First Post - What am I doing

 29th SEPTEMBER 2013 


Why am I writing a blog?

 

Hi all, this is my first post in my blog about the full size X-Wing simulator that I am currently building. In fact this is the first blog I have ever done....

Luke Skywalker getting into an X-Wing cockpit

My name is Dan Rickard, I'm 28 and live in Brighton, UK. I've done a few creative projects in my life. I'm a film maker, this year I completed my first feature film 'Darkest Day', that took nearly 8 years to finish (but thats another story). I do visual effects mainly and a few years ago I did visual and special effects on a zombie film called 'The Dead' that was shot in West Africa. This year we did the follow up 'The Dead 2: India' which we just finnished, which believe it or not, we did in India. I'm also a programmer and worked at a motion capture company called Animazoo for 5 years.

Anyway, the point is, why am I doing my first blog now? I could have blogged about many things, such as the films ive worked on, but loads of other people are doing that, and are probably making it far more interesting than I ever could. I hate writting, I'm trying to write several scripts for my next feature film project at the moment and its going pretty badly, In fact I'm probably doing this as a way of not doing that right now. Ha, good start!

So the reason I am doing this is after much research on-line, I believe that I am the only person in the world who is doing this kind of project. There have been a few xwing cockpits made for various Starwars fan films, ranging in quality and accuracy, but as far as i'm aware, no-one has ever made a accurate functioning cockpit in the way that I am attempting to. The closest I have found is an interactive cockpit in a 3:4 scale (nearly full size) x-wing in a musium Germany where the guy was doing it up a bit and putting some electronics in. It looks quite cool actualy, but still not quite what I am aiming to do. Of course, there are many people out there building home aircraft simulators, Ive seen some incredible stuff, way beyond the complexity of what I want to do. What inspired me the most is a Spitfire cockpit that a guy has built, the detail was incredible. Link at the bottom, its deffinatly worth a look.

Spitfire Cockpit (some guy built one of

 these from scratch with every detail)

At the very least if someone has done a project like this before then there seems to be no mention of it on-line. If this project really is that unique then I feel like I should make a record of what I'm doing. For several reasons, but most of all maybe it will inspire someone else out there to do a simiar thing (or put someone off if this all goes horribly wrong!). Also, the huge amount of interest I have already had about this project has pushed me to write this blog.

If any one out there knows of any similar projects then please let me know, I would be most interested.

View from the inside of an X-Wing Cockpit

What am I trying to do exactly?

Right, let me stop right here... Before I continue let me explain some basics. I would assume most people interested in reading this will understand everything I'm talking about but for the benefit of those who dont...

An X-Wing is a space fighter ship from the film Starwars (do I need to mention that i'm quite a big Starwars fan? Hmmm probably not). A cockpit is the area in an aircraft where the pilot sits. An aircraft simulator artificialy simulates the flying an aircraft (or spacecraft) using a computer. They range in accuracy and complexity, from a basic flight simulator game that you can play at home all the way up to a full size replica of a Boing 747 cockpit that are used to train real pilots.

T65 X-Wing Starfighter

 

What I am attempting to do Is construct a replica of the area surrounding the pilot of an X-Wing fighter and have all of the flight controls, switchs and lights working. I also am going to simulate a basic computer system which among other things will have a targetting computer. Some high end flight sims, actualy are built on top of a motion base that moves around in relation to the virtual aircraft, giving a more realistic sence of movement. Most people Ive spoken to about this project have asked if I'm going to do that. I would bloody love to, and thats a possibility in the future if I ever have enough money (as it aint cheap), but for now I want to keep things simple...ish.

High-End Flight Simulator

Why the hell am I doing this?

I got my first PC in 1997 when I was 12. It was one of the most exciting days of my life, I was obviosly always going to be a computer guy, I dived straight in, and started playing around with settings and programming and before long I phyicaly had the thing in pieces. My dad was terrified, as he had never spent so much money on somthing so small. I didn't care, my theory has always been that you have to break somthing to know how to fix it, but thats just kids.. I do feel sorry for all the kids who grow up with all this technology, as they will never apprieciate any of it. Its like my grandparents generation who thought a telephone was the most amazing thing. But anyway, Ive gone off on one.... Back to 1997, I got a game called X-Wing, it was already an old game back then as it was released in 93. I didn't care though as it was an amazing game, you got to fly an x-wing fighter, or a y-wing or a-wing or a b-wing, against the Galactic Empire. The graphics were basic to say the least, but the gameplay was incredible. I can't think of any other game ive played with so much tension, shields shot out with 2 Tie Fighters behind, 30 mins in, on my 10th attempt at the mission, the rest of the fleet had got to safety for the first time and all I had to do was survive! Of course you couldnt save during a mission, this was a 'propper' game. I think I broke 3 joysticks playing it, as if pulling that little bit harder in the Y-axis would get that tie fighter off my tail. After that there were other X-Wing games, culminating in X-Wing Alliance in 1999, another incredible game. And then there was, nothing.......

