[simpits-tech] Falcon views 360?

[Mark Doran]

I think the way Erwin describes it on his site makes most sense to me.  Like
commercial simulation environments distributed processing makes this problem
tractable.

I don't have a lot of faith in the availability of head mounted displays
that have the right resolution, latency and transparency (you want to be
able to see the physical buttons and lights in your cockpit as you fly,
right?? ;-) anytime soon at a price I can afford.

However, the prospect of assembling perhaps a dozen computers in a little
network for managing and rendering multiple view fields of the same "out the
window" scene is most definitely within reach, not cheap I'll grant you but
within the bounds of possibility at today's cost points for machines.

The old Fighter Dual had the mode that I would want for Falcon5: a master
machine that you fly, it has your controllers and all that jazz.  Like any
other game, that machine can be commanded to show any view but generally you
want to pick one.  To this you slave up to eight other machines (I think it
was 8) and each is a non-flyable replica of the game running on the master.
In other words, the jet modeled in the game on the slave is the exact same
one as that one the master.  The slaves can be commanded to show any view in
the game also.  So set up master and slaves to show a different view on each
one.  This actually worked pretty well in Fighter Duel in my experience.

The good part of doing it this way is that the game developer wouldn't have
to change the way on-screen views are done.  The default player will only
have one master machine and will see the same view types as today.  The
cockpit guy with multiple slaves as well will simply have multiple monitors
(or projectors) each set to a typical 60 degree slice of view field.
Perhaps the only really hard part on the developer (with respect to view
rendering that is) is making sure that the views supported don't really
overlap in bad ways...if would be nice for the game engine to think about
seams in other words.

This sort of approach would have some pretty serious requirements on in-game
networking support of course.  Syncing multiple copies of a prop-job is a
lot easier than something more sophisticated like an F-16 flying in a
missile-laden, electronic warfare rich, combat environment.  Having on the
order of 10 clones of the one F-16 trying to stay in sync will require, I
would imagine, quite a lot of bandwidth.  One wonders what the implications
on bandwidth and latency might be if you want to have more than one pilot
link for a multiplayer session in this kind of multi-view setup...the mind
bogles but this would be the ultimate goal I would say...think: sort of like
the twin dome sims that MacAir has at it's facility in St Louis.

So much for thoughts on implementation strategy...I'd actually vote for any
implementation strategy that would work, because...  More generally I think
support for multiple view fields displayed simultaneously is the feature I'd
say would generate the biggest advance in the state of the art for fast jet
combat flight sims.  Who needs padlock?? ;-)

Cheers,

Mark.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Inventmd at aol.com [mailto:Inventmd at aol.com]
> Sent: Monday, October 13, 2003 7:42 PM
> To: simpits-tech at simpits.org
> Subject: [simpits-tech] Falcon views 360?
> 
> With all this talk about Falcon 5.0 coming out, I wonder if it doesn't
make
> sense to discuss our wish lists out loud.
> 
> I think the biggest detraction from realism of any flight simulation is
the
> inability to look at the scenery around you.  Whether it be multiple
monitor
> support, or headmounted video goggles that pan around cockpit slaved to
head
> movements, my two cents is that this issue receive some attention.
> 
> Perhaps the Falcon community could come to some sort of agreement in terms
of
> the ideal algorithm for displaying the environment as close as 360 degrees
as
> possible.
> 
> Perhaps the easiest is the headmounted goggle system with some sort of
> tracking device.  This would be similar to the padlock view but with the
visual
> display tracking in Synchrony with head movements rather than panning
about using
> the arrow keys.
> 
> It would be nice to have Falcon support for scalable multiple monitor
views.
> Specifically, support for a minimum of four monitors would be required:
> front, left, right, above. (And a 5th to check six) Scalability (or zoom)
would be
> important so that everything could be adjusted for different monitor sizes
at
> different distances (or video projector scenarios).  In other words, for
those
> with four projectors and large rooms, it might be nice for the left view
> display to merge and even overlap into the front view display and the
"above view"
>  display.  For those no space and small monitors, one might need to scale
the
> picture down to get the appropriate field of view for the monitor position
--
> and certainly not overlap.
> 
> There are some incredibly smart people on this forum-so I figure maybe we
can
> get your smarts into the project.
> 
> John Li