Ok well since I'm 15 I also play video games. There is a computer game coming out called "Half Life 2" as sequel to the first one. Its game engine (I've tested it first hand in a CSS beta) is the most advanced physics engine to date. So I thought to myself, what does every $300 rc simulator claim they have to offer...
1. The best graphics (With Source the engine that half life 2 is written on you could create a simulator with better graphics than the newest rc one to date)
2. the most accurate physics (Source could to that and more....)
3. Popular aircraft models (We would poll for the ones that should come default and have a community set up to create downloadable planes

If I started a mod for the hl2 engine it would be free... the only thing you would need is a copy of half life 2 and the stuff that it is capable of think of it as a rc simulator that kicks the $300 ones @$$ for a fraction of the price.

so if there is interest in something like this let me know so that I can start looking into the limitations/how hard it would be to start a mod like this...

**Bump** I'd really like to know if there is interest because I'm not going to try to develop something like this if there is no interest. I'd also like to start gathering a dev team

well, im trying to design new aircraft for aeroflypro, and its not as easy as you thought it
might be. But im sure if i stop working for exams, and start working on AFP, i could get
many new aircraft. But if you are really considering of making a new state-of-the-art
sim, im sure you must have a lot of programming experience. But you must think that
there is alot todo.

Will it be open source?

The Half Life 2 physics engine is very advanced. However, it is advanced in combat physics. AFP and G2 and the like are advanced in fluid dynamics. RealRace and Live for Speed are advanced in driving physics. So, using the Half-Life 2 engine for an RC sim wouldn't work.

Graphics might be better, but the main focus of RC sims has been realistic flight models, not graphics. Besides, have you seen Relfex XTR's graphics?

With AFP, you can download pretty much any aircraft you want, or make it yourself.

ok I understand your ideas but with the half life engine it main focus is real-world physics with gravity etc.. anything that would need to be added is scripted into the mod (the same way that half life engine does it) the Source engine also renders fluids. it does calculations to see how a prop (any world object such as wood) reacts to that fluid.

Imagine this:
Your in a room with a pool in the game there is a bored and a metal pole. you push them into the water and the engine decides whether the object floats or sinks based on the preset density of the material.

it is extremely advanced

on another note source also can render HUGE environments and since just a flying field would have very few world objects you would be able to render extremely high poly planes imagine having the glow plug modeled on your plane!

also with a few scripted console commands you would be able to modify how much torque, thrust, volume of air that your plane puts out.
effectively removing the need to script multiple engines

one more thing in reply to the comment on how hard it is to create planes, the development team can model, skin, animate, and write config files for the plane then if you want to say increase the amount of throws on the control surfaces you simple open the config and modify the value. As far as skinning/retexturing we will include skins that are easy to recolor/modify to look just like your plane. something that isn't as easily done with commercial simulators

and of course the whole mod will be as open source as possible allowing the community to create completely new plane or edit existing ones. Maps would be a snap with hammer allowing you to create your own flying field that you fly at every day

Do you realize the scope of the project you are talking about? A simulator more advanced then AFP and XTR, that would kick their *** at a fraction of the cost? You are talking thousands of man hours in development.

Everything you have talked for your project, AFP and XTR both have and more. Have you ever used either sim?

Real world physics are not just bundled up in a package and brought over to the PC world. It's much more complex then that. Not even Microsoft Flight simulator is even close to real world physics and has been on the shelves for 20 years with a new and improved version every 2 years with millions of r&d dollars pumped in every year.

If you do shoot for this project, good luck. However recruting from this forum, I don't believe is the right place. You would need some of the top gaming minds out there to beat what is currently out there right now with AFP, XTR and even G2.

Dave, don't give up your project but you will need to do a feasibility study and some preliminary research. A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step........

