FSDreamTeam forum

General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: skimmer on December 18, 2010, 04:12:29 am

Title: People????????
Post by: skimmer on December 18, 2010, 04:12:29 am
I'm gonna ask like I never asked before. WHY IS'NT THERE A SINGLE PERSON IN ANY AIRPORT ? Do they cause more of a hit on fps than a car or a cart? The FSDT freeware addtion of Greystone has people in it and there is'nt any great hit, theres even wildlife in it. I just want to understand why.

I do firmly beleive that the most successful airport scenery in the very near future will have a population. Who knows a person might even be wearing a T shirt with the FSDT logo on it.

What do you think?         And by you I mean anyone reading this post.  Do you think the addition of people would make the airport more real ?     ;D ;D ??? ???
 
                                                                              Thank you,   Skimmer :)
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: NG Pilot on December 18, 2010, 04:15:42 am
That would be cool to have people 8) good idea
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: JamesChams on December 18, 2010, 04:50:30 am
Have you guys seen this ...


FSX is looking better every day.  :D ;D
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: virtuali on December 18, 2010, 12:51:51 pm
We have been working on similar technology for more than a year.

It's no rocket science, we realized FSX could do that as soon as we first saw the first beta about 5 years ago, and how skinned animations work. A human character it's not really different than a flapping flag, and FSX default sceneries already has animated characters, it's just that MS used it to do walking elephants, but's not "new" technology at all.

It's just we are taking our time to do it right, and fully integrated it with the rest of our stuff, like ParkMe, so it will be really useful.
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: Tom C on December 18, 2010, 12:54:57 pm
And by you I mean anyone reading this post.  Do you think the addition of people would make the airport more real ?
I suppost how detailed they are can make a difference.
Fly Tampa (KMDW) and UK2000 (EGKK) had 2d modeled people in FS9 a few yeas ago.
KMDY had them moving along the terminal building behind the glass, and EGKK had them crossing the bridge over the Aircraft.
There were more if I recall correctly, but not as shown in the post by JamesChams and mentioned by Virtualli above.
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: virtuali on December 18, 2010, 01:07:59 pm
Fly Tampa (KMDW) and UK2000 (EGKK) had 2d modeled people in FS9 a few yeas ago.

We had a 3D animated marshaller more than 4 years ago (Cloud9 KLAX and KDCA), and Zurich has 2d animated passengers inside terminals.

The difference with this method is how animations are made. Instead of creating single frames, which results in jerky movements (unless doing ad unreasonable number of frames), the characters have "bones" that deforms the 3d mesh that makes the character, allowing for more natural motion. This, coupled with the Biped object (or the new, much better, CAT) feature included in 3DS Max, which is an animation system made for characters that allows to create walking cycles, footsteps, etc., makes human animation possible in FSX.

It's an FSX-only technique that until now has been used only for minor items like waving flags, jetways hoods, etc, but it's one of the many things that, if used in the right way (not to create walking zebra/elephants...) for something that matters to aviation, makes FSX a so much better platform than FS9. We would have seen it more of it, had FS9 disappeared (as it should have) 4 years ago, because doing such things, requires quite some time to make the animations right.
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: skimmer on December 18, 2010, 04:31:07 pm
Thats really interesting James, nice find. How about for now the people just stand or sit in certain places. Like next to a truck or on steps or next to a building.
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: Bruce Hamilton on December 18, 2010, 09:52:34 pm
..the characters have "bones" that deforms the 3d mesh that makes the character, allowing for more natural motion.

And even then, as ORBX found out, there are severe limitations placed on you by FSX.  They can only have something like 20 bones, which is why the hands look like ping pong paddles.  They also have to loop, which is why (if you watch long enough) you'll see them walking in circles.
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: JamesChams on December 18, 2010, 11:13:50 pm
Gents,
We have been working on similar technology for more than a year.
... It's no rocket science, we realized FSX could do that as soon as we first saw...
... It's just we are taking our time to do it right, ...
..the characters have "bones" that deforms the 3d mesh that makes the character, allowing for more natural motion.