"X-Wing" 1993 I dont care what anyone says

about the graphics, its looks amazing!

So, i'm talking alot about the xwing games, as i'm thinking that many of the people who are still reading this far are fans of those games. Why Lucasarts stopped making them I dont know, maybe its somthing to do with a cirtain film called "Episode 1". The consencus is that the Starwars games just went down hill around that time. Still, the anouncment this year that Lucasarts will be closing its doors still brought a slight tear to my eye. Ok, get to the bloody point Dan, the reason the xwing games are important are because they are what inpired my to do this project. Ever since I was I kid, I thought how cool would it be to fly an X-Wing fighter, just like Luke did. Those games brought that dream alive, for me and everyone else who played them, but I always wanted to go that extra step.....


Programming

So it should be obvious by now that I intend to play the xwing series of games with my Simulator. Thats always been a goal, however I want my cockpit to have extra functionality beond what those games had as well as better graphics. I want to be able to target a Tie-Fighter using a targeting computer, just like in the film. I want warning lights to come on when "I'm hitttt!". I want to have at least 3 buttons just to turn the power on. For all that, I need to program my own game, infact I won't call it a game, I'll call it a flight sim as accuracy is key, although hopfully it will be fun to. Of course its crazy to talk about accuracy when we are talking about a fictional film, but the universe George Lucas created is so real, so practicle, that there is level of accuracy that can by achieved by looking closely at the films.

Weather or not I play the original xwing games or my custom simulator, I will need to have some kind of display. I'm hoping to get a short-throw HD projector exentualy to get the image as large as possible (a wide field of view).

Beginings of the c++ code for the simulator

So effectively there are 2 parts to what I want to achieve:

The design and construction of a phyical cockpit, with working electronics.

The 'simulator' program with 3D graphics that will need to be made to interface with the phyical cockpit.

My first drawing of the cockpit

Ok thats enough blogging for now.  Hopfully ive explained what I'm trying to achive overall. I will go into more detail and show you how its all going in further posts.

Links:

Spitfire Cockpit Project
http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/start-finish-builds/spitfire-ix-cockpit-1-1-a-17217.html

German X-Wing Cockpit
http://www.therpf.com/f9/new-x-wing-cockpit-lucasfilm-58032/

Cockpit Design

 8th OCTOBER 2013 


So first thing to do is to start working out the design of the cockpit. The crazy thing is that there is actually very little reference out there for the cockpit of an x-wing. Despite the popularity of Starwars and all the hundreds of books and websites that go into so much detail about the ships in the Starwars universe, there isn't much in the way of photos and plans of an X-wing cockpit.

I thought I would have some luck with the scale modelling guys, they go into crazy amounts of detail and go to great lengths to make sure that they capture everything in a model. Only one problem...The actual models used in the filming of Starwars have completely different cockpits to the live set that were built. Most of the models match the filming models rather than the sets.

I knew early on that my cockpit was going to match the live ones. You never really see the inside in the model shots and I really want to match the famous shots from the first film.

"Look at the size of that thing... Cut the chatter Red 2!"

 

I assumed that plans would exist, either the originals ones or fan made ones, unfortunately I haven't been able to find any. I found a rather interesting forum where someone had actually contacted the person who owned the company who made the live action full scale x-wing props for the first film. Unfortunately the plans no longer exist, although the original contract does, that describes some of the specifications of what was to be built and the budget. The scale models were built first by ILM in the US and then one was sent over to the UK for reference for the full scale prop. They did a pretty good job of it, although for some reason the cockpit is a different design.

 

 

Rare photo of the cockpit scenes being filmed.

