Justin Toposim

HI Mike, Thank you very much. Appreciated very much. I had a crowd-funding widget up, but apparently removed it in a trouble-shooting attempt, then forgot to restore it. Dah. In any case, you will now find a link on the right of the Toposim Distribution Center home page. Let me know at the Support & Community site if anything doesn't work right . . . Thanks again Justin Hi John, Good, both FTX Global Base and Vector will fit nicely with Toposim terrain mesh. The regions should not present a problem in most cases. If you experience anomalies, simply switch the layering of the Toposim Continents and Orbx region and in most cases that should fix any problems. Then within the Orbx regions, the Orbx terrain mesh will display, and outside the Orbx regions, the Toposim Continents terrain mesh will display. Let me know if you have further questions Justin

HI John The Orbx FTX Global Vector is recommended, which will fix the notoriously low-res and inaccurate global coastlines and hydrography. The two products compliment each other nicely, and havng accurate vectors will enhance the whole presentation. As well, Flight1 Ultimate Terrain, which is also high-quality and accurate vectors will do the same. Thanks Justin

Hi John Did you use the "Login & Registration" link along the top, or did you end up on the stock Wordpress login screen? If you end at the stock login screen, it's not working right. You want to use the "Login & Registration" link. You'll end up at the Toposim Distribution Center, My Account page, where you simple enter your email address and a temp passowrd will be emailed to you. Use that to log in, then change your password if desired. Thanks Justin

HI Mike Go to http://www.toposim.net and click the Login & Registration link at the top right on the menu. Enter your email address. A temporary password will be emailed immediately, log in, change your password if desired. Once your account is set up, I can add you to the Legacy Galaxy group. Just tested it, working fine here. Thanks Justin

OK, site is back up, and in the process of migrating to a more robust, dedicated server, a bit earlier than planned or expected, but should give us a nice performance boost. Thanks Justin Toposim

Thanks Jazz. As luck would have it, my hosting provider temporarily suspended my account an hour ago due to a spike in resource usage. The move to a dedicated plan has been planned, but not so soon. Forced to upgrade now I guess. Growing pains! We'll be back up shortly. Justin

Hi David Thank you for the smug and cynical accessment. Not a problem, but I have to ask. Is there anything wrong with an experienced developer, who has made a not-insignificant contribution to this hobby and genre over nearly 20 years, launching a new startup looking towards the future? The tone of your comment puts the act of starting and building a business in some sort of pejorative light that I don't quite comprehend. "Opportunistic Sales Speak" - how about operating on a limited marketing budget, and trying to use every creative means to increase brand-awareness, market penetration, bring in more business, and carve my slice of the pie while providing a quality product and supporting it well. It's trading good value for revenue, and hopefully a win-win situation for both business and customer. Is there something wrong with that? "Ambitious Salesman trying to meet monthly quotas" - yes, definitely a monthly quota - to pay rent, car payment, child support, groceries, gas, insurance like everyone else. My little enterprise, Toposim, is my only livelihood and I have other people depending on me, so yes, there is most definitely a monthly quota. It's called living expenses, trying to avoid hunger and homelessness, being able to survive at the bottom of this flailing economy, but do it on my own terms. I am 61 years old, really don't have anything else to fall back on, I love what I do, and I'm scratching and clawing, working hard, putting in long hours, trying to make a contribution that synchoniously provides an adequate, ideally comfortable compensation. Is there something wrong with that? Not quite there yet, but any vision of me sitting back in a padded-leather executive chair crossed legs up on the desk surrounded by stacks of cash and gold coins, flipping through a stack of $100 bills, smoking a cigar, laughing maniacally while ripping people off all the way to the bank, is greatly exaggerated lol . . . And, yes, I'm sure Freemesh has made the challenge of launching a successful new business in this category a bit more daunting. Don has obviously made a good product, has received good reviews from users, and lots of justifiable back-patting for making his product free. Good for him. That's his choice to make. It's a nice side-hobby, though I'm sure very time-consuming, and he no doubt has other irons in the fire and doesn't need to make a living from development. I have a good product, too, but mine is structured, organized, and distributed differently, it squeezes that last little bit of detail out of similar raw source data, and I think my customers can expect a high-quality, elegant, continually-refined product into the future as well as prompt attention to their service and support needs should they choose to support a good, high-quality full-time payware option instead of a part-time freeware option. So, David, I'm not a bad guy. I've been around a long time and have been very productive over the years, took a significant loss with the botched sale of FSGenesis, which essentially failed because I gave too much away, and am now in the process of reestablishing my place in the market with a brand-new enterprise building on 20 years of development experience, looking towards a bright future. Is there something wrong with that? Thanks Justin Toposim