Ah, "growing pains..." or shall I say the "Solace of the defeated." :P  

IMHO, at least they have *something* to show us for their time developing with a now "officially announced" product; instead of the usual *Former Soviet Kremlin-style* prideful claims of "knowing how to do it before anyone else", "having done it before anyone else did," and let’s not forget the all important statements - "Ours is better than theirs, because we're *smarter* in the way we do..."   ::)

There use to be a saying in America about this... something along the lines of "talk is cheap" and "BS walks" or something like that.   You might remember better than our generation, Mr. Hamilton?  Fact is, they're most likely going to kick everyone's @$$ when they release this, so are you going to "Officially announce" something or are we just going to keep hearing you talk about it ONLY?

In the game of business their winners and their losers and remember this from Top Gun (the Movie) - "No points for second place!"  And, as I've said (many times already) "you dropped the ball! (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071214155846AAwRiVh)"


And even then, as ORBX found out, there are severe limitations placed on you by FSX.  They can only have something like 20 bones, which is why the hands look like ping pong paddles.  They also have to loop, which is why (if you watch long enough) you'll see them walking in circles.

Why are you (Mr. Hamilton) looking at those hands; wanting to see wedding rings perhaps?  JK :D ;D

That’s really interesting James, nice find. How about for now the people just stand or sit in certain places. Like next to a truck or on steps or next to a building.
Yeah, it’s been done several times already and only FSDT can say *Why* they haven't done it over and over again.  - It looked awesome in the final release of Zurich.  Perhaps, FSDT will do it again, Umberto?  ???


BTW: They've NEVER released an FS9 Product, all their stuff is for FSX ONLY; I wonder "WHY?"  :-\
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: virtuali on December 19, 2010, 01:07:27 am
IMHO, at least they have *something* to show us for their time developing with a now "officially announced" product;

If you think that, by playing the "pride" card, you are going to force us to announce something before WE decide it's due time, then you are sadly mistaken. If we are going to announce it, it's only because we have an idea of when we can realistically release it, not because someone else has announced something similar.

And besides, from what I can see about what Orbx has shown so far, it's just a method to animated human characters which, exactly as I've sad, it's the SAME technology you see each time there's a jetway moving, a flag waving, etc. And I think Aerosoft already has some sceneries on sale with people animated with mesh skinning so, it's really nothing new, and it wouldn't be a first, even if they released it tomorrow.

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It's just we are taking our time to do it right, ..

Since you cheaply labeled this as a brag, without obviously knowing anything about it, I'll explain it to you:

We haven't researched into human animation just to have one more eye-candy feature to decorate our sceneries. If we were satisfied with that, it would have been fairly easier to add them already. I repeat it again: once you have the ability to create a flag that waves in the wind, the basic technology is *exactly* the same.

Instead, we chose to create the fundaments first to do something flexible, which can be reused easily, that is not specifically linked to a certain scenery, that can have some kind of behavior, than can be extended, that can be *user* expanded as well. This means, a lot of preparation work first, and THEN the "showing off" part.

We had a test scenery almost a couple of years ago, with a marshaller *dancing* on the JFK runway, with unbelievably and "never seen before" animation quality, both because it was skinned and because it was derived from motion capture.

It was useful to do such test, because it was then that we learned the hard limit of 20-max bones for each character, which is somewhat unfortunate, since it's a little bit less to what is considered the standard (no James, it's not "wedding rings" missing, there are some issues with the very basic like, having to model a spine with less than standard bones, results in less natural movements), but at least we knew what was possible. Unfortunately, 2 years ago the market was still strongly supporting FS9. We couldn't invest all our time into an FSX-only technology back then.

If we decided to SHOW that back then, making a video clip, putting a marketing name on top of it, and then disappear for 18 months without any actual product to sell. Users would have any right to feel disappointed, because we show off something before it was ready, and put the cart before the horse, starting from the end, which is the actual final animation results.

