Re: [Flightgear-devel] Volcano - scenery model or AI scenario?

[<wki...@gm...>]

On 09/14/2017 12:56 PM, Thorsten Renk wrote:
> 
>> i would say scene-model but have to ask why is it time-dependent?
> 
> and
> 
>> I think it should be a scenery model, distributed in the normal
>> manner.  Volcanos
>> don't change their lat/lon, and we can add any Nasal/animations
>> required (I think).
> 
> Just to to make sure we're on the same page - I'm not talking about the volcano 
> itself - that is part of the terrain mesh. I'm talking about activity (lava 
> eruption, smoke, lava flow, ash clouds, ...)


right, i understand it is the lava, fire bursts, and smoke that you're looking 
to enable/disable and animate...


> These phenomena can change their lat/lon (even in relatively steady Kilauea, the 
> point where the lava flow is seen on the surface changes somewhat) and they have 
> a strong time-dependence - sometimes there's just a hot crust of glowing rock, 
> sometimes a boiling cauldron of lava throwing hot magma into the air.


seems easy enough... a model stuck on the side of the mesh or inside the crater 
area...


> That's even more pronounced for other volcanoes. Think Eyjafjallajökull (yes, I 
> had to google it to get the correct writing) - it had some eruptions in the 
> 1820s and then started again in 2010. Most of the time it's off - but when it's 
> on, you can't help noticing - it's massive.
> 
> If volcanic activity is a scene model, then the question becomes - what turns 
> this on or off?
> 
> We most definitely don't want Eyjafjallajökull 'always on', because it seriously 
> affects flyability of the area. But if we have it always off, there's no point 
> in doing it in the first place. So it needs to be controllable.
> 
> In the AI-model idea, it's straightforward after the last discussion on carriers 
> - you have to load the AI scenario, and when you get close enough, the new 
> 'nearby AI' GUI item is going to offer you the activity control dialogs of the 
> volcanoes, i.e. the user can set what he wants to experience. On the other hand, 
> we don't have a ready mechanism of controlling scenery objects.


XML files don't offer this?


> Iceland alone has 30 active volcanos, so any fixed GUI option listing them all 
> is definitely out.
> 
> If volcanoes in Iceland are to be scenery models, I need some idea how to turn 
> them on individually.


LOD? or when they appear on the horizon?

but i see some models that have XML files with them... a lot of them that i look 
at seem to have ToD related code in them to adjust the object's appearance for 
certain times of the day... some objects have LOD based code in their XML files 
so they only appear when you are within a specific range of them... we (TINW) 
discussed this when LEBL was the feature airport and some of the newer terminal 
buildings didn't appear until long after others... moving back and forth over 
the trigger distance point easily saw them appear and disappear... if these 
volcanoes are scenery models, couldn't they have their own XML files for these 
triggers you are looking for?


>> wouldn't that go with the others where we can regulatethe density of scenery 
>> objects
> 
> Sorry, you lost me here - we can regulate the density of random objects, not of 
> any static or shared objects, so I don't see the connection.


i was looking more at a way to control how much we see... on a low end system, 
they might set this off in the slider... a midrange system might set this to the 
mid point to see more... a high end system would set it all the way to the right 
to have the best graphics...


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