Release Notes
x-Plane 10.10 Beta 11
It's just like beta 10, but with the 'extra aircraft' folder properly included (this is where some of the old v9 aircraft and experimentals now live) and with code signing hopefully fixed.
X-Plane 10.10 Beta 10
This build closes our known bugs with aircraft and HDR mode - if you have created a custom aircraft for v9, you may have to update a few things to work with HDR mode and 10.10. Docs on what needs updating (the list is short) soon.
Safe mode warning dialog box disabled for pro key customers.
Mac apps are now signed to play nicely with Gatekeeper on 10.8 Mountain Lion
There is now a command to toggle full-screen mode - bind it to a key or call it from a plugin.
P180 Updates
The P-180's panel now works with global shadows, and the visors don't block the clouds in HDR mode.
The P-180's electrical system now puts a load on generators.
F22 Updates
New HUD elements added for attitude
Revised Airfoils
Heavily tweaked flight model
Turn and bank with more control and stability, even with full stick deflection
Nice manners on landing
Baron Updates
Fixed panel back shadow mode
Fixed prop lever in 3D cockpit so it doesn't drop prop RPM down below governing range
Fixed clipping of global lights in cockpit.
Airplane SDK:
Cockpit spill lights in Plane-Maker show up in HDR mode too. Their lighting equation is changed - they always look the way they used to look in HDR mode.
Fixed some cases of airplane lights showing through the walls of the 3-d cockpit.
Fixed ATTR_diffuse_rgb and ATTR_emission_rgb in HDR mode.
Fixed glass objs on ACF when airplane is upside down and atmospheric scattering is on.
Airplane casts shadows even on glass objects in HDR mode.
Plugins:
Flight loop callback is not called when the QuickFlight dialog box is up before the first flight.
Post-FM callbacks are called when dialog boxes are up - this is consistent with pre-FM callbacks.
Bug Fixes:
Airplanes with separate in and out cockpit objs work with GLOBAL_cockpit_lit
Slightly improved ramps that would stick up in the middle of street-level road junctions.
X-Plane 10.10 Beta 9
SUPPORT FOR FOREFLIGHT! Go to the SETTINGS menu in X-Plane, INTERNET OPTIONS window, IPHONE/IPOD tab, and turn on the ForeFlight option. Then, get ForeFlight from the App Store if you are the last one to have not already done so and run it! This is a map system that myself, and most other people, use in the cockpit, which is about ten million times better than using paper charts! Go to the (MORE...) menu at the bottom of ForeFlight and the to DEVICES item on the left. Touch it, and see the X-Plane window that appears... touch that, too, and a window will come up that lets you ENABLE it. Now, simply fly X-Plane with ForeFlight running on the same wireless network and you can use ForeFlight just like you would in the cockpit! Cool!
Supersonic engine thrust model improved to go from total pressure recovery to normal-shock recovery as you move towards the max inlet efficiency, and pass air subsonically to the compressor behind the inlet. This is still not a perfect inlet model since different inlets work in totally different ways, but this is the best superonic inlet model we have ever had, and the supersonic drag is now the best we have ever had as well. The supersonic drag model looks at each polygon of the acf model, finds its' normal vector and area, and treats it as a plate with a compression or expansion fan, and should now do a perfect job of tracking every single poly in the airplane.The new supersonic model, like ALL of the dynamics in X-Plane, considers all of the various bodies that you have created for the airplane. That is: ALL of the fuselage, misc bodies, nacelles, etc, are considered to be exposed to the airflow. This means that if you have multiple bodies one inside the other, the aero effects will be DOUBLED compared to reality! Also, if you have one body hiding right behind another, or behind the fuselage, then the drag effects will be DOUBLED compared to reality! This is why with the latest beta, some planes are not going supersonic that should: We are now computing the drag more accurately on each body, and having multiple bodies one behind the other simply add up the drag based on the frontal area of EACH BODY! A very simple case of this is an F-104 Starfighter model that uses a fuselage for the FRONT of the plane, and a misc body for the BACK! In this case, the front of the misc body is acting like a big flat-plate exposed to the air.. surely enough to keep the plane subsonic! So, to design a plane properly, do NOT use misc bodies and fuselage and nacelles stacked inside each other, or behind each other in a row. This will simply erroneously add up drag! When designing a plan e for X-Plane, the rule is really very very simple: Each fuselage, misc body, and nacelle has the local air aciting on it. That's it! So it is actually really simple. Now, there is ONE exception: Engine nacelles for jets. Engine nacelles for jets are assumed to NOT produce any drag. This is because the thrust for the engine that you enter in Plane-Maker is considered to already be based on installed thrust losses. So, if you want your ACF model to be accurate, then do not have hidden-away misc bodies with frontal area inside another body, and certainly do not have 2 bodies one behind the other to make a long body... the frontal area of the aft body will still be exposed to the air in X-Plane! If you want really detailed geometry (read: more than you can get out of a body in X-Plane, so you want to hook multiple bodies together) then it is time to build an OBJ for your airplane!
New commands: Spot lite on, off, and toggle... kind of sorely missing before!
