• Please see the most recent updates in the "Where did the .com name go?" thread. Posts number 16 and 17.

    Post 16 Update

    Post 17 Warning old domain name stealing credentials

  • IMPORTANT INFORMATION - ALL MEMBERS PLEASE READ

    Due to an increase in the number of new members who are trying to systematically download our entire Resource Library (one new member yesterday tried to download 3,000+ files AT ONCE!) we are being forced to implement some changes regarding who can download what, how many files at a time and at what speed. As the forums and Resource Library share the same bandwidth when the Library gets overloaded with demand like that the forums fall over, as we have all seen recently. It's sad that greed has forced our hand in this way but we must do something for the benefit of all our legitimate members (many of whom paid money for the upkeep of the site) and to prevent the files stored here being used for nefarious purposes. Many of our uploads have specific conditions tied to them that forbid uploading to any other site or deny uploading to any site that has a 'paywall' (i.e. a pay to download policy). Due to the number of mass download attempts recently we can only assume that somebody, somewhere, is attempting to stock up a new file library with our files and we owe it to our up-loaders to protect their files and intellectual property especially as many (like my own LDR Development projects) are made available at SOH only and are specified as such in the 'read me' files.

    The forums and Resource Library will be taken offline as of 13:00 EDT with the forums coming back online shortly after without the resources library while we work on setting up permissions on the new Library module.

    We hope our members understand why we need to do this and will bear with us while we implement the changes.

    Thanks in anticipation, SOH ADMINISTRATION

    Downloads are now active. You may proceed with downloading as desired

    The download limits are a work in progress. Some settings are likely to need tweaking in the coming days.

Prepar3D v3 Screenshots

Now that's some serious mesh ! :dizzy:

How did you get that ? I understand the website you mentioned provides some topography data for some places. But how did you get that in the sim ?
 
Daube said:
Now that's some serious mesh ! :dizzy:

How did you get that ? I understand the website you mentioned provides some topography data for some places. But how did you get that in the sim ?
Click to expand...


Hey Daube,

Yes the Opentopography website has free elevation data which is derived using LIDAR. It is available as point data (usually LAS files) or the website allows other formats to be generated directly from the point data or previously converted data can be bulk downloaded.

The elevation data can be downloaded as a GEOTIFF file, and then it just needs to be reprojected in to a coordinate system that FSX can understand, which is EPSG 4329 - WGS84. This projection is needed for the FSX resample tool to work with the data, as FSX is based around this coordinate system. It is the same for landclass and photo scenery, as these also need to be in this coordinate system. Once the Tiff file is in this projection, it can be converted to a FSX/P3D bgl by using the resample tool which comes with the FSX and P3D SDKs.


For example, here is the command line used in FWTools to reproject the TIFF projection from the original (NAD83 / UTM zone 11N) to WGS84:


gdalwarp -of GTiff -co "INTERLEAVE=PIXEL" -s_srs "+proj=utm +zone=11N +datum=WGS84" -t_srs "+proj=latlong +datum=WGS84" -r cubic 319_4171_begd.tif 319_4171_begd_wgs84.tif



And then that GeoTIFF file "319_4171_begd_wgs84.tif" is processed through the resample tool using the following information in the .inf file.


[Source]
Type = GeoTiff
SourceDir = "."
SourceFile = "319_4171_begd_wgs84.tif"
Layer = Elevation
NullValue = 0


[Destination]
DestDir = "."
DestBaseFileName = "Inyo_Domes_CA_Geo_FB4"
DestFileType = BGL
CompressionQuality = 100
LOD = Auto
FractionBits = 4
BaseValue = 1000



This only creates the mesh, so obviously some photoreal is required also to see the photo ground textures.

Here is the first version I have created for the Inyo Domes, (with some fairly poor PR imagery) with no blending or any other work done. Eventually I would like to create some photoreal and mesh which blends in to FTX, but I also just like seeing these areas as they are in the sim. Mesh needs to be set to 1m.



https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxev_0S9k7HPMHhxa1JfbVF5ZjQ/view?usp=sharing
 
Very impressive ! Thanks for the information about how to do that :)

What the impact on the sim loading time, blurries, FPS etc ?
It seems to me the mesh does not impact the FPS at all, but the overall memory usage and CPU power needed to load and build/update the scenery in flight can become a real hammer, right ?
 
Yeah it would have an impact on performance, although these 1m meshes are really localised and only fairly small areas, so the impact is minimal. If you had 1m mesh everywhere it would really impact FPS and VAS, but it's negligible with these small areas.

What I have found is that the mesh is sometimes trying to catch up, so you can see it sort of moving and changing shape as you fly towards it. I am still experimenting to try and overcome this. It is kind of like the mesh equivalent of blurries, where the scenery is stuck on a lower resolution when it should be increasing faster. I guess it has something to do with the LOD levels.

I have made a few meshes now with the data from opentopograhy.org as they produce LIDAR for interesting features such as craters, rock slides, fault lines etc, so I make them pretty much just to explore those interesting areas up close in the sim.
 
Due to a disk crash, I lost my P3Dv4 so I'm temporarily back on P3Dv3, which was still installed on another drive (fortunately).
Helping a friend who is slowly discovering P3Dv4 after years on FSX. Using JoinFS we could fly together (over areas where we own the same sceneries).
Hard to keep a formation flight when the other guy keeps being amazed at the autogen, the lighting, the shadows etc... :biggrin-new:

daube_image0402.jpg


daube_image0403.jpg


daube_image0404.jpg
 
Talking about shadows, sometimes I'm still amazed at how good the shadows are in P3Dv3. On this shot, you can see the shadows of the nearby electric poles as well as the fence ! :dizzy:

daube_image0406.jpg
 
Very nice !
I checked the Gibson scenery website and it seems his previous sceneries (Irak ?) are gone ?
 
Re-using a nice little trick I found back when the Avatar mode got introduced in P3D:
- make a nice landing in a neat looking place
- when you're stopped, switch to avatar mode
- switch to "VC" mode of the avatar (F9 key)
- move your avatar (slew mode) to a nice spotter location
- trigger the instant replay
- watch your airplane land from the ground. You can't move, but you can still move your head!

There I was landing on the helipad #2, at the small hospital in Darrington.

daube_image0407.jpg


daube_image0408.jpg


daube_image0409.jpg


Then back to spot view.

daube_image0410.jpg
 
Ah ok I see.
I was my misunderstanding, I thought these were different products.
All is clear now, thanks.
Still, I thought the Gibson sceneries were in 5m/pixel... I didn't think the resolution was so low...
 
AussieMan said:
Is that the Flight Replicas 'Boomer'? and it works ok in V4?
Click to expand...

Hi Pat,

It is indeed the Flight Replicas Boomerang. Not sure about V4 yet. These shots were taken in P3D V3.4. I just uninstalled my P3D V4 yesterday or I would test it for you. I will do so once I install P3D V4.1.

Cheers,

Scott
 
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