Author Topic: Third GSX Preview in MSFS: Airport Customization  (Read 32568 times)

Justinthomas7

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Re: Third GSX Preview in MSFS: Airport Customization
« Reply #15 on: July 29, 2022, 01:58:13 pm »
I just wish that the development was faster. The fact that we will not see this before 2024 is very sad and disappointing.

And who, exactly, told you it won't be seen before 2024 ? Especially when I personally confirmed it would be out THIS SUMMER ? That hasn't changed, and the product will be out in the next weeks.

Indeed!   I was expecting MSFS GSX imminently.  Your post just confirmed this.   

CPTAlp

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Re: Third GSX Preview in MSFS: Airport Customization
« Reply #16 on: July 30, 2022, 04:31:12 am »
I just wish that the development was faster. The fact that we will not see this before 2024 is very sad and disappointing.

And who, exactly, told you it won't be seen before 2024 ? Especially when I personally confirmed it would be out THIS SUMMER ? That hasn't changed, and the product will be out in the next weeks.

WOW! This is just great news. I apologize about that comment, I haven't been following the forum lately and because of the last preview video (only parking position edit no services) I assumed there was much more to do. Looking forward to seeing it! Will we see any more videos or images about the available services etc.? Is there any estimated time when or we just know that its within next weeks? I'm going to take days off from work for this :D

virtuali

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Re: Third GSX Preview in MSFS: Airport Customization
« Reply #17 on: July 30, 2022, 01:48:49 pm »
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because of the last preview video (only parking position edit no services) I assumed there was much more to do.

That was obviously a tease, since the video was intentionally cut just before calling any service, which are in fact fully working.

As explained so many times, making videos is taking away precious time that will delay the release, and we keep changing things, up to the last minute, and posting too many videos before release, in addition to taking time, might result wrong ideas about what the program will do, because nobody really takes the "features are subjected to change" disclaimer very seriously so, we would need to redo all the videos, again, with a "final" version.

Which won't last very long, since as everybody knows, GSX is a constant state of flux, considering the previous FSX/P3D version had 10 years of continuing free updates, and the current version looks quite different compared to what came out in 2012.

Julean

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Re: Third GSX Preview in MSFS: Airport Customization
« Reply #18 on: July 30, 2022, 08:11:26 pm »
This is fantastic.... *So much looking forward to it..  Awesome  :o <3


And who, exactly, told you it won't be seen before 2024 ? Especially when I personally confirmed it would be out THIS SUMMER ? That hasn't changed, and the product will be out in the next weeks.


Julean
Frederiksberg, Greater Copenhagen - DK
« Last Edit: July 30, 2022, 08:13:25 pm by Julean »
Julean, Frederiksberg, CPH - Denmark

CPTAlp

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Re: Third GSX Preview in MSFS: Airport Customization
« Reply #19 on: August 01, 2022, 08:32:01 am »
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because of the last preview video (only parking position edit no services) I assumed there was much more to do.

That was obviously a tease, since the video was intentionally cut just before calling any service, which are in fact fully working.

As explained so many times, making videos is taking away precious time that will delay the release, and we keep changing things, up to the last minute, and posting too many videos before release, in addition to taking time, might result wrong ideas about what the program will do, because nobody really takes the "features are subjected to change" disclaimer very seriously so, we would need to redo all the videos, again, with a "final" version.

That is very true. People unfortunately jump ships very quickly. Is there any chance we can at least see some screenshots? At least 1 maybe with passengers walking for example? This does not carry the risk of a video and would take maybe tenth of effort and time of a video.

Thanks!

virtuali

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Re: Third GSX Preview in MSFS: Airport Customization
« Reply #20 on: August 01, 2022, 10:57:02 am »
That is very true. People unfortunately jump ships very quickly. Is there any chance we can at least see some screenshots? At least 1 maybe with passengers walking for example? This does not carry the risk of a video and would take maybe tenth of effort and time of a video.

