Category: virtualreality

It’s been nearly a month now since I finished the Tigershark 3. In that time, I’ve messed around with various ideas in an unfocussed way. That’s really the best way to work — play with whatever catches your interest and store up the ideas for later. At the end of several weeks of it, I have a large cache of design concepts to draw from. If you’ve ever seen the inside of my lab during one of these periods, you’ll know what I mean.

When I’m not messing around in the lab, I also have my SkyLife sky home kits to work on. I’m sure you’ve seen them around — they were the first modular home kits in SL and I’m pleased to see that they’re still quite popular. When I scan the SL map, it’s always gratifying to find the familiar white rectanglar roofs with the distinctive circular skylight in the middle. You can pick them out even from ten thousand feet (or whatever altitude the map “photo” is taken from).

Not long after I finished Tigershark 3, I decided to expand the SkyLife series… this time taking it into space.

Well, alright… SL doesn’t really have space. The highest you can build is 768 meters, which isn’t very high at all. But the single biggest request I had for my skyhomes was to add enclosed walkways and hubs so that people could make space stations. Great idea (thank you, all who requested it).

The result is the new SkyLife space home parts, which include tunnels and tunnel connectors, enclosed hubs and towers, and airlocks. A tunnel-to-door adapter joins the existing SkyLife Residence modules to tunnels. Instant space station! I hope to see starships docked at various SkyLife space stations next time I look at the map.

I have another space-related thing in the works, but it’s not quite ready to be announced yet. Stay tuned!

And in other news… everyone go to Oak Grove and buy Kanker Greenacre’s “Flying Tako” sailboat. It actually uses SL’s wind to let you sail. Very cool.

After weeks of bashing away at scripts, mashing prims, and tweaking textures, the Terra Tigershark 3 is ready for the world!

New in this version:

• Control panel HUD attachment, with altimeter, speed indicator, artificial horizon, and status indicator. Attaches to your camera so that it’s always visible to you, but not to others.
• Smoother flight model. Gradual application of turning forces means easy, controlled turns.
• Improved, retro-style model design.
• Textures are now more tigery.
• Choose shiny or matte finish paint — paint your aircraft any color at all.
• Improved collision damage detection. The optional collision damage detection causes damage to individual parts. If you strike an object, that part of your plane becomes damaged and affects the flight behaviour.
• Improved sound effects.

Other features:

• Seats 2 avatars.
• Dive into the water and it converts to a sub. Converts back to a plane when you speed up and break the surface.
• Changes colour. Choose from several preset colours or specify your own by RGB code.
• Moving parts: retractable wings, rectractable landing gear, opening canopy, and moving control surfaces.
• Change keyboard controls: choose between first-person shooter key setup and standard flight sim key setup.
• Can taxi on the ground (steers like a ground vehicle when not flying).
• Optional hovertext display shows: speed in knots, altitude, landing gear position, and throttle.
• Variable-speed throttle.
• Ejection seat… plane vanishes after you bail out.
• Engine sounds.

As always, the Tigershark 3 is available at my shop at Abbotts Aerodrome (click here).

It never fails. I begin what I expect will be an quick project — say, a few hours work — and then it spirals out of control. What began as a simple “point release” upgrade of the Tigershark, my simple addition of a HUD attachment, turned into a major revision.

This week I’ve put in countless (and often frustrating) hours testing and rewriting the Tigershark flight script. The controls now use a gradual, cumulative force in the angular motors. Instead of slamming into a full-force turn when you press an arrow key, the force is applied gradually, which ensures a smoother flight.

Like the Talon, the Tigershark now has a HUD attachment which includes, altimeter, speed, artificial horizon, throttle, status indicator, and assorted buttons. The status indicator was interesting to make — it shows which parts of the plane are damaged by highlighting that part in red on an overhead view.

And since I was rewriting most of the scripts anyway, I thought I’d make a few modifications to the Tigershark’s appearance too. It now features a WW2 style canopy, larger engine pods, shorter fuselage, and a new tailgun design.

I’m not done yet, either. Give me another week of testing and bug-fixing, and it’ll be ready to take to the skies.