FSX vs X-plane

[Leen3131cs 107]

I heard you can set deer OR birds in XP10.For XP9, you can either have both or neither.

I really do like deer, neverteless the deer in X-Plane9 are to much and unrealistic.The seagulls however are very acceptable.Thats why I got rid of the deer in my XP9.This is the way to do it:Go toRecources\default scenery\som objects\deer_tex.png.Open deer_tex.png in Photoshop and select the complete texture and delete.The tranparent file we created will make the deer invisible and as deer-strike is not simulated , the deer left the sim.Now you`ll have no deer anymore , but still can enyoy (?????? ) the seagulls..RegardsLeen de Jager

[rightseater 0]

Hrm ... intersting comment, but what exactly do you mean by that: the same technique that's going to be used for landclass/buildings is going to be used at airports ???

What I was referring to was the interview (or perhaps it was just a forum post) where Austin talked about placing objects. I recall him mentioning that the lanclass would be placed first, and then the object on top of that, and then another object (if applicable) on top of that. For example, if they put a house on a slab, then they first put down the grass, then the slab on top of that, then the house on top of that. If they give that attention to detail at an airport, then I just assume that they wouldn't overlook a runway that is jagged. Of course I know less than nothing about the topic, just wishful thinking.

I really do like deer, neverteless the deer in X-Plane9 are to much and unrealistic.The seagulls however are very acceptable.Thats why I got rid of the deer in my XP9.This is the way to do it:Go toRecources\default scenery\som objects\deer_tex.png.Open deer_tex.png in Photoshop and select the complete texture and delete.The tranparent file we created will make the deer invisible and as deer-strike is not simulated , the deer left the sim.Now you`ll have no deer anymore , but still can enyoy (?????? ) the seagulls..RegardsLeen de Jager

Right you are. A big improvement indeed. I actually didn't know you couldn't hit the deer. Guess I never felt the need to try to run over Bambi. Thanks for the tip.

[Guest veeray]

If they give that attention to detail at an airport, then I just assume that they wouldn't overlook a runway that is jagged.

I don't think it's so much of a fault in the engine as it is a fault in the mesh data itself. Don't know if a higher resolution mesh would cure it, or if its a limitation of the satellite itself. Things like water could distort the information fairly easily I assume, they do in the visible spectrum so I imagine whatever frequency range they use for terrain mesh also has problems.

[rightseater 0]

I don't think it's so much of a fault in the engine as it is a fault in the mesh data itself. Don't know if a higher resolution mesh would cure it, or if its a limitation of the satellite itself. Things like water could distort the information fairly easily I assume, they do in the visible spectrum so I imagine whatever frequency range they use for terrain mesh also has problems.

Right. Since the runways just follow the contour when selected to do so, I figured it stands to reason that the mesh data would have to be more accurate. However, I'm holding on to hope that they will notice a few of the unusable runways that look like seismographs and perhaps fix them manually. If memory serves me, I think Austin said the delay in releasing XP10 was because they could not deliver the product they had hoped in the time they projected. So if they care enough to take a little more time to get it right, I am hoping that maybe someone in XP development has noticed the runway problems at a few airstrips and is looking into it. If not, I'll still be first in line to buy it at my local Best Buy.

[Guest bstolle]

Is it possible (or will it be possible in x-plane 10) to 'manually' change the terrain so that the sloped runways follow the contours?e.g. Courchevel is still flat AFAIR.

[GoranM 3,772]

Is it possible (or will it be possible in x-plane 10) to 'manually' change the terrain so that the sloped runways follow the contours?e.g. Courchevel is still flat AFAIR.

Wait until X Plane 10 is released to see how accurate the terrain data is.If it's structured anything like XP9, with regards to terrain, then you can make 3D mesh terrain and replace the faulty terrain.BTWNice to see you've changed your attitude.

[Guest bstolle]

Nice to see you've changed your attitude.

Not at all. You've got a pm

[Leen3131cs 107]

Not at all. You've got a pm

Ohh no, not again.Its good to see the boys going into the garden to have their fight.I do not like it to happen in the house.Cheers guys.Remember: Many "problems" on fora are due to language-misunderstanding or misinterpretations.Leen

[alpilotx 505]

Wait until X Plane 10 is released to see how accurate the terrain data is.If it's structured anything like XP9, with regards to terrain, then you can make 3D mesh terrain and replace the faulty terrain.BTWNice to see you've changed your attitude.

Well, changing the terrain in X-Plane is a bit more complex than with say MSFS. The difference is, that MSFS works more like a GIS tool, that integrates different data sources (elevation data is an independent set, landuse is an independent set, etc. etc.). So you can change one of them without the need to bother about the rest (and especially as these data sets are rester oriented its quite simple). Now, X-Plane on the other hand does mixes lot of the data already at scenery creation. At least thats definitely true for landuse and elevation. From both of them (well, essentially three, as we also factor in one more, namely climate data) the base mesh is derived. Which is unique in many ways. For one, it is an irregular mesh (not an evenly spaced, redctangular mesh) ... with more, smaller triangles where we have lots of change (mountains), and less, larger triangles where we have few changes in elevation (flat land). Then, the types of terrain you will see, is already attached to the triangles. Each triangle knows, what type of terrain it should show (a forest, a crop field, some rocks etc.) ... so, they are already closely merged together. But we still have a nice abstraction in there, as we don't directly assign textures to the tris, but only so called "terrain definition" names ... so we still have lots of freedom to customize the final look of each tri by tuning the ingredients of each terrain-definitions (where we specify textures, or different shaders etc. etc. - all depending on what we want to show). And this has already be done with XP9 and will work in a similar (but further extended/improved) way in XP10.All this has the nice advantage, that the sim doesn't needs to spend much ressources on loading and preparing the scenery (which MSFS has to do - because of its GIS like approach). And of course with pre-generating all this information, we can also use much more complex algorithms to "optimize" the landscape (which would take too long with an "on-the-fly" approach ala MSFS). The disadvantage on the other hand is, that such a more complex, pre-generated scenery file is also a bit more complex to create or modify than with MSFS, where you can - relatively - easily change each of the ingredients on their own. So, what I want to say is, that mesh editing is not an easy task in X-Plane (wasn't in XP9 and neither will be in XP10). Usually, the few who do/did it, use MeshTool, which tries to recreate the mesh ... but there you need most of the source data too, which we had (or the modified one). OR, you could use a tool to directly modify the mesh structure ... but to my knowledge, no one has written such a tool until now (even if it would be possible as the scenery system is open and more or less well documented - but possibly quite complex task!) ...

[bsupnik 23]

What alpilotx said. :-)If you know of a 9.62 airport that is unusable, please list it by ICAO code here.http://xplanescenery.blogspot.com/2010/10/global-scenery-squawk-list.htmlSome may have been added post-terrain-creation, which means no preprocessing was done. I can spot check the ICAO airports on that comments list and try to improve the terrain processing in the scenery creation tools where they fail.cheersBen

[GoranM 3,772]

Not at all. You've got a pm

Very confusing.Still no pm.