Northland Scenery in the Works

[nzcoaster]

Here you may check out what I am doing for Whangarei and a massive area in Northland. I hope you like the shots which represent a small amount of the area still in the works
Details of its release are not yet finalized. This has no autogen and with water effects off because the photos are better in my opinion I get a Rock solid 50-60 fps on my
AMD 3800 2gigs ram and 256 mb nvidia 6800 on FSX

Northland scenery Development

Kind Regards to All
Will keep you posted
cheers Greg

[Charl]

Greg that's pretty impressive.
What made you select that area? (other than the fact it certainly needed a little help)
There are some water boundary issues, although that may be because the shots have high colour saturation.
Are you considering autogen around the airport area?
Is this FSX-only?
Does it sit on 20m mesh?
Lots of questions!
Looking forward to this release, then folk will want to come see the Northland Sikorsky's fly!

[ZK-Brock]

All I can say... WOW!!!! I'll definitely get that once its out! I visited Whangerei airport a few weeks ago, it's cool how it sits on a big round hill

[ardypilot]

Looks awesome!

My only question is, will it work in fs2004? (please, please, please)

[ZK-MAT]

Looking great!!!

We lived at the end of Cartwright Road, Onerahi for 18 months. Only 2 mins to the airport, those pictures bring back memories

[AlisterC]

Beautiful shots! Awesome work.

[toprob]

Looks great, Greg! What do you plan to do with the water? It'd be nice if you could reproduce the colours using waterclass.

My only question is, will it work in fs2004? (please, please, please)

This'd be great, but of course it won't look quite this good, as FS2004 doesn't use the full resolution. Also it's so easy to process these GeoTiffs for FSX, but a lot more complicated for FS9.

[nzcoaster]

Hi all

Thanks for your comments and questions

Firstly I just want to let you all know that I am no expert at this stuff I am just really pleased that I can do what you see now. I have been unfortunately not gifted with datums projections decimals and dots. so I have acquired enough know how to convert information where needed to get a GEOTIFF for FSX and as Robin said that is the easy part.

It would be good to get it for FS9 as well but I would need help as the FS9 methods frustrated the heck out of me with all the adjustments etc

Boundary areas for Sea. Yes the source data has been prettied up to make aerial photos more merged as the photos that make up the SID file were at different times etc

The extents of the current scenery are in the following link as you can see it is a large area click once there click FSX Northland Extents

Extents of FSX Scenery

The mesh that this is sitting on is Christians 20meter I haven't tried on others yet

Sea boundary issues . If I make the whole lot as you can see by the extents photo The entire harbor and out to sea will be covered as well as Bream Bay and Way North somewhere . As for where it cuts of I would like to be able to alpha fade or something if its possible to the default FSX scenery

Autogen ah well I not sure where to start with that but would be great to have some coverage there

Replace sea with FSX water class . ah well I have never done that before so I'm on the learning curve but that would be great to use FSX water here as an alternative

Why I chose this area? I live here Our house is just to the left in one of the quarry shots where it starts to border with reserve. Northland is Awesome . Also my main Job is working for Whangarei district council GIS Dept so I have access to truckloads of info, Most of my work is 3D modeling for existing and proposed scenarios

Potential Distribution of scenery is dependent on decisions made by my Manager

Please be patient as this is my spare time work and I am just wrapped to get it this far. The minimum I could do is create photo scenery of the area covered in the extents photo which is a mutha kahuna of a big file . For example just a FSX bgl of central whangarei 10x 10 km is 394mb. I don't know what the best area extents are for FSX file size wise? but the 394 mb bgl loads fine

Again thanks for you comments help etc
Let me know if theres something I missed

see ya
Greg

[Kelburn]

Just a couple of Q's

Firstly WOW!! I've always wanted a whangarei scenery (I mean absolutley amazing one like NZWN realeased by ARNZ, since my grandparents live up there and i've been to the airport alot and some of the ones avaliable aren't bad but this look fantastic)

Will you be designing a specially made NZWR?