Instead, we decided to do it in the right way, which means creating the foundation work first, and make it as flexible as possible, because we would like to do more than just additional eye-candy for our sceneries. For example, before showing off, we made an complete animation player, so we are not really restricted by loops, but our animations are more like scripts, so they can do whatever we want to.

I think people expect these guys would DO something useful, other then just being nice to look at it, otherwise the novelty effect will wear off soon enough. So, "doing it right", means integrate them into the airport life, and with the other systems we have, like ParkMe, for example. That was a start but, once you decided to Park somewhere, wouldn't be nice if everyone in the airport would *know* about that, and act accordingly ?

To do this, you need a Script Engine, with a real programming language (no, not XML, that's not a programming language...), with the ability for the various parts to talk to each other. Which, incidentally, is exactly what we HAVE in our products, the Couatl Python engine of course, and it took quite some time to perfect it and test it in the outside world, with real products using it (like XPOI, which is 100% Python code). Now that we know we can rely on that, we are sure will be able to put all the pieces together thanks to it so, when the human animations will eventually arrive, they'll integrate nicely with all the rest of the things we do.
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: virtuali on December 19, 2010, 01:29:39 am
Do they cause more of a hit on fps than a car or a cart?

Nothing is free in the world of graphic.

- A static object is the fastest possible object. Modern graphic cards are able to draw *lots* of polygons (as in models mad with hundreds of thousands polygons) with little loss of performance.

- A static object with a single texture is faster than an object with a different texture on each side.

- A group of static objects sharing the *same* texture (even if it's a very large one) is even faster than using a single texture per object. No wonder the bulk of our sceneries is made using less textures as possible, shared by as many objects as possible.

- An animated object made with standard methods (like a moving car) is slower than any static object.

- An animated object made with bones and skinned vertexes, is slower than a normal animated object.

Jetways use bones animations, which is why an FSX scenery with moving jetways has some impact on fps. In fact, a very easy method (used by some AI traffic packages) to raise fps, is to remove exits from AI airplanes, so jetways will work only on the user airplane, so you'll have only one bones-based object in view at a specific time.

A jetway typically use a couple of bones maximum, a human character usually use all the maximum 20 allowable bones, which is a limit FSX puts for each object. So, a single human character, even it it might have a polygonal complexity comparable to a jetway, has an impact similar to 8-10 animated jetways.

So yes, there IS some performance hit, specifically on video cards which are not top of the line, since bones runs on vertex shaders so, their performance is basically linearly tied to the video card power.

Quote
The FSDT freeware addtion of Greystone has people in it and there is'nt any great hit, theres even wildlife in it. I just want to understand why.

Because we just placed default MS library objects, which is ok for a freeware scenery (which was *blazing* fast in any case, so we could spare humans without issues), and because it took 3 days to do that which, again, it's ok for a freeware scenery. Of course, it wouldn't be very smart putting the same default guys at a commercial scenery, because people will likely scream "default!!" and on top of that, those people would have to compete with the already existing 200+ bones we already have in the jetways, in a place like JFK for example, which is slow even without *any* of our stuff in.
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: JamesChams on December 19, 2010, 01:52:58 am
...I'll explain it to you ..
No, perhaps you didn't read this statement clearly...

... so are you going to "Officially announce" something or are we just going to keep hearing you talk (actually read ;D) about it ONLY?



While having you write 200-300 words/post to express your every thought or opinion may seem important, don't you think your time (and mine) would be better served if you use it to finish your intended product, instead of explaining why you haven't?  I don't mind waiting for a product in development; everybody knows that; but the fact of the matter is you have NOTHING to show us for a year's worth of work; Orbx did. So, it is all hearsay until then, at least as far as I'm concerned for the moment.

PS: Now please don't go post an animated video of your motion captured dancing *marshaller* or whatever; just finish it and make an announcement; OK?

... And, I do appreciate the explainations most of the time, they are useful for knowledge sake.
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: virtuali on December 19, 2010, 02:57:56 am
While having you write 200-300 words/post to express your every thought or opinion may seem important, don't you think your time (and mine) would be better served if you use it to finish your intended product, instead of explaining why you haven't?

