New package: Coryton

[Guest R_Driscoll]

The Shell oil refinery at Coryton.Jon's development of breakwater models has come at just the right time for me. You can see them in the foreground of one of these shots. The long pier was adapted from the one I made for Cowes, and I built a series of white tank models for the foreground and new pipework for the refinery. This is a spectacular view as you fly down the river towards Southend, and I hope to plug a further gap with a Dartmouth package soon. Also I have recently redone the LCA airport. So I have thrown in a few pics of this. Major changes were: - upgrading terminal model - replacing runway and surrounding models with one large model - accurate placement of buildings, churches, etc using new photos of LCA. A lot of previous placement of small buildings was generic, based on the ground textures. New photos provided a lot more detail so allowed better poistioning and better choice of buildings and trees. - new models - the sugar company has been partially rendered, and the floating pontoons next to LCA added.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/119517.jpgRefinery, a misty day. Southend just visible in distance.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/119518.jpgThe big concrete breakwater, courtesy of Jon P!! Refinery in the distance, loading pier foreground. Tanks are mostly white or brown in reality, but I have painted some green (artistic licence). Note the bunds around the forgeround main tanks.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/119519.jpgView towards Southend again, showing the peninsular character of the refinery complex.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/119520.jpgNew more accurate positioning of models, new factory.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/119521.jpgTakeoff, Thames barrier and Dome in background.Hope you enjoy the pics,Cheers,RobD.

[Guest glidernut]

Looking good. You say "replacing runway and surrounding models with one large model".Is this too help fraime rates? or what?glidernut.

[Hans_Petter 1]

Interesting! I have to make a few changes to my hardware before I can accommodate the latest UK version. I was planning to upgrade my PC last fall/autumn but time as well as money have been limited. It seems that my bachelor days may be numbered and this calls for different financial priorities as well as cutting into my sim time :-)Anyway, I need more disk space and it would be very nice to have better performance. I tried some weather yesterday and the combination of pretty models, pretty clouds and dynamic weather was a handful. Funny, it's 2005 and we're still striving to get smooth performance, even with fairly recent PCs. best regards,Hans Petter

[Guest R_Driscoll]

Yes, framerates were and have always been FU3's biggest problem. The detailed terrain was never matched by the standard of the FU3 models, and although its easy to make better models, the program doesn't support it well. Also since there is no control over model display distance, FU3 loads everything at once - so from LCA I can see Biggin Hill, and London city itself once I get near the Dome. That's well over a thousand models at once, for a system designed to show a few trees.I think now that once the memory allocated for models is exceeded, FU3 starts to use the disk, and at this point the display speed halves. But I didn't buy the program for compromise, and to enjoy flying I like a 3D world ('verticality'), and don't like flying over flat photos (as you do in FS5 and FS98). Also FU3 seems to handle flat models as special cases, and slower, than other models.Of course LCA is your package, and although I have modified it, it still is essentially your work. My main change has been to make a few new models, to improve existing ones but most importantly, to try to accurately position buildings as they are in real life. I combined the runways and surroundings verges for seceral reasons:1) to improve the alignment of all components2) to avoid the overlap of the two models on the runway (causing the runway to sometimes disappear from certain angles)3) I hoped it would improve framerates by reducing the number of big flat models in a small area (it didn't!).I won't upload any of this for the moment. Eventually I hope this will become a part of a mjor upgrade for the whole UK, but that's a long way off. The current UKS is fine and complete and I won't touch the published version for some time.RobD.

[Hans_Petter 1]

Rob, whatever you do to improve the LCA package is great! Needless to say, LCA catches my attention more than most packages since I spent a long time helping to set it up. Still, it was very much a joined venture and I would have got nowhere without your models, your templates and your tutoring. As soon as I get time I'd like to contribute by creating more buildings. Regarding big flat models -- I'm surprised that it doesn't help framerates to avoid overlaps. The single large model should accomplish just that. How do you set up the textures if runway, apron and taxiways are one big model? You might send the model over and I'll check it out in ModelView as well as checking out the GIFs.Regarding far-away models being rendered to no avail, isn't there a way to postpone the rendering of models until they're close enough to be viewed? best regards,Hans Petter

[Guest R_Driscoll]

Agtim said recently that his favourite flight was from LCA to Biggin Hill. I love Biggin Hill very much as well - its a bit more romantic, and the hilltop view with gullies, etc - a quiet place for fun flying.The models you made were excellent - they captured the feel of English terraces etc very well, although I wouldn't have put transparent windows in the shop! The textures were the best I have seen.Rendering and distance - LGS should have put a control for this! But you can use model levels to reduce the load, and LGS did this extensively. I have used LOD's a bit (eg tree10.bin/tree11.bin and glidernut's hangar), but its a lot of work. So for LCA, I could put a distance model for the runway/verge which would take a lot of load off the old processor. Some day, ....How did I do it? very difficult, like scissors and paste. I kept the runway as it was, then added verges before, after and left/right, using the original MIPs but finding exact positions for the join points on the MIPs. I'm not explaining this well. I'll send you the code if you want!RobD.

[Hans_Petter 1]

Rob, you might send me the model or you might send me the entire package. I'd be happy to try it out :-)Hans Petter

[agtim 0]

Hi Robert,The new objects looks very good :-)hope to see this package soon.my current object work place is Lausanne Blecherette in Switzerlandhttp://www.agtim.ch/fu3/Flt3ch1.jpghttp://www.agtim.ch/fu3/Flt3ch2.jpghttp://www.agtim.ch/fu3/Flt3ch3.jpg:-wave agtim

[Guest R_Driscoll]

The buildings are great, especially the helipad building with the red crosses (I've forgotten for the moment, which little country famous for chocolate and tennis invented this symbol?). In fact it all looks great and very visitable.RobD.

[agtim 0]

Hi Robert,Yes the buildings looks fine but have a lot of polygons.The building uses 3 mip maps! It's a REGA base, not red cross but a Swiss Air Rescue Service, see http://www.rega.ch/en/start_en.aspxLook at Base 4 to see the real building.The models are not from me, just converted from MSFS Swiss addon using BGL2E.:-wave agtim