Challenge

[Guest R_Driscoll]

Can you identify the following?(Second posting in a few days)http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/166719.jpg(Clue: Constable)http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/166720.jpg(Sorry about the bank - its a bit of a slope)http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/166721.jpg(Clue: nickname the Bullring)http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/166722.jpg(Last one is obscure - you would need the recent UK update for this).http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/166723.jpgRobert.

[Christopher Low 5,353]

1. Royal Albert Hall in the background, so that structure in the foreground is probably the Albert Memorial on the edge of Hyde Park.2. Salisbury Cathedral (nice work).3. Is that Charing Cross station in the background ? If so, then that would be Cleopatra's needle on the Embankment in London.4. Birmingham ?5. Haven't got a clue, but that looks like a BP filling station in the background.

[Guest R_Driscoll]

Chris, you've done it again. I've no idea how you could have recognised all those so quickly. All correct, and No 5 is generic so wouldn't be recognisable even by someone who lived there! - although I have made it as accurate as I can (given I have to use mainly generic models) with aerial photos and a few webshots. So I'll add some more clues - The river is greater than six.The town is a close rhyme to the river.Hope that's sufficiently obscure.Robert.

[Guest fu3]

Fretherne???*:-*Regards,Jon Point

[Guest R_Driscoll]

Yep, of course, Fretherne on the Severn. But its really just a chance to show off those brilliant sheep of yours Jon! Enough showing off. I've just seen the latest FS9 London scenery and its a wee bit ahead of me (in the same way that Jupiter is a wee bit bigger than Plymouth) and I can't add more models because the framerates are about to go negative. That's really why I developed Fretherne - an untouched area away from other packages, but even there old FU3 is staggering a bit.This tile limit for nightlighting is no fun. Sounds like we can have brilliant nightlighting for all of England south of Isle of Wight, and nought else. Bother, this sim's limits are turning from great to grate. You guys are having all the fun - the new planes are amazing (Glidernut's and Jon's I mean), and Switz looks good and the nightlighting is wonderful.I made the Salisbury cathedral because I was developing that area anyway (Old Sarum, Boscombe Down, Thruxton, all near Stonehenge) but also because its a brilliant landmark for flying - the tall spire can be seent through misty conditions for a long distance, and that and the old Roman mound give you an easy lineup for the runway. Its also a beautiful area. And the framerates are still OK here!Thanks all,Robert.

[Christopher Low 5,353]

I stayed in Salisbury around five years ago, and I visited the cathedral. I think that the spire is something like 440 feet high, and it is easily visible from a considerable distance on a clear day.I also visited a few other nice landmarks at the time, including Stonehenge, The Westbury White Horse (you get a fantastic view of the Wiltshire countryside from the top of the hill), and Stourhead (a beautiful park with a lake and several interesting structures, one of which (The Temple of Apollo) can be seen in the recent "Pride and Prejudice" movie; the part where Miss Bennett and Mr Darcy are arguing in the rain).

[agtim 0]

Staggering with a lot of models:woodfactory is 1 model file of 63KB using 5 mipmaps. http://www.agtim.ch/fu3/images/STSMOD.jpgIt is placed just at the end of the runway, you cross it at final to runway 14 in low altitude but there is no staggering visible.(compares to IOW or Duxford) http://www.agtim.ch/fu3/images/STS14.jpgmy graphic card is a NVIDIA GEFORCE FX5200 only -> low framerates :-(Why ? -> 1 model file, 5 mip files for 116 models !That means model collections in 1 file with few mip maps is using less resources than 100 separate models = 100 files each loading similar mip maps.The St.Stephan scennery is built mostly as model cluster and the frame rate is not so bad than with single model scenneries.save your framerate :-) ! :-wave agtim

[Guest R_Driscoll]

I see. So you are using 5 Mips for 116 models and I'm using 5 Mips for 1 model (runway often has more than this even) - no wonder I'm slow! So what we need is a way to collect models into one Supermodel like you've done here or Jon does with his famous tree collections. Maybe then I could get London a bit faster (although on a clear day its about 20 fps). I think BSP has a function for combining models but I've never tried it. But this isn't on flat land - the height of each submodel has to be adjusted for the local ground height. Hmmm, have to think about it.Cheers,Some more pics (these all use multiple MIPS though)http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/167226.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/167227.jpg

[Christopher Low 5,353]

Talking of framerates, these don't seem to follow any logical pattern with FU3. I have just upgraded from a 128MB ATI Radeon 9800 Pro to a 256MB GeForce 7600GT, but the framerates appear to be essentially the same as before. We're talking around 15-18fps at 1024x768 resolution, with 4xFSAA and 8x anisotropic filtering.Not exactly Earth shattering, is it ? :(

[Hans_Petter 1]

Rob, you did create a simple supermodel some time ago -- remember the group of buildings made to fit a specific location in London? The idea was to create simplistic buildings to add some substance to areas away from the heavily populated airports. It seems that a supermodel is the way to go.I thought that the number of polygon surfaces was the thing that taxed the system but this may not be true. Still, it doesn't sound obvious that it should help to cut back on the number of mips (texture files). Every surface will have to get its colors from some defined area of a mip and I don't quite see why it should help to have several models draw from one and the same mip. If so, why is that?Hans Petter