1. Changes that concern third parties

Rolling back the time machine, Ben once discussed plugins using private art controls here and here. And that time has come once again because we have changed ALOT.

• Developers who make use of private art controls in their work (that includes Aircraft, Plugins and Scenery alike) will need to review/remove them from their product.
  
  • Manipulating cube map positions (which if you used to attempt to solve dark cockpits… may now inversely create dark cockpits). Please return them to their default position. Cockpit lighting now honours the aircraft geometry, eliminating errors such as “glowing orange cockpit at sunset”
    
  • Atmospheric/Cloud datarefs will behave significantly differently. Cloud scattering and shading is improved, amongst changes in cloud layer presets.
    
• Dark cockpits should now be resolved. Aircraft texture artists will need to review albedos, including attempts to brighten cockpits to compensate for previous versions of X-Plane.
  
• Terrain roughness (and subsequent brightness) has been improved. However older generated content may appear differently. These will need to be updated with proper roughness and normal direction
  
• We have a new AGX tonemapper. This has significantly improved the range of colors we can render, and subsequent “details,” bringing a gorgeous new saturation to the sim.
  
  However, this will mean that colors* will shift in appearance. So please review your work. This concerns all parties (Artists, livery painters, scenery designers, system developers etc)
  

*As a Brit, it annoys me deeply having to constantly change “colours” to “colors.” So I hope you all appreciate this noble sacrifice

^ This is X-Plane’s lighting in 12.1.4. Notice how almost uniform the shading appears!

^ And this is 12.2.0. Not only are the color shades “deeper”, but colors also desaturate under direct illumination (like real life.)

2. Things we’re working on

• Beer Shadow Maps – They are currently too sharp, and we are attempting to soften them up.
• Updated cloud darkness – There are still a few cases where clouds are rendering a bit too dark, and in some cases still causing a minor amount of dark cockpits.
• X-Plane2Blender Update

The above will be addressed in 12.2.0

In addition, we are also aware of the following

• SSR
• Cloud formations/Square clouds (This has been a persistent thorn in our sides, and won’t be addressed in 12.2.0. However, we are planning more improvements to this later this year)

3. Brakes!

We’ve radically expanded our brake system, with a plethora of different braking options and behaviours now available. Tom has ensured new documentation is available, which can be found here!

We’ve also introduced a new chocks mechanic, which is part of X-Plane’s ground handling. Only a select few default aircraft currently have this feature which includes:

• Lancair Evolution
• Van’s RV-10
• Boeing 737
• Cirrus SR-22
• Aero-works Aerolight 103
• Beechcraft Baron 58

How do I get chocks onto my aircraft?

We will have a new version of X-Plane2Blender out in the near future, along with documentation (and we will let you know) that allows for chock annotation, similar to particles are referenced. X-Plane provides the model for you, and references the position from the OBJ… not Planemaker.

*On the subject of documentation, Tom has been hard at work re-vamping all of our docs. I think many will be pleased at the changes, which we hope to deploy this year!

5. New Gateway cut

We’ve included a new Gateway cut in 12.2.0. Thank you to all our Gateway artists! We’ve left a rough list of changed airports below.

Some of you may also remember a recent request-for-comment/poll for WED assets. We’ll have a lot more to talk about after the conclusion of 12.2.0. But the spoiler here is: we listened!

Afghanistan

• OAMN – Maimana

Albania

• LAKV – Kucove AB

Algeria

• DAOO – Oran/Ahmed Ben Bella

Angola

• FNBC – M’banza Congo

Argentina

• SAWC – El Calafate

Australia

• AU90 – Cranbrook
• XY0012 – Rothwell
• XY0056 – Little River
• YAYE – Ayers Rock
• YBCS – Cairns intl
• YBDG – Bendigo
• YGGG – Gulgong Aero Park

Austria

• LOAR – Altlichtenwarth
• LOAV – Voeslau
• LOKF – Feldkirchen/Ossiacher See
• LOWL – Linz Hoersching
• LOWW – Wien Schwechat

Azerbaijan

• XUB0004 – Zagatala

Bahamas

• MYNN – Lynden Pindling Intl (Nassau)

Belarus

• XUM0005 – Hozhava

Brazil

• SBBU – Bauru
• SBFL – Hercillo Luz Intl
• SBGL – Rio de Janeiro – Galeão Intl
• SBJA – Jaguaruna Regl
• SBLO – Londrina
• SBPF – Lauro Kurtz
• SBPN – Porto Nacional
• SBSP – Congonhas – Dep Freitas Nobre
• SBZM – Rgnl da Zona da Mata
• SDCG – Senadora Eunice Michiles
• SDJC – Jaboticabal
• SDMC – Marica
• SDPD – Pindamonhangaba
• SDPV – Presidente Venceslau
• SDUN – Itaperuna
• SIID – Crepurizao
• SJHG – Confresa
• SJRG – Rio Grande
• SNAV – Agrovale
• SNBG – Baixo Guandu Aimores
• SNIF – Fazenda Serra Dourada
• SNJQ – Jequitinhonha
• SNKF – Conselheiro Lafaiete
• SNLN – Linhares
• SNMD – Mundico Coelho
• SNMJ – Maracas
• SNOX – Oriximina
• SNQV – Curvelo
• SNSG – Salgueiro
• SNZW – Itubera
• SSKW – Cacoal
• SSUV – Uniao da Vitoria
• SSXN – Aereo Amazonia
• SWNQ – Nossa Senhora da Abadia
• SWSI – Sinop
• XSB000M – Kartodromo Ayrton Senna
• XSB000N – Fazenda Murara
• XSB000O – Custódio
• XSB000P – Sertao Central