Passengers and the new Boarding luggage service are precisely the things that won't work in a screenshot, because what's changed is mainly the animation. Well, not really, the models have changed as well, but the animation is the most important thing.

An example which would clarify better what we are at it now: yesterday I was working on a fixing the raising of the front gear during Pushback, because an important Simconnect variable changed its meaning (but not its name...) from P3D to MSFS, so the calculation had to be changed, and is still not 100% fixed because, now that we have a bypass pin shown on it which we didn't had before, its own position must be calculated as well by taking into account the raised gear.

Would you rather we'd work on THAT one, or making a new video ?

f_tony

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Re: Third GSX Preview in MSFS: Airport Customization
« Reply #21 on: August 01, 2022, 12:05:19 pm »
The price will be similar to current GSX, but there will be a lot more value in it, because many features which were only available with GSX L2, like Passengers, replacement Jetways and the Fuel Hydrant, will all be part of the Base product.

Also, the base product will also replace all default Ground Vehicles, on a Global basis, without being constrained by the limited "Regions" system, and they will serve AI airplanes as well, something GSX never did before.

Have you achieved good results when making your ground equipment interact with some payware airplanes (first of all PMDG B737 and Fenix A320)? Are GSX and those airplanes fully compatible? Thanks

virtuali

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Re: Third GSX Preview in MSFS: Airport Customization
« Reply #22 on: August 01, 2022, 12:54:55 pm »
Have you achieved good results when making your ground equipment interact with some payware airplanes (first of all PMDG B737 and Fenix A320)? Are GSX and those airplanes fully compatible?

Of course GSX is fully compatible with those planes. In fact, they are a way better fit for GSX than the default, that have some silly design choices, like missing animations on all passenger/service/cargo doors, because the default ground services don't support more than one door per service.

Also, we added a completely new feature we call "Aircraft handler", which allows us to specify different GSX behaviors depending on the loaded airplane, with actual code, not just parameters like in the FSX/P3D version. Those snippets of code are being called at specific times, for example where doors need to be opened, or when GSX is first called, or when any GSX service like Refuel, Catering etc, is  called, to eventually do any kind of airplane-specific preparations.

The default aircraft handler has only one feature: opening doors automatically, assuming a default airplane will use default variables for doors.

The PMDG aircraft handler, which called in place of the default handler, also open doors automatically, but does it by acting on the PMDG FMC buttons, because PMDG was very smart to use a standard key event to handle these things, so we didn't had to write any variables or dwelling into any proprietary code, we just send the same standard key command AS IF you pushed the relevant button in the FMC (it's like sending a keyboard macro) to the FMC, which will open the required door.

Or, send away the PMDG ground vehicles, if they are attached when you call GSX.

In the same way, we might have a different Fenix handler or any other plane handler, although I found the Fenix A320 to be easier to work with, since in the way that matters to GSX, is more like a standard airplane.

This new feature it's very flexible way to have lots of custom code without making the *actual* GSX code any more complex, thanks to the fact GSX is written in Python, which is designed to do this kind of highly dynamic behaviors that mix object-oriented programming with the dynamically typed nature of the language, so it will make it easy for us to keep it updated and add new and new features to 3rd party airplanes that might require special treatments.

CPTAlp

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Re: Third GSX Preview in MSFS: Airport Customization
« Reply #23 on: August 01, 2022, 06:25:55 pm »
That is very true. People unfortunately jump ships very quickly. Is there any chance we can at least see some screenshots? At least 1 maybe with passengers walking for example? This does not carry the risk of a video and would take maybe tenth of effort and time of a video.

Passengers and the new Boarding luggage service are precisely the things that won't work in a screenshot, because what's changed is mainly the animation. Well, not really, the models have changed as well, but the animation is the most important thing.

Would you rather we'd work on THAT one, or making a new video ?

