Hot flight simulator

Chris Bryden bryden at brahms.udel.edu
Sat Mar 30 06:31:24 AEST 1991


In article <> jim at baroque.Stanford.EDU (James Helman) writes:
}SGI was featured in last night's Silicon Valley Report on channel 54
}(San Jose).  While I don't know how Forest Baskett and David Hughes
}fared in the ratings against Twin Peaks, I'm sure their flight
}simulator beats anything David Lynch has: 4 VGX's, video projection, a
}realistic model cockpit, fog, and good frame rates.  On my little B&W
}tube, I couldn't judge resolution and texture mapping, but it looked
}*very* hot.

When the Magic_Bus came through our tiny town, one of the sales reps. mentioned
something about SGI building a serious attempt at a flight simulator (minus the
hydraulicly actuated stage and full screen projection).  My guess is that they
are using landsat data for the texture and rendering the planes as shaded poly-
gons.  That seems to be state of the art and the present moment in time.

Speaking of flight simulators, I was able to find flight/dog sources; however,
I suspect that the code I have is fairly old.  The only version information 
that I have is from udpcomm and comm (pp->version = 5;).  I have been changing
the code a little to get a feel for the simulator and for my own amusement.  It
is quite comical to build an F15 with the thrust of a 747 and the weight of a 
paperclip.  Anyway, I need to know what the latest version flight/dog is.  Are 
the authors of this program on the net (do they read news (comp.sys.sgi?)?)?

Before I make further changes, I want to install the latest version of flight/
dog but I really don't know how SGI distributes programs in source code form.

Chris

PS:
I found the file format of simulator object confusing.  Is there a standard
format for storing this type of data?  The data format for the VW Beetle seems
to be completely different from the simulator objects.  Is there a data base
of these object somewhere? We have sound and I would like to hack noise into 
the simulator (it's probably going to take some fancy footwork to get the sound
data to loop).  So, does anyone know where I can get some jet/prop engine 
sounds or will I just have to be creative?  

Oh, one more thing: flight simulator with 3D glasses...
-- 
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