Bulgaria

• LBSF – Sofia

Cambodia

• XVD0006 – Dara Sakor Intl

Cameroon

• FKKR – Garoua

Canada

• C09 – Morris Muni J R Washburn
• CKK7 – Steinbach South
• CSD4 – Mont-Laurier
• CSH2 – Aéroport de l’Isle-aux-Grues
• CVB – Chungribu
• CYBD – Bella Coola
• CYBF – Bonnyville Rgnl
• CYEN – Estevan Rgnl
• CYGB – Texada/Gillies Bay
• CYHU – Montreal St-Hubert MET
• CYQB – Quebec Jean Lesage Intl
• CYSG – St Georges
• CYVR – Vancouver Intl
• CYYD – Smithers Rgnl
• XC00D3 – Gun Lake
• XC00D7 – St-Frédéric
• XCYCNF4 – Lindsay/Kawartha Lakes

Cayman Islands

• MWCL – Little Cayman
• MWCR – Owen Roberts Intl

China

• XZ000J – Chengdu Chongzhou GA
• XZ0029 – Ezhou Huahu Intl
• XZ002D – Tumshuq Tangwangcheng
• XZ002E – Zhaosu Tianma
• XZ0036 – Zhongshan Sanjiao
• ZBAD – Beijing Daxing Intl
• ZBSJ – Shijiazhuang Zhengding Intl’
• ZGFS – Foshan Shadi
• ZGNN – Nanning Wuxu Intl
• ZHHH – Wuhan Tianhe Intl
• ZLXY – Xi’an Xianyang Intl
• ZPPP – Kunming Changshui Intl
• ZSFZ – Fuzhou Changle Intl
• ZSLQ – Taizhou Luqiao
• ZSLY – Linyi Qiyang Intl
• ZSPD – Shanghai Pudong Intl
• ZSWH – Dashuipo
• ZUCK – Chongqing Jiangbei Intl
• ZUGY – Guiyang Longdongbao Intl
• ZUHY – Aba Hongyuan
• ZUJZ – Jiuzhai Huanglong
• ZULB – Libo
• ZUUU – Chengdu Shuangliu Intl
• ZUZH – Bao’anying
• ZWAK – Aksu Hongqipo
• ZWBL – Bole Alashankou
• ZWWW – Ürümqi Diwopu Intl
• ZYBS – Changbaishan Baishan
• ZYHB – Harbin Taiping Intl
• ZYTL – Dalian Zhoushuizi Intl

Colombia

• SKRG – Jose Maria Cordova

Congo

• FCOO – Owando

Costa Rica

• MRAN – Arenal
• MRNS – Nosara
• MRTM – Tamarindo
• MRTR – Tambor
• MRUP – Upala
• XMR0001 – Punta Islita

Croatia

• LDDU – Dubrovnik
• LDLO – Losinj
• LDSB – Brac
• LDSP – Split / Saint Jerome
• XLD000H – [H] Rijeka/Delta

Cuba

• MUHA – Havana Jose Marti Intl

Czech Republic

• LKHK – Hradec Kralove
• LKLT – Letnany
• LKTD – Tachov
• LKUL – Usti nad Labem

Egypt

• HEMA – Marsa Alam
• HESH – Sharm El Sheikh Intl

Faroe Islands

• EKVG – Vágar

Finland

• EFLP – Lappeenranta
• EFNU – Nummela

France

• LFBD – Bordeaux Merignac
• LFBH – La Rochelle
• LFBT – Tarbes Lourdes Pyrénées
• LFBU – Angouleme Brie Champniers
• LFEF – Amboise Dierre
• LFKA – Albertville
• LFKB – Bastia Poretta
• LFLC – Clermont-Ferrand
• LFMK – Carcassonne Salvaza
• LFML – Marseille Provence
• LFMQ – Le Castellet
• LFMT – Montpellier/Mediterranee
• LFPB – Paris Le Bourget
• LFPO – Paris Orly
• LFRE – La Baule Escoublac
• LFRS – Nantes Atlantique
• LFRZ – Saint Nazaire Montoir
• LFSB – Bale-Mulhouse
• XLF00BS – Malafretaz
• XLF00DL – [H] L’Aigle Centre hospitalier
• XLF00DM – [H] Evreux Centre hospitalier

Georgia

• UG25 – Telavi Kurdgelauri

Germany

• EDAZ – Schönhagen
• EDBC – Magdeburg/Cochstedt
• EDDB – Berlin Brandenburg
• EDDH – Hamburg Fuhlsbuettel
• EDDL – Duesseldorf
• EDDN – Nürnberg
• EDEW – Walldürn
• EDFC – Aschaffenburg
• EDFH – Frankfurt-Hahn
• EDFQ – Allendorf/Eder
• EDFS – Schweinfurt Süd
• EDHI – Hamburg Finkenwerder
• EDHL – Luebeck Blankensee
• EDHS – Stade
• EDKA – Aachen-Merzbrueck
• EDKF – Bergneustadt-Auf dem Duempel
• EDKW – Werdohl-Kuentrop
• EDLE – Essen-Muelheim
• EDLP – Paderborn-Lippstadt
• EDLW – Dortmund – Wickede
• EDNO – Nördlingen
• EDQA – Bamberg-Breitenau
• EDRA – Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler
• EDTY – Schwaebisch Hall – Adolf Würth
• EDVG – Mengeringhausen
• EDVM – Hildesheim
• ETOA – [X] [H] Schweinfurt
• XEDBH – Flugplatz Dehausen
• XEDD9 – Flugplatz Meiersberg
• XEDDF – Karlstadt Saupurzel
• XEDDQ – Kusel
• XEDE3 – Radevormwald-Leye
• XEDGA – Flugplatz Warburg

