UE5 editor for new Aircraft #618
Replies: 7 comments 17 replies
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@ICanDoThings2 I'm not sure if this is the best place to discuss UE5 specific ideas if it doesn't relate to the basic "glue code" that enables integration of JSBSim and UE5. For example I'm not sure whether a UE5 editor is something that 3rd parties can even develop to plug into the UE development environment or whether it's something that only Epic Games can develop/add, i.e. it's really a request to Epic Games, and if so the request should be posted on Epic Games's support forums. Now in the past there was a program developed, JSBSim Commander - http://jsbsimcommander.sourceforge.net/ that was designed to provide the sort of GUI editing of JSBSim xml files that you envisage although it's platform agnostic. However it looks like it's been inactive since 2011 and won't work with the current JSBSim xml files.
However this repo/forum would be the place to discuss re-activating JSBSim Commander or something similar, i.e. something generally useful for all JSBSim users and not UE specific/only. @bcoconni , @AlbanBERGERET-Epic your thoughts? |
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As @seanmcleod said, improvements to the UE5 editors for JSBSim should better be hosted in some dedicated repositories. As far as I am concerned, I would gladly create another repository under the JSBSim-Team organization umbrella that would host UE5 specific tools for JSBSim. That would be great to have a community dedicated to JSBSim and UE5 interaction in that repository 😄. However the current repository Regarding JSBSimCommander, I have copied the code to the JSBSim-Team/jsbsimcommander repository. Unfortunately, it uses an outdated version |
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Interesting. Perhaps re-activating it would be good. My questions and interests are more relevant to UE5 and JSBSim's integration with it. JSBSim's integration seems uncomplete, is there a roadmap of planned features and so forth? I was looking through the plugin files and a few of the engine types seemed to have To-Do under their code as comments. Also I didn't even see where it was for the rotor-wings/helicopters. |
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JSBSim has a number of C++ getter methods that output values in various units systems so this is something that can easily be worked around.
For a start, if you are contributing code to the plugin itself I'd suggest working with the main JSBSim repository. I don't know how familiar you are with GitHub but the standard workflow is to fork the current repository under your username then hacking in your fork and finally submitting a pull request (see GitHub docs for contributing to projects). |
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OK. No problem. |
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Alright. I am vaguely familiar with Git/GitHub, but wasn't sure if I needed permissions or something to do a fork. Pull requests make sense then since it is approved before being done. |
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You just need a GitHub account to fork any GitHub public project such as JSBSim. Once forked, you own the forked repository and you are allowed to do whatever you deem relevant with it. As you mentioned, pull requests go through a review process before including your contributions to the official repository. |
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Right. But I think again @AlbanBERGERET-Epic might have something more coming or, maybe not but I will wait to hear in case, to avoid double work. |
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I guess it depends on what your expectations are versus what Epic's aim is. I'm not sure that Epic, @AlbanBERGERET-Epic would need to confirm, are aiming to provide a complete turn-key system/sample. The impression I get is that this is simply a basic reference example for people to use as a starting point if they are interested or thinking of implementing a flight simulator using UE. https://dev.epicgames.com/community/learning/tutorials/mmL/a-diy-flight-simulator-tutorial
So a "rough sketch", so my impression is they're not planning a fully detailed, fully comprehensive sample using JSBSim, but I could be wrong. |
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Ah. I wasn't sure, It didn't seem clear. But if that's the case, it's good to know. I hope it won't be too hard to work further off the example to add functionality with UE5. It seems like most of the work has been done though. |
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Hey guys,
I don't have time yet because I'm traveling, but I saw your posts and I'll
provide you with a more elaborate answer (and some extra ideas) later...
Keep posted!
…On Thu., May 5, 2022, 11:36 a.m. ICanDoThings2, ***@***.***> wrote:
Ah. I wasn't sure, It didn't seem clear. But if that's the case, it's good
to know. I hope it won't be too hard to work further off the example to add
functionality with UE5. It seems like most of the work has been done though.
