Player list in 1.5c release

A new feature has been introduced in the latest release: the list of logged-in pilots.

The list shows all authenticated pilots (and the total number of Foos for good measure) and provides a link to join them in flight!

When clicking the link, your aircraft is positioned just behind the pilot you are joining. This can be very handy for formation flying or just joining your friends.

The list is opened by clicking the little silhouettes icon net to the "talk" button (only available to logged-in users)

GEFS Everest

Better Multiplayer in 1.4c

Latest release's main focus was a more accurate and robust multiplayer engine. Formation flight is now, hopefully, much more accurate and aircraft interpolation smoother. A couple of bugs were also fixed in the chat UI. Please note that chat messages are now appearing at the top of the screen and scrolling down (reversed).

Thanks to the accuracy of the new multiplayer, I have noticed and taken down a major historical bug that was probably lurking in GEFS from the very beginning. Physics timing was not entirely frame-rate independent: a slower frame-rate would result in a slightly slower aircraft!

This is all fixed and everybody should be able to fly in sync with the same performance.

Have a nice flight!

New Weather Data in 1.3

The latest release (1.3c) is now using a new weather API (openweathermap.org) in order to retrieve real-time weather data. For now, only wind speed/direction and air temperature/pressure are used by GEFS but it is planned to return cloud coverage soon. Also, more weather conditions (rain, snow, fog, etc.) are in the plan.

The new version includes a batch of bug fixes and performance improvement.

Have a nice flight.

GEFS is really plugin free!

With the recent 1.2c release, GEFS becomes a truly pure HTML5 application and does not requires any plugin to run. The old Flash based sound engine has been replaced by a Web Audio API implementation. Preferences are now persistence using Local Storage API. Joystick support is made via the Gamepad API. And, of course, with CesiumJS, rendering is done with WebGL.

GEFS 1.2c

A new release to properly wrap up the migration to CesiumJS:

- Reworked all the 3D models to make sure they look good in CesiumJS
- Removed the last dependency to plugins (Flash)
- Upgraded to Cesium 1.22 which provides new advanced shadows (see pictures)
- Implemented an orientation control mode for mobiles (tilting phone to control aircraft)
- Redesigned the UI with mobile support in mind (responsive) and to get rid of plugin legacy (chat messages are now shown as overlay)
- Improved hot air balloon simulation with a a new atmospheric model (air temp and pressure)

Migration Complete

The migration toward CesiumJS as a replacement of the dying Google Earth plugin is almost complete. Except for some minor tweaks (smoke effects, clouds), I consider the migration to be successful. The application seems to be stable enough and performance is satisfying.

I just upgraded Cesium to version 1.18 which claims a memory usage gain in Chrome. I also tweaked caching in order to prevent the constant reloading of texture tiles when quickly changing camera direction.

Finally, GEFS is now featured on Cesium's official demo page http://cesiumjs.org/demos.html