To Robert Driscoll

[Lars Peter 0]

Hi!I have during the last days downloaded your new "fled model addons".after installing the complete "new Gray airforcebase" with many ofyour models included I was very pleased to see what it was.You are sure breaking new ground of FU3 addons.However I am running a pure P3-600 computer , and I had to remove some of the biggest moving objects to still have acceptable framerates.Just want to thank you for your work with this.I'll second "Glidernut's" statement of the new mechanic.He is much better.Lars Peter.:-wave

[Guest R_Driscoll]

Thanks Lars - I appreciate your comments.A couple of queries to the forum in return:- Any suggestions for further models?- Anyone having troubles installing the graphics?- I can take objects from either world (San Fran or Seattle) and remap them to the other. If you let me know what objects you want remapped, I will publish them as a second group on AVSIM. For example, I have uploaded retextures of the C5, F16 and Capn Bazza's sub (highly detailed submarine).- With a little work, I can make a program to do this for you. You would need to extract the textures yourself, run the program and load the results into the region GEN folder. Is this of interest?- I deliberately make models to have a slightly "muddy" texture, as I think it looks more realistic. For example, the first baggage cart was very muddy (OK, it was dreadful, but it illustrates what I mean). MSFS seems to use cleaner textures - more solid colours, less photographic realism but the final models look cleaner and sharper. I can do some pre-processing on the model graphics to make them look less muddy, and I can now use larger graphics files (I could only use 128 by 128 until this weekend). Should we chase MSFS and go for a slightly cartoony look, or go for realism (eg the SEATAC tower is about the best I can do)? The FU3 main limitation is the limited Seattle palette.- It is possible (but highly dangerous I suppose) to modify the FU3 palette. In fact its easy. I would like to reduce the bias to yellow - especially at high altitudes (Jon Point has an explanation for this, unfortunately unrepeatable on a public forum, but to do with not eating yellow snow after huskies). Then I could possibly broaden the palette. This is mighty dangerous. Comments? I think this would be a slow project ...Kind regards to all,Robert.

[Guest jonpoint]

Rob,1. How about a roadway? A couple of straight sections, 500ft and 2Kft, maybe with a 45 degree bend? A broken line down the middle? Then I could really finish-off a couple of OT projects! The concrete idea was great. 2. The other thing I wanted to do was a grove of trees. Not again you say? Well, in the interests of reducing polygons, it could be a really dense grove! Like a large, irregular box. From the air it would look like any other forested ground. At ground level it would have some relief - could look good near runways on flat ground.3. Muddy is better than clipart any day. 4. I'm all for playing with the palette. Have a toy with it and send me a copy. I do accept that some models may look a bit strange at first! Anything to get rid of the yellow (and pink) snow. Actually, I've seen pink snow. We (well, Australians) get it up in the highlands near Kosciusko in the summer. Looks strange! Apparently it's caused by micro-organisms that slowly come to life as the snow melts. Very slushy to board on though :-PKeep it up. Up is better.Jon Point*************************(effyouthree@hotmail.com)*************************

[Guest glidernut]

Hi Robert.- Any suggestions for further models?Yes, I would lick a brige as well.Preferably one I can drive over, All the briges in FU3 have lamposts, wyers, or other obstrucshonson them, and I carnt land on, or drive over them.Well not with a 75 foot wing span anyway.A runway with sun thiknes would be OK.But I dont know wat macks sum models more solid than others.Even the runway on the aicraft caryer is a bit soft.But even if you did one, I have on where in particuler in minedwhere to put it.And briges are dificalt to use in fled, thay are ither too longtoo short or the terrane hight at one end or the other is rong.A biger, more brightly coulered wind sok fore seattel would be good.But wat with it mooving in the wind, I not Know if its posibl.Its a funy model, the wind sok, its diferant to other models.I onece atached the sound of a flutering flag to the wind sok useingfled, but it corupted the hole package. Never agen.Kind regards to all exept Mike the macanik.I acsedently run him over the other day, but insted smashed up my glider.You must have made him out of concreet ?john.