As usual, you are not able to restrain yourself about commenting on something you don't know anything about it.

My role in FSDT is to coordinate all developers, hearing their issues and trying to find out solutions, suggesting ideas, working on the eventual updates/fixes of the Addon Manager (not Couatl, for example) making installers, making the website, handling user support AND minding the forum, which includes replying to post and explaining issues.

This means, by spending my time here, I'm doing what I've supposed to do and no time is taken away from any product in development. You don't see many posts by Alessandro, Kappa, or Fabrizio (simbio), let alone Alberto (Ganesh), because they *are* busy doing stuff, and posting is what I should do instead. We believe in clear division of responsibilities within a group, and mine includes posting any kind of nonsense here.

Quote
the fact of the matter is you have NOTHING to show us for a year's worth of work; Orbx did

As I've said already, human animation is just part of what we are doing. In fact, if I understood correctly what Orbx plans to do with it, is probably the only thing in common with what we are doing. Unfortunately, the reasons why we prefer to keep things under wraps, are not even related to human animation, but more to functionality, which we believe is the main thing, rather than the nice animations. Which is why we never felt pressed to show anything back then, when we had only animations to show.
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: thepilot on December 19, 2010, 03:39:28 am
Fly Tampa (KMDW)

Oh yes! One of the reasons why KMDW is still one of my favorite airports. When turning into your gate, you can see the crowds moving behind the terminal windows, although this is a rather primitive method. Orbx shows what can be achieved in these days.
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: PUP4ORD on December 19, 2010, 04:42:54 pm
I think I'm going to "roll over"...... ;D
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: Silverbird on December 19, 2010, 04:51:36 pm
James with all due respect you have asked Umberto many many times about this and he always explained to you the reasons he writes a full paragraph explaining  it further and you basically say hes wasting his time? he has told us about the scripting engine and its ability to do many things that fsx has a limit on, also don't forget that it has taken this much time because of the issues with the fs9 user base finally moving too fsx.

I'm sure 100% Umberto knows exactly what we have been wanting in regards to people and a live environment buts its not going too help by pushing it I'm as eager as you are to finally see in all the fsdt airports.

Hi skimmer I love people! lol having them move and interact with are aircraft is something I always dreamed about in fs it is true we did get 2d people in terminals and even outside some scenery's like back too fs2002? I don't remember which was a big step, after that we got 3d marshallers like in cloud9 klax scenery which looked fantastic! and we got some 2d people in the terminal over in klas and Zurich.  

Then we got aes which helped greatly, currently aes really needs a major upgrade to there 3d models and I know Oliver is looking into it. and of course we have the final big one when fsdt releases there 3d models and there expanded python scripting engine its gonna be amazing I'm sure. the orbx peopleflow looks really wonderful and it gives you a big idea on how it will really look in future in regards to the further enhanced realism in flight simulator. but it is unfortunately limited to the fsx engine.
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: skimmer on December 19, 2010, 04:55:48 pm
Virtuali, thanks for the great explanation, some of which I did not know. Im happy to know that you are working on populating scenery with people.Remember they dont have to be moving. At least not all of them.



Also thank you Silverbird.
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: Bruce Hamilton on December 19, 2010, 09:11:12 pm
..but it is unfortunately limited to the fsx engine.

But is it really limited to the FSX engine?  With some of the technology developers are putting into sceneries, like elevated jetways you can actually taxi over, I'm not so sure some of them aren't writing their onw engines.  Microsoft never intended to have animated people on the tarmac.
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: virtuali on December 19, 2010, 09:34:14 pm
Microsoft never intended to have animated people on the tarmac.

Well, yes and no. They haven't supplied anything like that themselves (but there are several human characters as library objects in the default scenery), but they put the basic foundation to make it possible, and it was there since FSX was released.

It's a little bit tricky to define if we are running within the FSX engine or not. Surely, the basics are entirely provided by FSX, if it didn't supported animations with bones and vertex shaders, it would have been close to impossible to make such kind of characters. However, the FSX engine is made with many parts, which sometimes are intended for other uses, and are not really cooperating well between APIs. There's Simconnect, which is the "official " API, there's the XML gauge interface and the C gauges interface, and there's the scenery engine.

