Worklog for Chroma
Zama Flight Engine
Return to Worklogs
| ||
|
The flight engine is still coming along nicely. I've posted a couple
of videos on YouTube. Another cool thing is that I've been approached
by an individual that is willing to help me bring it to fruition. I still have a Sky Captain type game on the brain. There's just something about flying around a metropolis while shooting giant robots... [Core2D][Sprite][MaxVerlet] |
| ||
|
This is the most serious I've ever been about completing a game, so I
guess I'm gonna have to make a to-do list. A few things off the top of
my head are effects such as afterburner, wingtip contrails, engine glow,
tracer bullet trails, and dust flying up if you land in the dirt. I'm off work for 6 days so lets see what I can get done. [Core2D][Sprite][MaxVerlet] |
| ||
|
I've been doing a lot of aerodynamics research lately and the scary
thing is that I understand it now. I now have the knowledge to write a
moderately realistic flight sim. The demo I showed a couple months ago
is being revamped atm with all the new things I've learned. I will say one thing that if you're trying to do what I'm doing (writing a flight sim)...once you figure out how to get the real angle of attack, the rest falls into place. Because without the correct AOA, nothing will work. A small hint is it's in radians in it's native form. >:-) I'm still looking for an aircraft to base the game around but it's not a major concern atm. The flight engine is all that matters right now. Making sure all the linear and rotational forces are computed correctly is adamant. Another cool thing I found was how to calculate the G-Forces a pilot experiences. You find this out by simply dividing the Lift by the Weight of the aircraft (in Newtons). If the Lift is 50000 and the weight is 50000 then you are under 1 Gs of force (flying level). If you're Lift is 100000 then Gs = 100000/50000 or 2 Gs. Wings can handle a lot of pressure. It's pretty crazy. [Core2D][Sprite][MaxVerlet] |
| ||
|
Lately, I've been doing boring stuff like creating a fast lookup table
that will give me the correct air density based on an altitude. This
way if you go above the aircraft's service ceiling you'll eventually
stall out. It was pretty easy to do actually. My next task is
perfecting the pitching of the plane. [Core2D][Sprite][MaxVerlet] |
| ||
| TFE was on hold while I studied for my next rank. I'm happy to say that I passed the test WOOT! Yay for a pay raise. I'm again cranking up the tandem flight engine again. My last demo has the basics in there but it had some major problems. For one, the lift vector was only half right. It seems the lift vector stays perpendicular to drag AND the wings lengthwise at the same time. I finally got it nailed so now the lift vector is working 100% correctly in all phases of flight. I have the 4 basic flight characteristics of thrust, drag, lift, and gravity all modeled correctly. My next step is to model flight controls. This shouldn't be too hard because all I have to do is calculate how much torque will be applied to the CG on it's respective axis based on airspeed and pilot inputs. Now that I'm well versed in flight physics (serious!). I'm half tempted to use my newly purchase JV-ODE physics lib to do it all. That would be a big help with the landing gear too. I may do a test to see how it looks at least. I'm still trying to choose the airplane for the game so if you have any ideas, please post them in the General Discussions forums in my Aircraft Vote thread. I'm open to any suggestions. Once I finish the flight physics 100% and select the airplane, the game should really take off. I have like a bajillion guns and cannon code, smoke effects, explosions, etc etc ready to go. No demo and no SS. It might be a month or so before I have something to show but at least I'm hitting it up. It won't be an Air War 1946 but it'll be something equally as cool. [Core2D][Sprite][MaxVerlet] |
| ||
| TFE is on hold atm while I study for promotion. I'll resume work on it on March 9th. EDIT: Testing done! Work is now resuming on TFE. New demo probably in a month or so. [Core2D][Sprite][MaxVerlet] |
| ||
|
The Tandem Flight Engine is my realistic flight physics engine I've
been working on the past week. No, I didn't write a flight engine in a
week. I started work on this in 2002 and then took a LONG break. I
picked it back up last week and made huge progress when I abandoned
trying to use quaternions. I now have a working flight physics model. My favorite part at this point is landing. You HAVE to keep the nose up (positive AoA) or you bite it. The numbers aren't totally right but they're kinda close. If I chop the throttle and give it about 8 degrees AoA and keep the airspeed at around 125 knots, it comes in like a real aiplane. The lift coefficient increases with AoA increase so if you nose it down at low speed you're toast. I'll post a screenshot later tonight. [Core2D][Sprite][MaxVerlet] |