Texture shimmering

[Christopher Low 5,353]

I have noticed that some of the textures in the Seattle region still exhibit a slight shimmering problem. This appears to be mainly related to the urban textures, which I have always considered to be somewhat crude in the Seattle region. I suspect that the lower quality of these textures (compared to the rural textures in this region) is the cause of the problem.It is interesting to note that the San Francisco scenery does not suffer from this problem to any great extent, and this is just one reason why I greatly prefer to fly in this region. Other advantages of the SanFran region include a wider variety of terrain scattered across the map (as opposed to Seattle's large valley separated by two flanking mountain ranges), and a better selection of large, tower controlled airports.It seems to me that the Seattle region is probably better for bush flyers and glider pilots (where is glidernut these days?), but the SanFran region is more suitable for corporate jets and Boeing 747's ! There was a time when I preferred to fly smaller aircraft, but things have changed dramatically recently. I now have plenty of experience with the weight and feel of the Beechjet, and I now know that I can even fly Ansgar's masterpiece. I also prefer being able to interact with other AI planes and ATC on a regular basis, and the large airports provide these two in abundance.In short, if I had to choose between the two high resolution scenery areas, there would be no contest. The San Francisco region wins every time as far as I am concerned :-)Best Wishes,Chris Low,ENGLAND.

[Guest Quaxo]

Chris,"The San Francisco region wins every time as far as I am concerned "... wait until you try the UK! ;-) OK, there is still no AI, but as for the airports... Heathrow, Stansted, Gatwick, Luton, Southampton just to name a few of the bigger ones! :)And, it's much sharper and brighter than SF and Seattle.Cristian

[Christopher Low 5,353]

If only we could get Gary Summons' UK2000 airports to work with the UK scenery in FU3...........Chris Low,ENGLAND.

[Guest Quaxo]

I think that would mean too many polygons. FU3 is quite sensitive on that side. I don't have a supercompuetr, but neither a bad one (Athlon XP1600+ with GeForce4 Mx440) and I can run FU3 at 40 fps over the UK scenery, with few models; but if I start placing trees and other models, and the poly count goes high, my fps decreases to below 15, and that's quite unacceptable. This is why I like Robert Driscoll's models: they look nice without having too many superfluous details, so they use few polygons, and don't slow down the sim.Gary Summons' airports instead are quite complex, unsuitable IMO for FU3. It would be nice though, to use them as a "base", to start building new (and simpler) models for "our" UK...Cristian

[Christopher Low 5,353]

The question is....why do Gary Summons' UK2000 airports run so well in FS2002, if they are so complex ? I do know that he actually builds them using native code, rather than a specific programming language. This almost certainly helps to speed everything up.As for too many polygons, what does FS2002 do when the detail slider is lowered ? Does it simply remove some objects.......or does it render each object with less detail ?Chris Low,ENGLAND.

[Guest Quaxo]

I don't know the "inner workings" of FS2002 (or of FU3 either), but we all know that FU wasn't well "optimized"... It relies heavily on CPU power. Microsoft instead, for once did a good job at optimizing the performance: their sim displays more objects, with much more detail, much faster than FU (see also some of the default airports, like KSFO...) We have to live with that (unless someone finds the source code of FU!) And frame rate is very important to me, a sim can be excellent but if it isn't fluid, it looses all its realism...Cristian

[Guest R_Driscoll]

I don't have Gary's pack, or even FS2002! (FS98 killed my interestpermanently in that sim). But from the photos I have seen, I don't think they would be framerate killers. As a generalisation, models may take 100's of polygons, but planes take 1000's of polygons. So you can have a lot of objects for one plane.It is possible to take packs from FS2002 and adapt them for FU3. Of course I will not do this without the author's permission, but anyway I'm too busy. Its very easy to do though - I have been tempted to pinch bits several times but never have so far. I still need other people to get involved in learning how to make models. Follow Ansgar's advice, or learn the way that I did, but by myself I cannot make enough models to recreate packs as Gary does. Only Jon has done this so far - but anyone can learn using the resources already uploaded to AVSIM.The models make a difference - just compare my packages for McChord, Grays and Forest Falls with what was there before. Taxiing on real taxiways, proper airport equipment, people - I did all this using a text editor. A few people co-ordinating, using anim8or or GMax or whatever could surely work Wonders. My models are not great (but improving I think! and better than the base FU3 models) but surely create a more realistic environment than what we had before. I can hardly land on the old airports anymore (except the great packages done out in the northeast corner like FirstAir, Kim's Tacoma Narrows - some of these are beautifully detailed) as the base models are not enough. I have now done 5 packages in about 4 months - it is very slow writing the models for specific locations. I have been disappointed with the response - few downloads, no feedback, so like Chris I just do this for myself now, but the results are a significant upgrade in the FU3 experience.Enough ranting. Keep flying!Rob D.