Ok, so I promised a post every Monday, so here I go. This week’s subject is artificial intelligents!

One of the hardest challenges we've faced with making a Blue Angels Mission is AI aircraft. We asked ourselves over and over again, how the heck are we going to get this AI to work? How in the world are we going to get 6 Blue Angels flying in formation at the same time? Is it even possible? I looked at a variety of solutions with the mission system, using AI waypoints and so forth, but after experiencing copious amount of problems and bugs I knew this solution was far from possible. But where this a will there is a way! And I came up with a solution. It involves recording your flight and playing all 5 of them back at the same exact time. It works like a charm! The only problem is it takes forever to record each AI! You have to fly each aircraft in formation and if you make one mistake - START ALL OVER. I will post a video of the working AI tomorrow! I have to say, it's pretty amazing seeing all 5 of the Blue angels (plus you) working together! And I think I am the only one who successfully implemented this in a working Mission, I’m surprised no other Blue Angel Missions exist yet!

I mentioned earlier about how I am working on a F-18 Blue Angel Training mission for FSX. You might have though I quit but OHHHH NOOOO - we are still on and have big plans for this project! My partner Mike and I are starting up a company entitled Free Sky Productions LLC, aimed at making high quality complex missions for FSX. A very rough draft of the website is going up and will be under construction for quite some time (while we get closer to release date). I guess you can take a look now if you want… http://freeskyproductions.com/ and watch it develop as time goes on. The goal is to get a well done quality mission out the door and up on our site by Early August 2009 and will be working very hard this summer to get it done.  Since becoming very familiar with the mission system over at ACES and starting to learn programming, I wish to build a mission that’s quite unique and much more sophisticated than any other mission developed. Perhaps the most sophisticated mission built for fsx!

 

What makes this mission any different from the rest? The answer is it’s much different!  You may have played the default missions for FSX but this mission is nothing like those. The original plan was to create a tutorial like mission with built in visuals to help you learn the F-18, which can be quite intimidating to any first time user. For instance instead of having to read a long manual on how to operate the aircraft you would just start up the mission and it will step you through the start up procedures, how to properly take-off, complete some maneuvers and land.  Well, when starting off we got the first half of the mission complete, with some cool features including a helper cam that will show you where in the cockpit the various controls are in real time while playing the mission. But something was missing. It wasn’t very fun to play, especially when flying over and over again. It needed a challenge and a reason to re-play the mission.

 

So this is when we started thinking about a point system. One which keeps track of your score depending on how well you fly the mission. The mission system really doesn’t have anything developed for keeping score, except perhaps via counter trigs – which can become quite tedious and time consuming and doesn’t really give us the results we want. So I had to find a way… And there is a way! The answer is in Simconnect! Just recently I hooked up my first simconnect program and have it running. Simconnect basically opens the door to unlimited possibilities and wished I explored it earlier – you can connect to any simVar or simEvent and use that in your external application. There is one action in the fsx mission system that has one million times more power then any other action or trigger in the OPT. They should have called it the “SUPER MEGA ACTION” but instead it’s called the “custom action”! Basically it lets you send your own payload string to simconnect and if your simconnect app is able to do something with it, it can process it and do whatever you want. Whether it adds a point to your score, fire another mission action, send a message to flight sim, set a simVar, create a waypoint for AI object, or anything you can think of for that matter! Basically it’s awesome! So right now I am working on the FSX Blue Angel Training Mission External Application that connects to FSX and will keep track of your progress and score and perhaps a little more. We are thinking after completing the mission you will upload your score to our website where you can compare a judge yourself amongst the other Mission players. This is an unknown feature at this time but one we wish to include it. We will probably need to find a web programmer that will help us develop the online experience. If you know any web programmers/ developers that are willing to take chance and help a start up company, let me know!

 

Also, it needs to be exciting and enticing to play. Not cut and dry. This is why we want to spend a good time getting our story down, with a good plot and well done voice over’s. We also wish to include music, some custom scenery objects and custom aerial imagery.

 

Anyways, there is a ton of work to do and now that school is over it is time to get down to work! I know words are easier said then done but we are commited toward this project! Mike is getting a forum set up, so any discussions or questions should be discussed over there. Discussion and ideas are very much welcomed! There is no link to the forum on our site at this time but ill give it to you anyway - http://freeskyproductions.com/forums/

 

-I wish to post updates every Monday on the progress of our mission. So stayed tuned!  

