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drudchen

Flash Canopy Simulator

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If I go into deep brakes in your simulation, the target falls to the bottom of the screen.
That is also not what real life is.


How's that not real life? You go into brakes - you plane out, and your eyes will be looking more towards the horizon and the sky than before. (Not talking where the sweet spot would change here)



fuck it you guys can do your own skydiver physics to earth's end, it won't change what Newton's laws say.

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Make It Happen
Parachute History
DiveMaker

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fuck it you guys can do your own skydiver physics to earth's end, it won't change what Newton's laws say.


Hey man, I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to offend you at all whatsoever. I'm just trying to understand what's going on, and how I can adjust the parameters of the 'game' to make it as close to canopy flight as possible. I'm sure you have way more canopy flight time than I do, I'm just trying to understand what is it that I'm missing, as I created it by my 'subjective' view of my only ~100 jumps.

Edit: I'm in my 3rd year studying Engineering, so I tend to want to understand the concepts behind things, and some people think that I overthink some simple concepts.

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Wow! Nice job man!!

I'm not sure if anyone mentioned it, but it would be more realistic if you could change the pilot's line of sight. I should be able to control my canopy and see where I'm going even if I'm looking at my feet. Maybe let the arrow keys on the keyboard control that?

Edit: ... when will the multi-user version be available?:P



Thanks man.. Nice idea. Maybe I'll add an option to either lock the view as it is now, or move the eyes(head) around. Otherwise - how do you keep your head on the swivel to look for possible canopy collisions? or checking the airspace before doing that 360 hook turn? :P:)

I'd still prefer to keep toggle/harness input controls with the mouse, as with the keyboard keys it's either "on" or "off", with no grey areas in between. With the mouse at least you can have finer controls, as I think the actual flight is the most important factor in this. So that leaves the head movement to be controlled by the arrows.

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That is seriously excellent. The flight parameters are probably the easiest thing to alter, and the hard part for you is knowing who to listen to for advice, I'd say about one out of five people who post know what they are talking about. I'm not saying which group I am in.

You will get a million suggestions. This is your baby, and you get to choose which ones to pursue.

-- Jeff
My Skydiving History

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and we should make the screen go red when you land too hard..


Actually, I'm thinking of keeping the death-blood theme out of it ;)
Just like a typical skydiving dream - you forget to pull and hit the ground - stand up, clean the dust off your jumpsuit and walk away :P ...at least you're already packed and can manifest on the next load :)

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dude this is sick...
now we need wind sock...
and we need swoop pond..


Sounds great.

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Cool!

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It's still a little slow, so you'd need a more or less fast cpu to get good smooth flight out of it.



400 MHz here which ain't quite cuttin' it. :) That's OK, though - most flight simulators only work really well on hardware that isn't released until at least three months after the sim is.

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(the code is still not improved).



That's OK. You have to make it right before you can make it fast. Premature optimization is the root of all evil.

Couple of suggestions on the existing user interface:
- Print a unit for the speed. (knots or mph or whatever.)
- An Altitrack fits on your wrist, runs off of a watch battery, and costs a few hundred bucks. If it can really measure your angle of descent to eleven decimal places, L&B should hire themselves out as consultants to everybody in the world. (In other words, round off the degrees. :) )

Ideas for more features:
- At the beginning, along with the wind selections, you should have some obstacle selections. Like "Eloy" turns off all the trees, "Toronto" is the tree grid you have now, and "" is twice the tree density you have now.
- "Pause" button.
- "Time of day" selections. Basically, "noon", "sunset", "night". Noon is what you have now. Sunset "dims" the screen. Night puts a little illumination on the target area (like a couple of cars with their headlights on) but none anywhere else.

Ideas in general:
- If you really want to implement all this stuff, you better get yourself a copy of Turbo Visual Objective C++#.Net on Rails, or whatever the cool kids are using these days. You can probably get a student version for cheap, or you can always get the Limkazrrent for free.
- Or, glom on to an existing physics engine. There are third-party aircraft models for MS Flight Simulator. X-Plane is another sim; it looks like it might be a little easier to develop your own aircraft model for it.

Eule

(edit: spelling)
PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

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Hey man, nice work.

One thing I thought might be a nice addition would be a shadow for your canopy. Suppose the sun is always behind the player's start point, so you could see your shadow meet you as you land. Would give you another way to judge the landing rather than just watching the numbers spin down.

Anyway, good job, good fun simulator.

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Hey man, nice work.

One thing I thought might be a nice addition would be a shadow for your canopy. Suppose the sun is always behind the player's start point, so you could see your shadow meet you as you land. Would give you another way to judge the landing rather than just watching the numbers spin down.

Anyway, good job, good fun simulator.


Hey,
Yes, a shadow would definitely be a great clue for judging when to flare.
Also, I will add the grass soon that will get bigger as you're on the final approach and become distinguishable close to the flare altitude.

I'm still tweaking the physics engine a little - and hopefully soon it will be closer to the 'real deal'.
I'll post the updated version, or the second beta, in a few days, hopefully.B|

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Good job. I liked it a lot.

One suggestion - create some kind of pattern for the ground, so that it is easier to see the altitude. It will probably require more resources, but would be a big help on landing. In real life you can measure your altitude if you have visual features (grass, trees, small objects) around you. Otherwise, there is no depth perception (as if you land in water in overcast weather)

That would be a great tool for new jumpers to learn.
"Gravity is a habit that is hard to shake off"
Terry Pratchett, "Small Gods"

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Hey, while you are working on a canopy simulator, maybe you could add a multiplayer freefall sim too. All of the members of dropzone.com could do a massive like 12,000 way or something. Keep the canopy sim in there, but also simulate parachute malfunctions and such on opening. Make them as real as possible.
Keep up the good work!

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Which way is the wind blowing?

I tried to figure it out by playing with canopy direction but wasn't really sure. Something to indicate wind direction would be nice, even if its just a narrow arrow off to the side of the target.
"Where troubles melt like lemon drops, away above the chimney tops, that's where you'll find me" Dorothy

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Which way is the wind blowing?


In the "high winds" mode, the wind is coming from somewhere around the South-East direction :P try finding the wind line :P
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I tried to figure it out by playing with canopy direction but wasn't really sure. Something to indicate wind direction would be nice, even if its just a narrow arrow off to the side of the target.


Sure, at least i'll add the ability to turn it on somewhere in the options menu in the later version. But, isn't it an extra fun and a challenge to not know where it's coming from?
A windsock on the ground would help too...
But it won't tell you what the uppers are doing.. ..would you like a winddrift pass maybe? ;)

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Which way is the wind blowing?


In the "high winds" mode, the wind is coming from somewhere around the South-East direction :P try finding the wind line :P
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I tried to figure it out by playing with canopy direction but wasn't really sure. Something to indicate wind direction would be nice, even if its just a narrow arrow off to the side of the target.


Sure, at least i'll add the ability to turn it on somewhere in the options menu in the later version. But, isn't it an extra fun and a challenge to not know where it's coming from?
A windsock on the ground would help too...
But it won't tell you what the uppers are doing.. ..would you like a winddrift pass maybe? ;)



You should be nicer to people that did their first jump at PST in 1976.... :ph34r:
"Where troubles melt like lemon drops, away above the chimney tops, that's where you'll find me" Dorothy

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