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Wonderful! I hope the wonderful things we've got so far from you and UE5 integration with JSBSim won't be the last! I was actually working on a port of it myself, and it was fantastic to have someone at least done some of it so I am hoping there will be more to work with. |
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This is also a question about the base JSBSim though it is related; can the weight of an aircraft be changed, increased or decreased at runtime? Like I saw there was a PointMass which sounds like it might do something like that. |
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Hi everyone, I'm finally back in the office, so I can give you my opinion on all of your questions above. --- A little bit of context --- We launched Project Antoinette to demonstrate to the Flight Simulation Industry that contrary to former generation Games Engines, UE5 was ready to empower flight simulators (Double Precision, Large open worlds, Volumetric Clouds, Georeferencing, Performance, Realism, etc). Moreover, historically, the simulation industry made the distinction between the Simulation (runs the models) and the Image Generators (Produces pixels). But today, a modern game engine can do both! And even if the default internal physic engine is aimed at entertainment for gaming, the co-simulation concept can be used to host any specific and serious simulation model directly inside the Engine. C++ has always been the language of choice for simulation, so integrating these models or libraries is straightforward. And because we are more doers than speakers, we did a demo for that... But what to do with the outcome? In accordance with our open-source philosophy, we decided to share it with the community. To prove that it was not smoke and mirrors, but also to share knowledge and stimulate this community of fans. Thanks to the JSBSim team for welcoming this work into your repository! Now, what about the future. I totally understand your legitimate question such as "Will Epic Games release a Flight Simulator in 6 months?". What I can say though, is that it's not in our goal to provide turn-key systems. We want to provide tools for creators, to make their life easier in developing games, simulations, or other 3D interactive content. We hope you'll enjoy doing it and even sometimes getting money from it. We don't want to do everything and eat your food! If a common feature is requested by a large community, it will probably end up in the engine platform. But for all specific applications, that is up to you folks to work... (Otherwise we would have to hire a crazy amount of people to fulfill all the needs!) --- UE5 as an editor --- Well, it depends if you are searching for a UI or a workflow... If searching for a UI, I would recommend a basic external editor made in Qt or Winform/WPF with XML Serialization. But we must be pragmatic. Is it worth it? It takes a lot of time to create and maintain such a tool... Compared to the number of aircraft to be authored, it has to be balanced with the time it takes with a simple text editor to directly edit the XML... If you are searching for a workflow, more iterative, the way to proceed in UE would be to work with component properties or better, with assets. You can create your custom assets in UE (like textures, materials, meshes), and have an editor UE associated with it. This blog post is well done to know the basics. One could imagine having a library of assets made in a such way. But that will come with some drawbacks too: A dependency on Unreal, assets are binary, so it would require locking mechanisms for source control. But it would also have some advantages, like having access to UE Editors (basic types, arrays, structs, curves), being able to test on the fly in the app, and the ability to import/export to XML if needed. I agree with @bcoconni that the JSBSim-Team/JSBSim repo is for JSBSim code and its XML Data. UEReferenceApp is a kind of test app to check for regressions in the UE plugin code. We should consider other targets for JSBSim like Python, and Mathlab. (even if I consider a 3D view helps a lot sometimes!). If one would like to do a better flight sim application or additional extended model library (with models, sounds, and systems like we can find in FlightGear), it would be better somewhere else. --- Roadmap --- Ouch, you saw them! Yeah, I know, there are some TODOs in my code, like missing engine types. It really depends on my work targets. If one day I have to demonstrate something to a helicopter company, I would for sure add this to the plugin. And remember the application was simple. I wrote it was a "rough sketch". No cockpit, no internal systems, no VR... All of that is possible with UE, but a solid and coordinated crew would be needed to bring that to life. I'll be always happy to chat about it and help you as much as I can. So don't hesitate to quote me with any questions you could have Alban |
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Alright. I was just checking you weren't working on more. Didn't want to accidently do double work. But, if it's done for now, I guess I will poke around more in it. So to be clear; no updates coming for the UE5 plugin? |
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No, nothing is planned for the immediate future. I have some travels ahead, so I don't plan to come back on it soon. You're good to go. (And I'll get your additions with great pleasure). |
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I will be careful. I am also reconsidering making my own plugin, more tightly coupled to UE5 rather than just a basic import for the most part like it seems you did, no offense. But, I think you still provide insight with the plugin you gave as well. I will look through it more in either case. |
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What do you mean by "more tightly coupled with UE5"? The idea of using it as an editor for model properties? |
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I had some design ideas I wanted. They're just mine, mind you. It would still be a plugin even for what I would do. I was just trying to trim the fat, cut variables that weren't needed and could go off what could be in UE5 and all. I will look through your plugin more though, and if it needs less tweaking to get where I need it to be I will probably go off it instead. I just don't have enough facts yet. I also don't know if JSBSim has functions I need it to either, like disabling engines (I can just cut throttle though and prevent it from being raised), as well as adding/removing/changing weight from things added or removed to the aircraft, for instance. |
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I think it would be great if in editor there was a way to tweak values for export of new aircraft models, rather than just constantly refreshing an .xml or so, and being able to move the points for CG and the rest. Also for where you put fuel tanks and so forth. It would just make it more intuitive in my opinion. Also examples for other aircraft and how to set up and run them would be good I think, like for helicopters and prop planes.
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