Gibraltar

• LXGB – Gibraltar

Greece

• LGKR – Ioannis Kapodistrias Intl
• LGLM – Limnos
• LGSR – Santorini

Hong Kong

• VHHH – Hong Kong Intl

Iceland

• BITE – Thingeyri

India

• VABB – Chhatrapati Shivaji Intl
• VAGN – Guna
• VEBD – Bagdogra
• VEKR – Kailashahar
• VISM – Shimla

Indonesia

• WADD – Denpasar Ngurah Rai Intl
• WAPQ – Kisar
• WATE – Ende Ipi
• XWA04 – Taro Elephant Safari Park

Iran

• OIMJ – Shahroud
• OING – Gorgan

Ireland

• EIDW – Dublin

Italy

• LICD – Lampedusa
• LICR – Reggio Calabria
• LIEO – Olbia
• LIMJ – Genova Sestri
• LIML – Milano Linate
• LIPH – Treviso Sant Angelo

Japan

• RJCC – New Chitose
• RJTT – Tokyo Haneda Intl
• ROIG – New Ishigaki

Korea, Republic of

• RKJY – Yeosu

Kyrgyzstan

• UCFM – Manas

Lesotho

• FXME – Matekane
• FXMK – Mokhotlong

Libya

• XHL0004 – El Feel

Luxembourg

• ELLX – Luxembourg

Madagascar

• FMMI – Ivato

Malaysia

• WBKK – Kota Kinabalu Intl

Marshall Islands

• PKMJ – Marshall Islands Intl

Martinique

• TFFF – Martinique/Aime Cesaire Intl

Mexico

• MM01 – Cuauhtemoc
• MMGM – General Jose Maria Yanez INTL
• MMPY – Playa del Carmen

Morocco

• GMAD – Agadir Al Massira Intl

Myanmar

• VYPA – Hpa-An
• VYPY – Pyay

Nepal

• VNBL – Baglung
• VNBW – Bhairahawa / Gautam Buddha
• VNCG – Bhadrapur / Chandragadhi
• VNDH – Dhangadhi
• VNJP – Janakpur
• VNNG – Nepalgunj
• VNRB – Rajbiraj
• VNSI – Simara
• VNVT – Biratnagar
• XVN0003 – Pokhara Intl

Netherlands

• XEH24 – Middenmeer

New Zealand

• NZAA – Auckland Intl
• XNZ000K – Raoul Island Airstrip

Nigeria

• DN54 – Ashaka

Norway

• ENBR – Bergen Lufthavn Flesland
• ENCN – Kristiansand lufthavn Kjevik
• ENDI – Dagali
• ENEG – Eggemoen
• ENST – Sandnessjøen Stokka
• ENTC – Tromso Langnes
• ENZV – Stavanger Lufthavn Sola

Pakistan

• OPCH – Chitral

Panama

• MPBO – Jose Ezequiel Hall
• MPDA – Enrique Malek Intl
• XMP0004 – Corazón de Jesús
• XMP0005 – Coiba

Papua New Guinea

• AGL – Wanigela
• AIE – Aiome
• AYCH – Chimbu
• AYGA – Goroka
• AYGJ – Guasopa
• AYGN – Gurney
• AYGR – Girua
• AYKA – Losuia
• AYKM – Kerema
• AYKP – Kokoda
• AYMH – Mount Hagen
• AYMO – Momote
• AYMS – Misima Island
• AYRI – Karimui
• AYWD – Wapenamanda
• AZB – Amazon Bay
• DOI – Doini
• ESA – Esa’ala
• IHU – Ihu
• JOP – Josephstaal
• KOR – Kokoro
• KUP – Kupiano
• MWG – Marawaka
• RBP – Rabaraba
• SAM – Salamo
• SFU – Safia
• SXH – Sehulea
• TEO – Terapo
• TFI – Tufi
• TGL – Tagula
• TKB – Tekadu
• VIV – Vivigani
• VMU – Baimuru
• WNU – Wanuma
• XAY000Q – Ambaluwa
• XAY000S – Begesin
• XAY000T – Bank
• XAY000V – Gokto
• XAY000W – Mui
• XAY000X – Yimnalem
• XAY000Y – Dusin
• XAY000Z – Wuyabo
• XAY0010 – Wonenara
• XAY0011 – Gema
• XAY0012 – Simogu
• XAY0013 – Usarumpia
• XAY0014 – Norambi
• XAY0016 – Aziana
• XAY0017 – Owena
• XAY001B – Amusa
• XAY001D – Herowana
• XAY001E – Guwasa
• XAY001F – Kora
• XAY001H – Haia
• XAY001J – Sengapi
• XAY001K – Mengina
• XAY001L – Talbakul
• XAY001M – Kapi
• XAY001N – Appa
• XAY001O – Negarbo
• XAY001P – Dobu
• XAY001Q – Mount Aue
• XAY001S – Woposali
• XAY001U – Sopise
• XAY0028 – Kol
• XAY0029 – Giramben
• XAY002A – Menjim
• XAY002B – Lumusa
• XAY002N – Tsendiap
• XAY002O – Ruti
• XAY002P – Ande
• XAY002Q – Sindeni
• XAY002R – Asinuwa
• XAY002T – Keglsugl
• XAY003X – Kikori
• XAY0041 – Bamu