Man, I’ve had to deal with writing so brutal java programs this quarter for my 143 class. The LinkList program which requires you to write your own node class, and LinkLint class, plus three other classes that create a mini word editor was probably the hardest. You had to be able to insert or delete a letter at your cursor using LinkLists. If you don't know what I’m talking about, a LinkList works by using only one class and the only way to get to a node in the list is to call the same class. LinkLists don't bother me when you just have to use a class that is already written, but when you have to write your own class to make it work that's a whole nother story... who ever came up with the concept I bow to, lol.

 

Anyways, I spent all night on another ridiculous program. Basically I had to find all possible words that can be created within a certain phrase/word. Like, how many words can you make out of the word "sink". The solution took me forever to find. After asking my teacher for help I finally came up with one. It’s a recursive solution that explodes extremely fast in memory due to the amount of possible solutions. For brushhair there are 362,880 solutions just for using all the letters (also know as a anagram - if i printed them out the list would be huge), and then when counting smaller words it grows to an even more extremely large number. If you enter a word over 10 letters it takes about 5 minutes to finish gathering all the possible solutions. Out of the millions of possible solutions there are only a couple words that match in the dictionary file that was given to us!  Anyways, here is the solution I came up with the code:

 

/* Joey Sipos
 * Assignmetn 07 Anagram solver
 * May 19, 2009
 */
import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;

public class AnagramSolver {
  //ArrayList of all anagram-phrases
  private List<String> finalAnagramList = new ArrayList<String>();
  List<String> gumbleAnagramList = new ArrayList<String>();
  private String phrase = "";
  Set<String> dictionary = new TreeSet<String>();
 
  public AnagramSolver(String phrase1, String dictName) throws FileNotFoundException {
    //add the dictionary words to the set
    String dictWords = "";
    Scanner input = new Scanner(new File(dictName));
    while (input.hasNext()) {
      dictWords = input.next();
      dictionary.add(dictWords);
    }
   
    //remove white spaces from phrase, cosolidate into one word
    Scanner tokenScanner = new Scanner(phrase1);
    String temp = "";
    while (tokenScanner.hasNext()) {
      temp = temp + tokenScanner.next();
    }
    phrase = temp;
  }
 
  //takes a word and produces all possible anagrams
  //all anagrams that are the orginal length of the phrase are stored in a list
  //The list is procesed for smaller words is the solver method
  public void produceAllAnagrams(char insertChar, String word) {
   
    //store the letters into a char array
    char[] arrayWord = word.toCharArray();
    //turn the char array into a linked list
    LinkedList listWord = new LinkedList();
    for (int i = 0; i < arrayWord.length; i++) {
      listWord.add(arrayWord[i]);
    }
   
    for (int i = 0; i <= listWord.size(); i++) {
      //add the insert char to create the new word
      listWord.add(i,insertChar);
      int j = 0;
      //turns the new Word into a string
      String newWord = "";
      while (j < listWord.size()) {
        newWord += listWord.get(j);
        j++;
      }
     
      //recurse
      if (newWord.length() <  phrase.length()) {
        produceAllAnagrams(phrase.charAt(newWord.length()), newWord);
      }
      //store if it the length of the orginal phrase
      if (newWord.length() == phrase.length()) {
        gumbleAnagramList.add(newWord);
        //System.out.println("test");
      }
      //remove our insertchar 
      listWord.remove(i);
    }
  }
 
  public void printAnagrams() {
    String firstLetter = "" + phrase.charAt(0);
    produceAllAnagrams(phrase.charAt(1), firstLetter);
   
    for(int j=0; j < gumbleAnagramList.size(); j++) {
      String anagram = gumbleAnagramList.get(j);
      for(int k=1; k <= phrase.length(); k++) {
        //if the dictionary has the word and is not already in the final list
        if ((dictionary.contains(anagram.substring(0, k))) &&
             (finalAnagramList.contains(anagram.substring(0, k)) == false)) {
          finalAnagramList.add(anagram.substring(0,k));
        }
      }
    }
    System.out.println();
    for (int i=0; i < finalAnagramList.size(); i++) {
      System.out.println(finalAnagramList.get(i));
    }
  }
}
 

 

 

 

 

 