Will your satillite coverage cover Hikurangi? and the tutukaka coast?

Also, last but not least, When will you be releasing it and where did you get the satillite maps from?

Anyway, looking incredibly fantastic

[toprob]

What's the resolution of this?
Try reducing the quality a little when you resample:
In the Destination section of the INF:
CompressionQuality =
80 is a good starting point, you won't lose much quality but the filesize will drop a lot.

[Ian Warren]

Hey Greg , Looks Brilliant

Autogen ah well I not sure where to start with that but would be great to have some coverage there

If Robins to busy in that area , I'm sure can cover it for , or help with target areas

Ian

[JonARNZ]

Very cool, I look forward to seeing the final thing when you complete it.

[nzcoaster]

CompressionQuality = 80

Yes that did the trick its now 69 mb instead of 369mb

Any recomendations on the sort of scenery slice per bgl obviously I don't think that I could bite of the whole thing but it would be good to get the entire harbour out to Bream head done in one bgl . I do not know ?. If there is anyone who sees the coverage file I posted on my photo site feel free to download it and draw on it what they might slice it up into then send me the file to nzcoaster@ihug.co.nz, or alternatively a link to there photo site or whatever

For those interested heres a top down over NZWR Onerahi Whangarei showing the alignment of the aerial with FSX not to bad perfect for landing but slight readjustment needed of exit taxi way

NZWR OVERHEAD ALIGNMENT

Thanks

Greg

I have arcview 3.2 and Global mapper as my main tools which I use at home .
If I need to make multiple bgls how do you go about making sequential aligned tiles that don't overlap ?

[towerguy]

nice !!!

will it go as far south as the oil refinery at marsden pt? I used to work as a scaffolder on the refinery expansion project years ago when the chimneys were going up.

[nzcoaster]

Hi There

Some Aerials of requested

Area goes about 37 km North of Tutukaka and South Extents are around Waipu Cove
the Widest area of scenery in a Straight line goes from the Coast inland about 72 km but is not consistant to all Northern or southern extents
If you check out the following link and click the FSX Northland Extents page you will see what is presently covered
Northland Scenery

Aerial Shots

Cheers
Greg

[ZK-Brock]

Looking cool Greg. Any updates on this?

[kiwibarguy]

Hi there Greg

What can i say!!! I am from Whangarei! i was so dissapointed when i got my fsx and got my first glimpse of the default Whangarei. then i come across this and BANG!!! Oceans beach, Limestone Island, the basin and oh oh oh MY HOUSE!!!! Please keep us up to date, so looking forward to downloading!!

A thousand thankyous!!!!

[ChrisL]

QUOTE (nzcoaster @ Nov 8 2006, 02:54 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Here you may check out what I am doing for Whangarei and a massive area in Northland. I hope you like the shots which represent a small amount of the area still in the works
Details of its release are not yet finalized.

Northland scenery Development

Hi,

I clicked the link in post one and saw all the nice pics. This will be just what I am wanting to combine my love of the outdoors with my computer geekiness. (I'm not a pilot - just a tramper and sailor).

However I couldn't download the file. Should I be able to download it from there? If so what am I doing wrong?

(I have FS2004 but if I need to upgrade to the latest version of flight simulator I will)

[Ian Warren]

QUOTE (ChrisL @ Dec 28 2008, 01:26 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

However I couldn't download the file. Should I be able to download it from there? If so what am I doing wrong?
(I have FS2004 but if I need to upgrade to the latest version of flight simulator I will)

Hello and a big welcome Chris , It is nice looking scenery, it was,t released .. just another,s work,dang be great to see it running but i think it would be a FSX scene , again we view look and amaze.
Hmm 'computer geekiness' you need something to do .. you hiked the tracks in this area (obviously)the sun gets so ( im cooked) hot, well least when ya outside , what else but the virtual world on the PC it could be a waiting moment .

[BigBird]

Awesome! I'll be able to check for new rock fishing spots with that scenery.