 

Unfortunately I have never scene a photo of the front section of the cockpit which would be more useful for me. I have seen a pair of photos for the front and back sections of the Y-Wing cockpit. I initially considered building a Y-Wing instead as I though it would be easier, however I changed my mind when I realized that the curve in the canopy would be a nightmare to reproduce. The glass (or perspex) in the XWing canopy is all nice and straight. 

 

 

So really, the only reference I have is from the films themselves. The actual screen-time between all 3 films is extremely minimal. It wasn't long before I realized that there are big differences between the films.

 

Comparison between the 3 films

 

Actually, I'm probably not going to worry about building the section behind the pilot that's in these pictures as its something you will never see looking forwards. However the picture does shows the differences in design nicely.

 

 

Here's some screenshots I took from the films...

 

 

This is the cockpit of the full size x-wing, look closely and you will see even on

this the details don't exactly match the point of view close-up small

section of cockpit was built separately just for those shots. 

Empire cockpit. The area to the sides has changed quite a bit from ep4 

I was lucky to find this, a continuity polaroid from Return of the Jedi

that was being sold on an auction website.

 

 

 

So that gave me another decision to make, which cockpit to build.... The original one of course! The one from Episode 4. This is the cockpit that gets the most screen time of any of the films, during the attack on the DeathStar. It was watching that amazing scene as a child that's caused me to do this whole bloody thing in the first place. (I had to stop myself there from going on a CG vs practical models rant)

 

Although the lack of reference seemed like a big problem at first, I've realized that in the end its a blessing in disguise. It gives me room to add to the design myself. And also, if I make the whole thing completely inaccurate then no one can ever prove it wrong, even the scale modellers.

 

 

Although reference is minimal, there is some interesting stuff from various books. Whether or not the artists of the books have access to better resources than me I don't know. But I do suspect there is an large amount of artistic licence involved.

 

This is from the book "Starwars Blueprints: Rebel Edition"

Very nice, they attempt to list what the functions are,

although my layout will probably be slightly different.

 

This is from one of the DK Cross Sections books. Doesn't

 help me a huge amount but its a bloody great picture.

 

 

 

 

Construction

 

 

First Drawing of the control panel

 

The way to tackle any large project is to split it into a smaller task rather than to worry about everything at once. My starting point is the main control panel. Even if I only ever build this and never finish the rest, its a nice piece to have and can sit on the desk in front of me whilst playing X-Wing Alliance. My plan is to make it into a PC controller. If I can make it emulate keyboard controls then the switches and buttons can control the functions in the game such as shields/lasers/sfoils.

 

This is the stage where I have to roughly work out what buttons will go where. Like I said in my last post, there are 2 aims, one to play the x-wing series of games, and one to make a new simulator from scratch. This can have far more controls and functions then the very basic controls in the original games. I have been looking at the original cockpit and trying work out what the buttons and lights all mean...

 

Ok when you start looking at something that closely, the flaws in the design start to show up. So I will have to modify the design a bit to make this work. Its quite funny really,  I do wonder what the person who designed the original control panel would make of all this. For them it was just another job, no one expected Starwars to have  any success, in fact most people working on it thought it was a load of old rubbish. There they were just putting a few flashing lights here and there, just trying to make it look cool. 36 years later, here I am trying to work out what button does what. Bet they didn't think that would happen...

 

 

Next I built a small 1/6th scale cardboard model of the control panel. The triangular shapes are quite complicated to work out the dimensions for,  so a small model was the best way to work that out.

 

 

 

I decided to build the control panel out of 6mm MDF. I cut out the pieces with a jigsaw. I totally cocked up on the main piece and cut the top edge at a wonky angle which you can see in the right image below. I'm leaving it for now and will sort it later, with filler or something.

 

 

These are the holes where a small screen with go

behind for the targeting computer and display.

 

 

 

The angles of the triangle pieces was a bugger to get right. I haven't got it perfect but close enough that it all fits together. I filed the edges at an angle so that it all fits without wide gaps. For now it is all screwed together as it important that I can take it apart at this stage. You can see the screws on the outside but the plan is to eventually glue it all together and fill the holes and all the edges.

 

This is where its currently at.

Lots of holes drilled for LEDs and switches.

 

 

So its definitely getting there, and its starting to look a bit like a cockpit. Next step will be to start playing with some electronics. Thanks for reading...