While working on the F-18 mission as well as my 3D stuff, I’ve learned a thing or two about the process of storytelling. The first thing I’ve learned is it’s not easy! It’s hard to make a good story, and make it appealing to watch – or play. With my 3D stuff we have to create a 3D animatic of a real life story we came up. We had to tell the story like 5 times in front of a group of people and each time try and make it more detailed and appealing to the listener. Then we had to take our story and turn it into a script with detailed descriptions of how we plan to do our shots. Now I’m working of creating the shots. The shots are supposed to be extremely simple (blocked out) with simple geometry. But of coarse I got sidetracked into making visually appealing which is a bad habit of mine. I always get caught up in the details instead of letting it go and keep blocking my scene out. My teacher and I had a discussion about this. He stated how important it is to throw your ideas together really fast then go back and work on the details. Which is a simple concept, but nothing I took very seriously. Now I’m sitting here at midnight rendering and trying to finish my scenes for tomorrow because I spent too much time trying to make stuff more visually appealing. And of course with more detail it takes a lot more time to render! So now I’ve decided to take out the visual stuff for now and just get it blocked out. Hehe. Dam– he was right!

So lessoned learned, the preliminary work that goes into preproduction is actually a very important step. Get your ideas all sorted out, right the script, create a quick rough draft of your project then go back and add your changes and details. When you spend too much time on the details, and you get to the end and realize your story sucks then you have to scrap everything and start over again. Block it out first! 

Update: here is the stroy I threw together that night. Now I am going back and adding the more detailed models and textures.

 

 

I haven’t posted in a while so I think it’s time!

 I just want you to know I’ve been keeping busy after leaving ACES. This is what I’ve been up to:

I bought a $1,200 laptop and started playing with 3DS max after getting laid off. 3DS Max has always caught my attention and I wanted to learn more. I have experience modeling in “gmax” but 3DS Max is 100 times better. I created this cool little logo animation with Fireworks- it took me about a week! Sipos Studios –Yah!  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=merg3zDbBnM&feature=channel_page

Now I have a better understanding of how 3DS max works- at least somewhat! I also got accepted into an already in progress 3D animation coarse at UW. It’s a certificate class so at the end I hope to be a 3D certified animator! This class is a lot of work though. The teacher said he’s surprised they let me in this late. I basically have to make a character within a week when the students had all last quarter to do it. Also have to learn zbrush to make high polygon models. This program looks amazing and can’t wait to learn more. Should be interesting!  Class is also right up my alley and I love going to the UW campus. Lots of awesome people there!

I’ve also been working on a little 3D short animation with a couple friends that go to the Art Institute. We probably won’t get it finished till End of April or perhaps later. We all are kind of lacking the time to put work into it – but we are committed to it and won’t give up on it!  

That’s not all, I’m taking a class back at the Community college. I am retaking programming 143 to get a better grade. Last time I didn’t do so well.  Data structures, link lists, trees, collections, recursion… if you’re a programmer you know what I’m talking about. I really dislike this stuff but I feel I have to learn it. Should do a lot better this time around now that I’ve seen it for the second time.  And a tennis class – haven’t got to play tennis yet because the weathers been so crappy here. Heck it was snowing on Wednesday. And its spring??? Anyways I’m undecided which school to go to after this quarter. I could transfer to UW Bothell and do more programming but programming really bogs me down and I’m not that amazing at it. Like I said before I’m a big picture sort of guy, and I don’t like spending hours trying to make one little piece of code run that hardly does anything… So I’ve also been looking at the Art Institute Seattle. I got to get a tour around that school from an advisor. Looks like an excellent school with lots of motivate people. It seems like I could be good at a lot of the stuff they do there.  I don’t we’ll see…

And of coarse I’m not giving up on Flight Sim! For about a month now I’ve been working on an F-18 blue Angel Training Mission with Mike Simburger - who was also a contractor at ACES studio. I really think this mission could be quite successful. I’m already addicted to playing it! I will post some screen shots when we get close to finishing up. Mike is working on the scenery. It takes place in Hawaii and mike is laying down some satellite imagery and changing some scenery data here and there. I’ve been working on it here and there – about 20 hours a week. We’ve come up with a clever way to teach people on the fly on how to operate the aircraft (displays which controls and instruments to look at).  I think people should enjoy it quite a bit! A lot more to show you in a later post though!

Well, as you have probably heard already, Microsoft decided to slash ACES studio. So that means I no longer have a job along with another 150 coworkers who also made up the studio. Uuhhhggg! Even though this was a dream job I have learned a lot from it and it has changed the better part of me.

