AIG AI Manager OCI for MSFS – Development Announcement
Airbus A350 Singapore Airlines (Developed by UTT)
As promised is here now the latest Dev-Update from AIGTech regarding AIG AI Manager, this time I will try to show you the current state and what we are planning to do in the near future:
AIG AI Manager
The code for this tool was rewritten with the announcement of MSFS to be “cross platform” ready, luckily, MSFS is using more or less the same AI setup as ESP based Simulators, besides the FDE and the models the files are the same.
This proactive move is paying now off, no changes are needed in the backend of the Software. All changes required to load all Sim-Data on startup have been added and seems to be working as they should.
We will use the time till release for MSFS to do some bug-hunting and improvements.
One Click Installer
I was able to confirm that 90% of the current code are working for P3D and MSFS, the rest 10% are unique stuff for each simulator that I had to split in the process. This process is already done for P3D and mostly done for MSFS. Still missing are the code for the model update process and the repaint modification needed in MSFS.
This bring me directly to the next new information I can share today with you. Not all paints from the FSX/P3D models can be directly used on the new models for MSFS, they require an updated lightmap as well as and updated ALPHA-Channel for the main texture to show correct in the Sim. We know that it is very unlikely that each paint will get updated to this new standard, so we will provide OCI with a feature to make these changes during the installation process – no need for the User to edit all these paints.
AIGFP fileformat (used in combination with AIG Traffic Controller)
Users of P3D already know that AIG has published a new fileformat for flightplans that is used by AIG traffic Controller to inject the traffic via SimConnect to the Sim.
TBH we have not done any major test with this yet but implementing of the current SDK showed just a few error…. We will keep you updated on this one incl. a separate topic when the time has come.
Copyright protection
We are still thinking about adding some kind of copyright protection, but so far no progress has been made here. Maybe MS/ASOBO will open their protection at some point to 3rd party developers.
And now some updates on stuff that AIGTech is not working directly on.
Model-Conversion
The process of converting models has been started and most of the problems seems to be resolved by the guys – great work by them.
Around 6 different aircraft types are already ready for internal testing and it seems they are working fine (in the limits of the simulator). They use the new glTF format as well as the new FDE format.
Dash 8-400 Air Canada Express (Developed by TFS)
Boeing 757 Delta Airlines (Developed by AIG)
Boeing 787 ANA (Developed by UTT)
Airbus A350 Cathay Pacific (Developed by UTT)
Boeing 777 KLM (Developed by UTT) - All domes/antennas enabled for testing
I hope this has given you some insight on what is going on at the moment. In case you still have some open questions, here a short FAQ:
When will it be released?
When it is done.
Will there a beta phase?
Yes, there will be a private and a public beta phase at some point. Users for the private phase will be picked by myself (DO NOT ASK!!!). For the public beta we will use the same approach as we did with the initial OCI public beta back in 2019 (use at your own risk).
Is there anything I can do to help?
Well, development of the Tool is done by our small AIGtech team, and the rest is done by the community. Join the AIG Forum, to start your journey in this big AI community take a look on what others a doing and if you find something that has not been done so far and you would like to share with the rest – just do it and present it there.
Is help required from ASOBO/MS?
Not directly to finish the OCI process, but there are currently some limitations within the Simulator/SDK regarding AI improvements that could use a rework. This can not be done without the work of MS/ASOBO.
Will this be freeware?
Yes, it would not be fair to let users pay for a software that is just collecting freeware files from the web.