Feature request (Leap Motion): Visible pilot avatar

[TuomasH]

I have tried to find this addon or enable command for ages, no luck. I am not a frequent flyer in FSX so it may be this is just a newbie problem. However when Leap Motion support comes in I find it quite immersion breaking if we just see empty cockpit and a pair of hands extending from nowhere. I mean, what is the idea here? When I zoom outside the aircraft I can see the pilot yet when I am in I am flying as a ghost? I would have imagined that someone would have coded "Visible pilot avatar" add-on for FSX but no, there seems to be no such thing. Or I am just too new and can not google with right jargon... but still. It would add a lot of immersion to see "myself" inside the cockpit instead of flying as a ghost.

Just imagine what kind of review Grand Theft Auto V PC version would have gotten if they would have had _empty_ cars when driving from first person perspective? It would have tanked right then and there.

Anyway, this is not a priority one thing, Oculus first, then Leap. I will make the damn thing myself if this idea is shot down here.

[Tony]

Hi mate , welcome This is just an alpha release not the final version. If you read Dan's Kickstarter page you will see that this is a feature he wants to apply in the future.

Patience

Tony

[admin]

I agree with you that an avatar is a great idea, no argument there!

Let me start off by saying, that even if Leap Motion control doesn't add 100% of the immersion that it could with an avatar, it still makes the experience much nicer! Being able to interact with virtual windows as if you're in Minority Report is going to be great.

Back to the avatar, I've thought about it a lot, and I've chosen not to add it as a stretch goal. I could buy a 3d pilot model, stick it in the cockpit, and call it a day. That's no good though, and a poor feature is worse than no feature! To make it worthwhile, I'll need to use inverse kinematics, and have the avatar follow user motion. Proper bending of the neck to follow head motion, it gets even more intricate with Leap Motion arms thrown into the mix. If I made a stretch goal I could easily price it "too high" and receive lots of complaints of "You're charging X$$$$ for an avatar, that's super easy" (from people not understanding the complexity involved). On the other end of the spectrum, I could price it too low, and end up underdelivering on people's expectations with an avatar which doesn't move naturally or glitches.

Basically, an avatar has a lot of hidden complexity making it very risky to promise as a stretch goal. On the other hand, once the features I've promised are all implemented, I'm planning to work on adding an avatar to the best of my ability. If you decide to create your own avatar plugin in the mean-time, you might have a product there If you get it working, I'd be happy to export head/hand position data to you from FlyInside.