 

That day, and the day after of hearing the news it felt like a very bad dream! A dream that I wanted to wake up from but couldn’t. Just a second ago I was in a game studio creating some amazing content with the most optimistic and creative people I’ve ever met and then “BANG” everyone got shot in the gut a told this was their last day. And the work that has been done is just going to get tossed in the trash! Very hard to comprehend and it took a while for my head to rap around the grim reality. Even though there was talk that some kind of reorg was coming, I never thought in my wildest dreams that Flight Sim was going to be cut. But for some reason the worse scenario came true. It was pretty sad watching everyone pack-up with their heads down – not believing what just happened. But the following day (Friday) was more of a celebration then sorrow. Being the kind of people that made up this studio everyone popped up their heads and looked toward the bright side. I guarantee that everyone who worked there is going to be able to find another job. And they know better to not get discouraged and to keep moving forward. And that’s what I will do as well!

 

I’ve learned alot about how the software development world works now. And I have a much better understanding of what I have to do to get back into it. My plan is to go back to school starting spring quarter. I Need 3 more classes to finish my AA. Once done and summer starts I will either try to find a new job, create my own job, or try and get a scholar ship to Art Institute, Vancouver Film School, Digipen, or take some Certificate classes at UW. I am leaning more toward a project based school then just a University. I tend to get a little lazy when taking various classes I don’t really give a hoot about! What I like is; I like having a project in front of me, with an idea and concept in my head, then going through various sprints and exercises to turn my ideas into reality.

 

While unemployed I am trying to do some self projects on my own. Add some more projects to my prortfolio. Some ideas are Creating a high fidelity Mission in honor of Flight sim, Get my own website up and running using silverlight, and create some animations using 3ds max. I bought 3ds max (student Verson) just before my I got laid off. So right now I am messing with the program to create my logo animation. (Don’t expect anything amazing being im just starting out with this program).  I’ve seen some cool things done with 3ds max and I want to try and do some awesome things as well!

 

Anyways, thanks for reading and I wish you all the best of luck in these tuff economic times!  

 

Since Paul introduced me on his blog I thought I take my time to explain who I am and where I came from. My name is Joey or Joe (either one – I don’t care J ) and I am 20, probably the youngest member on the flight team!  All I can say is I am one lucky guy to have gotten this job. I mean who would have ever thought I would end up here at Microsoft in a game studio help making the next version of flight Sim?  I sure didn’t think it was practical – but what do you know, I guess it is, because here I am!

I have lived here in Seattle my entire life. I have always loved airplanes or the aspect of flight. Aviation has always seemed like a hidden interest in my life - little did I know my future job would be so tightly connected. Flight has always fascinated me. Like when I was a kid my dad would take me down to the airport and we watch the giant airliners land at Sea Tac. I then remember I would go home and play with my toy airplane the entire day! Then I got into making model airplanes when I was like 10. My uncle bought me a balsa wood model airplane kit and we glued that thing together in a day. I admit I never got the exterior tissue glued to it though. My uncle said we would finish when he returned but it’s still sitting in my room on top my shelf to this day. I’m still waiting for his return! That didn’t stop me though. I build four or five other balsa wood planes with exterior and everything and they too still sit upon my shelf - with broken wings and what not.  And White Wings Paper Airplanes! - I don’t know if you’ve heard of those but I probably built like 50 of them.  I would go to the park and see how long I could get one to glide. I think my record is like a minute and 30 seconds! Yeah, that’s right, try and beat that! Anyways, I may not know a lot about real aviation and the actual names of the airplanes (as Paul and Brandon might know) but I like airplanes! And don’t get me wrong, I am learning a ton about real aviation now - with having this job and everything.  

As I got older computers started taking over my life. I started playing on the computer 24/7. I would play video games, mess around with Photoshop, and edit videos and endless stuff like that. Video editing was always a passion for me. My brother, neighbors, friends and I, would pull out the video camera and make all kinds of interesting movies. They are incredibly entertaining to watch -now that’s it’s been so long, but they are as funny as all get out! Anyways, somewhere in-between here I picked up the game flight Sim. I think I was about 16 when I finally grabbed Flight Sim 2004 off the shelf. To be honest I thought the game sucked at first because you couldn’t crash airplanes. But for some reason I kept going back to it. Not sure the reason, perhaps it was because the game was so opened ended. But then I found out you could download third party content. That’s when I got addicted! I downloaded a couple scenery and aircraft add-ons and thought this was amazing. Not too soon after that I was like, I wonder how hard it is to make my own stuff for this game? Then I started digging through the SDK. It was a bit over my head at first but worked my way through it. Figured out how to add my own house to the game! Then satellite imagery.

