sfsim News

[p][/p][p]Hello everyone,[/p][p]I released version 0.6-1 of sfsim. sfsim is a realistic 3D space flight simulator with an advanced single-stage-to-orbit space craft.[/p][p]The graphics implementation is now using deferred rendering to improve performance and facilitate rendering of small thrusters and lights. Using the “\\” key one can now toggle between aerofoil surfaces and RCS thrusters (please always see the keyboard shortcut page for up-to-date keyboard bindings). This is the first release of sfsim with RCS thruster physics. This means that you now can control the orientation of the spacecraft when outside the atmosphere! It should be now possible to get into orbit. Make sure you climb at a sufficient angle so that the atmospheric moments are weaker than the RCS thrusters when you start entering orbit. Note that information about orbital parameters is not implemented yet.[/p][p]I hope you will have as much fun with the RCS thrusters as I did.[/p][p]Let me know any feedback and comments in the sfsim playtest discussion forum.[/p][p]Enjoy![/p]

Hi,

I finally managed to release version 0.5-1 of sfsim.
sfsim is a realistic 3D space flight simulator with an advanced single-stage-to-orbit space craft.

The new version comes with rocket plume graphics.
The plume was implemented using OpenGL shaders and uses volumetric rendering.
I used the Shadertoy website to get ideas from other users and to develop the shader.

The rocket plume shows Mach diamonds when the atmospheric pressure is high enough.
It then expands with decreasing atmospheric pressure.
If you want to, you can try out the Mach diamonds shader in your browser.

The difficult part was figuring out the plume behaviour for different atmospheric pressure values and also the integration with the volumetric cloud shader.
There is still some work left to be done for sfsim, but most difficult problems are solved now I think.

Let me know any feedback and comments in the sfsim playtest discussion forum.

Enjoy!

[p]
[/p][p]Hi,[/p][p]
[/p][p]Version 0.4-1 of sfsim comes with a following camera and improvements to the physics engine.[/p][p]
[/p][p]The camera now follows the vehicle and the orientation is controlled using the speed over ground vector.
The numerical keypad can still be used to control the camera position.
However the keys now control the yaw, pitch, and roll position.[/p][p]
[/p][p]There also has been a significant upgrade to the physics code.
In order to get sufficient accuracy for simulating orbits, a matching scheme using 4th Runge Kutta integration is used.
Like this I am able to use the Jolt Physics engine for accurate simulations of space flight.
See my article on orbits with Jolt physics for technical details.[/p][p]
[/p][p]Let me know any feedback and comments in the sfsim playtest discussion forum.[/p][p]
[/p][p]Enjoy![/p]

[p][/p][p]Hi,[/p][p]I finally got the first version of the joystick configuration dialog working. One can configure axes and buttons in the dialog. There also is a common dead-zone setting for all joystick axes. The configuration can be saved using the save button. The config gets saved in the ~/.config/sfsim directory under GNU/Linux. Under windows the configuration directory is %APPDATA%/sfsim.[/p][p]See keyboard shortcut page for up-to-date keyboard bindings.[/p][p]Edit: Thrust key is not space any more, sorry![/p][p]Enjoy![/p]

[p]Hi everybody!

I have just pushed a playtest build to Steam and the button to join the playtest is visible on the sfsim page now. Before you join, please be aware that sfsim is still very much a work in progress and a lot of things are still missing! Also check the estimated graphics requirements on the sfsim page in case you want to run the game fullscreen. At the moment you can take off and fly around in the atmosphere and the aerodynamics should be fairly realistic.[/p][p][/p][p]See keyboard shortcut page for up-to-date keyboard bindings.[/p][p]
Note that you need to operate the rudder and flight stick in combination to prevent large side slip angles which cause the delta wing to roll.

Let me know if there are any problems.
I tested it on Windows 11 and Debian 12, but I hope it will run on other versions of Windows and GNU/Linux as well.

If you have time, please head over to the sfsim playtest discussion and let me now your thoughts.
Here are a few questions from my side:
[/p]

• [p] what graphics card do you have?
  [/p]
• [p] what is the resolution of your screen?
  [/p]
• [p] what is the framerate of the game in fullscreen mode?
  [/p]
• [p] what do you think about the graphics quality?
  [/p]
• [p] did you enjoy the aerodynamics?
  [/p]
• [p] what do you miss in the space sim genre?
  [/p]
• [p] are the keyboard mappings ok or would you prefer them different?
  [/p]
• [p] do you have any questions not answered in the FAQ?
  [/p]