Paraguay

• SGPJ – Dr Augusto Roberto Fuster Intl

Philippines

• RPLB – Subic Bay Intl
• RPLL – Ninoy Aquino Intl
• RPME – Butuan
• RPMG – Dipolog
• RPMO – Ozamis
• RPMZ – Zamboanga Intl
• RPSB – Bantayan
• RPSP – Bohol-Panglao Intl
• RPVB – Bacolod-Silay Intl
• RPVD – Dumaguete
• RPVE – Godofredo P. Ramos
• RPVM – Mactan-Cebu
• RPVZ – Siquijor

Poland

• EPWR – Wroclaw Strachowice

Portugal

• LPAZ – Santa Maria
• LPLA – Lajes

Romania

• LRCL – Cluj Napoca

Saint Martin (French part)

• TFFG – St Martin Grand Case

San Marino

• SMTO – San Marino-Torraccia

Saudi Arabia

• XOE0003 – Red Sea Intl

Singapore

• WSSS – Singapore Changi Intl

Slovakia

• LZTN – Trencin
• XLZ0003 – Komoca

Slovenia

• LJPZ – Portoroz

Solomon Islands

• AGGN – Nusatupe

South Africa

• FAKR – Krugersdorp
• FALA – Lanseria
• FAMD – Malamala
• XFA001E – Aeropark Zyn Kraal

Spain

• LEBB – Bilbao
• XLE002A – Las Torres de Aliste/Vivinera
• XLE002E – Benabeger

Sudan

• HSFS – El Fashir

Sweden

• ESNC – Hedlanda
• ESSA – Stockholm Arlanda
• XESV5 – Scandinavian Mountains

Switzerland

• LSGS – Sion
• LSZA – Lugano
• LSZH – Zurich
• LSZL – Locarno
• XLS000Q – [H] Stadtspital Waid
• XLS0013 – [H] Interlaken
• XLS0014 – [H] Spital Interlaken
• XLS0015 – [H] Kantonsspital Uri

Taiwan

• RCTP – Taipei Taoyuan Intl
• RCWA – Wang-an

Tanzania

• HTAR – Arusha
• HTNG – Ngerengere AFB

Thailand

• VTBC – Chantaburi RTN
• VTBO – Trat Bangkok Air
• VTBS – Suvarnabhumi Intl
• VTBW – Prachin Buri Watthana Nakhon

Turkey

• LTBA – Istanbul Ataturk
• LTCG – Trabzon
• LTCS – Sanliurfa GAP
• LTFM – Istanbul Intl

Turkmenistan

• XUT0005 – Kerki Intl

Ukraine

• UKDD – Dnipropetrovsk Intl
• UKHH – Osnova intl
• UKKK – Zhuliany
• UKLL – Lviv Intl
• UKLU – Uzhhorod Intl
• UKOO – Odesa Intl
• XUK000D – Stryi
• XUK000S – Mukachevo
• XUK0019 – Turynka
• XUK001A – Tsuniv
• XUK001B – Drohobych
• XUK001C – Zalyzhnia
• XUK001D – Hlyniany
• XUK001E – Belz
• XUK001F – Apostolovo
• XUK001G – Korotych
• XUK001H – Kopanky
• XUK001I – Lyubsha
• XUK001J – Borshchiv
• XUK001K – Smodna
• XUK001L – Kosyno
• XUK001M – Shypyntsi
• XUK001N – Antonivka
• XUK001O – Kolky
• XUK001P – Turiysk
• XUK001Q – Kamianets-Podilskyi
• XUK001R – Shepetivka
• XUK001S – Izyaslav
• XUK001T – Aerofox
• XUK001U – Mal’ky
• XUK001V – Nemychyntsi
• XUK001W – Polonne
• XUK001X – Motovylivka
• XUK001Y – Zboriv
• XUK001Z – Voroniv
• XUK0020 – Pidlistsi
• XUK0022 – Derazhnya

United Kingdom

• EGBJ – Gloucester
• EGCC – Manchester Intl
• EGDX – St Athan
• EGFF – Cardiff
• EGGD – Bristol Intl
• EGHC – Land’s End
• EGHE – Scilly Isles St Mary’s
• EGHH – Bournemouth
• EGHI – Southampton
• EGKK – London Gatwick
• EGNM – Leeds Bradford
• EGNT – Newcastle
• EGPB – Sumburgh
• EGPD – Aberdeen Dyce
• XEG003G – Rougham Airfield
• XEG005T – Newhall Mains
• XEG005U – Bolt Head

