As part of our Community Charter, we provide full disclosure at FSElite.
FSFX’ ChasePlane was provided free of charge to FSElite for the purpose of previewing it for the community.
Last week we got our hands on FSFX’ latest product, the recently announced ChasePlane. ChasePlane is a camera system that aims to make controlling your cockpit easier while maintaining realism and adding some effects. We were super excited about this and started playing around with it right away. So let’s get into our preview: is it indeed such an easy and good tool as they want it to be, and does it give other tools that aim to do something similar or the same (EZDOK, OpusFSI) a run for their money?
Installation
The first thing you have to do with a new piece of software is to install it, of course. Thankfully, ChasePlane is incredibly easy to install. You simply need to download the VFXCentral app (this is an addon manager for all products from FSFX) and install this. Then you activate the key for ChasePlane and it will start downloading and installing automatically. The interface is friendly, clear and easy to understand. The setup steps are very minimal and the entire process is done incredibly quick. I was ready to get going with ChasePlane in less than 10 minutes.
First Run
To be fair, I did run into some issues on my first run. Thankfully the dev-team was very responsive and helped me out. Obviously issues are to be expected in an Alpha product, so that’s all within reason. After getting everything set up properly I was ready to get started with ChasePlane. It immediately drops you into the interface and I have to be honest: I was quite confused. I decided to skip the tutorial because I wanted to see if this tool is really as easy to use as FSFX claim it to be. After clicking around a bit in the interface and settings I started to get a feel for how it was working. I got in my aircraft and started to make some camera views that I really like. I was pleasantly surprised by how easy this is to do. All you need to do to create a new viewpoint is drag the sliders along until you’ve got it into a position you like. You can move it in any way you want. When you’re done, you simply stop dragging. If you’re into precision or just incredibly OCD by all those decimals (like me) it also allows you to just enter the position along an axis. Before you know it you’ve got a few cameras set up and are ready to go. And mind you: again, I was done within about 15 minutes setting up my favourite cameras.
Controls
The controls for ChasePlane could also not be easier. Or easier to set up. In the ChasePlane application you can set all kinds of keybindings. You can float the camera around (much like many people will know from EZDOK), move yourself around the plane with keys, etc. You can assign hotkeys to go to the previous or next view and more. In game there is also an easy interface that you can activate by clicking the middle mouse button (and holding it still). This will allow you to reset your camera, disable or enable chaseplane effects, switch camera view or create and save a new camera position that you might have just created. It is very easy to use and works really well.
EZDOK killer?
Although still in an Alpha stage, ChasePlane is incredibly good at what it does. It’s incredibly easy to set up and use. It’s reliable, good and really stable. I haven’t had it crash or have my P3D crash because of it. The only issue I had with it was the interface, which at points was a little unclear about what I could do with it and where I can expect certain functions. There is a Tutorial section in the interface but right now this doesn’t work yet.
So is this gonna be the EZDOK killer? Considering its ease of installation and use, the smoothnesss the way things work, the wide array of features, the absolute minimal impact on performance and the already top-notch stability I’d say yes. Again, please keep in mind that this is an Alpha: features are still missing and experiences with this product may vary for everyone. Regardless, I am very excited to see where ChasePlane will take us. Of course we will be featuring major changes to this software on our website to keep you all up to date, so make sure to keep checking in.
Have you noticed something that I may have missed in this preview? Do you have a comment of a question about the article? Don’t hesitate and let me know in the comment-section below. I’d be happy to take a look at it and answer to you!
