Digital Design LOWS Airport released

[WR269 367]

Looks quite good, for anyone interested in flying close to LOWI or that area in general.

 

[Poppet 703]

http://secure.simmarket.com/digital-design-lows-salzburg_x-plane.phtml

[virtualstuff 751]

Thanks for the heads-up have it for P3D great scenery :-) and now for X-plane lol

 

Looks quite good, for anyone interested in flying close to LOWI or that area in general.

[virtualstuff 751]

Thanks for the heads-up have it for P3D great scenery :-) and now for X-plane l

 

Well the scenery is one mess with floating objects wouldn't expect a payware scenery not compatible with runway follows terrain option in X-plane.

 

 

[Wynthorpe 51]

Yes it needs to be turned off, very disappointing. Apparently fixed in 10.5 but thats only because of the individual flattening of airports, not because it follows the contours (one of the great features they havent taken advantage of)because they couldnt be bothered to re work the scenery to use it it appears.

[MarioDonick 752]

 

 

wouldn't expect a payware scenery not compatible with runway follows terrain option in X-plane.

 

Actually this happens since many years. A lot of Tom Curtis' airports, for example, are not compatible with runway contours (such as his PAKT Ketchikan). It always depends a bit on the terrain.

 

Sometimes the base terrain does not allow this or has some ugly artifacts at certain places. For example, KTEX (Telluride) is only realistic with contours ON. But if you switch them on, one end of the runway and taxiway gets unusable.

 

In such cases, you would need to edit the mesh -- in X-Plane still a dark art which is only mastered by a few.

[virtualstuff 751]

Yes it needs to be turned off, very disappointing. Apparently fixed in 10.5 but thats only because of the individual flattening of airports, not because it follows the contours (one of the great features they havent taken advantage of)because they couldnt be bothered to re work the scenery to use it it appears.

 

 

Actually this happens since many years. A lot of Tom Curtis' airports, for example, are not compatible with runway contours (such as his PAKT Ketchikan). It always depends a bit on the terrain.

 

Sometimes the base terrain does not allow this or has some ugly artifacts at certain places. For example, KTEX (Telluride) is only realistic with contours ON. But if you switch them on, one end of the runway and taxiway gets unusable.

 

In such cases, you would need to edit the mesh -- in X-Plane still a dark art which is only mastered by a few.

 

Yes I read that part but I think when you design for X-plane it should be compatible to begin with ;-)

[MarioDonick 752]

 

 

but I think when you design for X-plane it should be compatible to begin with ;-)

 

Yes -- but my point is that sometimes the mesh does not allow to make good use of "runway follows terrain". Sometimes developing for this option is just not feasible, because you have no efficient way to edit the mesh to your needs.

 

I don't know if that's the case in LOWS, but sometimes things are not as easy as users want them to be. But let me check in the LOWS freeware how it looks there...

[virtualstuff 751]

Yes -- but my point is that sometimes the mesh does not allow to make good use of "runway follows terrain". Sometimes developing for this option is just not feasible, because you have no efficient way to edit the mesh to your needs.

 

I don't know if that's the case in LOWS, but sometimes things are not as easy as users want them to be. But let me check in the LOWS freeware how it looks there...

 

I know I'm a dev myself lol that things aren't always easy but they should be done when it's default stuff ;-)

Will going to have look to edit the obj myself ;-)

[MarioDonick 752]

I know I'm a dev myself lol that things aren't always easy but they should be done when it's default stuff ;-)

Will going to have look to edit the obj myself ;-)

 

Or you could just tell the devs of the scenery instead

 

Still, I'm not sure how much experience you have with X-Plane scenery development (most of your activity at avsim is FSX/P3D related). For example, for years there was no Rio de Janeiro for X-Plane, because the mesh there was horrible and nobody was able to edit it properly. They had to wait for the HD mesh v3 freeware to have a usuable mesh.

