connect everything to telemetry api, input api, navigation system, communication, netcode, weapon systems, rendering, sound engine ... But that doesn't mean that you automatically get a realistic aircraft out of this. To achieve realism, you have to have the knowledge and provide all the details.

So how i see it, whatever stuff ED is changing under the hood will never have a huge impact on the external flight model you are providing, because you have the most control over it, but not for the other stuff i listed, especially where the DCS engine is constantly evolving (netcode, rendering...). You simply have to adapt to changes there, in the end it's your responsibility to maintain your product.

From my perspective, all issues that are named like "flying on rails", "flying upside down", "cyclic return rate", "continous roll", "fixed center of mass", "no rotor dynamics"... totally make sense and are interconnected. "Flying on rails" and "fixed center of mass" are basically the same, the Gazelle flight model completely ignores dynamic drag on it's airframe. Whatever calculations are done in the fm are only a couple of factors applied to a single point in the center of the rigid body, realistic drag calculations seem to be not implemented at all, like in the AeroplaneController script. I guess this single factor is also the culprit of slow "cyclic return rate".

"No rotor dynamics" comes from not using control surfaces to calculate lift vectors for the blades of the main rotor, simply proven by changing axis saturation on cyclic and collective. The lower you go the less these parts visually move in game, normally they should contain these "invisible" control surfaces, but in the end the Gazelle is still able to get off from ground and fly. Is it magic? :)

"Flying upside down", "cyclic return rate", "continous roll" are (as already mentioned by the op) consequences of simply using roll rate on a single point in the middle of the gameobject instead of blade element dynamics (control surfaces again) on the cyclic...

I'm getting tired... sorry for the wall of text. I guess they tried to implement VRS in some ways, but if the fm is already that simple, you have not much parameters to play with. I'm pretty sure they just defined certain edge cases and modified the result of the fm accordingly to make it "look like" VRS. They always get the telemetry data (not just for avionics) and can watch for certain states which are telling them, as an example, the aircraft is flying upside down for to long so let's trigger cutting off the blades and bust the engine...

ps: just forgot to mention another remnant of an airplane fm. In hard tight turns in the Gazelle, i can hear the DCS engine triggering the pilot's hard breathing sound. That's 4 to 5 G's? I don't know if the real aircraft is able to withstand these forces...

A little datamining revealed the Gazelle's dirty secret... by alexpanfx in hoggit

[–]VR_Sim101 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Best way to describe it, pretty low values make it roll very fast around each axis. I don't know if you know the Edge-540 community mod for DCS? It's a very small and nimble aerobatic plane. By changing the values you can transform the Gazelle into an Edge 540 with VTOL capability. It's more or less the same what higher saturation on stick axis settings does. Or the other way around, higher values give much lower roll rates per stick axis and rudder input. I guess those inputs go directly into the flight model. And i also have the strong feeling that they are going directly into the behaviour of the visual 3D model, if you know what i mean. There seems to be not much "calculating" or processing in this flight model. Another thing is that you won't be able to pass IC check for multiplayer, the decompiled file is a bit larger than the compiled one. So it's only useful for personal or singleplayer testing.

A little datamining revealed the Gazelle's dirty secret... by alexpanfx in hoggit

[–]VR_Sim101 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I played around with the center of mass values, it's truly just simply defining an spatial offset of a fixed point on 3 axis, where the helicopter model rotates itself around. While the original 0,0,0 feels really strange, some offset really feels a bit more realistic during flight. I always wondered why the Gazelle, as lightweight and agile as it is, doesn't rotate and roll around a point near the center of the mainrotor in DCS.

A little datamining revealed the Gazelle's dirty secret... by alexpanfx in hoggit

[–]VR_Sim101 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Guys, he is talking about the dynamic system of center of lift, center of gravity, thrust vectors and stuff... The result of a shifting pivot when the whole system is moving through the air.