Motion platform

[bear78]

Hi!

I was looking around for car simulators that supported exporting physics information in real time. The thing is that I want to connect a car simulator/game to a motion platform http://www.moog.com/Media/1/6D2000E500-395_1102.pdf
I got the advice to take a look at LFS from another forum. Is it true that it's possible to do this? I've searched the LFS-forum but didn't find any information about the issue. Could anyone direct me to where I could read about it if it's possible?

Regards

[Krane]

Yes LFS supports motion simulators with OutSim, from the readme.txt:
Motion Simulator Support : (OutSim)
--------------------------
The user's car in multiplayer or the viewed car in single player or
single player replay can output information to a motion system while
viewed from an internal view.

This is controlled by four lines in the cfg.txt file :

OutSim Mode 0 :0-off 1-driving 2-driving+replay
OutSim Delay 1 :minimum delay between packets (100ths of a sec)
OutSim IP 0.0.0.0 :IP address to send the UDP packet
OutSim Port 0 :IP port
OutSim ID 0 :if not zero, adds an identifier to the packet

Each update sends the following UDP packet :

unsigned int :time in milliseconds (to check order)
Angular Velocity :3 floats
Orientation :3 floats Heading, Pitch, Roll
Acceleration :3 floats X, Y, Z
Velocity :3 floats X, Y, Z
Position :3 ints X, Y, Z (metres x 65536)
Game ID :1 int (optional ID - if specified in cfg.txt)

Note 1 : X and Y axes are on the ground, Z is up.

Note 2 : Motion simulators can be dangerous. The developers of the
Live for Speed racing simulator do not support any motion systems in
particular and cannot accept responsibility for any injuries or death
connected with the use of such machinery.
Using the platform you mentioned in LFS isn't exactly plug'n'play type of thing, the platform should have support for LFS for you to be able use it with LFS. So you need to talk with the people who made the platform. If you haven't yet got one, I'd suggest Force Dynamics 301 (http://www.force-dynamics.com/) or the Cyberseat (http://www.cyberseat.co.uk/) both of them already support LFS.

[bear78]

We have a application communicating with the platform itself. So as it seems we can poll the information over UDP from LFS in this application and pass it on to the platform, with some tweaking of course. We have a simulator for military vehicles today that feed the platform with motions but we're looking from a good car simulator.

I'll give it a try. Thanks for the help!

[Krane]

So you ARE the people (or one of...;)) making this platform! (or person able to make the platform support LFS..)

I thought you had bought/planning to buy such thing...
Email the developers at http://www.liveforspeed.net/?page=mailus if you have any more detailed questions a random forum poster couldn't answer. That's how there is motion platform support in LFS, one manufacturer asked for it :thumb:

[Victor]

though you've said most there is to say on the subject (from our side) already :) That paste from the readme basically says it all for a programmer.

[bear78]

though you've said most there is to say on the subject (from our side) already :) That paste from the readme basically says it all for a programmer.

True, the paste from the readme seem to cover what I need to know. I'll probably get back with more specific questions later when I start working on it.