Passengers

[gino13]

Hello,
I have a suggestion for the new update.
PASSEnGERS.
It would be very nice if there are people walking into the plane and walking out.

Best regards,

Gino kraan

[738]

+1

[virtuali]

There's a note in the manual about them. We'll get there, eventually.

[WebMaximus]

This I believe is one of those things people have been dreaming about since the beginning of FS and I'm honestly amazed no one hasn't already brought this to FS after all these years so I'm sure who ever manages to bring this feature first will be one lucky guy!

[virtuali]

I'm sure who ever manages to bring this feature first will be one lucky guy!

We aren't that far, our wingwalker has the ability to freely walk around the airport, if we had any reason for him to do so, the only real issue with passengers is that we don't know yet the possible impact on fps, and if there *is* a limit on the maximum number of bones FSX supports.

Just to give a comparison, an FSX jetway is usually made with 3-4 bones, and AI packages remove their exits to kill the bones animation to save fps.

Every single human is made with 22 bones (which is the maximum FSX allows for a single object), which means a single walking person equals to about 5-6 jetways, and they would be concentrated in a small space, not spread around the airport, with LODs and distance culling to help.

So we surely have the means to create them, we just don't know yet if FSX can keep up.

[wiqvist]

We aren't that far, our wingwalker has the ability to freely walk around the airport, if we had any reason for him to do so, the only real issue with passengers is that we don't know yet the possible impact on fps, and if there *is* a limit on the maximum number of bones FSX supports.

Wow, in some other threads I have suggested persons who push-back older aircraft's, like Spitfire's and other. And with this comment here you realy give me hope that it is possible to create that.

[WebMaximus]

Thanks for sharing that "behind the scenes"-info, very interesting and I see the challenge. Well...looking forward to see what you guys will find when you continue to look into it, for sure if it's possible to add PAX that would be an awsome step for all of us!!

[Potroh]

Every single human is made with 22 bones (which is the maximum FSX allows for a single object), which means a single walking person equals to about 5-6 jetways, and they would be concentrated in a small space, not spread around the airport, with LODs and distance culling to help.

Hi Umberto,

Indeed, it is true.
But just by looking at the technical side, you don't need to use all available 22 bones for a single passenger. The 22 bones limit is a limit indeed, but allows very complex animations, which are not actually needed to depict a human walking, more or less in a straight fashion. If additionally he/she turns the head around sometimes, means a single bone.

You could use only 10-12 bones for a human, would be enough for the purpose and the No. of passengers could be be a low number, say 10-12 or so, repeating after disappearance.

I've seen FSX sceneries with much more complex skinned-animations (some done by myself) and the framerate hit is truly negligible.
I made an airport, where 24 skinned people all with the max 22 bones follow their Mocap animation path and the framerate loss is not more than 2-4% max.
Would be a great feature for an outstanding product!

regards
Potroh

[TuiflyX3]

Umberto please update the "boarding sound" ...its really annoying to hear the same sound ever 5 seconds

[virtuali]

I've seen FSX sceneries with much more complex skinned-animations (some done by myself) and the framerate hit is truly negligible. I made an airport, where 24 skinned people all with the max 22 bones follow their Mocap animation path and the framerate loss is not more than 2-4% max.

Were all these people very close together, or spread around the airport ? FSX automatically disable animations for small objects after a certain distance, so if many people are spread apart, they might not impact so much, because only the closest ones will have working bones.

[theshack440]

Umberto please update the "boarding sound" ...its really annoying to hear the same sound ever 5 seconds

+1. It can get annoying, but it is nice to have the sound!

I also love the idea for passengers, if you can figure it out, go for it. Coming out of a bus and walking on the stairs onto the plane would look great and add further life to FSX.

Also, can't you do a mini LOD for humans and bones, even if they are close together? As in with distance, maybe  a radius from the plane, the farther they are, the fewer bones they have functioning and as they get closer, the more complex bone movements set in (if you could figure it out so that the transition could look smooth and not like a stick figure morphing into a human).

[Potroh]

Were all these people very close together, or spread around the airport ? FSX automatically disable animations for small objects after a certain distance, so if many people are spread apart, they might not impact so much, because only the closest ones will have working bones.

Hi Umberto,

Some close together, some a bit further away. Actually it doesn't matter too much.
One can save an animation sequence with minimal number of keyframes and of course with thousands of them, that can be an overkill. If optimally done, FSX animations take very small resources, as you know.
It is the number of draw-calls that really matters and skinned stuff, people, whatever take a single draw-call if uses a single texture.

Of course I did tests before adding all those animations and even if they are at the same ref-point, together, the impact is miraculously minimal.
BTW, it doesn't matter regarding speed and resources if the animation is skinned or simply key-framed in 3d, because in fact skinned animations work faster in FSX, as the bones in the hierarchy get rendered in a single draw-call.

Sorry to say, but you are a bit wrong about 'closest ones will have working bones'.
The SmallPartRejectRadius=x setting, which is equal to 1 by default, takes care of all animations too, and they will be rendered until the texel-based boundary is crossed.

If you make a human with 'normal' size, the skinned animation - as an average on an average screen resolution - is still working in 2-2.5 miles from the user's plane, just as non-skinned animations would. They disappear, when no pixel quantity remains to render or when the mentioned Radius setting is crossed.

There's another 'secret' to this stuff, namely the texture size and use of mipmaps for skinned animations, as bones will not be rendered if not enough pixels are available to 'skin' them, but it is of course not the real topic here.

regards
Potroh

[Potroh]

Also, can't you do a mini LOD for humans and bones, even if they are close together?

Hi,

LOD's in this regard would just make things worse. They are not needed for skinned animations.

regards
Potroh

[virtuali]

LOD's in this regard would just make things worse. They are not needed for skinned animations.

We use LOD all the time with jetways that use skinned animations, only the two hightest LODs have bones, which means of course that jetways farther away won't move at all, and will not usually service AIs, but for jetways that are spread all around the airport, it can be useful, but of course it wouldn't make any sense for humans very close together, the whole group would either move all together, and be still all together.

[Potroh]

but of course it wouldn't make any sense for humans very close together, the whole group would either move all together, and be still all together.

Hi Umberto,

Exactly. Not to mention the important fact, that the plane is not flying when boarding is accomplished, so even if an eye-candy like animated passengers would take away frames (which they do just minimally) it wouldn't be a big problem, as no real computation goes on regarding panels, scenery changes, aerodynamics and stuff like that.
It can be done...

regards
Potroh