United States

• 05E – Ranta Strip
• 06OI – Green Acres
• 09CO – Cottonwood Field
• 0L5 – [X] Goldfield
• 0N9 – Slater Field
• 0WI7 – With Wings and a Halo
• 15N – Jenkins
• 19AK – Icy Bay
• 1L7 – Escalante Muni
• 1RL – Point Roberts Airpark
• 21D – Lake Elmo
• 26ND – Chitwood Airstrip
• 27K – Georgetown – Scott Co Rgnl
• 2AZ1 – Indian Hills Airpark
• 2NC9 – [H] Scotland Meml Hospital
• 33WI – [H] St Mary’s Hospital
• 37NY – [H] Cuba Memorial Hospital
• 3G1 – [X] Erie County
• 3G6 – Sebring Tri-City
• 3NK9 – [H] Arnot Ogden Hospital
• 43IN – Hepler
• 44TX – White Oak
• 4G4 – Youngstown Elser Metro
• 4I9 – Morrow County
• 4NK0 – [H] WCA Hospital
• 4R9 – Jeremiah Denton
• 4U9 – Dell Flight Strip
• 50KY – Zanzibar Farm
• 52U – Weatherby USFS
• 57OH – Fillmans Farms Fld
• 5FD7 – Chinsegut
• 5GA5 – Pinebrook Estates
• 60J – Odell Williamson Muni
• 64CL – Goodyear Blimp Base
• 64IN – Peacock Farms
• 6G5 – Barnesville-Bradfield
• 6J0 – Lexington County At Pelion
• 70OK – Old 66 Strip
• 71IN – Morgan Airfield
• 72ND – Berg Field
• 7PA1 – Warren Airpark
• 7S1 – Ruby Valley Fld
• 7WI3 – [H] St Vincent Hospital
• 8B0 – Stephen A Bean Muni
• 8G6 – Harrison Co
• 8GA7 – Etowah Bend
• 8NY6 – [H] Mercy Hospital of Buffalo
• 9NY2 – [H] Westfield Mem’l Hospital
• 9VA9 – [H] Bon Secours Southampton
• 9W4 – Rainelle
• AZ81 – [H] Boeing
• AZ97 – X Bar 1 Ranch – Lower
• CO55 – Christman Fld
• F57 – [S] Jack Browns
• I96 – Columbia-Adair Co
• KADS – Addison
• KALB – Albany Intl
• KAPF – Naples Muni
• KATL – Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson
• KBAX – Huron Co Meml
• KBDL – Bradley Intl
• KBGM – Greater Binghamton
• KBWW – Bowman Rgnl
• KCDC – Cedar City Regl
• KCDI – Cambridge Muni
• KCEC – Crescent City McNamara
• KCLT – Charlotte Douglas Intl
• KCMD – Cullman Rgnl – Folsom Fld
• KCPK – Chesapeake Regl
• KCWA – Central Wisconsin
• KDCU – Pryor Fld Rgnl
• KDHN – Dothan Rgnl
• KDRI – Beauregard Regl
• KDTA – Delta Muni
• KELK – Elk City Rgnl Business
• KEWR – Newark Liberty Intl
• KFFZ – Falcon Field
• KFKN – Franklin Regl
• KFXE – Fort Lauderdale Executive
• KGFK – Grand Forks Intl
• KGIF – Winter Haven Rgnl
• KGOK – Guthrie Muni
• KGPI – Glacier Park Intl
• KGSP – Greenville Spartanburg Intl
• KGUR – Camp Guernsey
• KHOU – William P Hobby
• KHTH – Hawthorne Industrial
• KHVE – Hanksville
• KHVN – Tweed New Haven
• KIAD – Washington Dulles Intl
• KIFP – Laughlin Bullhead Intl
• KIWS – West Houston
• KJAU – Tommy C Stiner Airfield
• KJOT – Joliet Regl
• KJVY – Clark Rgnl
• KLAA – Southeast Colorado Rgnl
• KLAR – Laramie Regl
• KLGA – La Guardia
• KLNN – Lake County Executive
• KMLS – Frank Wiley Fld
• KMRH – Michael J Smith Fld
• KNEW – Lakefront
• KOAK – Metropolitan Oakland Intl
• KOFP – Hanover County Muni
• KOKZ – Kaolin Field
• KPAH – Barkley Rgnl
• KPBG – Plattsburgh Intl
• KPDC – Prairie du Chien Muni
• KPHL – Philadelphia Intl
• KPLK – M Graham Clark Downtown
• KRBD – Dallas Executive
• KRIF – Richfield
• KRPH – Graham Muni
• KRXE – Rexburg-Madison Co
• KSFM – Sanford Regl
• KSPG – Albert Whitted
• KSPI – Abraham Lincoln Capital
• KSUD – Stroud Muni
• KTKI – Mckinney National
• KTSO – Carroll Co – Tolson
• KTWF – Joslin Field
• KUW – Kamusi
• KVTN – Miller Field
• KZZV – Zanesville Muni
• MD88 – Links
• MO84 – Viburnum
• MU59 – [H] Cox Medical Center North
• O09 – Round Valley
• O37 – Haigh Field
• PAKT – Ketchikan Intl
• S18 – Forks
• T42 – Ruth
• TX19 – Russells Ranch
• TX35 – Molair
• U53 – Henrys Lake
• UT30 – Deer Springs Ranch
• VA12 – Gravely
• VA54 – [H] Crippens
• WA19 – Pagerungan
• WI88 – [H] St Clare’s Hospital
• WS35 – [H] Thedacare Regl Med Ctr
• XK0017 – [H] St John’s Medical Ctr
• XK001E – [H] Aspirus Langlade Hospital
• XK001P – [H] Appleton Medical Center
• XK001S – [H] Aegis
• XK0027 – [H] Crossing Rivers Health
• XK003K – [H] St. Elizabeth Hospital
• XK004J – [H] Mercy Gilbert Medical Ctr
• XK005H – [H] Fairview Riverside Med Ctr
• XK006R – [H] Johnston Willis
• XK007E – [H] Grant Rgnl Health Ctr
• XK0097 – [H] Highfalls Stagefield AHP
• XK009Z – [H] Morrow County Hospital
• XK00A4 – [H] Park City Regl Med Ctr
• XK00CF – Dug Bar USFS
• XK00CH – Cheat River Island
• XK00CX – Jalapeno Ranch
• XK00CY – Willow Valley (pvt)
• XK00D0 – Cuddy Meadows (pvt)
• XK00D4 – [H] Isle of Wight VRS
• XKRK1 – Kavik Strip
• XKVA97 – [H] Buckingham County Rescue

