FPV Freerider

RC Quadcopter Racing Simulator · By FPV Freerider

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Support for Behaving like a DJI Drone

A topic by spaceman5 created Oct 14, 2022 Views: 497 Replies: 9

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spaceman51 year ago (8 edits)

I am really enjoying FPV Freerider, and would like to make a small suggestion:
About 2-3 years ago, I bought the DJI Mavic Mini drone (the first, not the newer 2 or 3).
I am now using FPV Freerider in order to improve my flying skills, without worrying about crashing my real physical drone.
The controller that I bought for using with FPV Freerider, as mentioned before, is the Logitech F710.

The 2 joysticks in this controller have springs that always return the sticks to the middle position - on both the left and right joysticks.
This joystick behavior on the Logitech F710, is the same as what you get on DJI Drones' controllers.
This is very good, since it enables practicing in exactly the same equipment (controller) behavior.

The problem:
It seems that DJI Drones' controllers are different than "classic" FPV Drones,
in which the controller does not have a spring for the Left Joystick's Up/Down movement. (Throttle).
In classic FPV Drones, the controller's left joystick can be moved up and down, and when you leave the stick, it stays in that position (at least for the up/down axis), which means the motors keep working in that same intensity level without you having to do anything.
This means that the drone retains its height - like it should.

In DJI, the springs bring the stick to the middle position, and in that middle position the drone retains its height in the air.
If you want to go higher, push the joystick up until you reach your desired height, and then leave the stick, so it will go back to the middle point, and the drone stays in that height.
The same for descending: push the joystick down until you get to the desired height, and when done, leave the stick again.

In FPV Freerider, it seems that the simulator's behavior is like classic FPV Drones behavior,
and not like DJI Drones behavior.

My suggestion:
Is it possible to add some Checkbox/Selector on the "Custom Settings" screen, to choose bewteen Classic FPV behavior, vs DJI (and other brands) behavior?

I ask this, because currently, I need to keep pushing the left joystick up, and keep it in a very accurate position, it order for the drone to stay in the air in a certain height,
and If I don't do it accurately well, the drone starts to bounce up and down..

One small note:
I chose in the Settings on the right side of the main screen, to use "Throttle Zero at Center" of course.
Before I did that, the drone would simply go up indefinitely, even when I don't press anything on the controller,
because the middle position was interpreted as 50% throttle..

BTW:
I know that one way to ovecome this problem, is to buy a classic FPV Drone's controller, and connect it to the computer,
yet the reason that I prefer my current controller, is because it exactly mimics what I have on my physical DJI Drone.
So I wish to practice my skills, in similar behavior like the real life one, so in real life I can then be better..

I hope you can consider this,
there are many people today who buy a DJI Drone,
and having this new feature can make FPV Freerider perfect for them too, for practice flying.

Thank you

FPV FreeriderDeveloper1 year ago

Thank you for the feedback!

Yes, FPV Freerider is mainly designed to simulate racequads/freestyle drones. That is, quadcopters that flown mainly using (more or less) fully manual controls, and which are used mainly for high speed racing and/or acrobatic flight.

I agree that it might be a good idea to add an option for DJI style cinematic type drones too. However, since that is quite a different type of flying, I fear that it might make the user interface too cluttered with different settings etc. Perhaps it would instead be best to make a whole separate simulator, that is designed specifically for that type of drones.

To get as close as possible to the behavior of a DJI style drone using Freerider as it is now, I would recommend flying with self-leveling turned on, and a slow rate settings such as the "sluggish" preset.

The advantage is, if you get good at flying in Freerider, you might find that flying a more automatic drone such as the DJI will later feel like a breeze!

spaceman51 year ago (4 edits)

Hi John

Thank you very much for your reply.

>I fear that it might make the user interface too cluttered with different settings etc.

One way to solve this is by using 2 Tabs in the "Custom Settings" screen..
The first tab will be for settings for the racequads (manual) type of drones,
and the second tab will be for settings for the DJI style (automatic) type of drones.

That way, no need to create a separate program for that..

BTW, this is a thing that is really in demand for people.
The other Drone Simulators, such as Liftoff, Uncrashed, and DRL Simulator, are also focussed on racequads,
and do not support DJI/automatic style, as far as I know..

So a simulator that can mimic that will be a great answer for all the new customers of the new type of drones..

>To get as close as possible to the behavior of a DJI style drone using Freerider as it is now, I would
>recommend flying with self-leveling turned on, and a slow rate settings such as the "sluggish" preset.

Yes..
Here's the best I could get, so far:

As you can see some of the values here are on one of the extremes of the scale..

It's the closest I could get,
yet it does not solve the Height issue - I must hold the Throttle all the time, against the spring that is trying to get the stick back to the middle,
and whenever I need to play with the other axes, it's really hard to keep the height,
and the drone starts bouncing up and down.

FPV FreeriderDeveloper1 year ago

Yes, a different settings tab would probably be necessary, but there are also quite a lot of other changes that would need to be made to the existing code/design, and things to consider.

Anyway, I will keep your feedback in mind, and consider your suggestions for the future.

spaceman51 year ago

Thank you.

BTW, is there anything I can do meanwhile, as a workaround,
to make the behavior even closer to a DJI drone?

For example, being able to set the Gravity to 0, might help,
is there maybe a way I can set it to 0 with the existing program somehow?

FPV FreeriderDeveloper1 year ago

I tried your settings and I think you got it dialed in pretty good in order to get it to behave similarly to a slow moving DJI style drone.

As you say, of course you will still have the spring loaded throttle issue, but I think it will be good enough for practice anyway.

If you stick with it, I think that soon you will get the hang of it and you will be able to keep it at a pretty stable altitude without much effort.

(I don't think setting the gravity to 0 would be very beneficial, since you wouldn't be able to get down at all)

spaceman51 year ago (4 edits)

>I don't think setting the gravity to 0 would be very beneficial,
>since you wouldn't be able to get down at all

Oh right :)
Forgot about that..

That could've been funny..
Simulating a DJI Drone that only goes up and you can never get back.

(it happened to my as a child with a helium balloon)

BTW,
there is something that I want to write you in private,
is there some way to send a private message here in itch.io?
If not, maybe via an email?

FPV FreeriderDeveloper1 year ago

Yes, you can email fpvfreerider@gmail.com

bob1261254 days ago(-1)

Do you have a link to a video or in depth tutorial on how to get custom levels on Android because I have the dlc bit I am a little bit confused on the instructions in the user manual for how to download and load them

FPV FreeriderDeveloper254 days ago (2 edits) (+1)

Here's a more detailed explanation -

First, download the zip file for the DLC maps. Unzip it.

You should then have a number of folders, called

Freerider_Big_Hollow_Bando

Freerider_Fifty_Fifty

Freerider_MultiGP_Regionals2018

Freerider_MultiGP_UTT1

etc.

Copy those unzipped map folders to the correct folder on your android device.

It's usually:

/storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.Freeride.FreeriderRecharged/files/

Internal Storage/Android/Data/com.Freeride.FreeriderRecharged/files/

If you are uncertain of the folder location, save any level (even an empty one) in the Level Editor of Freerider, and take a note of the full folder path that is displayed after saving is complete.

You may need to use a good file manager (such as Solid Explorer for example) to copy the maps to the correct folder.

(Some phones are deliberately blocking the owner from accessing certain folders, but you may get around that by using a third party file manager).

Hope that helps, let me know if you have more questions or need more detailed instructions for some part!