• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

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FISD: Remote Controled Scenery!

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The did it!! :wizard:

FISD Introduce Remote Controlled Scenery

Posted: Saturday, June 11, 2005 - 12:51
VATSIM vACC Finland and Finnish Scenery Designers (FISD) announce a new and innovative feature to make VATSIM pilots' online flying experience more realistic and exciting. FISD Remote Controlled Scenery (RCS) technology gives controllers the ability to control the appearance of scenery to a pilot via the Internet, and will be piloted in a new scenery pack for Helsinki-Vantaa (EFHK). According to their press release: "Vantaa Tower will switch off the stop-bar lights with line-up clearance and inactive runways remain unlighted to give a better view for visual approaches. In case of bad weather, 100% high intensity lights will help the pilots to see the runway - and the lights will be dimmed on pilots' request to avoid glare!" The software is to be released Wednesday, June 15th.

The first online test of this software will be the No-Delay 2005 fly-in to take place on Thursday, June 16th at Helsinki-Vantaa. For more information on both the fly-in and RCS, visit the No-Delay website.

http://vacc.fi/nodelay/
 

arno

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Yes, I have seen the preview movie and it looks really great :).
 

nickw

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I am really impressed by this. Lets hope the MSFS team give us better interface to the sceneries in the next version of FS so that cool stuff like this becomes easier to do.

I also Hope the FISD team release a plugin for this so that other teams can use one interface. It would seem silly to have multiple DLL's on the client side.
 
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Nice that you have noticed our new system. :)

The system has been developed with easy adaptability in mind, and once finished we intend to release documentation and SDK so that other scenery developers can easily incorporate the system in their sceneries. The software can basically control anything by setting the scenery variables via FSUIPC. Also offline options (docking gate animations etc.) could be added.

On the technical side, the system basically works like this: Controller can set different objects' status with his ATC client. These settings are sent to a server running on a VATSIM web server, and the pilot clients fetch the data every now and then. The pilot client then sets individual bits in the useable variables (usrvar1-5), that is, each bit controls a certain object. Finally, these variables are check in the object code and processed normally.
 

nickw

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Hi Jari,

That is good news. Glad you are releasing the SDK :)

However, once concern... As you may know, Arno and I have been working on a simular DLL, and it would be a concern that the USERVAR would conflict. I think we are currently using two variables.

It is such a shame that there are not more available :)
 

arno

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Hi Jari,

As Nick already said, we are working on an ActiGate module (akmost ready for release as well, just need to write some documentation). It uses two user variables and allows users to trigger animations with the parking brake and with the aircraft type.

I don't know if you have similar code in your DLL? Maybe it is a good idea to have a conversation about this?

Another concern I have is that GMax uses two (or three can't remember) user variables when you make an animation to store the frame count. This is totally useless of course, as you could use a local variable for that (that is how I recode it in CAT), but have you not seen conflicts between GMax animations and your code?
 
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arno said:
Another concern I have is that GMax uses two (or three can't remember) user variables when you make an animation to store the frame count. This is totally useless of course, as you could use a local variable for that (that is how I recode it in CAT), but have you not seen conflicts between GMax animations and your code?

Hi Arno and Nick,

Our RCS technology only uses variables usrvar4 and usrvar5. As animations only reserve variables 1-3, there is no need to worry about conflicts between animations and RCS.

I suppose your module also uses variables 4 and 5? I guess that as far as RCS technology isn't used at the same airports as your gate module there shouldn't be any conflicts between our technologies. Our RCS pilot client also recognizes whether the pilot is within a specified range from an active RCS airport and only in that case reserves variables 4 and 5.

As our possibilities with RCS technology are currently confined by the limited variable capacity, we are contemplating the possibility of using usrvar4 to point information to a certain object and using usrvar5 to relay the information itself. In that case, objects would have to store their variable state in local variable space while information is sent to other objects. The first release version of RCS technology will however only use global variable space to store information.
 
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arno

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Hi Mikael,

Thanks for the extra information.

MiKu said:
I suppose your module also uses variables 4 and 5? I guess that as far as RCS technology isn't used at the same airports as your gate module there shouldn't be any conflicts between our technologies. Our RCS pilot client also recognizes whether the pilot is within a specified range from an active RCS airport and only in that case reserves variables 4 and 5.

Yes, we also use variables 4 and 5 only for exactly the same reason :).

For the moment it will probably not give big trouble, unless someone wants to use our active gates and docking systems combined with your light system. I only asked these questions to see if we could get future problems once both systems start to spread around.

At the moment our DLL has an option so that the user can disable it from the menu. So in case of conflicts on a specific airport it can be disabled from the user. As our module is not design around one specific airport or so, we have not added something like the range feature you mention.

As our possibilities with RCS technology are currently confined by the limited variable capacity, we are contemplating the possibility of using usrvar4 to point information to a certain object and using usrvar5 to relay the information itself. In that case, objects would have to store their variable state in local variable space while information is sent to other objects. The first release version of RCS technology will however only use global variable space to store information.

I had a discussion with Nick this evening. And I think for our DLL it would in theory be possible to combine both variables into one. Now var4 gives you the aircraft type and var5 is a sort of boolean for the brakes. This boolean information could also be added to var4 of course by using a specific bit for it or so. So maybe we can reduce the load of our DLL on the user variables a bit.

At least it is good to know what the possibilities for conflicts are (although they are indeed small at the moment), in case user start to ask about it.
 

nickw

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unless someone wants to use our active gates and docking systems combined with your light system

Like me :)

I would love to implement the controlled lights alongside the new gates I have completed for EINN. After you release the SDK, maybe we could work together on a way of getting around this?

Catch you soon!
 
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Is there any news about this project?

I want to use it and need further informations about this project....

thx

Andi
 
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Hi,

thx arno....

I've had already checked the site of fsid. But i dont find anything about the RCS Project. That's what I'm looking for....

My plan is to create remote controlled lights for airport - if possible as overlay for existing scenerys. The new thing is to do the controll via EUROSCOPE Plugin, which is the most common ATC Client use in Austria (and I think in the Rest of the VATSIM World). First step should be switching the stopbars, taxilights, runwaylighting. I think about lightbeam - for inop radios - from the tower to the cockpit, and a lot of ideas, doing scenery control by the atc.

So I think the RCS Project will be a good help for starting. But I cant find anything about it....

Does anyone know anything about that project?

thx
Andi
 
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Hi arno,

thx again. I know this site too, but the pilots client link ends in a 404 Error.

So i cant get the software anywhere, and there is no one how can explain, how it works....

thx
 

arno

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I guess the best you can do then is try to contact the author, did you try that already? I think it is Jari Varje who also participated in this thread before.
 
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