 

 

By the way, in the particular case of LOWS I think they could have indeed made it compatible without major problems. There might be some minor issues near the apron, because there are some elevation differences there, but other than that, it should be okay. (Tested in HD Mesh. Not tested in default mesh.)

[Longranger 148]

 

 

I don't know if that's the case in LOWS, but sometimes things are not as easy as users want them to be. But let me check in the LOWS freeware how it looks there...

In the freeware there is a problem on one of the taxiways, otherwise it was tolerable. There wer not such huge problems as at Ketchikan.

Or you could just tell the devs of the scenery instead

 

Still, I'm not sure how much experience you have with X-Plane scenery development (most of your activity at avsim is FSX/P3D related). For example, for years there was no Rio de Janeiro for X-Plane, because the mesh there was horrible and nobody was able to edit it properly. They had to wait for the HD mesh v3 freeware to have a usuable mesh.

And once there was one designer, that was even able to improve the mesh he then also replaced Santos Dumont and this mesh solved everything and made the whole area to a kind if beauty.with several landmarks.

[virtualstuff 751]

Or you could just tell the devs of the scenery instead

 

Still, I'm not sure how much experience you have with X-Plane scenery development (most of your activity at avsim is FSX/P3D related). For example, for years there was no Rio de Janeiro for X-Plane, because the mesh there was horrible and nobody was able to edit it properly. They had to wait for the HD mesh v3 freeware to have a usuable mesh.

 

 

By the way, in the particular case of LOWS I think they could have indeed made it compatible without major problems. There might be some minor issues near the apron, because there are some elevation differences there, but other than that, it should be okay. (Tested in HD Mesh. Not tested in default mesh.)

 

Sent them already an email as it should...

I'm indeed a veteran at the FS front.

 

I forgot apology appreciated the input and opinions :-)

[Don Quixote 76]

Well the scenery is one mess with floating objects wouldn't expect a payware scenery not compatible with runway follows terrain option in X-plane.

 

Thanks for letting us know! The product description doesn't mention the lack of this (IMO) important feature. Unfortunately a no-go for me. True, in the past there have been airports that did not support the "runways follow terrain" option, but most of those were old airports often developed for XP9 and then converted for XP10. I don't know about any recent releases that did not support it, and for good reason.

 

Also, the XP version of LOWS is almost the same price as the FSX/P3D version, but has less features - no seasonal textures, no reflections, and possibly more (based on the product description). I'd love to support more payware scenery developers for X-Plane, but simple FSX conversions are not enough, especially when considering the excellent freeware options available for XP.

[MarioDonick 752]

 

but simple FSX conversions are not enough

 

LOWS has ground traffic and X-Life compatibility, two things you have to create especially for X-Plane, due to it's lack of default ground traffic and (good) default AI.

 

 

By the way, the guy responsible for the LOWS X-Plane conversion is the same who is behind this excellent freeware: http://rdesignx.weebly.com/freeware.html (His payware participations are listed here: http://rdesignx.weebly.com/payware.html). So he is not some inexperienced X-Plane newbie, but I assume he knew what he was doing and why he made certain decisions.

[virtualstuff 751]

LOWS has ground traffic and X-Life compatibility, two things you have to create especially for X-Plane, due to it's lack of default ground traffic and (good) default AI.

 

 

By the way, the guy responsible for the LOWS X-Plane conversion is the same who is behind this excellent freeware: http://rdesignx.weebly.com/freeware.html (His payware participations are listed here: http://rdesignx.weebly.com/payware.html). So he is not some inexperienced X-Plane newbie, but I assume he knew what he was doing and why he made certain decisions.

 

Well then he should mentioned it on the sales page upfront ;-)

He has done a lot of work I have both (for P3D and X-plane) and know how to do a conversion...

But this isn't however I would love to have the knowledge upfront because then there wasn't been a purchase here local to begin with.

(Ground traffic and Xlife are very easy to make and there isn't the problem)

 

Cheers,