Research axes

[Guest BOB_J]

Before thinking about another beta version of FLY!, how about to give a chance for FLY!II, or how can FLY!II world be made more "practicable" for all ? In the mind of simmers around us -me at last-, FLY! is always a "restricted area", the same bug riddled hard to customize program we have years ago. Create without headache his own scenery with a few datas, worlwide, is now more than ever the "good old" key for FLY! series life. In fact, we've nearly all we need... in pieces, pieces of art, of course : Terrascene, Terrashape, Shapetools, and fine free tools by others gentlemen too. In fact, for the gentlemen, we have all the knights of the round table... without the table to cross swords.ROTW's easy install is a great step forward, a more or less unified scenery tool, a strong leg for our "round table" for instance, may be, should be the next. Why? because most people are reluctant to do something or even use FLY!, afraid they're of probable "jerk" between programs, import between them, do coordinate conversion, reprojection and so on, so a fully integrated tool is the Graal, more than ready to use Guru's poded sceneries, or a FLY!III with others shortcomings, mainly due to marketing. A -more or less- easy tool that follow the Terrascene spirit : everybody can do...GlobalMapper, fGIS, SRTMFill, 3dem, NIMAMUSE, and now Terragen : a big toolbox, isn'it? programs sometimes used for just a task alone.I've seen a small move at HITW, but the long awaited large seamless textures seems to be a revival of an old set at the... 15m/pix scale, so we have to take some "liberties" with the scale or resample with sophisticated algorithm such as S-Spline. Nevertheless, it's a move! and every move is welcome; now, what's about a possible upgrade for Terrascene, now widely used by the sim community, even outside FLY!? Terrascene was in the past a US-only tool, not by author's fault, but because of unavailable datas. Things are a little better today, but the tool is always unusable to some extend because of its... fine and straighforward design! ESRI shapefile data format was a fairly good choice, a truly "professional" and natural choice, but, sadly, every easy money eater of the world seems to do so. Strange situation : we have to rebuilt vector shapefiles from raster or other exotic format themselves build from... original shp's! What's more to do, if possible, and what new functionnalities are needed ?Autogeneration of mountaineous areas is an option to be considered for all who don't have access to accurate LULC datas. Snow generation is already provided in Terrascene, so why not use this process with others textures for others strates, existing or autogenerated. I've seen so some nice results, for example, with synthetic surfaces created by applying dedicated algorithms such as Perlin noise over dem background -see Terragen-. Passive shading should be done with widely available SRTM 3arcsecond dem datas, without external resample task.(Not) surprisingly, MSFS style "mesh" frenzy is gaining FLY! but the -most- needed shading function for realistic visual is not well know and used. Relief is an illusion for a picture as flat as your glass scren, only shades can do the job if nearby surfaces bother same texture. Maybe I'm blind, but I never see dynamic shading effects on FLY!, so with only new elevation points, "relief" is different, but stand not significantly better against a true photographic rendition. We've a terrain with the sun always right up, the face of a pretty girl with direct flash on her.Otherwise, thanks to designers, a nice dem pack outside US will be a "Terrascene ready" set of assorted datas. No critics here, only facts, every work done is fine!Texture cut along roads, railroads or rivers is a neat visual improvement. Results can be completely different and much more realistic when doing so. In fact, sparse but smoothed ONC road/rail datas may be just fine for the job if they can be used with and for assorted LULC polygons, even if we have to write some polygons attributes manually. A polygon building from polyline function is sometimes present on trial demo of GIS software, but it should be nice to have such one, part of an unified scenery tool.Of course, some textures may be used separately, such as woods, and the "layer" may be placed just under networks, but be a proud mother nature's assistant, have a think for the poor farmer who see this damned road straight over his field! What did you think of an MSFS vector format import ?. With a plethora of low cost products, avoidance of genuine and costly shps seems possible... FLY! should retain its own graphics properties, somewhat different of an hi-res picture we actually don't have in real flight, neither bear an ever changing wavy elevation grid until we have more powerfull machines.And... hmmm, that's all folks! Hope some points here in this garbage are of some value for our proud programmers.

[Guest Steve Brown]

:-hmmm Sorry but I didnt understand that!

[Guest Colins2]

Hi Bob,Some good points there :-)Hopefully something new real soon!Colin

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day Bob,I can appreciate where you are coming from. It is quite a daunting task for a newbie to attempt scenery production for outside of the USA. We are blessed with a great number of "tools" but with the miriad of data formats it all becomes very confusing for the uninitiated ( moi! :-) )A Grand Unification tool - great idea. :-)Cheers,Roger

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day Colin,>Hopefully something new real soon! Yum :9Cheers,Roger

[Guest Steve Brown]

I have worked on Fly2 for over two years and none of this stuff I have touched. So sadly I havent got a clue what you guys are on about. But, I understand things can be made better. That can only mean one thing.. progression http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/104355.gif Steve:-wedge My Websitehttp://www.wrexhamspace.orgF2FDesign Websitehttp://www.f2fdesign.com/ My Fileshttp://library.avsim.net/search.php?CatID=...&Go=Change+View http://www.wrexhamspace.org/sig.jpg

[Guest Colins2]

It's out now Roger :-)Colin

[Guest Eagle]

How about a disk with scenery for the different states or countries? This could be purchased from the various developers at a reasonable cost.I don't have the time, nor do I desire, to terrascene an area, but I am impressed with what some of our FLYers have done and would like to add their creation to my hard drive.