Venezuela

• SVVA – Arturo Michelena

Vietnam

• VVDN – Danang Intl
• VVNB – Noi Bai Intl

Virgin Islands, U.S.

• TIST – St Thomas – Cyril E King

Zimbabwe

• FVCP – Charles Prince

The post 12.2.0 – “Chockingly” good fun appeared first on X-Plane Developer.

Following the success of versions 12.1.2 and 12.1.4 with our scenery and gateway artists, the art department is eager to understand which airport 3D/2D assets are at the top of your wishlist, and we would appreciate your input.

Guidelines:

• Please focus exclusively on airport assets.
• Limit suggestions to new static 3D/2D assets. This is not a place for new WED features or graphical (GFX) updates.
• Please be succinct and polite.
• Please provide references where appropriate and be as accurate as possible. Saying “I want a new bollard” is not good enough. Is there a size, shape, or colour that you need?
• Understand that these are suggestions only, or “a request for comment”. There is no confirmation/timeline. Also understand that assets need to be accessible to all, not specific. So that weird hyperspecific 2-wheeled pushback truck at your local airport is not going to be appropriate.
• We will close off comments on the 9th February

We encourage you to share your thoughts in the comments below or join the discussion on our *Discord server.

Many thanks, we look forward to your ideas!

*To access, click on this link here, and make sure you pick up the “creator” role. There you should see a channel called #rfc-wed-assets

The post Requests for comment : WED Airport Assets appeared first on X-Plane Developer.

One of the major additions for this release is more content and updates for our scenery gateway artists!

New Default Assets

For those unaware, back in November, we welcomed Justin (MisterX) to the Laminar team. He likely needs no introduction, as his scenery work is the stuff of legend amongst the community. So we’re really excited to have him join the team, and Justin represents another infinity stone amongst our third-party hires!

Over the winter period, Petr (Our in-house legendary artist) and Justin went to town on some new scenery assets for X-Plane. Some of which, were highly nominated on our Discord feature requests. These assets include;

Trucks

Emergency/Fire Training Equipment

Airside Operations

De-Icing Equipment

Hopefully not to state the obvious, but these are not dynamic. So please don’t start placing these in areas that will obstruct the “simulator flow”.

We will have some more inbound assets over the coming months, so keep an eye peeled.

X-Plane Gateway

Whilst we didn’t highlight each airport in our initial release posts for 12.1.4, we did have a staggering 1400+ updated entries that we’ve included in our latest cut of the gateway. Take a look below (note, there are approximately 100 airports missing from this list)

Because of our new semantic versioning, internally we’re looking at having these cuts more frequently. Some of you have already noticed our update cadence has been picking up, and hopefully cycling in these updates more regularly will be refreshing to our gateway artists.

Gateway artists, take a bow!

The post 12.1.4, Scenery Gateway & New Assets appeared first on X-Plane Developer.

X-Plane 12.1.4 Beta is here! And with it, comes another extension to our WEB APIs. Both of which have received extensive powers surrounding commands.

Now available for testing in the Web API v2:

• Getting the list of commands (REST)
• Getting the count of available commands (REST)
• Activate a command (REST)
• Subscribing/Unsubscribing to one or more Commands to periodic updates about their activation status (Websockets)
• Streaming one or more activations to the simulator (Websockets)

You can find updated documentation here.

If you find any issues, please report them expediently via our bug reporter.

The post SDK Update : Web API v2 appeared first on X-Plane Developer.

We should hopefully have a release candidate for 12.1.2 next week – this week the team was fixing crash bugs, and we’re down to trying to finishing up stability. Crash rates in the beta look good enough to ship. (Please consider turning on analytics – we don’t collect your personal data but we do record crashed vs non-crashed sim runs – this is how we know whether stability is getting better or worse!)

12.2.0

Dark Cockpits: Art team is evaluating Maya’s exposure fusion work. Generally things look better than the shipping product, but we discovered yesterday that the indirect lighting environment is pretty weird on cloudy days. We’ve been fixing bugs, removing old hacks we no longer need, and I’m optimistic that the update should be both better looking and closer to reality.

We also have some fixes to the PBR material model that may get X-Plane closer to Blender and Substance Painter 2. This is a double-edged sword: we don’t want to change the material model such that everyone has to repaint everything (that would be too much both for our team and for add-on makers) but we do want X-Plane to be as close to WYSIWYG possible to make development faster. Art is evaluating these changes too.

We’re targeting 12.2.0 (a “major free update”) for these changes so we can run a substantial alpha and beta program and give add-on makers time to report bugs.

