V 2.0 Alpha 8 - ATi cards, PAR files and fun!

[fzr]

I can finally run FMS on my Radeon 9700 - yay!

This is loads of fun, but a real shame the PAR format appears to have changed so I can't use *any* of the models out there on the web.

I tried to hack something up but without knowing German and having loads of patience I gave up.

Please please release a PAR file conversion script to let us use old planes, otherwise the new version will become almost useless as any search will find millions of old, unusable models.

Any other ATi owners getting bored of the default models yet? Any info on the new PAR format so I can try and write the script myself? (I'm defnintely in the "open up the source to FMS" camp).

Apart from this problem, I'm dead impressed - fast, smooth, pretty and stable - keep up the good work!

[ggunners]

fzr,

I've put together a spreadsheet that shows the comparison between 4 airplane .par files for FMS 2 alpha 8.



It's been pretty helpful in understanding what each major section does for each model.

VERSION 1.0 : File must start with this.

INFO and ENDINFO: tag comments re: the model

AIRPLANE: signifies airplane instead of helicopter

MAIN: General items, mass in kg, moments similar to old .par, position of emphasis, i.e. CG assumed 0,0,0, and airplane height above ground.

MOTOR: sections for COMBUSTION or ELECTRO, see the files. Haven't tested to see when the gas or battery run out yet. Shouldn't be too hard. Glider has no MOTOR entry.

WING: next major seciton, followed by all the airfoil and control surfaces, changing these sizes should effect performance and control just like our model planes.

All surface position numbers seem to follow a x,y,z notation relative to the CG except a bit different from Metasequoia. From the pilots perspective, X+ is forward X- is aft, Y+ is right, Y- is left, Z+ is down, Z- is up. The ex relates to wing sweep while ey relates to dihedral. Span is the width of the surface.

Surface 1: left wing, with aileron or not
Surface 2: right wing, with aileron or not
Surface 3: elevator, with control surface
Surface 4: rudder, with control surface
Surface 5: fuselage

Other surfaces available, some make sense like additional 2 wings for Pitts, others don't make sense like the additional wing for the Transall.

Surfaces are assigned to channels (Kanal) with 1 for rudder, 2 for elevator, 3 for aileron and 4 for throttle.

Each surface can have an AUTOELEMENT section for specifying incidence angle, wing surface depth begin/end different numbers make a taper, flap depth on the surface and flap beginning and end relative to the surface edge plus angle of incidence for the flap.

The manual ELEMENTDATA is more difficult to understand and I'll add some details later. It's basically the same thing as AUTOELEMENT for irregular shaped or more customized surfaces.

After surfaces comes a short DRAG section.

Each surface also points to a POLAR table used in the simulation. For different angles of indcidence, the table provides lift, drag and moment coefficients. The Pitts has 2, all others have 3.

Then a section with POINT numbers is evident. These numbers look like they may control crash characteristics. I'll try to map the points to a 3D model and figure out where they reside.

In the WHEEL section, 3 wheel locations are noted for every model except the glider which has no wheels. The numbers have some relationship to POINT above but others unique to wheels such as surface friction.

There are 2 unique entries for the glider. First being HOOK which specifies the "high starting hook" position. Then, since the glider is a v-tail, there's a VMIX section that mixes channels 2 and 1, elevator and rudder in this case.

That's my start. Anyone else successful?

-- ggunners