[Guest R_Driscoll]

Glidernut, You hit Mike with your glider? How could you?He's not made out of concrete (although didn't you say something about him being build like a brick something or other yourself).You know he probably dived in front of your glider deliberately because of the cruel things you said about him. He's sensitive, you know.I have already built runways for Jim. They're paper thin - no wonder planes sink through them. Maybe its the terrain below them that planes actually land on - I don't know. If the terrain is levelled correctly, the plane shouldn't sink. But you're always taking off on hills, aren't you? When did you start using runways? (I also use hills for landing, usually because I don't see them).I can make bridges and roads. I'll get back to you when I've made some progress on these. Best is if we design a generic bridge or fly over, and then build it for a particular location (changing size is easy) so that it meets the needs of the location. But I can't solve all this quickly, maybe a few weeks. Thanks for your ideas.A windsock? Easy. I can make that now. But it won't turn. Perfectflying conditions irrespective of the weather ... A proper windsockis too hard for me (and probably too easy for Angsar) so I'll put that down the list for now.To Jon,Thanks for your feedback! Roads are something I've been thinking about as well. I'll see what can be done. I posted some streelights on AVSIM. It makes sense to have streets as well.Groves of trees? Glidernut asked for trees too. Why build trees when you can simply cut down everything in sight and put concrete over it?Anyway, I can't do trees until someone teaches me how to put transparency into FU3 - you're the graphics expert. How do I do it? I'm trying a few ideas at the moment, but no luck so far.Thanks for your comments on texturing too! Probably best not to imitate MSFS anyway - we don't have the graphics power in 256 indexedpalettes to compete. Muddy it is.I'll try and adjust the palette - see what happens.Kind regards to all, and much thanks for the feedback!Robert.

[Hans_Petter 1]

I've been following this with interest but I haven't installed any of the new polygon models yet. I've sort of been waiting for the final versions being included in FLED packages since I'm not too FLED savvy myself.Here's some suggestions:As I downloaded the Gray Airbase I found that the ReadMe refers loosely to recent model uploads. It would be nice to be able to get all of the models as one zipped file, to ensure that I get what I need. Alternatively, the new packages might include the models.When models are being improved, just keep the same file name and they will overwrite the previous ones. This way we'll avoid keeping previous versions when there's a better version of same being made available.I think it was Jon who mentioned a grove of trees. I'd like to get better vegetation coverage in some areas and it might be a good idea to hide a "block of trees" among single ones. This way we won't suffer the frame rate penalty of lots of single trees. Besides, it might look more real for everything except parks. Trees out in the wilderness don't grow as single trees spaced evenly apart. Maybe you could dissect some of the trees that we got (you know, Chinook in disguise :-)) and find what they use for transparency?best regards,Hans Petter

[Guest R_Driscoll]

Two people with the same idea! Its a small world. Bogdan also sentme a message that I should spend more time looking at trees. Forunderstanding transparency, of course.It was interesting that you also had observed the disguisedChinooks. So my psychiatrists are all wrong. I'm not paranoid.A couple of more serious technical points:Often you can overwrite an old model with a new version, but notalways. Occasionally FLED spits the dummy if the old model has beenused in a package and is then replaced, and the objects list will lockon to the error object, preventing FLED working. This is a majordifficulty in just replacing old models.Can I republish as a single ZIP? Yes, of course. I haven't done this before as I am still on the learning curve of "how to" - and I havemade every mistake in the book and then some so far. And new models are coming out quickly, so I would have to keep collecting and resending. Anyway, I will try to put together a set of the new modelsfor Seattle and San Fran, possibly next week now. More generally,there is a problem for newbies in that a lot of models were developed back in Captn Bazza's reign. A compendium of all models (with associated texture maps) is well over 2.8 Mb already. My modelsare a large proportion of that, difficult for people with modeminternets.Enough excuses. I will try and get a complete set of my modelsonto AVSIM next week, and see if anyone downloads it!You should start using FLED. Its as easy as falling off a log (I've never tried to fall off a log) and very rewarding. Half the funof FU3 is construction. Ask anyone. It is easy to use, brilliantly written (despite some negative comments in the early days) and almost as flexible as the adventure challenge script language which its probably based on. So it gets occasional lockjaw. Just keep backups of your work and its not a problem.Kind regards,Robert.