12.1.X

ATC, Weather: we have two minor releases before 12.2.0 making their way through testing. The first is ATC with SIDs and STARs – as of now it looks like that will ship next, but all releases are subject to change based on bugs.*

The other update is a weather update, and it looks like it may have some substantial features:

• New in-cockpit weather radar, with SDK support.
• Fixes for real weather bugs, including jumps in pressure altitude (which are driving the autopilots crazy) and some fixes to cloud visuals.
• Plugin-controlled weather across multiple locations.
• Better weather sync over the internet.

As of now the weather branch also has network sync of trucks and jetways to external visuals. This only affects users using external visuals but for those users, it’s a big feature, and it’s also an important foundational technology for us.

* In the past we have announced “X” is next and if that code was buggy, we’d just delay shipping anything until we fixed it. We’re trying to be more flexible and ship what’s ready first, so good code doesn’t have to wait for unrelated bugs.

The post Around the Office: Friday the 13th Edition appeared first on X-Plane Developer.

World Editor 2.6r1 is now available. This is the first release candidate, for which we encourage you to explore before we lock it down for release! Version 2.6 packs quite an extensive feature list. Features include :

New Shape Entities

Allowing users to define lines and polygons, and then export to .kml or .osm for use in third-party tools!

Polygonal Exclusions

A highly requested feature! (Note, these do not work on forests in current-gen scenery. The default behaviour will instead treat the defined exclusion as one large bounding box)

Terrain Objects

Some of you may have noticed that the terrain for TNCS and TFFJ in 12.1.2 looks a bit more defined. This is somewhat of an illusion, as we are still using the same base mesh that shipped in 12.0.9.

Terrain objects are designed to interface with orthophotos and create small scale 3D details.

*This is NOT a replacement/new/next-gen system for mesh-editing. But rather an additive tool that can help define more awkward structures

Dual-docking Jetway support

Another highly requested feature, WED can now support dual-docking jetways. Existing sceneries are NOT automatically ready, and must be defined by an artist first. Thanks to Michael, in a future version of X-Plane, we will push a new Gateway cut with some demo airports that are ready for dual jetways. These include (*subject to change):

EGLL | EDDF | PHNL | KORD | EDDM | KLAX | OMDB | KJFK | RCTP | RJTT | KSFO

Non-Integer Object String Spacings

Strings can now be defined down to the centimeter, instead of the meter… allowing for more accurate object spacing.

For WED newcomers

In the past, whenever users have attempted to open a scenery pack without an .XML file, all you got was an empty project. This was obviously confusing to users who did not know how to import the scenery files in. Now in WED 2.6, we analyze what is inside your scenery pack and offer to import the relevant files for you. If starting from a completely blank project folder, we now also give you the option to download directly from the gateway! These changes should help newcomers and seasoned artists get stuck into a project with ease!

Misc

In addition, a number of UI enhancements for users have been made available.

You can download Worldeditor 2.6r1 here: Download

You can also view a full changelog from Michael here: Full changelog

The post World Editor 2.6r1 is available! appeared first on X-Plane Developer.

Websocket-To-Me Time

Besides fixing bugs, X-Plane 12.1.1 enables X-Plane’s web API*. Basically we were asked for this so many times at FSExpo that Chris and Daniela put the remaining work on the fast track.

Our plan is to build several services into the web server; the web APIs will not be exact mirrors of the plugin SDK, but will cover enough functionality to build wide range of apps. We have plans for:

• Datarefs (shipping now)
• Commands (in developement)
• Initiializing Flights (in development)

Documentation on the new web APIs can be found here.

Doc-It-To-Me Time

X-Plane alum and fellow X-Plane-10-survivor Tom Kyler is back working on developer documentation for us, and has finished a first release on some of the new X-Plane 12.1.0 features:

• Windshield Rain Effects and Wipers
• Windshield Ice Effects and Defrosting
• Detail textures (both albedo and normals).

Tom has big plans for X-Plane’s documentation; one thing that’s great to see in these docs is really good illustrations based on real sample 3-d models and test projects.

The Devil Is In the Details

A detail texture is a repeating, high detail pattern that adds high-res detail to an otherwise lower resolution texture. Detail textures let us add fine detail at high resolution without using a ton of extra VRAM efficiently. We use detail textures with bits of “gravel” to make the runways look more realistic.

We introduced detail textures over a decade ago in X-Plane 10 to enhance ground detail around airports and in the new (at the time) autogen cities.

What we did not do was give them a good name. At the time we called them “decal” textures. This has turned out to be incredibly confusing, because in every other game engine ever, a high-res texture applied over the entire material (which is what we have) is called a detail, and a decal basically means “sticker that you stick on somewhere”. Detail textures make the ground look more rocky, decals add blood spatter and bullet holes to the walls in your zombie-shooter game.

So moving forward, we are going to try to call detail textures “detail textures” wherever possible, to be consistent with the norms of content creation. Tom and Maya will be updating labels in Blender and doc to be consistent about this.

For X-Plane 12.1.1, Maya has extended the detailing system in two ways:

• Detail textures work on OBJs and not just in the scenery system, so aircraft authors can add detail too.
• Detail textures can affect the bumpiness of normal maps and not just the color of albedo textures, so detail textures now interact with the lighting model in realistic ways.

You can get the 4.3.3 beta XPlane2Blender plugin here to use the new detail textures. Maya is planning on a release Real Soon Now.

* Please note that while the dataref API does use websockets, most of our web APIs are conventional REST requests over HTTP. I did consider “The X-Plane developers never REST..until now” as a section title.

The post Webservers, Documentation, and Terrible Titles appeared first on X-Plane Developer.

