NZFF

Hi All

I haven't flown much on FSX - been spending too much time farting about with getting the scenery right

Anyway, I had a quick fly down the west coast of the South Island last night, taking in Mike's excellent new Abel Tasman scenery. I played with various times of the day, seasons and weather. When I set the date to 1/7/10, time to 16:30 local, altitude approx 8000 ft, I got the sun below the horizon (but with a reasonable "after glow"), very dark blue over 75% of the sky, and a load of stars! Now I may not be a pilot, but I don't recall ANY time in a NZ winter @ 16:30 looking ANYTHING like that! I tried it again today, from ground level at Napier airport, slowly cranking the time back to 15:30 local, but still using 1/7/10 - pretty much the same result, just with the sun being higher (but still most definitely too low for Napier), the blue lighter, but still plenty of stars! Is this a known "bug" in FSX? Is there a workaround (other than not flying at that hour or pretending it's a lot later)? Is there an update? Even if I "pretend" that the time is 1 or 2 hours later, there is no way that one would see any more than the 1 or 2 brightest stars and maybe Venus / Mars with the sun still showing all it's orb over the horizon - I don't need to be a pilot to know THAT much!

Any thoughts, comments, suggestions? And yes, my hemisphere IS set to Southern: Lattitude is Westerly.

Ta.
Peter

IslandBoy77 wrote:

QUOTE (IslandBoy77 @ Jul 26 2010, 06:05 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hi All

I haven't flown much on FSX - been spending too much time farting about with getting the scenery right

Anyway, I had a quick fly down the west coast of the South Island last night, taking in Mike's excellent new Abel Tasman scenery. I played with various times of the day, seasons and weather. When I set the date to 1/7/10, time to 16:30 local, altitude approx 8000 ft, I got the sun below the horizon (but with a reasonable "after glow"), very dark blue over 75% of the sky, and a load of stars! Now I may not be a pilot, but I don't recall ANY time in a NZ winter @ 16:30 looking ANYTHING like that! I tried it again today, from ground level at Napier airport, slowly cranking the time back to 15:30 local, but still using 1/7/10 - pretty much the same result, just with the sun being higher (but still most definitely too low for Napier), the blue lighter, but still plenty of stars! Is this a known "bug" in FSX? Is there a workaround (other than not flying at that hour or pretending it's a lot later)? Is there an update? Even if I "pretend" that the time is 1 or 2 hours later, there is no way that one would see any more than the 1 or 2 brightest stars and maybe Venus / Mars with the sun still showing all it's orb over the horizon - I don't need to be a pilot to know THAT much!

Any thoughts, comments, suggestions? And yes, my hemisphere IS set to Southern: Lattitude is Westerly.

Ta.
Peter

I have the same problem so I just set the time to either spring or autumn and don't use winter unless I want some snow about

Doug

Yes, this is always a bit of a nuisance. I've just done a quick test here in Christchurch, and with the actual sunset at 5:23, it sets in FSX at 4:55. Combined with the difference between how our eyes adjust to twilight in reality, but not in the sim, and we end up with a very quick and dark transition from dusk to night.

Hmm, from dusk till dawn -- another movie idea for the screenshot comp...

Are you guys using REX with this problem or default weather??

This is really a common problem with FS9/ FSX, and has a pretty simple fix really. Download and install "FSrealtime"
It will install timezone fixes into FS9 and FSX to help sort this out. It's donationware, but you can install and use for free.

http://www.3dsoftworks.net/products/fsrealtime/default.asp

Here are a couple of pics for comparison with timezone fix installed (in an otherwise default FSX).

1: NZNS - 1st August, 4.30pm local


2: NZNS - 1st August, 5.30pm local


3: NZNS - 1st August, 6.30pm local


While I doubt it is perfect, it is certainly much better than default

ThanX for the HU Alister , always plagued me but never bothered to source a fix .

can you turn realtime off? Most of us do our flying in the evening. What if we want to fly in daylight ours?

Yes, RealTime can be "switched" off by simply unchecking it in your Scenery Library (at least in FS9).

RealTime is simply a complation of .bgl files giving the corrected data for timezones and does not depend on whether you're planning on flying daylight flights during the evening.

Once you've installed realtime, you can uninstall it if you wish. I think it gives an option to leave the timezone fixes installed into FS. Basically, it will install an "addon scenery" type folder called "TzFiles04" in it's home directory. Mine is activated in FS9 automatically (Can't remember the procedure for X, but I bet it's similar).
I suggested installing fsrealtime simply as it's the easiest way to get the timezone fix installed. That timezone folder is all you really need to fix this particular problem. So if you decide to uninstall FSrealtime, just keep a copy of that folder activate in your addon scenery as usual.

You need not run FSrealtime while you are flying, the fix is installed into FS itself.
So, fly any time you like.

Or to run FSrealtime connected in your sim, just set the 'offset' to anything you like. It will adjust you back to daylight hours if that's what you wish.