The Pylons are coming !

[Christopher Low 5,352]

Nothing special. Just four screenshots showing some pylons that will be included in my SEATTLE PYLONS package.1. Pylons snaking over the hills south east of Sequim Valley.2. Pylons marching into the distance north of Kimshan Ranch.3. More pylons....south of Shady Acres.4. Line of pylons south of McChord AFB. You can also see my Pacemaker Landing Zone airport nearby. This is a tower controlled airport that I have built, and is based on a REAL military landing facility at this location. I would love to release it, but there is a problem. The terrain has been flattened, and I don't have an easy solution for the end user. Are there any experts out there who could develop a simple batch file for this process....or is the format simply too complicated ?Chris Low.

[agtim 0]

Hi Chris,looks good :-)With an additional function in FLEDViewer it must be possible to compute a wire object between 2 pylons that have been set previously.But this is for later...and avoid placeing pylons on tile boundaries ! :-wave agtim

[Christopher Low 5,352]

Andre,The Seattle Pylons pack is probably around 85 per cent complete....and I have not encountered any more problems with rogue pylons. I have sent a copy of this nearly completed version to one or two beta testers, to check for compatibility and framerate issues.Chris Low.

[Guest glidernut]

Just lately Iv been flying to sum of thows packages I havant seen for sum time just to chek out if jon,s new trees hav showen up there as well as elswhere, of cors thy hav, I know thy hav, but I still like to go see them just the same.Iv also taken to flying low and slow folowing the roades insted of as the cro flys in a strate linefrom package to package just for sumthing to do. folowing pylons insted for a change woukd be grate. Im looking forword to having your PYLONS package, thy are looking good.glidernut.:-wave

[Christopher Low 5,352]

Four more pylon screenshots.1. Lots of pylons west of the Hood Canal.2. Pylons near Olympia airport. There is a "one pylon gap" just to the east of the pylon at upper right. This was done because one pylon was far too close to the runway 17 approach !3. Sky Harbour airfield, with lots of pylons marching away into the Cascade mountains.4. Pylons near Apex Airpark.Chris Low.

[Christopher Low 5,352]

The bulk of the work has now been completed, but there are probably one or two locations that I have overlooked, so I will need to scan the Seattle region in FLED very carefully. To be honest, it doesn't really matter if I miss an obscure location, since there are already a huge number of pylons scattered across the map. There are no framerate or compatibility issues on my PC, but I will need to wait for responses from a handful of beta testers before I can be sure.I also want to get rid of that rogue pylon before release :-)Chris Low.PS I have found that the pylons are easier to see at dawn and dusk. Increase the haze slightly to get a reddish tinge to the sky and landscape, and everything looks superb.

[Guest effyouthree]

Chris,I'll try 'em out tonite ;)Thanks for completing something I promised 12 months ago!:-waveRegards,**************Jonathan Point**************"I'd rather be down here wishing I was up there than up there wishing I was down here"

[Christopher Low 5,352]

Jon,I will send you a copy of the finished Seattle Pylons package when I have removed the rogue pylon, together with a revised version of my Frontier Airpark package. I added a few extra pylons here by mistake (I forgot to close this package, and open SEATTLE PYLONS before adding the models) ;-)Chris Low.

[Guest Pieter]

ChrisLooking at the images I saw that the pylons are those of power lines. I presumed the Pylons are coming as to be those used to fly crisscross through as in skiing? It's thus more for navigation... or do you have more fun with this in mind? Now with power lines I would not regard that as safe! ;-) PieterPS Sorry about the slip of fingers to even think the Beech Jet to be the FS Lear!

[Christopher Low 5,352]

Sorry for the confusion, Pieter. The actual towers used to support the power lines are called "pylons" in Great Britain.My decision to add these "pylons" to the Seattle scenery was based on one or two factors.1. They look good.2. The Seattle terrain is so heavily forested that it was easy to see where the pylons were located.3. I am rapidly falling behind Jon and Robert as far as FU3 development is concerned ;-)Now I just need to get this "rogue pylon" situation resolved, and then I can get those two (and one or two others) to test the finished package.To be honest, I was hoping to be able to include this in an update pack for Seattle 2004, but the latter will require modifications to the AI parking spots.....and that is dependent on an updated version of the AI Pack.Talking of the AI Pack..........Ansgar, how is it progressing ? :-)Chris Low.

[Hans_Petter 1]

Chris, I've checked out the beta packages and everything's honkey dory. The sim loads all right, no frame rate issues etc but I may have to fly a bit more to spot them all. I will cruise along any power line corridor that I find and report if I spot something strange.Hans Petter

[Christopher Low 5,352]

Hans,Thanks for that. I have now completed the entire package, but I would like to get that rogue pylon removed before I send it out for testing. Andre is currently helping me with this.Ansgar reported that framerates on his PC suffered with Seattle 2004 and the pylons package installed, but then he only has a 700Mhz processor :-) Can you tell me the specification of your PC ? I would like to know what level of processing power is required to avoid framerate issues with this pack.Best Wishes,Chris Low.

[Hans_Petter 1]

My current processor is 1.2 Ghz. I'll get back to y'all with a higher number within a couple of weeks :-) I'm going to upgrade the motherboard as well as the processor.Hans Petter

[Christopher Low 5,352]

Hans,It's good to know that it runs fine on a 1.2Ghz PC, although quite why Ansgar's computer runs everything so poorly is difficult to determine.Chris Low.

[Hans_Petter 1]

How about defragmenting the drive? I defragmented my flight simulator drive and I believe it helped. Everything was jumbled and incongruous before I defragmented the drive. Since we keep modifying flight simulators by adding and deleting addons all the time this makes sense.Hans Petter