We used both official methods and reverse engineering as well, to get access to all of these, and used Python as a "glue" script engine, so once we got access, we don't have to worry in which language or how the original interface worked, but it's all wrapped in an easy to use language, which allows us to do very complex things, that FSX normally doesn't provide. For example, we don't have any limitation on the complexity/length of the animations, we don't have to loop them if we don't want to, we can have triggers, conditions, variable evaluations, control playback speed and direction, and interaction with any variable in the FSX engine. 

As I've tried to explain in my previous post, once we tested that human animations were theoretically possible (this was almost a couple of years ago), we haven't just dive in and started to animate stuff just to have something to show, but rather went to lay down the foundation to do something useful first, since the technology is just too good to be wasted on just scenery decoration.
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: Silverbird on December 19, 2010, 09:39:22 pm
Microsoft never intended to have animated people on the tarmac.

Well, yes and no. They haven't supplied anything like that themselves (but there are several human characters as library objects in the default scenery), but they put the basic foundation to make it possible, and it was there since FSX was released.

It's a little bit tricky to define if we are running within the FSX engine or not. Surely, the basics are entirely provided by FSX, if it didn't supported animations with bones and vertex shaders, it would have been close to impossible to make such kind of characters. However, the FSX engine is made with many parts, which sometimes are intended for other uses, and are not really cooperating well between APIs. There's Simconnect, which is the "official " API, there's the XML gauge interface and the C gauges interface, and there's the scenery engine.

We used both official methods and reverse engineering as well, to get access to all of these, and used Python as a "glue" script engine, so once we got access, we don't have to worry in which language or how the original interface worked, but it's all wrapped in an easy to use language, which allows us to do very complex things, that FSX normally doesn't provide. For example, we don't have any limitation on the complexity/length of the animations, we don't have to loop them if we don't want to, we can have triggers, conditions, variable evaluations, control playback speed and direction, and interaction with any variable in the FSX engine.  

As I've tried to explain in my previous post, once we tested that human animations were theoretically possible (this was almost a couple of years ago), we haven't just dive in and started to animate stuff just to have something to show, but rather went to lay down the foundation to do something useful first, since the technology is just too good to be wasted on just scenery decoration.


Was about to post a reply to Bruce's comment on the limits, but I'm glade you answered it Umberto.  :)
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: JamesChams on December 19, 2010, 11:35:48 pm
James with all due respect you have asked Umberto many many times about this and he always explained to you the reasons he writes a full paragraph explaining  it further...
Yes, we've been PM'ing each other on and off for over a year now about this and a few other things...  But, in all honesty, for a product that's NOT "Officially Announced", he sure is "singing like a canary (http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/sing+like+a+canary.html)" about it now.  Perhaps we'll get an "official announcement" soon, I think, huh? Perhaps ??? ;) ;D

Well, keep the questions coming guys... eventually we'll know all about it long before it ever gets released or "officially announced" ::)  Who knows, by then Orbx's product will go on sale for next Christmas, AES might get newer 3D models or Mr. Dirk Stuck's 3D models will kick their @$$E$ as well. ::)   And, we'll still be listening to how FSDT plans on a *much better* product; personally, I prefer everyone to "put their money where their mouth is (http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/put+money+where+mouth+is)" - including me. :)

But, at least every one is talking and not *warring* or "Flaming whining" for a change. ;D

Merry Christmas, Gents!
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: Bruce Hamilton on December 20, 2010, 12:06:53 am
..for a product that's NOT "Officially Announced", he sure is "singing like a canary" about it now.

Are you mistaking this for the "not officially announced" product, James?  Virtuali isn't that stupid.  ;)

Quote
Who knows, by then Orbx's product will go on sale for next Christmas...

If you're referring to "People Flow", it will be free upgrades to their payware airports.  ;)
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: JamesChams on December 20, 2010, 12:17:15 am
..for a product that's NOT "Officially Announced", he sure is "singing like a canary" about it now.