While doing this I started always visiting the AVSIM forums and other flight sim forums. That’s when I started paying attention to the development of FSX.  I started following the developer blogs and would check for updates like every week. FSX eventually came out and I started using the FSX SDK to make stuff. I wanted to make a police chase mission where you have to chase down a cop car in a Bell helicopter. Thats when I started this blog. Then one day I emailed PC-12 (that is Paul, who is now my boss) and just kindly asked him what would be the easiest way about getting a job in the game industry. Programming and video games greatly interested me and was thinking about working toward a career in that area. I was almost done with school at Shoreline Community College just finishing up some programming classes and about ready to pick another school. I just wanted to explore the other possible paths out there so that’s why I emailed Paul. Paul ended up emailing me back (Thank God!) and gave me some good advice on the subject. It made me feel real cool that I got advice from a game designer! Anyways, not too long after this I got an email from Paul again asking if I wanted to come down to get a look at the studio where Flight Simulator is created. Of course I said yes! So I took a trip down to Microsoft and got to meet Paul and Brandon. While there they mentioned they needed someone to help with missions and asked if I was interested. I was like, “well duhhhh”!!! So after a series of interviews here I sit. Helping create missions for my favorite game!  A job right up my alley! I truly believe I can create some cool stuff while I’m here and can’t wait to see the outcome. I’ve been working for about two months and so far I’ve seen some pretty cool stuff. And please don't ask what we’re working on because according to my Contract, and more specifically Paul - I am “sworn to secrecy”!

I also want to mention Brandon - my official manger. He is a really awesome guy to work with and I couldn't ask for a better boss! Working with him we should come up with some awesome stuff so stay tuned! Everyone should try to get him to start a blog as well!

Darn, my most viewed video on youtube got taken down due to a copyright claim on the "I get knocked down" song. Shooot! Oh well, I guess I knew it could happen. That was an awesome song, not to mention video! The video still exist but I replaced the song with youtube built in audio switch with the song Higher by Creed. But of coarse it doesn't fit like  Tubthumping by Chumbawamba.   Oh well. Life is unfair sometimes, I will move on :(

I finally put together a video for this mission like i said i would! If you know me i get carried away with the video editing and end up making it way too exciting or more than its meant to be. Thats just me having fun  I probably spent like 8 times the amount of time I did creating the music/ video then I did creating the actual mission. So before I release the mission I just want to add more stuff to it to make it better because right now it’s pretty bland and boring. And please bug me to get it out because I might get lazy and never get to it.

 

Pretty cool I made that music though, hu? I should make more songs       

I have been working on a home project called Cascade Mountains. I almost have the Mission and the video complete (I’m working on it here and there). Im doing it because I want to continue pleasing my viewers on youtube and other flight sim enthusiasts. This will probably be my last mission and vid for a while before i put all my effort into my work at ACES Studio. Let alone I can barley sit at my computer here at home after i spend all day on it at Microsoft   But i will post the vid here after i have it made.

I am getting reports that the mesh is not working. People say the ground polygons are covering the custom created road. Also reports that the helicopter starts out above or below the police station. If you are having this problem or anyother problem please let me know. I am not sure if everyone is expericing this same thing. You can let me know by responding to this post or emailing me at joeysipos@yahoo.com .

I had to create different color cars for the traffic on the road! I've changed my plan a little. Right now i am working a seperate mission that only contain traffic moving on the custom made highway. Then using this i will add the remainder of the Police Chase Mission. There is still tons of work to get done so i don't think this will be out for another two weeks or so.

 

And speaking of pretty colors, check out my 4th of July Firework show. It was Crazy! Took a lot of work to set this up and i did it all on the 4th. Check out my youtube channel (found on the side in "Cool Links") if you want to see more on the show :    

I needed to create a police car for the mission but didn’t feel like creating another car model. So I took the texture of the sports car and did some magic editing to it and turned it into a police car! Take a look. Don’t worry, the police car model has lights on it. I think this is how I am going to make different color cars now! It worked pretty good.

 

The Mission is almost done but still need a good amount of time to clean it up and make it look good. Video could be coming soon but it’s near the forth of July and I have a firework show to set up so this up coming week so I am not going to spend much time on this. Perhaps the week after.  

My friend Kyle has a sweet audie at his house so we took some pics today and i put it into flight sim!

Model doesn't have tires yet - thats why the tires look flat.