First, lets compare the aircraft with and without normal/spec maps.

In the first set of images, focus your attention at the specular highlight on the nose and at the one world logo. In the second set of images, focus on the detail in the specular highlight and on the rivet lines. In the third set of images, focus on the oneworld titles.

In the next image, focus on the specular highlight paying particular attention to the window surrounds, the skin, and the panel lines. The specular effect is best seen on the window plug inside of the large e of one world.

In this image, the diffuse texture map has been removed completely. This allows you to see the normal map and the diffuse map directly. Due to the time of day, the LIT texture is also visible. Eventually we would like to control the cabin lighting via plugin.

And just because we’ve shown you all of this, another full shot of the aircraft on climbout.

Do note though that screenshots don’t really do these effects justice. They are best viewed live when the conditions that you are viewing the aircraft change…ie, time of day, angle of the aircraft to the sun, camera placement etc.

Cheers

Cheers!

Alex

I think that I may owe explanation on a few new features. The brake status indicator lights just below the landing lamp housings are functional. Green means that the brakes are off. Red indicates that the brakes are active above 1300 or so psi. Yellow indicates that the parking brake is set. All of the lights are functional as you’d expect them to be. The complete P40 panel is also something new. I’ll be working with Sven later to hopefully achieve some functionality through the panel including the annunciators, the ability to set off the APU extinguisher in case of APU fire, and if we’re lucky, an audible APU fire horn. Obviously, APU fire doesn’t exist as a failure yet in the sim so there will be some work to do first.

As for the rest, I’ll let the screenshots do the talking. Next up on the external agenda is the RAT, but first, I’ve got an overhead to start work on.

Cheers

i think it’s time to give you an update. Not too much to tell. Most work is “behind” the visuals. However, i thought that it would be a good idea to show you a new video. Youtube videos only can give you a hint of how these displays are looking. Vector graphics, as good as they are, have their limits, but we are working around most of the issues. Most of the displays will also be “undockable” so that you can view them at larger sizes. The size of them will be configureable (up to 512x512 px). Also it might be possible that the panel layout will change, you know we’re at e really early state with the project

So what’s next? The basics on the code are almost done (except of fixing bugs or something to improve). We use a lot of threads now and we’ll add some more (you have a multicore CPU, right?). This will help to keep X-Plane’s performance as high as possible. The displays don’t affect fps at all (on my machine). But there are much complex things to come. One of these things is the fly-by-wire system. Work on that starts tomorrow. Expect at least 3 months until it’s usable. Why 3 months? Remember, we’re on X-Plane . A lot of control surfaces to steer. But i’m really sure it will be fun to fly that bird.

Ok, here’s the video. Please don’t comment my approach, it was a “quick & dirty” run to bring her down. And you might notice: no AFDS And if you can, go to the youtube website and watch in HD!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=slVWL0tks9o

Admittedly, we’ve not kept up on the blog near as often as we’ve liked as other commitments have taken precedence for the time being. Having said that, we’re still plugging away. Sven is hard at work on the systems end of the equation and is just about to dive into the 777 FBW system. Dhruv and I have been working with some of the texturing but primarily our focus has been the flight model. We’ve been working on airfoils, engine numbers, fuel consumption, weight and balance (the lot really) to make sure that we’re really flying by the numbers throughout the entire flight envelope and communicating through Austin to try to make sure that we can get the most out of the sim as accurately as we can. Most recently, I’ve been slaving over a wacom tablet working on Pratt textures. I think that you’d all much rather appreciate something to look at than listen to me droll on. With that, I bring you the Pratt 4077. Here’s a startup sequence and a reverser test to whet your appetite.

We might be coerced into putting together a small promo video before too long if anyone is interested. Until then, enjoy these PW previews!

PW4077 Spoolup

PW4077 Thrust Reverser Test

It’s been a while since I wrote an email to Dhruv related to the 777 project asking for possible interests in a working partnership. I was really happy about the fact I got a positive answer, so here I am!