 



 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

Control Panel Electronics

13th OCTOBER 2013 

Electronics is something I've always wanted to have a go at but until this year my knowledge on the subject was minimal. A few months ago I decided dig out my old CD of X-wing Alliance and installed it ready to play. The X-wing games were pretty much unplayable without using a joystick, so I dusted off my old Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback Joystick but to my horror discovered that since Windows Vista onwards, Microsoft have stopped supporting MIDI gameport inputs for PCs which is what the Sidewinder and all joysticks of that era used. This joystick is still considered by many to be one of the best ever made, so I wasn't about to run to the shops an buy a new one. You can get USB to gameport adaptors but unfortunately I discovered they don't work with the MS Sidewinder. I was about to give up when I discovered a project online to build a custom adaptor that makes the joystick work via USB. The project had plans and code to build the adaptor, so I ordered some parts and got my soldering iron ready...

Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback Joystick.

They don't make'em as good as this anymore!

 

 

 

The main component of the joystick project was a very small development board called the Teensy 2.0. Its basically a very small computer that can be programmed. After much trial and error and bad language, I got the device to work and my lovely joystick was saved from the scrap heap and I was able to play X-Wing Alliance again. Wahey! Having not played any aircraft simulators for about 10 years I decided to see how much they had come on, and started playing IL2: Cliffs of Dover (A WW2 flight sim with Spitfires and things) and Rise Of Flight (a very accurate WW1 flight sim, wow those pilots were brave back then).

 

Teensy 2.0

Size isn't everything

 

 

Anyway, the point of all this is that having worked with the Teensy chip, I started playing around with it and seeing what can be done with it. It would be possible to make a pretty cool input and output controller using this thing. That and playing all these fairly accurate flight sims as well as the old x-wing games got me thinking... And that's why I'm here now!

 

 

Teensy 3.0

 

 

In the end I decided to use the newer Teensy 3.0 for my cockpit controls. It has a more powerful Processor than the Teensy 2.0 and is actually cheaper for some reason, I got my one for just over £20. Some of you may have heard of a series of successful development boards called Arduino. The Teensy is not an Arduino, however it is very similar in many ways and in fact uses the Arduino software to program the chip.

 

 

 

The greatest thing I think about the Teensy, is its ability to easily become many types of USB device with only a few clicks of the mouse in the Ardiuno software.

 

Here are some of the types of devices it can be:

 

Keyboard

Mouse

Joystick

MIDI

DMX

Serial

 

Teensy showing up as a Keyboard Device in

Windows 7 when plugged into a USB port

 

 

That means that by connecting a few buttons to the device I can make a very basic USB keyboard device in no time at all. That's cool! (Well, I think its cool at least) A few years ago doing something like that would have taken a hell of a lot of time and effort.

 

Here is an example of a DMX box I recently built using a Teensy 3.0 to control film lights.

 

 I built it to simulate blue police sirens for a film that I am the director of photography on. Previously I had to have a laptop with a USB DMX interface on location to do the same thing. This is much smaller and practical. 

 

 

 

I've decided to make the Teensy a joystick device as a way of connecting the many buttons and switches of the control panel to the PC for my software simulator to recognise. Every button would be treated as button on a game controller. I also have the option of re-programming it to be a keyboard and mapping some of the buttons to the correct keys for the X-Wing games.

 

 

 

Control Panel with some holes drilled ready for the components.

 

 

Some of the components that I will be using.

 

Starting to add components and wire them up to the Teensy

 

 

 

I also wanted to have LEDs on the control panel, to control these from the software, I decided to use a second Teensy 3.0 device setup as a Serial device. That way I can send commands to the device from the PC to turn the LEDs on and off.

 

Each Teensy has 33 input/output pins on the device, this sounds like a lot, but with all the switches and LEDs I'm actually nearly using all of them on the 2 Teensys, that's a hell of a lot of soldering, aghhh!

 

 

I'm mounting sections of LEDs onto copper breadboard.

 

 

 

Mostly done! Nice and neat..ish!

 

 

The big black thing in the middle is a 9inch video monitor that will be used for the targeting computer. I will talk about that in another post.

 

 

The 2 Teensy 3.0s are in there somewhere...

 

 

Everything in place on the front.

 

 

 

Close-up of switches and LEDs

 

 

 

There is still quite a bit of blank space that can be used in future if I want to add extra buttons, such as computer controls or anything else I can think of. For now though, I'm quite happy not to do anymore soldering for a while....

 

 

Control Panel Switches