Well as I've said, I support screenshots which is why I've said can you share a SCREENSHOT of the services not a video so that it doesn't take developer time :)

virtuali

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Re: Third GSX Preview in MSFS: Airport Customization
« Reply #24 on: August 01, 2022, 10:45:11 pm »
Well as I've said, I support screenshots which is why I've said can you share a SCREENSHOT of the services not a video so that it doesn't take developer time

To which I replied, for the kind of services you asked, a screenshot really won't do it, because they really need to be seen in action. Videos will come.

CPTAlp

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Re: Third GSX Preview in MSFS: Airport Customization
« Reply #25 on: August 02, 2022, 05:58:33 am »
Well as I've said, I support screenshots which is why I've said can you share a SCREENSHOT of the services not a video so that it doesn't take developer time

To which I replied, for the kind of services you asked, a screenshot really won't do it, because they really need to be seen in action. Videos will come.

Completely understandable. Super excited!

Tiger6k

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Re: Third GSX Preview in MSFS: Airport Customization
« Reply #26 on: August 02, 2022, 11:04:32 pm »
It's funny I haven't really been following GSX progress but just recently I was using PMDG and thought, "Man it'd be nice if GSX were controlling all this stuff" and figured I'd check fsdt.  Glad I did, looks like even more functionality is coming with it than what I remembered in FSX.   

I did have a question though as I'm not super familiar with GSX and what it's turned into with P3D, but, are you able to have GSX actually load weight/pax/fuel into the aircraft or will that still be controlled via the aircraft EFB/FMS/etc?  Or does it depend on the aircraft like so many other things?

Thanks and it looks great!

CPTAlp

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Re: Third GSX Preview in MSFS: Airport Customization
« Reply #27 on: August 02, 2022, 11:29:10 pm »
I did have a question though as I'm not super familiar with GSX and what it's turned into with P3D, but, are you able to have GSX actually load weight/pax/fuel into the aircraft or will that still be controlled via the aircraft EFB/FMS/etc?  Or does it depend on the aircraft like so many other things?

Depends on the level of integration between plane and GSX I think. For example before it wasn’t fully integrated but planes like FSL take full advantage and integrate GSX. If we get something similar in MSFS with other devs as well it would be amazing.

Justinthomas7

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Re: Third GSX Preview in MSFS: Airport Customization
« Reply #28 on: August 05, 2022, 05:09:57 am »
Hoping it integrates with PMDG more than before - like progressive refuelling (like the QW787 had).  I hate the PMDG ground support functions - especially the pushback - it's terrible!  Good plane though.

Did GSX ever integrate with FS2Crew?  I can't remember. 

virtuali

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Re: Third GSX Preview in MSFS: Airport Customization
« Reply #29 on: August 05, 2022, 08:36:37 am »
Hoping it integrates with PMDG more than before - like progressive refuelling (like the QW787 had). 

You could sort of simulate that, by using the "Always refuel progressively" option, which means the GSX fuel truck will react to the the airplane refueling itself, staying there for as long the fuel is increasing.

It wasn't perfect because, if you needed multiple trips of the tanker (not an issue with the hydrant), the airplane would continuing to refuel itself while a new truck was coming, and if the set quantity was reached while the new truck was still enroute, it would have made the trip for nothing and would just go away as soon it arrived. A "perfect" integration would have been the plane pausing the refuel process while the GSX truck disconnects and resume it when a new one connects, but that would need the developer working on his code, since there's no way GSX could force a pause of a custom progressive refuel process.

Quote
I hate the PMDG ground support functions - especially the pushback - it's terrible!  Good plane though.

If you check my previous post, we found a nice safe and elegant way to integrate with those, with the new Aircraft Handler feature, which is a flexible snippet of code that can be different for each single airplane and gets executed in specific moments of a GSX service. In case of the PMDG 737, we use it to enable the new automatic door opening feature, and to send them away automatically the PMDG ground vehicles when you call GSX.