Are you mistaking this for the "not officially announced" product, James?  Virtuali isn't that stupid.  ;)
Are you so sure ???




Yeah, I'm "pullings legs," I though you would've figured that out by now... ;D  

And, yes, its still NOT "officially announced" unless they makes a post and we see a backdoor or some other factual *pictorial something.* Until, then, I'm afraid its all just words on a page - Now, watch him correct me and tell me I'm wrong again; something he likes to do. :D

PS: I'm getting too old for this *doggy poop*; how about you, Mr. Hamilton?  Has it aged you any? ;D


On a Plus note, I would have liked to push that 200+ bone limit for KJFK and have people walking around and doing marshaller *stuff.*  But, someone would have whined more than I about their FPS... right?  ???
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: skimmer on December 20, 2010, 12:35:00 am
Like I said,They dont have to moving around. :) There already is enough of a hit on FPS. I brought up this idea long ago and now and then I post something related to it. FSDT will not rush it because not enough people will say they want it . If that was the case then we would'nt be reading this,
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since the technology is just too good to be wasted on just scenery decoration.

  :)
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: JamesChams on December 30, 2010, 07:46:06 am
Just, to keep this *idea* (Topic) alive...

Here's what I was attempting to indicated to everyone earlier; that it (people in FSX) are already a reality for FTX/Orbx sceneries, at least...

Hopefully, FSDT's airports won't be too far behind! ::)


BTW: (Virtuali)
While I'm going to venture an opinion, that MS' Flight might be to (Default) FSX what Windows 7 is to Vista, I have NO plans to invest in it (MS' Flight) anytime soon; especially when my current FSX already looks (>1,000x) better than their current previews.
eg.
MS Flight Pic:
 http://www.simviation.com/phpupload/uploads/1293193079.jpg (http://www.simviation.com/phpupload/uploads/1293193079.jpg)


My FSX (Old Setup w/ Add-ons):
Posts - HERE (http://x-plane.org/home/JamesChams/Photos/PHNL_AI_by_JFC.gif) or Here (http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php?topic=2756.0)
 http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=2822.0;attach=6475;image (http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=2822.0;attach=6475;image)


So, we'll just have to wait and see what FSDT comes up with, won't we? ???
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: virtuali on December 30, 2010, 08:31:40 am
James, you still don't want to understand: you can write whatever you want, we are not going to change ANYTHING regarding our announcements. We'll announce new products only when WE decide is the right time to do it, not because of your continuing soliciting.

EDIT:

Ok, you are STILL not getting it, and trying to be funny, by keep posting something was deleted several times. Because of this, you are banned from posting for a week.
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: skimmer on January 08, 2011, 08:00:57 pm
People Flow. Wow ;D Only at Bundaberg for now though. BTW James do you have any of these pacs and if so how is the fps hit?
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: PUP4ORD on January 09, 2011, 03:16:44 pm
I don't need to wave ::) I LET my "flaps" do it ;D
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: Bruce Hamilton on January 09, 2011, 10:38:59 pm
The elevators and ailerons can wave during flight, try doing that with flaps.   ;D
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: JamesChams on January 17, 2011, 03:35:51 am
People Flow. Wow ;D Only at Bundaberg for now though. BTW James do you have any of these pacs and if so how is the fps hit?
Yes, I posted a rather lengthy post; which saidly got *deleted.*

However, to answer you question, again, "Yes I do" and "I have NO low FPS hits on my "OLDER" system(s); with everything (FSX) MAX'ed, I get above >35 FPS even in advanced aircraft."   With the NEW system, still don't know yet.  Someday, I'll be *able/allowed* to tell you *Why!* ;D

PS: Also, Bundabery and Melbourne v2.0 have *People* but I not sure if Melbourne's *People* are still just static or not; see here:  http://fullterrain.com/product_ymml2.html
Title: Re: People????????
Post by: Bruce Hamilton on January 17, 2011, 04:54:22 pm
Only Bundaburg has PeopleFlow at the moment, so Melbourne would be static.  :)