S.D. Falchetti's Blog, page 5
June 13, 2020
Flying the Virtual Skies in the Rift S
Earlier this year it was my birthday, and I considered a somewhat-pricey present: the Rift S virtual reality headset. My hesitation cycled through three questions: Could my Razer 15 handle it, would I use it for more than just for X-Plane, and, finally, would I really use it for X-Plane? While I waffled, it went out of stock globally, and remained out of stock for a few months.
Two weeks ago, the Rift S came back in stock briefly on the Oculus website. As my finger hovered over the buy button, the questions emerged. Fortunately, the fun side of my brain quickly subdued the thinking side by yelling, “You fool! While you’re waffling, someone else is buying the last headset.” So, I instantly clicked buy. Within two hours, the Rift S was out of stock once again. But I had mine. I almost giggled, as if I’d scoffed up the last Cabbage Patch Kid while a mob swarmed the toy aisle.
I’d experimented with X-Plane quasi-VR before using the iPhone app Ivry and a Google Cardboard headset. That setup gives three degrees of freedom tracking with a 3d image. That image hovers in front of your face, as if it were a miniature 3d tv, and, like 3d movies, you feel as though you are viewing a plane which has objects protruding from and into it. Your brain registers it as a 5” screen which has depth hovering a few inches in front of your face.
When I first put on the Rift S, its external cameras turned on and entered pass-through mode, showing me my desk overlaid with a 3d grid. Using the controller, I touched the floor, then traced a boundary for my play area. For a few seconds, my brain fizzled, wondering what I was seeing, because everything in my house was at 1:1 scale and exactly where it should be. So, you can imagine when the Oculus software overlaid the radial control panel in an arc where my actual keyboard was, it was there in my mind. When the WallE-style tutorial kicked in and enclosed me in a cluttered room with 90s video game consoles, the room replaced my physical room at the same scale. And this is perhaps the biggest difference with VR: scale. Things appear life-sized and encompass you. I had a moment where I turned around and saw the WallE room was indeed sealed up behind me. For my brain, I was now “in” the room. I felt like I’d stepped through the holodeck entrance, watched the entrance close and seamlessly fade into the scenery. I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face.
There are certain transformational technology leaps that you’ll always remember. The Atari logo appearing on your home tv’s screen when you first plugged in the 2600 wood-grained console. Whipping a bowling ball down an alley with a Wii controller and watching it hook and gutterball the same way it does when you throw a real bowling ball. Putting on a VR headset and tricking your brain that you’re inside the scene.
The first game I played with my entire family was Beat Saber. It’s a full-body experience with crouching, dodging, and slashing. I felt like a Jedi. The next game was Lone Echo, where you are weightless in a spaceship, grabbing and pushing off surfaces to navigate. Here the scale hit. The ship’s environments were huge. At one point, I came around a corner to collide with the other character who I didn’t realize was returning to the room. I nearly jumped out of my seat.
X-Plane took a fair amount of technical tweaking to get going. This is always true of X-Plane whether or not you’re using VR. Oculus has a feature called Asynchronous Space Warp which makes the head tracking perfectly smooth even if the scene is being rendered at lower frame rates. Scenes rendered anywhere from the low 20s to upper 40s for fps, but of course you could improve that by turning down details. Here’s the main things I noticed playing X-Plane in VR:
Scale - I cannot overstate what it’s like to see things full-sized surrounding you. You develop a certain mental model based on playing the game in 2D, and VR corrects it. I’d imagined cockpits as the size of my car’s dashboard, but nearly every one was smaller and more cramped. Looking outside the plane, wings were huge. I hadn’t realized just how big the prop is on an SR22, and the engines on my Piper Cheyenne were frighteningly large. When I flew over scenery, bridges were humongous.
Feeling movement - the first time I banked my plane into a standard left turn and looked over my left shoulder at the scenery, my stomach dropped out. I felt gravity shift and myself leaning. For fun, I followed that up with some stalls and spins. The sensations were crazy. Even when flying in a straight line I could feel the wind and tell you that it was pushing on the nose of the plane along a quartering angle. When you feel like you’re sitting in the place, you’re very in tune with how the plane is moving.
Resolution - the resolution is adequate for reading text. You can improve it, at the expense of fps, with supersampling. In 2d, I normally play on a 2k monitor. When you enlarge a 1080p image to the equivalent of a 55” monitor mounted a foot from your face, it’s going to look blocky. So, this is a downside compared to 2d.
Screen door effect - pixels do not seamlessly flow into other pixels on screens. There’s a little border around each. When magnified, the border shows up as a faint screen door effect. On the Rift S, it is present, but very mild. My brain tuned it out quickly.
Night scenes - I’m a bit spoiled by my iPhone X with an OLED screen, I remember how with my previous IPS screen iPhone, I could tell when it had turned on after a reboot when the black display suddenly turning dark gray. The Rift S is similar. Night scenes are okay, but it’s as if the contrast has been turned way down, with anything dark glowing as murky gray. There may be some more fiddling I can do to adjust this. I recall my 2k monitor also washed out night scenes until I got it set up correctly.
Hand controllers - the Rift S controllers are fantastic. Tracking is perfect, they have sensors to detect what your fingers are doing, and haptic feedback. X-Plane interactions are a bit wonky and have a learning curve. You expect you can press buttons with your extended finger or the controller tip, but both pass through objects. Instead, you squeeze the controller trigger and it fires a laser pointer. Depending on the target, you then may need to do a hand motion to move it. Dials, such as the heading bug, are intuitive and require you to rotate your wrist. Others pop up a gradient slider, which, depending on how the aircraft manufacturer coded it, is not always in the same orientation as the control (you may lift your hand up to slide a control forward). It’s considerably easier if you can reach the control and touch it with the controller. Using the laser pointer from a distance can be difficult, particularly with flip switches such as the battery or alternator. One of the odd quirks of 1:1 scale is that my play area is not the size of a Piper Arrow, so there are things I just can’t reach. Just about anything underneath the yoke is physically inside my real-life desk. For those, I’ve set up keyboard shortcuts. As an aside, I think the Rift S has the best controllers. The way they click when turning virtual knobs is very compelling, and grabbing a virtual pistol feels completely natural.
Motion sickness - I’ve had no motion sickness other than the intentional type (where I did several stalls and spins in a row and felt like I’d actually done them).
Field of view - Somewhat of a letdown. The FOV is 115 degrees, which is fairly standard for VR headsets. Much like looking through binoculars, your vision consists of two overlapping circles, surrounded by black. You do not see the edges of the rendered image; instead, you see the edges of the lens. Mentally you tune it out, but it’s a bit like viewing the world wearing a scuba mask. In games where you actually wear a mask or helmet, it blends well.
Realism - It’s hard to explain how much the airplanes feel like your own when they are 1:1 scale 3D objects. I had a moment sitting on my couch in the Piper Cheyenne where I looked over at the co-pilot seat, put my hand down, and touched the couch surface (which was at the same height as the Cheyenne seat). I put my controller on it and it sat there. Then I turned around and looked behind me. In real life, there is a wall. In VR, the passenger cabin extends back fifteen feet. My brain shorted out for a second. If my play area permitted, I could have stood up and walked around back there, greeting my virtual passengers.
Sound - comes 360 degrees from the VR headset’s headband. It’s pretty good - better than my laptop speakers - and gets loud enough that you’ll want to turn it down. Not nearly as rich as your own headphones, which you also have the option of using. There is also a decent built-in microphone. The only downside is that everyone in the room hears the speakers unless you use your own headphones.
Plugins - I only added three plugins to help with VR:
OVR Settings - lets you adjust supersampling and space warp on the fly, seeing the impact on an FPS counter
Move VR - this works both in VR and normal X-Plane, allowing you to drag external windows into X-Plane. You can view Skyvector, for example, in X-Plane. YouTube streamers often display their chats this way.
VR Tools - lets you easily edit your starting location in the cockpit and add new teleport spots, such as the co-pilot’s or passenger’s seats.
Not a plugin, but I downloaded Oculus Mirror, which creates a normal landscape image based on what your headset sees. Useful for recording/streaming so you don’t end up with the portrait-mode SteamVR image.
So, the verdict. Sometimes I’ll fly in VR, and sometimes in 2D. It depends on the type of flight. Hand-flying a GA aircraft through touch-and-goes is exponentially more awesome in VR. A long flight on autopilot where you want to take in all of the high-res scenery is better in 2D. As for other games besides X-Plane: they’re a blast! In a way, I sometimes prefer launching a game I purchased from the Oculus store, like Beat Saber, because it just works (compared to X-Plane, which requires tinkering). Games like Beat Saber and Lone Echo really only can be played in VR. Even Google Earth VR is a monumentally different experience in VR compared to what someone sees mirrored on the 2D screen (and it is an experience that will leave you grinning, as if you’re a guy in a Godzilla suit plodding through a scale model of a city).
I’m delighted with my purchase, and don’t know why I waffled for so long.
May 24, 2020
X-Plane KSNA John Wayne to L35 Big Bear City
Waiting for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020? You’d be surprised how good the visuals for X-Plane can look with just a few tweaks. Check out my latest flight in the SR22 from KSNA John Wayne to L35 Big Bear City.
May 14, 2020
X-Plane 07FA Ocean Reef to KEYW Key West
I get away from it all with a vacation flight from Key Largo to Key West.
May 10, 2020
X-Plane Airports
Well, I blame James Hayden, the star of my Hayden’s World book series. In the stories, he’s an awesome pilot, and it’s hard to write about an awesome pilot without learning a thing or two about airplanes. What started out as curiosity evolved into hundreds of virtual flight hours in X-Plane. One of the brilliant things about X-Plane is that it is crowd-sourced. Its creators give you a free world editor called, not surprisingly, WorldEditor (or WED for short), and you can create your local airport or anyplace else in the world.
What started as a place to link flight videos for this blog grew into my YouTube channel. If you’ve been following it, you’ve seen me showcase some custom airport designs. I thought I’d create this page so that you could have them for yourself. These airports are designed to blend in with the Orbx TrueEarth series, and use libraries from that series to be seamless.
While you’re here, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel. If you enjoy sci-fi stories about pilots, why not grab the first story in the series, 43 Seconds, for free? It’s a fun short story that takes about twenty minutes to read, and is about a pilot willing to risk everything for a shot at the stars.
NOTE: I add zoom level 19 orthophotos as a base for my personal airports because Orbx orthophotos are ZL16 or ZL17 (depending on whether you purchase the SD or HD version of Orbx TrueEarth scenery). I do not have licensing to distribute orthophotos, however, so they are not included in the airport files. The screenshots show the airports with the orthophotos. With a little bit of elbow grease, WorldEditor, and Ortho4XP, you can add your own.
AIRPORTSOREGON4S9 MULINO STATELocated south of Portland, Oregon, this untowered field is surrounded by lush green countryside.
Required Libraries:
3D People
CDB Library
FlyAgi Vegetation
Handy Objects
Mister X
NAPS
Open Scenery
RA Library
Orbx TrueEarth Oregon (Orbx_OrbixlibsXP)
download
S48 COUNTRY SQUIRE
Located southeast of Portland, Oregon, this untowered field is surrounded by lush green countryside and can be a challenge to find.
Required Libraries:
Handy Objects
Mister X
Open Scenery
Orbx TrueEarth Oregon (Orbx_OrbixlibsXP)
DOWNLOAD
FLORIDA07FA Ocean reef beach club
This private airfield is located south of Miami in Key Largo. A ninety-five mile flight west takes you to Key West.
Required Libraries:
CDB Library
Handy Objects
Mister X
Open Scenery
RA Library
RD Library
Orbx TrueEarth Florida (Orbx_OrbixlibsXP)
DOWNLOAD
March 31, 2020
X-Plane KBKV Brooksville to KTLH Tallahassee
Continuing on my Florida tour, I needed to cover a greater distance in a reasonable time, and this required more speed than my usual single piston engine planes could muster. This job required a turboprop. I took Just Flights PA31T Piper Cheyenne II for a spin. Starting it up properly, and hearing the turbines come up to speed was half the fun.
March 28, 2020
Bernard's Promise: Deleted Scenes
I found myself thinking about Beckman (one of my favorite characters to write) and a short edited-out scene in Bernard’s Promise where the crew was interviewed. In it, Beckman responded to the question “What do you do here on the ship?” with the answer “My job.” There are many scenes which ended up on the cutting room floor, and I thought it’d be fun to share a few.
ORIGINAL BEGINNING OF CHAPTER 6: 18 DAYS
Hitoshi pauses at the entrance to the Sandpiper, looking up at the polarized blue and painted-on clouds of the brisk October sky. He closes his eyes, inhales the cool air and feels the warmth of the sun on his face. Someone’s hand sets softly upon his left shoulder and he turns. Ava waits with a gentle smile. Like him, she wears a Hayden-Pratt flight suit with mission patches on the sleeve. The newest sits in the top location, illustrated with two yellow stars and a single red dot crossed by four curved lines - Riggs Mission #59, Centauri. Ava inhales deeply and closes her eyes a moment before looking back at Hitoshi.
“Feels a little anti-climatic,” Hitoshi says. “I was at least hoping to get to use my slow-motion heroic walk and wave.”
Ava squints. “Yeah, I know. Feels like there should be cheering crowds or something.”
“Better that we launched from here. I’d be all nerves if it was someplace public.”
Isaac passes by them. “Tower’s live-streaming guys, if you want to wave or something.” He tilts his watch. On the screen, a miniature version of the Sandpiper plays.
“Really?” Hitoshi says. “Well in that case…” He reaches into his flight suit pocket and produces a pair of sunglasses, striding to the Sandpiper with a confident spring in his step. When he reaches the entryway he pauses with one hand on the doorframe. Producing his best smile, he looks over his shoulder and waves slowly at the tower.
Ava arrives behind him. “Wow. You looked very James-ish right there.”
Hitoshi speaks without breaking his smile. “I’ve been practicing.” He gives a thumbs up to the camera and tilts his head.
When he steps inside the Sandpiper, everyone has settled into his seat. Beckman and Willow are closest to the cockpit, followed by Julian, Isaac and Ava. The royal blue of Willow’s flight suit catches his eye. Before, when they assembled at the airport, he noticed the U.S. flag and circular Department of State eagle logo over her left chest pocket. It made sense, he thought. She’s not a Hayden-Pratt employee. She’s here to represent.
ORIGINAL END OF DAY 1 IN 18 DAYS
In James’s slate, Isaac smiles, orbital schematics sitting behind him. “Hi everyone,” he says, fidgeting. “Isaac Cartwright. Astrophysicist and navigator, specializing in planetary science. My job is to figure out how the worlds work which we find. It’s pretty cool. I like it a lot.” He waves. “Hi mom.”
Next is Ava. She smiles and is at ease before the camera. “I’m doctor Ava Kelly, mission xenobiologist. If we find life—and I think there’s a good chance we will—I’ll figure out what it is and how we can talk with it.”
When Julian is on camera, he looks and smiles like a model. He seems aware of his best camera angle and positions himself appropriately. When he speaks, it’s with a native French accent. “Julian Laurent, ship’s physician. My job is to keep everyone healthy during our journey. I’m learning more about xenobiology from Doctor Kelly, and may help her determine how any life we finds works.” He holds his hand over his heart. “I miss you, Celeste.”
Beckman simply says, “Beckman,” and glowers at the camera.
“Maybe tell them a little bit about what you do,” James says off camera.
“I do my job,” Beckman says.
“How about your title?”
Beckmam sighs. “Guthrie Beckman, operational security and drone specialist. If we launch it, I’ll track it. We get in trouble, I’ll take care of it.” He looks above the camera. “We good?”
“Thanks, Beckman,” James says.
When Willow is on camera, she’s poised and professional. “Hello everyone. I’m Willow Parker, Special Envoy and Coordinator for Space Affairs, U.S Department of State. Doctor Kelly spoke about the potential for finding intelligent life. If we find it, I’ll help determine what to say. There’s plenty to do on a starship and we all have more than one job, so I’ll also be operating communications for the trip.”
Hitoshi is excited for his turn, his arm slung casually over his workstation’s chair. He gives a strangely polished grin. When he speaks, James notices that he’s lowered the pitch of his voice a notch. “Hi. Hitoshi Matsushita. Chief Engineer for the Riggs program.” He points a finger towards the ceiling. “I know Promise like the back of my hand. Going to keep everything ship-shape for our trek into the wild frontier. If anything breaks, you can count on me to make it better.”
Ananke’s screen is its usual serene blue. “I am Ananke. I co-invented the Riggs drive with Bernard Riggs. I’m honored to be a part of the maiden voyage for the ship which bears his name. I’ll be the co-pilot for this journey, operating the ship when the crew is asleep and backing up James when the Riggs drive is engaged. As James would say, keep dreaming big, everyone.”
Lastly, James turns the camera around to himself. “James Hayden here. You guys know me. I’ll be the pilot, but I’m just one part of the team that makes it all work. Today’s not only my dream, it’s our dream. There’s three hundred billion stars waiting for us, and today we’re going to start on number one.”
FROM CHAPTER 5: 91 MINUTES
The Pintail slices through the crisp March sky, shedding contrails into wispy cirrus clouds. The blue band of Earth’s atmosphere fades into inky black marred by the Sun’s glare. James is in the pilot’s seat with Willow beside him.
Comms chimes. “Pintail Nine Three Foxtrot, cleared LEO Sierra Bravo transit. Climb and maintain three four zero.”
The navcon flags a dozen transorbital commercial flight trajectories as they enter the busiest part of low Earth orbit. As they continue to climb, the shell of traffic thins. When they near an altitude of three-hundred-and-forty kilometers, an alert chimes. Notice to airmen: Restricted Space R34 - Special Military Use. Contact Perseus on channel M34 for clearance requests. On his map, Bernard’s Promise floats in the center of the restricted space ellipsoid. The heavy assault cruiser U.N. Perseus flies five kilometers off Promise’s starboard bough.
James dials channel M34 on com2. “Perseus approach, Pintail Nine Three Foxtrot, level three four zero, fifty kilometers west, request clearance to transit Romeo 34 for Bernard’s Promise flyby. Be advised that Special Envoy Parker is on board.”
“Pintail Nine Three Foxtrot,” Perseus approach says, “cleared Romeo 34 for Bernard’s Promise flyby. Acknowledged U.S. State Department personnel present.”
“Have to give you a hand,” James says to Willow. “Your name does unlock a lot of doors.”
Up ahead, one of the stars blinks red and white. As it grows larger, the silhouette of a bulbous shape emerges backlit by the brilliant blues of Earth. The U.N. Perseus is a dark monster coasting one click to their port.
“Still not sure if that warship’s here to keep Promise safe or to light it up if I try anything funny,” James says.
“There’s always some level of protest with controversial topics,” Willow says. “Those with the strongest feelings can present security risks.” She pauses. “And there are some key players who need assurances in exchange for building here.”
“Right. So, both.”
“Give a little, take a little, and everyone wins.”
Beyond the warship, the brightly-lit construction ring is like a stadium in space. Bernard’s Promise is a semi-ellipse bathed in Earthshine, the aft tapering to a trapezoid. Four angled aerodynamic nacelles extend from the port and starboard sides, the outer surfaces painted with matte black rectangles. Ablative armor, just like the Perseus. Sections of each nacelle are incomplete, awaiting the future installation of the RF engines. Most of the aft section is an incomplete puzzle of structural beams and hull plates. On the front, a few hull plates have been removed in the area surrounding the two forward laser emitters.
“She’s a beauty,” Willow says. “Something the world’s never seen.”
James taps the controls and the Pintail glides five-hundred meters in front of the starship. “I’ve got a hell of a team. You know, what I love about Promise is that she was designed by her crew. Everyone got a shot at putting his unique vision into it. It’s everyone’s dream ship.”
“But there are still hearts to win. Have you been following the polls?”
The construction ring’s lights fall behind them over James’s left shoulder. He says, “I try not to get too hung up in social media. Lots of opinions flying around. Better than no one discussing it, though.”
“True, but currently they’re split evenly for and against the trip.”
He gives her a sideways grin. “I do my best work in the margins.”
“You should consider doing another promo, like the Jupiter one last year with the keep dreaming big sign. That was brilliant.”
“Right, sure.”
“I have a meeting with my U.N. counterpart on Monday and we’ll be discussing first contact policies. We may need to meet with Dr. Kelly and Cartwright, depending on how the discussion goes.”
“I’m sure Ava and Isaac would be happy to talk it.”
“There’s still a little swirl around that topic.”
James glances at her. “How’s that?”
“After the Silver Stars encounter, everyone’s realized that you could end up being Earth’s ambassadors.”
“Well, we’ll make sure we comb our hair and brush our teeth.”
Willow smiles. “Your first contact protocols are scientifically sound, but they’re about how to say something, not what to say.”
“I trust Ava,” James says.
“Something to be aware of. We’ve gotten this far. The next hurdle will be clearances.”
Comms chimes. “Pintail Nine Three Foxtrot, contact LEO Sierra Bravo Center. Monitor this frequency until clear of Romeo 34.”
James keys the mic. “Over to center, monitor until clear, Nine Three Foxtrot.” He looks over to Willow. “That’s our cue to get out of Dodge.”
“Well, this was a fun way to spend a Monday. The Space Command screens don’t do it justice once you’ve seen it with your own eyes.”
“Bottle that feeling and sell it to the U.N.,” James says.
FROM CHAPTER 3: WAKING DREAMS
The Skyline LEO laboratory is a white metallic starfish orbiting the Earth at 7.8 kilometers per second. Bernard and Ananke have rented space in the appropriately-named Hawking suite. As the lab slips into the blinding white sunlight, they watch from their remote connection in Pasadena. One gram of carbon atoms floats weightlessly in the g-wave array.
Bernard is in his ambulatory suit. Despite it’s name, it’s not terribly bulky, about the size and weight of a heavy jumpsuit, walking for him when he needs it and supporting his arms and hands. Currently he has it configured as a chair.
Ananke speaks as she reads the display. “Wave initiation in three, two, one, initiate.”
The carbon sphere pops like a firework. When replayed in ultra-slow-motion, the sphere swirls and distorts, shrinks to nothing, and reappears in a flash, offset from its original position.
“Distance traveled,” Ananke says. “One-point-two-one meters. Relative velocity, fifty-one percent light-speed.”
Bernard laughs. “And we are officially reproducible,” he says, his words slurred. “Do you know what this means?”
Ananke’s screen ripples orange and red. “We can publish.”
“That’s right,” he says. “The first Ananke-Riggs paper. I like the sound of it.”
* * * *
Ananke glows from a slate mounted on a desk in Bernard’s home. Pasadena is a sea of colorful lights twinkling through the living room’s windows. In the room’s corner rests a black grand piano, its lid closed and used as a photo shelf. Bernard is eighteen in the pictures, wearing a tuxedo, standing on stage in front of the same piano. His smile is infectious. Other family photos cover the desk, including one of Bernard and his father. In all this time his father’s never visited, and she hasn’t heard Bernard speak about him. On the piano easel rests a printed sheet music book. Apogee in G, Bernard Riggs. Bernard’s cleverness is ubiquitous.
Scattered around the room are automated implements to help him with daily life. The house monitors Bernard and will get help if needed, but Ananke prefers to be here. He’s welcomed her to stay over whenever she wants, and she spends her nights, like now, ensuring he’s okay. It’s 2076 and he’s beat the five-year survival rate.
Besides, tomorrow’s an important day for them both.
Hope you enjoyed the peak behind the scenes. As a writer, it’s always hard choosing what to cut. It reminds me of my Magic: The Gathering card game days, where you had to make a 60-card deck choosing from thousands of cards. Every card felt invaluable, but in the end, you did it.
Thanks as always for following my stories, and stay tuned for further space adventures.
March 26, 2020
February 20, 2020
X-Plane: KEYW Key West to KMTH Marathon
Enjoy a slice of key lime pie as you fly along over Orbx True Earth Florida from Key West to Marathon in the Piper Tomahawk.
January 28, 2020
X-Plane: 5S6 Cape Blanco State to KCEC Crescent City
I took the Piper Arrow on a coastal flight from Oregon to California, flying from 5S6 Cape Blanco State to KCEC Crescent City. Check out the flight on my YouTube Channel.