All of this is a little bit exciting because we can’t recut the release candidate while in Las Vegas – one of the machines involved still requires a human to sit in front of it. We’ve been racing to get the RC done while we still have access to those machines, and the build system responded as you’d expect – by failing in all sorts of new ways. My plan is to just not breathe until I’m on the plane tomorrow.

(*) Because this is a release candidate you still have to check “get betas” in the installer to opt in to getting the RC; once the candidate has been out for a week, if nothing huge goes wrong, we will declare it final and it will become the official update for everyone.

The post What Gets Released Before Vegas Stays Released in Vegas appeared first on X-Plane Developer.

The really big change we are making to base meshes is to go from a vector-centric to a raster-centric format. Let’s break that down and define what that means.

Vectors are fancy computer-graphics talk for lines defined by their mathematical end-points. (Pro tip: if you want to be a graphics expert, you just need the right big words. Try putting the word anisotropic in front of everything, people will think you just came from SIGGRAPH!) DSF started as an entirely-vector format:

• All 3-d clutter is defined by lat/lon locations, so we have the vector outline of polygons, autogen blocks, etc.
• The base mesh is pre-triangulated, so most base-mesh features are defined by the corners of the triangles forming lines (e.g between land and water).

This isn’t the only thing DSF does – we added raster capabilities and there is e.g. raster sound and season data in X-Plane 12, but DSF is fundamentally about vector data – saying where the edges of things go exactly.

This was great for a while, but now that we have more and more vector data (complex coastlines, complex road grids, complex building footprints) the DSFs are getting too big and slow for X-Plane.

Raster data is any data stored in a 2-d grid. This includes images (which in turn includes orthophotos) but it also includes 2-d height maps (DEMs), and the 2-d raster data we include in DSF now (e.g. sound raster data, season raster data etc). Any time we store numbers that mean something in a 2-d array, we have raster data.

Raster data has several advantages over vectors:

• Raster data is what the GPU wants to consume.
• Raster data has really good LOD characteristics for close detail with long view distances.
• We can put more interesting and dense information into a raster tile without it getting bigger.

Twenty years ago, when I first worked on DSF, computers didn’t have the capacity to use lots of raster data – this was back when 8 MB of VRAM was “a lot”. But now we no longer need to depend on vectors for space savings.

Raster tiles are raster data broken into smaller tiles that get pieced together. Raster tiles have become the standard way to view GIS data – if you’ve used Apple Maps or Google Earth or OpenStreetMap or any of the map layers in WED, you’ve used raster tiles.

Raster tiles have a bunch of advantages too:

• They have really great LOD/VRAM usage properties.
• They can be loaded incrementally.
• They provide an easy way to vary resolution and let authors skip providing data that they don’t need to provide. (E.g. “forest” raster data over the ocean? Just don’t provide any tiles!)

So our plan for the next-generation base mesh is “all raster tiles, all the time” – we’d like to have elevation data, land/water data, vegetation location data, as well as material colors all in raster tile form. This would get us much better LOD/streaming characteristics but also provide a very simple way for custom scenery packs to override specific parts of the mesh at variable resolution with full control.

Raster tiles are not the same thing as orthophotos. A raster tile is any data contained in a 2-d array, not just image data cut into squares (e.g. orthophotos). So while a raster-tile system may make it easier to build orthophoto scenery, it does not mean that the scenery can only be orthophotos.

The post We Are All Raster-farians Now appeared first on X-Plane Developer.

Private Alpha Builds Soon

As with all past X-plane 12 patches, we are planning to do a private “alpha build” test run with the developer lobby before public beta. We do this both to find out about add-on compatibility and to get the worst bugs fixed with a smaller test group. As of this writing, ATC is at the end of bug fixes, the last graphics changes are being tested, but my weather work is still mid-development.

New Toys for Scenery Developers (and Aircraft Modelers)

This release turned out to have a lot for scenery developers:

• Water bathymetry and turbidity should be sorted out, making orthophoto base meshes with 3-d water possible.
• The material system now features normal-map decals. These decals add high-frequency ‘texture’ to a surface by perturbing the normals (direction of light bounce) instead of just “painting’ them. This means better looking materials at different lighting angles.
• LOAD_CENTER is now usable on OBJs. This means you can set the resolution of an OBJ to be based on distance to the aircraft (just like draped polygons and orthophotos); I think this has the potential to ensure that “land mark” OBJs (models used exactly once) are at their highest resolution when the user is near them without hurting VRAM in general.
• If it passes test (crosses fingers), particle systems can be used directly from DSF objects.

The entire DECAL system (existing and new normal map decals) are also usable in OBJs for aircraft as well, and the particle system has received some upgrades that can be used everywhere.

One warning: the old “smoke puff” directive for OBJs from X-Plane 8 is now inoperative; with 12.1.0 we finally removed the old particle system completely. I suggest using the new particle system as it will give you real control over what kind of smoke comes out of your models.

New Plugin APIs

Two new plugin APIs are planned for 12.1.0:

• New navigation APIs
• An extension to XPLMAvionics so add-ons can create their own glass screens.

We are still putting finishing touches on the avionics APIs now, but this tech is very close to complete, and definitely usable.

Unfortunately we will not have a low level weather API in 12.1.0 – R&D on this is ongoing, but at least in better shape than it was before due to fixes to the internal weather code.

The post A Few Notes on 12.1.0 for Developers appeared first on X-Plane Developer.