NZFF

It's been a bit quiet here lately, but hopefully that just means that Tim's getting close to release...
Some more shots heading from Queenstown up the lake to Glenorchy. I just can't get enough of this area in VLC.









And lastly here's what should be the final NZ native bush autogen, down Te Anau way.

That looks amazing!!!

Yep, that's looking the business. Question for Timmo if he's reading: is there any way to make better edging on water bodies? Lakes tend to have "beaches" and other transitional land-types between pasture and the water itself. Not sure if this is just a "bridge too far" or if it is do-able?

There is a hard way and perhaps an easier way that I haven't found.

While there are many shoreline types, the ones with a 'beach' tend to have associated waves (i.e. a surf beach).....it is possible to remove this effect or redefine the texture but that needs changes to files that we would rather not touch.

I'm sure i've tested them all to see which ones were the best, but Im happy to be proven wrong if there is a good 'beach + no wave' shoreline then its doable :0

Hi Timmo
Thanks for that. Hmmm, life is never straight forward when it comes to making FSX work "properly", is it!

It is funny, I still do not quite believe that my FSX can possibly look this good. I mean these are outright amazing (as in a completely different league) compared to what I have see on my screen so far.

Awesome stuff......

IslandBoy77 wrote:

QUOTE (IslandBoy77 @ Aug 16 2010, 10:05 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

a "bridge too far"

Hmm , think ill watch the movie tonight , put thought mechanics into play

IslandBoy77 wrote:

QUOTE (IslandBoy77 @ Aug 16 2010, 09:05 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yep, that's looking the business. Question for Timmo if he's reading: is there any way to make better edging on water bodies? Lakes tend to have "beaches" and other transitional land-types between pasture and the water itself. Not sure if this is just a "bridge too far" or if it is do-able?

This covers a lot of different issues, but FSX certainly doesn't make some things easy. The main problem I have is that there is no built-in method of placing trees along lake edges and river banks. I do recall that this was a feature of FSX in beta, but it didn't make it to the final version. Probably because things like that had a real performance hit back when FSX was being put together.

Generally there are two ways to handle things like the edges of water bodies (coastline or shorelines of lakes) (well, three if you count photo scenery) One well-know developer solves a lot of blending problems by making the 'base' landclass textures quite similar, and putting in lots of autogen to define the differences. This can look great, but not that realistic if you know the area. But if you have a lot of trees down to the shoreline, you won't even notice that there's no beach. The other way is to rely on the vectors to define some landclass changes, which is what Tim has done.
By the way, here's a Google Earth shot to compare:


The fuzzy red thing is actually the way my GE shows airstrips in 3D view -- not very pretty, but it did show me that there is a little airstrip there which I didn't know about:)

Down the West Coast there are some beautifully defined beaches in VLC -- to the extent that I've landed on them just to check out the view -- but the sim has a long way to go to get them looking how I'd like to see them -- rugged rocks, sand you can leave your footprints in, and 'real' cliffs showing strata etc.

Thanks for those thoughts - I always appreciate the depth of explanation you give: very educational!

I don't know if you remember that infamous pic that was popular very early on, showing the diff between DX9 & DX10 on FSX - it was a shot of a lake and mountainside from down near the water's edge. The DX10 shot showed massive detail - it looked like a very detailed FPS game instead of a flight sim! To date, I've seen nothing that even vaguely comes close to that level of detail (except maybe Outerra) - was that just a marketing hype gimmic, or is FSX actually capable (with enough near-superhuman effort) of being that detailed?

Don't get me wrong about VLC - it is a massive, excellent upgrade for New Zealand to get us to a far, far superior "base platform" (that by rights should have been there from the word go), and I am most certainly going to buy it and enjoy it to the full. Now that we can all see that it IS possible to knock FSX into some semblance of shape / order, some of those other "details" that one just writes off as "pie in the sky dreams" suddenly start to seem almost within one's grasp...

IslandBoy77 wrote:

QUOTE (IslandBoy77 @ Aug 17 2010, 10:47 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks for those thoughts - I always appreciate the depth of explanation you give: very educational!

I don't know if you remember that infamous pic that was popular very early on, showing the diff between DX9 & DX10 on FSX - it was a shot of a lake and mountainside from down near the water's edge. The DX10 shot showed massive detail - it looked like a very detailed FPS game instead of a flight sim! To date, I've seen nothing that even vaguely comes close to that level of detail (except maybe Outerra) - was that just a marketing hype gimmic, or is FSX actually capable (with enough near-superhuman effort) of being that detailed?

Ah, yes, that picture... Here's a link which shows the comparison, just click on the little pics to see them larger. There are a couple of things to note here. The differences are really in the sky and water -- the rest of the shot is pretty much exactly the same, and actually gives a pretty good representation of FSX as far as the detail is concerned. The sky shows an idea of what it would be like if the sun in FSX actually acted as a proper light source, hence the rays and more realistically lit clouds. However the final release of FSX wasn't designed to use DX10 in the end (it was unfinished, hence the DX10 'Preview' mode, which actually previewed FSXI which never happened.)

The water is quite a feature of this image. Generally, though, the main differences which we'd have if MS had managed to finish DX10 support would be in the lighting. The water would be better, but only really that useful if we actually landed on this lake. Lighting is a massively under-rated feature of video rendering with FSX. Good lighting equals realism, that's for sure, and FSX's simplistic lighting doesn't do a good enough job. This won't ever be fixed with addon scenery. In fact in some respects this is going backwards -- some developers suggest that users turn off the FSX self-shading, and they draw shadows on their models.

toprob wrote:

QUOTE (toprob @ Aug 17 2010, 02:36 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Ah, yes, that picture... Here's a link which shows the comparison, just click on the little pics to see them larger.

Aha - that's the first time I've ever seen the pics enlarged: I see what you mean about the sky / lighting & the water. Indeed, the rest is the same (and what we see now). I always suspected - but had never looked into it - that DX10 had not been implemented in FSX. Such a shame, too. Do you think it would be possible - from a theoretical perspective - for someone to "finish" what Microsoft started? That is, implement DX10 in FSX? Or is that basically a complete re-write?

I use a programme called 'Addon Converter X' which converts most of your addon files to enable you to fly in a DX10 environment. I find it does cause some 'shimmering' on my machine, the upside is that it does increase my frame rates.

IslandBoy77 wrote:

QUOTE (IslandBoy77 @ Aug 17 2010, 03:40 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Aha - that's the first time I've ever seen the pics enlarged: I see what you mean about the sky / lighting & the water. Indeed, the rest is the same (and what we see now). I always suspected - but had never looked into it - that DX10 had not been implemented in FSX. Such a shame, too. Do you think it would be possible - from a theoretical perspective - for someone to "finish" what Microsoft started? That is, implement DX10 in FSX? Or is that basically a complete re-write?

Most of the really impressive scenery improvements for FSX have been to do with textures -- whether it is going to the full resolution which FSX is capable of, or taking advantage of features which were new to FSX, such as modelling the way different surfaces reflect light -- but I guess it is possible that someone will figure out how to fundamentally change the way light or water behaves in FSX. You never know.
Yes, some have gone a long way to take advantage of what it already does with DX10, but there are a lot of limitations -- including the fact that most developers are not prepared to support what amounts to a 'preview'.

Or just wait for Flight lol, good timing