Diary of a developer

[toprob]

Monday
The alarm goes off at the usual time, and as usual I ignore it, because it's cold and wintery.
But five minutes later my phone starts beeping, reminding me that there's just two weeks to go to the next subscription release. Plus an email from my calendar, which I consider a bit of an overkill, considering that when I turn the PC on, I get the same alarm, and the same email reminder of the alarm. it really is hard to ignore stuff these days...

This will be the third release, and entirely devoted to Hawke's Bay, so there is still a lot of autogen to do. I'm about two thirds through Napier, and still have Hasting to do. So I just settle in to annotate the rest of the houses in Napier. This is tedious work, but I'm very aware that this is the secret ingredient, hand-placed autogen. I test in Prepar3D, with Vector Land Class, but once or twice I fire up FSX, with Orbx NZNI, just to check that it works. The NZSI patch has somehow fixed the munted roof-texture problem which has driven me balmy in the past, so I'm pretty chuffed with the result.

Tuesday
Back to the autogen grind, making a start on Hastings, which from a quick check on Wikipedia, has more houses than Napier... dammit.
Then just before lunch, Cowpatz posts on NZFF that Prepar3D 2.3 is up, which is kind of surprising, I almost always get news from overseas sites, so well done, CP... Installing and testing the patch pretty much writes off the afternoon, but a P3D update is a big thing for me.

Wednesday
My calendar is freaking me out, I'm very aware that Thursday and Friday are half days only, and that I wanted to have the Hawke's Bay autogen finished this week to concentrate on Hasting Aerodrome next week. So I settle in for a few hours of annotating Hastings, and refuse to be side-tracked...

Thursday
I have a doctor's appointment in the afternoon so I do a day's autogenning in half a day. I've very pleased with my progress. When I get back from Lyttelton (which involved a wild trip on the ferry, and walking home in a hail storm) I discover that the entire Hastings autogen is gone -- don't ask me how. I'm very grumpy.

There's a video on NZFF of the Nelson Simpit simulator, showing Real NZ Nelson, which gets me thinking long and hard about the need for a custom NZ autogen, even though I'm pleased to see my scenery portrayed like this.

Friday
I've pretty much given up on doing any work on a nice Hasting airport, so I set about redoing the autogen I lost in the morning. In the afternoon, I have to go to the clinic to have my defibrillator checked out, so the week is pretty much shot. Before I leave, I'm telling my flatmate that the doctor was asking me about my alcohol consumption yesterday (almost nil). and she suddenly remembered that my son had dropped off a few bottle of home brew earlier in the week....
So Friday evening I crack one open, and it is the perfect end to a crappy week.

Next week will be another story, so much to do in just five days. I honestly don't know why I do it, for a couple of hundred dollars a week.

Please buy a subscription!

[omitchell]

I don't see any time scheduled in for beer breaks. This disturbs me

[toprob]

QUOTE (omitchell @ Aug 15 2014,9:21 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't see any time scheduled in for beer breaks. This disturbs me

I honestly don't remember the last time I could afford to buy beer.

No, wait, my daughter and I had a pint each at the Tannery a couple of weeks ago, 2 x $9 was my entire month's beer budget.

Having a son who makes a nice homefrew -- priceless.

[omitchell]

QUOTE (toprob @ Aug 15 2014,9:33 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Having a son who makes a nice homefrew -- priceless.

Win.....

[Ian Warren]

My Monday was the same , Tuesday Twas the research department here ... same sort off .. rest off the week it was organizing everything else .. and few other thing like people turn because I may have just so nice and warm , tonight a cold beer.

[ardypilot]

Keep at it Robin- I'm a regular visitor to your blog, checking to see if there are any new teasers uploaded! Really looking forward to exploring the Hawke's Bay photoreal, the hand placed buildings on top really do make all the difference.

[Splitpin]

Great post Rob , well done , you put me in the "moment"
"Friday evening I crack one open, and it is the perfect end to a crappy week." good on you ... enjoy

[AdrianPetford]

Hang in there, Rob. I'm really looking forward to Hawke's Bay as Napier is one of my favourite places in the whole of NZ and I've wanted a quality photoreal scenery of it for years. Haven't had one since the original Godzone magazine subscription and never in FSX or P3D.

I haven't been able to stop flying all week because your scenery looks so amazing in the new P3D 2.3. That's certainly livened up an otherwise frustrating week for me too. The beer's on me next time I see you

[toprob]

My son always gives me a list of the beers he supplies (normally just 3 bottles at a time), but I couldn't find it on Friday night, so I just took a random bottle. Turned out to be 'American style, Strong ale, 7.8%' which kinda hit me quite hard. The others are all less alcohol, so I know what to expect. I'm so out of practice, though, I think a couple of wines would knock me over.

[Ian Warren]

Rob , I could show you how to make a 'super home brew' I even engineered/made a little spider pump .... it was the bottle washing that got me out off it , course the crates and bottles back then .. had the caper and all the gears ... maybe a Rob Brew brand , sure many would like that were you are now Locals would love it !

[omitchell]

QUOTE (Ian Warren @ Aug 17 2014,7:26 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Rob , I could show you how to make a 'super home brew' I even engineered/made a little spider pump .... it was the bottle washing that got me out off it , course the crates and bottles back then .. had the caper and all the gears ... maybe a Rob Brew brand , sure many would like that were you are now Locals would love it !

I could give you my uncles recipe. One glass and you are over the legal limit to operate a motor vehicle...

[scaber]

QUOTE (omitchell @ Aug 17 2014,8:46 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I could give you my uncles recipe. One glass and you are over the legal limit to operate a motor vehicle...