[Guest qvdg]

Great work Robert,You are looking at an area which has not been fully addressed to date. Taking into account the major project currently under way on UK scenery I think that some UK style control towers and in particular hangars will soon be needed. You can probably get some inspiration from what has been done for that other Flight simulator for the UK.Keep up the good work,Cheers,QvdG

[Guest R_Driscoll]

What other flight sim? Is there another one?I would love to build models for London. I need some decentphotos of structures there - Eastminster, Little Ben,tall buildings,,the Tower of Oxford, London University, control towers, airports.There's plenty of stuff on the web - I should find plenty of ideas.If anyone wants particular things built, let me know. A model takesabout two days at present (two evenings of no commitments) soother people should help model, and any help in prioritising ...I can't use London scenery at present - I've only got the AVSIMdownloads, and my computer at home is full of my son's games - hejust installed SYSTEM SHOCK 2, one of my favourites (I forget thecompany that developed SS2, it wasn't, no, it couldn't have been ..).So no space. But when its further developed, I look forward toflying there.Thanks Qvdg!

[Guest R_Driscoll]

Yeehhhaaaaa! Got it!Thanks you guys - transparency works!Last night I got stuck into a serious attempt to understand howto make textures transparent. I must have loaded and unloadedFU3 AND Fled about 20 times with different objects - and Imodified my MIP writer to stick in '0's everywhere ('0' is thecorrect colour for transparency) with no luck. As a last resort,I took your advice ("Stop looking at concrete and look at trees" or words to that effect) and bingo bingo bingo!!First I extracted the BIN for ntree1, Seattle (using TAGSEEK). I analysed it with BININFO and searched for the named texture"t_ntree1.tga" - which means "t_ntree1.mip". I looked at thisand found that it was a normal MIP, exactly the same as my ownMIPs. So why didn't mine work? I analysed "t_ntree1.mip" again,loaded it onto one of my models, and transparency immediatelyworked. Yet there was nothing different about the MIP. What wasgoing on?Well you've probably guessed already. Its the name. My MIPshave romantic names like CONC10.MIP (first concrete texture). Thisone has a prefix, "t_" - t for transparency! So I renamed myMIP and in two minutes was looking through my first chain linkTRANSPARENT fence!So as they say in France,Yeeeehhhhhhhahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa !!!!!!!!!!!!!(Grove of trees coming up)Kind regards and thanks to all,Robert

[Guest jonpoint]

Great news Rob!I was nowhere near that... glad you found it. Actually, in France they say; 'vive la transparencie' or something like that - haven't done french since high school, can't you tell?Nah, it's great because, when I get tired of flying I like to be creative with Fled and, with all these models, I've begun to think of some really amusing things! I use a lot of moving models in my packages which can affect framerate but I like nothing better than an early evening approach, over the airport freeway with all those cars going back and forth. Sometimes, it looks so real it's spooky :-scatterI do believe that we need to manage these models better though. At some stage, I'd love to see a list of mod and mip files that are known to be correct and bug-free. I downloaded some stuff ages ago and ended-up having to remove a lot because they crashed Fled. No, they weren't yours!Maybe you can help with something - why do trees have an artifact on top? I have a good set of tree bitmaps that I want to start using. Everything from gums and willows to poplars. Thought a few different trees wouldn't look too bad. If you can imagine a nice, proud ghost gum - with a set of rotor blades...Jon Point*************************(effyouthree@hotmail.com)*************************