Dave, if you want a team, i wont mind being a webmaster.
just let me know

well I was just looking for interest the main thing I'm really good at coming up with ideas and not so good at materializing them... I can do a little modeling and some skinning and very light scripting but thats about all. I also know some very good people that are stronger in these suits that are interested in helping. mainly what I need here is ideas stuff that "has" to be in it (airplanes engine presets gui material) so the first version of this will be a loong ways away but if we started on some stuff (Ideas planes that need to be in it models skins and sounds) and when hl2 is released and we get the sdk we can then start the actual scripting.

my idea for a vgui would be to right click and get a transparent menu from which you choose your engine, model, flying site etc.
another great thing is that we can have servers that up to 64 people can join and either fly or observe the and control stick movements. (this would be great if your looking for new moves/want to see how one is done quickly and easily) So I need to know what planes "have" to be in it and what engines need to come default too.

as I sit here I get more and more ideas. lol another that came to mind is the ability to create skins that match your plane to sticker. literally. we can include images with transparent backgrounds to be pasted onto skins. so you can have the same sticker on your simulator plane as you do in real life.

note only the default planes will be able to be flown online as of now simply because I don't think that the source engine would be able to do that. but the good news is that the default planes should be able to be flown online with different motors.

but oh well I have not a clue what the source scripting language looks like nor do I know if it will be able to render thrust/air moving over the surface... it should and if it doesn't you should be able to script your own physics calculations

I agree that the halflife 2 engine could probably power a beautiful RC sim. But getting the physics down would be super hard. I wish Ikarus or Knife Edge would get a real graphics engine and build the definitive awesome sim. Not sure why they poke along with the engines they have.

ok well I'm gonna start some planes in gmax/milkshape to see how hard this is going to be... so which one should I do first? I'm thinking about my trainer but I don't have any good planes that show three views so if you have one that you would like to see in flight simulator 2004 post here. I'm going to do a few there before I port over to milkshape and start there. unless gmax has the stuff I need for mdl formats in hl2. oh well. please holler as to what plane you want to see first so I can get started tonight after work

Beware, this is a pipe dream (for now)

A HUGE expansion on the typical RC simulator available nowadays, but would be cool....

How about a hobby store on the sim to buy and sell parts and planes and stuff? Crashes cost you money. If you crash you have an option to go out in the field and look for your plane, salvage what you can, so on.

Combine it all with online game play you've got something going.... You can win money by contests and designing planes, etc.

Or if you just want a conventional sim like it is now, you can play it like that as well.

I like that idea... A lot! but right now I want to start on models and get the ideas roughed out. Anyone that has free web hosting or would like to help manage a website can pm me. And let me know what plane I should do first!

There is a very simple explanation for this and has been going on since the days of pong. The issue is not whether the sim companies won't do it. The issue is the balance between what computers are currently on the market with the respective specifications and also which video cards are out there with the respective price range and capabilities. These developers have to produce simulators not only for the top gaming computers, but also for the Celerons with Intel Chipset video cards.

I've been in gaming for many years. I've been in RC for only 2 years. My conclusion is that the mass of RC people are not gaming people. I know this because after a few hundred AFP tech support calls, I bet I taught over half of them that the right mouse button actually does do something.

Right now the top sims are designed and tested for a medium speed computers with a better then medium graphic cards. However I can assure you that they could easily improve on both the physics and graphics issues easily.

Now if you take the most powerful graphic engine and add the most powerful physics engine you wind up only being able to sell these to people with the most powerful computers out there. Since I know AFP the best I can tell you that AFP was released well before it's time. It had a super physics engine and great graphics engine. But believe it or not it's been on the market for 2 years and has only recently started to take off in sales ... the reason ... more newer mid level computers can now handle the engines.

Now this is also the reason that AFP is not online capable as well. The physics engine is too complex to run over IP. It goes much further then X, Y and Z position like most of the games out there. These planes have moving parts and make much more complex moves in any given moment then does games like HL.

Bottom line guys, these developers have to be able to sell these sims. They can't come out with the better sim until the computer users have the state of the art computers. The perfect sim is on it's way....however if you want to speed this up tell your neighbor to buy a better computer.

D

If you think Half Life's physics are advanced, you haven't seen X-Plane.

It is the _only_ commercial flight simulator that has been used in aeronautic design. It is the _only_ commercial flight simulator that is FAA approved for commercial license training.