Now that sounds like what we need to relax with at the end of a long day ---- or any day actually. And cheaper than my whiskey habit too . . . .

[toprob]

Another week, another diary, same old developer...

Yes, I have gone past the deadline for this issue of the subscription. The hold-up is caused by a last-minute change of mind about the colouring of the Hawke's Bay scenery. I've said before that it's easy to blend photoscenery to Vector Land Class, but not so easy to blend it to FTX NZ. And for some areas, it is even more difficult to blend it to both. This is one of those areas.

Still, there is a solution of sorts, I am working towards that at the moment. So the next issue will go out next week, barring catastrophes.

The theme of this week has been 'going balmy'. Lots of talking to myself, sometimes about things I can barely understand... Plenty of pre-election fun, as always, though, which gives me all the entertainment I'd could wish for, for free.

Back to going balmy... I normally divide photoscenery into manageable chunks, not only because it helps if a photo fits into available RAM, but also because some of the tools I use are 32bit, which restricts the image file size to 2GB. So the first release for Hawke's Bay is divided into four quadrants, aptly named HB1_NW, HB1_NE, etc (although a bit more to the name than that, you get the drift.)

When I was putting together the final quadrant -- the South West -- the computer informed me that a file already existed with that name. I knew I hadn't done it, so barring elves (as in 'and the shoemaker') there was something drastically wrong.

So I'd spent a week working on the south east quadrant, and never once noticed I'd referred to it each time as south west. Next I'll be needing help with my shoes -- no, Robin, the other left...

An entirely alcohol-free week. I normally celebrate each release, though, so that'll happen later this week...

[Ian Warren]

QUOTE (toprob @ Aug 24 2014,3:58 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

So I'd spent a week working on the south east quadrant, and never once noticed I'd referred to it each time as south west. Next I'll be needing help with my shoes -- no, Robin, the other left...

Hmm, almost sounds like a near script out of the movie "The Longest Day" .. 'Pint of Sludge Ted' .. and later Richard Burton later saying 'you notice the dead German soldier, His boots are on his wrong feet' ... that is what happens land in the wrong place.

[emfrat]

Well, I was supposed to be under the house, fixing the clutch hydraulics on the ute, but there's been a 30kmh wind carrying cold wet stuff and I didn't fancy lying under the chassis with only an old curtain between me and the blue metal. So I just spent most of the last two days trying to sort Waiheke Island strip. I have now learned how use ADEX to get rid of a default flatten, and moved enough earth to have a nice sloping runway under the VLC landclass. Odd thing is, the heights in the whole area seem to be about 12-15' above what I see in the NZ Topo Maps...but I have also learned how to make a blended flatten, to get rid of ugly cliffs.

[toprob]

QUOTE (emfrat @ Aug 24 2014,4:20 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, I was supposed to be under the house, fixing the clutch hydraulics on the ute, but there's been a 30kmh wind carrying cold wet stuff and I didn't fancy lying under the chassis with only an old curtain between me and the blue metal. So I just spent most of the last two days trying to sort Waiheke Island strip. I have now learned how use ADEX to get rid of a default flatten, and moved enough earth to have a nice sloping runway under the VLC landclass. Odd thing is, the heights in the whole area seem to be about 12-15' above what I see in the NZ Topo Maps...but I have also learned how to make a blended flatten, to get rid of ugly cliffs.

Sounds like you're hooked... keep up the good work.

I seem to recall that Vector Land Class makes some changes to the mesh under airports, to match the AIP charts, so that there's no need for huge amounts of airport elevation changes to match it. This works great in general, but I suspect that in some cases, such as Waiheke, the AIP elevation represents the highest point on the airfield, so the rest of it will be raised up to this. So where there's a large elevation difference, the airfield will be flattened to the highest point. I will be very pleased when our sim (probably Prepar3D) can cope with non-flattened airfields.

[emfrat]

Yes, Rob, that seems to be the case, The southern threshold is at 402', but the northern one is 445'. Since the 'business end' is 402, I am working from there. Just needs some tidying around the edges, to blend in better. I placed the helipad, but I have not made a runway, just adjusted the terrain under the photoscenery so that the visible runway is correctly sloped.

[Ian Warren]

QUOTE (toprob @ Aug 24 2014,6:10 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sounds like you're hooked... keep up the good work.

Well done Mike , I think the biggest thing is why the 'Mesh' was turned into a 'Mess' ... with ORBX , no honest level playing field - idea to have one scenery complement the other come it from local freeware to VLC is still the argument .

I was not privy to mesh builds nor had any input to future design now fews years down the track but it dose seem people build on there chosen mesh ( hang on the airport elevations should be correct) VLC is , others build scenery on ORBX and its FEET/METERs out , the information is there and when you get your QNH .

ORBX company should knock Timmo's door for the NZ Mesh - between the both and with the both, people with VLC / RealNZ / ORBX all sit on a level playing field .. we then can all enjoy - simple

[Splitpin]

Greg , greg ...... greg "whiskey" ... mothers ruin , its the drop of the devil, turn to the grape

[scaber]

QUOTE (Splitpin @ Aug 25 2014,5:56 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Greg , greg ...... greg "whiskey" ... mothers ruin , its the drop of the devil, turn to the grape

I like more concentrated fun! Actually, as my wife doesn't drink it always seems a bit of a waste to open a bottle of wine and then have to leave most of it for another day .. . .

anyway . . . .
I thought it was gin that was mother's ruin. Whiskey is a preservative, it will keep me going for years to come!!