Palomino Flight Simulator - Manual

http://www.palomino3d.org    http://www.jimbrooks.org/sim/


To quickly start flying: Press F3, then F12, then 7, then Cursor Down.
On Mac, press the Apple key while pressing a function key.

Pass -game to enable a basic game module.


Keyboard

ESC menu
CTRL + C exit program
F1 flight mode (first-person)
F2 pan mode
F3 control aircraft #1
F4 control aircraft #2
cursor left | right (q | w) roll (rotate Z)
cursor up | down (a | s) pitch (rotate X)
z | x yaw (rotate Y)
e | r move forward/backward (translate Z)
d | f move left/right (translate X)
c | v move up/down (translate Y)
g landing gear (toggle)
0..9 throttle
CTRL | SHIFT minify|magnify maneuver rate
SHIFT + 1..0 adjust rotation rate or joystick response
SPACE fire guns
TAB toggle aircraft animation
BACKSPACE | DELETE reset view
F5 switch input device
F12 toggle chase-plane view
ALT + F12 reset chase-plane view
ALT + cursor rotate chase-plane view
+ | - zoom chase-plane view
CTRL + S save view
Shift + P change perspective (frustum)
Shift + W cycle weather and time-of-day
CTRL + P, END pause toggle (freeze frame)
? print info, toggle verbosity

Joystick

left | right roll (ailerons)
up | down pitch (tailplanes)
wheel (third axis) throttle yaw (rudder)
button #1 fire guns
button #2, #4 rudder control using left/right axis

The program supports a fine degree of joystick calibration using cmd-line args.
To get help choosing values for the args, pass -jp to print joystick settings.
Using the viewport GUI, click "JOYSTICK CALIBRATION", then click "MENU" to turn menu screen off.

The joystick args support a set of following sub-args for a 3-axis joystick. If your system has a 2-axis joystick, the program will use it without throttle/rudder control. Sub-args can be omitted: the program will choose default values for omitted args.

A 3-axis joystick can be moved in 6 directions. The range of movement in any one direction that the program measures as movement can be specified by a set of 6 maximum values and 6 minimum values (a max/min pair for every direction). The full possible range within one direction is 0..32767. slow fast refers to the third axis (throttle/wheel) on a 3-axis joystick.

-jmin [left right up down slow fast]
-jmax [left right up down slow fast]
Default/typical values:
-jmin  8000  8000  8000  8000  8000  8000
-jmax 32767 32767 32767 32767 32767 32767

A shorter but less accurate way to set the joystick's deadzones is provided by -jdz. It is less accurate as the same deadzone value is used for both directions of the same axis.

-jdz x y z

To calibrate the program's responsiveness to joystick movement (in all 3 axises), pass -jr x y z
x=y=z=1 is typical.

The direction of each axis can be reversed by -jd
Pass "-1" to reverse or "1" otherwise.

-jd 1 1 -1   reverse direction of wheel (axis #3)

Command-line Args

Args override any counterparts in the configuration file.
Any following args override preceding args.
For example, "-fastest" reduces the level-of-detail.
"-fastest -lod" raises the level-of-detail back to the default.

-v verbose mode
-view load saved view
-no-config use default settings instead of loading configuration file
-config pathname specify pathname of configuration file (usually unnecessary)
-gui-zoom GUI zoom size (1.0 is normal, more than 2.0 is probably too much)
-con, -no-con enable console (Windows)
-demo demo mode
-craft n amount of craft (applies to demo mode)
-memory conserve memory (default)
-fast, -faster, -fastest faster rendering at expense of memory and level-of-detail
-lod, -lod=max, -lod=high, -lod=mid, -lod=low, -lod=min level-of-detail    -lod selects the default
-textures=on|off Enabling textures is overridden by low LOD.
-antialias=on|off Disable antialiasing (in case of rendering problems).
-freq set frequency of rendering (milliseconds)
-j enable joystick
-jp print joystick values (to aid calibration)
-jr x y z set joystick responsiveness {0.0,...,n.n}
-jdz x y z set deadzones {0,..,32767}
-jd x, y, z set axis directions {-1 or 1}
-jmin x1 y1 z1 x2 y2 z2 set joystick axis minimums {0,..,32767}
-jmax x1 y1 z1 x2 y2 z2 set joystick axis maximums {0,..,32767}
-j3=throttle|rudder|none joystick wheel control
-jautofire
-world=normal|large|huge size of the simulated world
-verdant, -desert
-hills, -mountains[=huge], -mountain-density n.n
-no-trees, -tree-density n.n
-water-density n.n
-fog-density n.n 0 to disable fog
-fog-quality n.n
-cloud-density n.n
-collisions=on|off
-rude, -polite affects program behavior (literally), default is polite

Configuration File

Settings are stored in $HOME/.palomino.cfg or C:\palomino.cfg
A different filename can be specified by passing -config pathname

Issues, Troubleshooting

If fonts are too small/large after adjusting them, restart the program with the -no-config or "-gui-zoom 1.0" arg.

If rendering problems occur, try passing -no-antialias or -lod=min.

If aircraft look jaggy, pass -no-fsaa for older video cards that don't support full-screen anti-aliasing (FSAA).


© 2004,2006 Jim Brooks http://www.palomino3d.org
Last modified: Sat Nov 25 19:16:24 EST 2006