Mark Collins

Business Development Director – Simulation, Epic Games

Using Game Engines for Next Gen Flight Simulation

In the interim period between appearances at WATS, we had a numerous exchanges discussions with industry and those new to the simulation community. Evidence gathered during those discussions regarding the advances of game engine technology resulted in requests for guidance on where to start when building a flight simulator with Unreal Engine.

This is why we created the Antoinette Project. A comprehensive set of resources to support the creation of the next generation of flight simulators. By extension, these resources support the many types of vehicular simulators in development today.

Project Antoinette
The Antoinette Project demo, a proof-of-concept flight simulator with Unreal Engine at its core and additional technologies from Meta Immersive Synthetics, Brunner, and Varjo. The demo illustrates the trend of immersiveness and deployability as well as development guidelines.

The ‘Trends and Best Practices for Flight Simulation’ information paper, describes guidelines to use Unreal Engine in this context. The paper also includes insights from users who are already using the engine to build solutions for their own needs.

The DIY tutorial illustrates how simple and fast it is to create a basic flight simulator.

A JSBSim plugin for Unreal Engine, designed for flight simulation, is based on an open source flight dynamics application.

XR Developments
The application of commercially available XR equipment (Oculus, Vive, Hololens, etc) to unlock traditionally defined designs. The ability to output to many types of display devices, from domes to VR headsets, AR glasses, and even mobile devices.

Updates
Feedback and reports to our blog post regarding this new approach. The impacts of data and AI in future systems. Potential for sustainable, agile methods when accepted as part of the training delivery cycle.

Pilot Conference
Day 2 – Wednesday 9th November 2022
Session 8 – 1630-1800