Not entirely true. While the source data doesn't necessarily change, the formats and structures for the new platform will have changed and the source data has to then be recompiled to take advantage of the tweaks and tuning of the new engine. For example. the transition between FS2004 and FSX . . . While FSX could read FS2004-compiled terrain mesh files, in order to enable the new Multi-LOD enhancement, the source data had to be recompiled in order to take full advantage of the new capabilities. Conversely, FS2004 would choke on FSX-compiled BGLs because it wouldn't know what to do with the new instructions. While I am not privy to details at this point, anyone can infer from statements found in this forum and elsewhere by those who would know, that there will not be backward compatibility from DTGFS to FSX. So that requires time and effort to take what may be similar source data, and compile it for the new terrain engine. Same regarding the expected new P3Dv4. I think we can presume that P3D will move to a new 64-bit version. Also, presuming that the flat-airport limitation will be removed, allowing for undulating airports. That new feature, if indeed implemented, would most likely require additional source data manipulation on the micro level to tweak the airport surroundings. And the source data recompiled to take advantage of the new engine. So there will be much time and effort involved in processing the already-existing source data into new formats in order to fully take advantage of enhanced capabilities of the new platforms. Cheers, Justin

Thanks Vic . . . that is appreciated, as always. Hi Clutch >>I see no way to email you on your website?<< You can also use the Forums at the Support and Community site at Toposim.net Justin ​ Hi Aurel42 >>I'm sure Western Europe is in the pipeline, that's the region I'm most interested in (Germany and its neighbors). Just released a few days ago, as a matter of fact. And also the European Continent Bundle . . . Justin

HI Justin FTX Global and NorthAmerica landclass basically tells the sim what land-use type to display, whether forests, farmland, swamps, golf courses, suburban sprawl or dense urban classes, to name a few. Terrain mesh is shape of the ground over which those landclasses are draped. Landclass such as FTX Global, NA LC, and such, will work with any terrain mesh, the more detailed the better. That said, some landclasses are dependent on slope, like whether to display a rock face on steeper slopes, so using a high-resolution, highly-detailed terrain mesh can change, often improve the display. Also recommended when using higher-resolution terrain mesh, is using a good 3rd party Vector product such as FTX Global Vector or Ultimate Terrain to improve the shape and accuracy of coasts and shorelines, as well as inland hydrography. The default vectors are notoriously inaccurate and low-resolution which can impinge on the proper display of high-res terrain mesh. Hope this helps Justin

This Weekend . . . Buy any Toposim Continental Bundle, get another continental bundle FREE! Buy any Toposim Regional Bundle, get another regional bundle FREE! (with minimum $14.95 purchase) Choose your FREE product at checkout from the Toposim Distribution Center. A perfect time to get grandfathered into FREE UPGRADES to new compatibility with the forthcoming 64-bit simulators from LM and DTG over the next few months. For more details . . . http://www.toposim.net Thanks Justin

Hi Clutch Generally, just register a user account at www.toposim.net and I will cross-reference the old database and manually configure your account. I've been having sporadic problems with new user logins, so please let me know if you have any problems. NB - the email contact links are in the footer. Perhaps I should make it more obvious. Spending the day troubleshooting and tweaking the website. Thanks Justin

Yes, definitely on the production schedule. The Caribbean is next, within a week or so I'd say, completing North America, then I will turn my attention to Western Europe, Scandinavia, Australia, and Oceania, including Hawaii, leaving only Antarctica and Siberia, which pretty much wil complete the global 19m base. Justin

Hello, Yes, I have severed all connection with the current FSGenesis. Just got tired of fighting and reached a much-less-than-desirable settlement with the new ownership on arrearages, and no longer receive any compensation on the sales of those old products. Instead I have started from scratch again to render all those old products obsolete with my new, rebuilt-from-the-ground-up Toposim Continents product line, a far-superior product in my humble opinion lol, that utilizes the experience gained over nearly 20 years of terrain mesh development, and leverages newly-available source data while looking to the future with coming support for the new sims currently on the drawing board. Obviously, I would have no objections whatsoever if all the thousands of old supporters of the original FSGenesis would delete their old, obsolete dead-end stuff and replace it with the new Toposim Continents products, the future of terrain mesh. I haven't worked out the details yet but there will be an inexpensive - perhaps free if I can afford it - upgrade path to the new 64-bit sims from both DTG and LM, so buying my current product line now will save money going forward once these new simulators come online, while still enjoying the experience of the current simulators. So, don't hesitate Come by http://www.toposim.net and see what we have . . . Thanks Justin

Big Savings this weekend with the GREATDEAL coupon! Simply enter GREATDEAL in the coupon field at checkout to receive 50% off instantly on our entire catalog through Sunday midnight EDT Also, two new features at toposim.net . . . The Daily Freebie - one of our popular products, completely free, for a limited time. Currently download Toposim Continents - Yukon Territory free! and . . . The Weekly Special, currently 10m Mexico, heavily discounted. Upgrade to the future of terrain mesh now . . . Quick, easy checkout, immediate download access . . . Thanks Justin Toposim