Oh, you don’t know who I am? I’m sorry. My name is Sven Goericke, and I’m from Leipzig, Germany. What am I doing on the XP Jets team? In short, I’m hard at work on a plugin for the XP Jets 777. That’s it. Expanding on that, in 2007 I started with a 777 for MSFS (FS X). But I was dissatisfied with some its limitations. Maybe you know some successful aircraft addons for FS X and might ask: which limitations? I’ve only one answer: Fly-By-Wire. Hah, FSX has an A321 with FBW by default. There are some very interesting Airbus-Simulations for MSFS 9/X in progress so why is FBW a limitation in MSFS? Well, we’re interested in the 777, not Airbuses. The FBW of the 777 is completely different than the Airbus logic. Also, what about the Aerodynamics? Just Google for differences in the flight model used by X-Plane and MSFS and you’ll know what I mean…

So, what’s the status of the plugin now? Over the last few weeks I have worked on the “basics”. The plugin is written in C++ so i had to setup some nice classes to use. As the 777 has a modern glass cockpit I decided to use a vector-graphics library called “cairo”. The reasoning behind using cairo is that it works on Linux, MacOS and Windows. You can see an early (and incomplete) preview of the PFD here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G5J218999A

Currently I am working on the electrical system. Yes, the 777 will have almost exclusively custom systems. I have also a “minimum required equipment list” (systems that will be done) for a first release which are almost the major-systems:

• Electrical System
• Hydraulic System
• Fuel and Air Systems
• Fly-by-wire System
• Air Data/Inertial Reference System (ADIRU)
• AFDS (Automatic Flight Director System) and Autopilot(s)
• Flight Management System
• Electronic Checklists

It’s still a long way so I don’t want to give any timeline for the development (of course I have a personal one). But from time to time I’ll post some news about the progress here so it’s a good idea to come back here frequently.

Here are some quick clips of the start sequence and of the thrust reverser animation, straight from X-Plane.

General Electric GE90 Spoolup

General Electric GE90 Reverser Test

Also, keep your eyes on our Image Gallery in the coming days/weeks, as we begin to preview some of the GE90-powered 777 liveries!

For the last 2 years I’ve been either working full time or flying/studying full time, and unfortunately had more or less abandoned X-Plane. I attained my CPL in May, and on the 1st of September, I completed my “study” when I passed my IFR flight test. The schedule has been very free these past couple of months which has allowed me to finally get back to work on the Cessna. It’s been a mission re-learning everything again along with learning all the new stuff X-Plane 9 has to offer…and boy does it have a lot to offer! I’ve taken to generic instruments like a duck to water, they have proven extremely useful, as have key frame animations, and manipulators!

As mentioned above, manipulators! I’ve managed to find a few uses for this wonderful new feature. My favorite is the sun visor, which I’ve managed to work a two axis manipulation into, up and down like you’d expect, and left to right to adjust it like the real thing! There’s also manipulations on handles in the cockpit such as the throttle, flaps, and trim. We also have key frame animations appearing here and there for various knobs in the cockpit, that just make the animations that much more perfect. And of course, generic instruments. Generics have made it possible for me to do some very high res, and extremely accurate instrument faces. Take for instance the Air Speed Indicator, the real one uses different scaling to X-Planes. This means if you were to lay the artwork from the real thing onto an X-Plane ASI, it may read correctly at 0 and 163 kts, but at 100 kts, it would be totally out of sync. Not so with generics thanks to the key framing, and as a result, all the instruments are incredibly accurate and totally faithful to their real life counterparts! Every dial has been made from scratch, using high res photo’s from the real 172, using generics, and I must say the results are startling! There’s a whole host of other little innovations going on behind the scenes, such as a magic yoke that makes living with a full time 3D pit a breeze. Here’s a picture of the Cessna cockpit in default view:

Now, the big question… When can you expect to get your hands on this? Well, soon! It’s so close to release, it makes me all giddy just thinking about it. There is of course a few more instruments left to do. Some polish here and there, then a flight model “re-calibration” and bug testing week since a few things got broke when importing to V9… and well, that’s it! Not a whole lot at all. If anything is holding it’s release date back, It’s getting the means of delivery set up! We have some legal jibberish to sift through, as well as the technical stuff to make sure you get the plane when you want without delay! The silver lining to this, as originally planned when we started the project, is that the little Cessna is literally paving the way for the heavies, so that they may have a smooth release with as few “technical difficulties” possible!

Enough babble from me…we’ll let the pictures do the talking.