Helo rotor rpm trim runs 0 to 1, so it is an interpolation between the lo and hi rotor rpm trim. This way, motion of the trim always DOES something, even if only a high OR lo rotor rpm trim is entered in Plane-Maker!
Automatic crash reporter no longer catches crashes that occur because of plugins. This is important so that plugin authors can get crash data from their users without us stealing it from them.
UI Buttons in all products have been improved to be...well...like every other button you've ever used outside of X-Plane. Actions happen on the up-click, not the down-click giving you a chance to change your mind while also giving you visual feedback of the press itself.
Aircraft
Fixed Vacuum pressure and Oil Pressure gauges in the default C-172
Fixed SR-71 flight model
Shadows
This build should fix the bug where the shadows would jitter and shake wildly with HDR enabled; the shadows should now be about the same with HDR on or off. (Global melt your GPU looks better with HDR on.) Some airplanes that previously did not shadow properly are now fixed. I am still working on shadow tuning.
Bug Fixes
Joystick Dialog now consolidates axis display so more device axis are visible. Important for people with many devices.
Joystick calibration ranges from 10.05R1 are now blown away to prevent corrupt axis on an update. NOTE: This will require EVERYONE to recalibrate their devices on updating.
Fixed broken "alt" button on Windows
Fixed buttons on some home-cockpit devices such as the MJoy16-C1
You can now save a situation and then load it again without exiting X-Plane to re-scan the file list.
Landing lights and all other lights should go across to the external visuals now.
Much less turbulence in light to moderate precip... but same trubulence in major (red) precip
QuickFlight startup does put you on the ramp now, if set up as such in Operations and Warnings window.
Weather goes to ALL the external visuals now, not just a random ONE of them! ;-P
Right Click/Zoom no longer control the sim from IOS station.
Fixed bug in planemaker causing resource copying to create invalid files on Windows.
Fixed dlerror __stack_chk_fail_local on Linux machines. Ideally, plugin authors should be compiling with -fno-stack-protector but in the meantime, this will let them run again.
Roads shouldn't cut into buildings at low view angles.
Fixed crash when starting up with IOS enabled and quick flight showing on startup.
Fixed cursor being hidden in joystick calibration wizard.
Fixed cut-off object names in Plane-Maker main screen.
Fixed prioritization up/down buttons in plane-maker misc objects screen.
Added error checking for airplanes whose use of panel texture is inconsistent. You can't mix and match ATTR_cockpit and ATTR_cockpit_region!!!!
Plugins are now exempt from breakpad; if a plugin crashes, the normal OS crashes happen so that the user can send a report to the plugin author, rather than the crash going into our database.
Fixed camera instrument to not turn green during the day with panel regions.
X-Plane 10.10 Beta 8
This is a recut of beta 7 that fixes Plane-Make crashing on startup on Windows.
X-Plane 10.10 Beta 7
Ben says: I screwed up - Plane-Maker crashes on startup on Windows 100% of the time. Beta 8 will be out shortly to fix this. Enjoy beta 7 if you are on Mac or just need to fly...Windows plane authors should hold off...
Quick-Look now supports our new 2D panel scrolling
Quick-Flight is now under the file menu
Major revisions to the Baron and Kingair
Global scenery terrain regions tuned.
Added "TEXTURE_CONTROL_NOWRAP" to correspond to TEXTURE_CONTROL. This is needed to make orthophoto pol files with decals.
Aircraft:
10.10 beta 6 attempted to mark older cockpit objects as 'glass'. This seemed like a clever way to make HDR work but actually breaks more aircraft than it helps. This change has been removed for beta 7. As a result, the CRJ and other aircraft that use the panel texture as a window will not show clouds correctly in HDR mode. These aircraft will need an update to work with HDR enabled, but will work correctly with HDR disabled. X-Plane cannot guess-and-auto-update these aircraft for HDR.
The cockpit now contains most of the same options in Plane-Maker as the attached objects.
Invalid use of ATTR_cockpit is now detected and logged.
Bug Fixes:
Fixed crash on Windows with facades with empty meshes. This fixes the crash using the "Classic 3" airport facade.
Added support for some out-of-spec PFC Yokes
Fixes to solve some strange button behavior on various joysticks (ie. Cyborg Evo)
Fixed bus_load_amps dataref to read proper value
Landing lights accurately reflect their load on electrical busses now.
G430,G1000 and Avidyne instruments now work with panel regions.
Fixed some cases where water fog looks funny - there are still some bugs with water and fog.
Fixed black line when shadows on "Melt your GPU" with NV cards.
Fixed missing cockpit objects in Chinook and other older-style planes.
Fixed missing transponder on P32R and other panels that mix translucency and panels.
Fixed intermittent drawing of airports in sectional map.
Fixed plugin glue code: XPLMNavAid can find stand-alone DMEs.
Fixed incorrect culling of trees when forest exclusion zones go outside a DSF boundary.
Moved power tower wires to a later drawing group to avoid artifacts.
Fixed world being very dark for the first few frames in HDR mode.
Other tweaks:
if you ask to start on the ramp under operations and warnings, then the quick-flight screen honors that
real-weather should grab dew-point to display in ATIS reports, which is kind of nice.
supersonic model for bodies over-hauled a bit... should be more realistic now (the supersonic model for the wings should remain un-changed)
