Wilco's Tower Simulator Review

Well, I can't say I am surprised by what the reviewer found.

Bell 412

I know, a little boxy here and there.  Just saving polys.  After all, everyone wants high frames per second, right?

King Air B200

I am finding it hard to not include every detail, so this has a little bit more of that than the RV-7.  I have to watch out for the polygon count, having the simulator's performance in mind, but I figure it is always easier to take a high detail model and scale it down than the opposite.

So far so good regarding the project plan.

RV-7

So tonight is the second night of work on the first task in the project, creating a 3D model of an RV-7. I have one more night, according to the plan, to finish this up. I plan on creating some basic textures (one of my weaknesses right now) to have some color on it. Can't wait to see what that looks like... For now, here's what the model looks like. I tried keeping the polygon count to a minimum, while adding enough detail. Click on each image for a full-resolution version.

Project Plan

The Project plan is done. If I am incredibly prescient, and have actually predicted every single activity right, it will take 219.5 days until I have a decently completed version of Tower Simulator. That sounds like a lot (and if that number is anywhere near accurate, I'd be very surprised. It could be a lot less or a lot more, who knows?), but it involves a lot. Here's what I have planned (in bold are the main sections):

Tower Simulator Project Plan

• Physics
• Collisions
• Motion
• Taxiing
• Parking
• Takeoff
• Climb
• Cruise
• Descent
• Approach
• Landing
• Driving
• Audio
• Aircraft
• Jet Engine
• Startup
• Running
• Shutdown
• Turboprop Engine
• Startup
• Running
• Shutdown
• Piston Engine
• Startup
• Running
• Shutdown
• Ground Vehicles
• Trucks
• Cars
• Tractors
• Voice Recognition
• Models
• Airports
• KCMH
• Runways
• Taxiways
• Apron
• Buildings
• LOWI
• Runways
• Taxiways
• Apron
• Buildings
• Aircraft
• Airliners
• Embraer 170
• Embraer 190
• ERJ-135
• ERJ-140
• ERJ-145
• Airbus 319
• Airbus 320
• Airbus 321
• Dash 8-Q400
• Boeing 737-300
• Boeing 737-700
• CRJ-200
• CRJ-700
• CRJ-900
• General Aviation
• Lancair Legacy
• King Air B200
• Bell 412
• Falcon 900
• Gulfstream V
• Cessna 172
• Cirrus SR-20
• Graphic Interface
• Splash Screen
• Main Menu
• Sub Menus
• Graphics Engine
• Load Models
• Terrain
• Skybox
• Clouds
• Shadows
• Rain
• Snow
• Input
• Keyboard
• Mouse
• Custom Shortcuts
• Installation Package

Let's see what happens.

Project Plan

I make no fuss about the fact that sometimes I find it hard to police myself in regards to following schedules, so I have hired a project manager: my wife. Maybe it sounds crazy to you, but this will keep me much more on track regarding the project plan for Tower Simulator, as she has been very serious about it. I'll be posting a Gantt chart of what the project looks like right now.

Terrain test

Today I found some time to test loading a heightmap, which I generated from a 10m DEM file, into XNA just to see how easily I could do it, and how good it would look.
The result was pretty good. Some information before you watch it:

• The colors are simply based on the height of each vertex, just to have some color. They are not related to anything else from the real world.
• The app runs at 60 fps without even sweating, but the video below is running at 30 fps due to compression
• The depressions that look like wholes on the opposite side of the mountains are either DEM noise or lakes, I have not investigated it yet
  

Can you tell where on earth this is? :)



Here's the original heightmap: