[Flightgear-devel] announcing star trek runabout shuttle and questions

[Stewart A. <san...@sy...>]

Hi everybody,

I have been working on some Star Trek shuttlecraft and the runabout to fly 
instead of the ufo saucer, for 2 years (off and on).

While I know most of you are dedicated to wing-based aircraft, I am sure there 
are others who like to fly around just for the scenery.

I have finally reached a point where I can call it done, with only some 
flight-handling details remaining.
  So I have a few questions:

Is there a programmer's guide to nasal and xml?

How can I modify a factor-property to get only the integer?
example in Models/danube.xml :
  <animation>
     <type>material</type>
     <object-name>Mesh.ImpulseGlow</object-name>
     <emission>
       <factor-prop>/velocities/airspeed-kt</factor-prop>
       <red>0.0002</red>
     </emission>
  </animation>

doesn't work when airspeed is negative.

2nd:
Does the ufo flight model have any variables I can set, to Detect the ground 
and stay above it?

3rd:
Does the ufo flight model support vertical take offs and landings?
(I see reactor jets in the harrier model, but ...)

4th:
material emissions do not cast light on nearby surfaces. Are there other light 
sources available?

5th, an observation:
It seems there is a ceiling at 262410 ft. above which, there is no black space.
No, I don't expect to fly to the moon, but it would be cool to see the earth 
from space. ;)

Screenshots and downloadable files are at:
   http://www.geocities.com/sandreas41/flightgear_aircraft.html

My thanks to Melchior for the bo105 files to learn animation from, and for the 
blender-textured-lights tutorial.

Stewart