The key to its success is that it actually takes the shape of the aircraft into account to determine the flight capabilities of the plane.


http://www.x-plane.com/

The only issue is that they don't have any R/C fields and very few R/C airplanes, but they do have an airport editor and plane editor, so put _your_ field and airplanes in and sooner or later we will have all of the fields and airplanes available.

If development simply follows the average joe's computer's abilities why not just give more options to "dumb it down" a bit for the average computer but design the program to the highest standard possible?

I hate it when I know the program I'm running is so much more capable than I'm able to run it. However, if I spend the $$$ for a top of the line computer I would REALLY hate it knowing that everything I'm running on it was designed for the average joe's computer.

Rc Mod
Features:
Airplane buying system based on teams bank account.
Freefly maps (all planes available)
Money awarded for maneuvers
pylon and pattern maps
Crashes cost money to rebuild (lag time before you respawn)
Buy planes and motors separate
Easy reskin system to customize your plane to the sticker.
Mouse as control to appeal towards the general public
Pattern maps will have transparent boxes to do a maneuver through
Color indicates maneuver (red=roll blue= 4pt roll)
Combat maps, You must cut off the opposing planes ribbon cause the downed plane to spout smoke and a forced deadstick
Hovering rewarded by keeping a plane in a hover box for a certain amount of time. the closer to the ground the more money thats earned (box shrinks with time to make it more challenging
Realistic physics and graphics that will run on a middle machine (I have a 1.14 ghz 256mb of ram and a Radeon 9600xt and counterstrike source at 30fps)
Planes that I'm going to start modelling/in the first release:
Hobbico Superstar Select MkII
Lazer 3D
Cap 232
Extra 300s
UCANDO3D
P-51
Spitfire
Pitts
Ultamate
Sukhoi-31
Space Walker

All come with ability to be bought in 3-4 different scales except for Space walker and Superstar MKII
Must buy corresponding sized motor
Start in hobby shop to buy planes?

Yeah!.... And while you're at the "virtual field" you can have several AI "Old Farts" standing around giving advice (unsolicited, of course) and hollering at you to keep it below 400' and no inverteds down the runway. 'Course you would need a pre-flight argument session with your AI "Wife" about spending so much money and time at the field etc.... Realism.... Hooboy! All kidding aside, I say go for it! I'm sure people told Bill Gates he was nuts too.

I think this is going somewhere. Even if the physics were poor in the first versions it would have a great entertainment value. Physics and all those details can come later.

I'd love to help with the programing, but I don't have any programming skills.

It all sounds very possible. Keep at it!

ok anyone wanna donate webspace and internet related stuff? I'm learning 3ds max and I can talk to some guys about scripting. right now it would be models and sounds....

as i was saying i can do all that, i have my own server.
let me know what you want

To see my work [link=http://volkan-dil.co.uk]Click Here[/link]

make it looke purdy and I'll be happy just something I can update with new/renders

ok PHP it is then!!!, have you got AIM or MSN so we can talk about this more?

[email protected]

aim: gl1mm3r m4n

[email protected]

do you have email hosting too? doesn't matter if you don't

Dave,

I've worked on HL/QuakeIII mod projects before (3D Modelling) - although I wouldn't know the first thing about the HL2 engine.... :|

So..... a quick message to all the haters out there....

HL and HL2 have one MAJOR thing going for them.... Hundreds of thousands of users that love the game and have developed 'something' for it using the in-built engine.

That gives HL2 an overwhelming developer-base along the lines of Linux and other open-source projects, and yes, even MORE developers than Microsoft.

I say KEEP GOING WITH IT!!!

There are thousands of physics freaks out there who would love to help you incorporate real-world physics with what the HL2 engine will give you to work with.

I'd say a great place to continue research for your project is to cross-post development related issues in specific HL2 developer forums, they ARE out there, full of lunatics just waiting to sink their teeth into a new project.

Even if you can't get the physics perfect, you'll end up with a great arcade game - and maybe a contract with Vivendi Universal

Nathan.