IG Aviation Add-on

To set up various aircraft effects (engine or landing gear fire, smoke, contrail, etc.):

1. Assign the EffectAircraftController property to the parent node (aircraft) and leave all parameters unchanged.

2. Assign the EffectAircraft property to each node representing visual effects of various types.

   

   The following property parameters are available:

   • Node — a node to be enabled/disabled
   • Emitter Node — a node emitting particles for the effect
   • Default Enable — indicates whether the effect should be enabled by default
   • Effect Type — aircraft effect type selection (engine or landing gear fire, smoke, contrail, etc.)
   • Wind Dependent — indicates whether the effect is affected by wind or not

This component allows controlling the landing gears. It contains several properties that shall be assigned as follows:

1. Assign the LandingGears property to the parent node (aircraft).

   

   The following property parameters are available:

   • Gear — indicates that gears are extended
   • Time Covers — cover opening time, in seconds
   • Time Gears — gear extension time, in seconds
   Notice

   Make sure all pivots are set up properly.

2. Define which nodes represent parts of landing gears and assign the LandingGearPart property to them.

   

   The following property parameters are available:

   • Node — the node to be moved (usually the node to which this property is assigned)
   • Is Cover — indicates whether the part is a cover or not (a cover is opened prior to gear extension)

   • Use Dummy Cover — indicates whether the wheel well is to be covered with a dummy cover after gear retraction. When enabled, an additional When Extended option is displayed. It is used to specify whether the dummy cover shall be visible when the gear is extended.

     Notice

     If this option is enabled, the Node field should not contain the node to which this property is assigned, as the component will be disabled forever after retraction.
   • Rotate — indicates whether the part should rotate
   • Axis — coordinates of the part's rotation axis
   • Extension Angle — rotation angle of the part, when the gear is extended, in degrees
   • Retraction Angle — rotation angle of the part, when the gear is retracted, in degrees
   • Cover Closable — indicates whether the cover should close after gear extension, or to stay open

The RotorBlade property controls the coning of the helicopter rotor blades and creates blurring to disk due to the blade rotation. To use this property, the rotor blade in your helicopter model should have a separate mesh and material.

Using this property also implies that you have the blade material (mesh_blade.mgraph in the add-on) and the node and material for circle into which the blades blur when rotating fast (check the disk node and mesh_blur_blades.mgraph material of the helicopter_simple Node Reference in the add-on).

Assign the RotorBlade property to the parent node (rotor node).

The following property parameters are available:

This component allows creating the effect of dust clouds raised up by the rotor wash when the helicopter is standing on the ground, taking off or landing, or flies close to the surface.

1. Create the effects for each type of surface in UNIGINE Editor and assign the RotorWashEffect property to each of them. The following parameters are available:

   

   Intensity	Rotor wash visibility intensity value. With the minimum value of 0 the effect is completely invisible. With the maximum value of 1 — completely visible. This is the default value that can be changed at runtime.
   Max Height	Height of the node from the ground, at which the effect disappears.
   Min Height	Height of the node from the ground, at which the effect has the maximum intensity.
   Forward Offset	Multiplier to move the effect forward relative to the helicopter. The offset distance depends on the movement speed. This setting is intended to make the effect visible for the cockpit view.
   Static Only	Root node for effects that are only displayed when the helicopter is not moving.
   Disable Static	Disable the static effect node when the helicopter is moving. If the option is disabled (i.e. the static effect is enabled), the static effect is displayed throughout the whole life time of its particle systems. In most cases disabling this option (i.e. enabling the static effect visibility throughout the particles life time) is unnecessary, because the effect won’t be seen from the cockpit.
   Max Static Velocity	Upper speed limit at which the helicopter is considered static (m/s).

2. Assign the modifier depending on the effect node type: ParticlesParameterModifier / DecalParameterModifier / FieldHeightParameterModifier. The modifiers are required for the alignment of the corresponding node (Particles/Decal/FieldHeight) with the effect.

   ParticlesParameterModifier has the following parameters:

   

   Recursive	Toggles synchronization of child particle systems.
   Enabled by Default	Toggles the node default state. If the node is disabled by default, you need to enable it via code after adding to the scene.
   Sync	Synchronization of particles via Syncker. Recommended to enable only if synchronization via network is critical, because it may affect performance.
   Lerp Life Time	Lerp the particles life time value with the effect intensity. If the effect intensity is equal to 0, the life time value also equals to 0.
   Lerp Spawn Rate	Lerp the particles spawn rate value with the effect intensity. If the effect intensity is equal to 0, the spawn rate value also equals to 0.
   Lerp Velocity	Lerp the particles velocity value with the effect intensity. If the effect intensity is equal to 0, the velocity value also equals to 0.

3. Assign the RotorWashController property to the helicopter and select the type of surface corresponding to each effect.

4. Set the surface type via code for each surface.

Weather radar (aka WSR) used to monitor weather ahead of the aircraft (clouds and precipitation) is an integral part of a professional flight simulator enabling pilots to train strategic and tactical planning of a safe flight trajectory. It is implemented as a MeteoRadar component and requires adequate skills to use it efficiently — accurately tune this system and interpret the weather radar display correctly. All key parameters of the radar are available for adjustment including display range (to monitor both the short-distance and long-distance weather), gain (for weather severity assessment), as well as tilt angles, FOV, and others. The radar works with 3D volumetric clouds generated by UNIGINE's advanced Clouds System ensuring consistency of radar readouts with the view from the aircraft cabin.

The intensity of clouds displayed on the radar is calculated as the cloud density at each point multiplied by the current humidity.

To use the weather radar, create a dummy node and assign the MeteoRadar component to it. The following parameters are available:

The add-on includes an example of the meteo radar UI represented as the MeteoRadarWidget component and available in the Debug mode of the application. The interface example includes a display with a scan effect and a set of parameters that control radar settings and scan range.