John Dow
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Posts posted by John Dow
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Great little package. A couple of questions and comments but overall it looks like it's already RC status.
Not immediately obvious that the hangar door command has to be held down for it to open or close.
Is the gap in the fence supposed to be like that?
I can't see any command in MSFS for the Dynamic stability, is there such a command?
A bit of humour...
And an alternative landing spot amongst the trees and boulders
By the way I inspected the airport and valley in the C152 and then flew up to CA101 fire tower and assessed the chances and gave it a go... and pulled up 0 feet from tipping over the edge. But I did it. Takeoff was not so successful, the aircraft sank into the bushes at the end of the strip and I totalled it. I rang the plane hire company and told them where to collect it and then walked down 🙂
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8 hours ago, Dmytro Krykunov said:
Thanks for the detailed answer!
What's wrong with Mount Ainslie, no vegetation? If you don't take into account the color and height Mount Ainslie looks like this to me.
Sorry, I meant the look of the vegetation, not the amount!
On a lighter note, here's a screenshot from a Facebook post today...
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5 hours ago, wolfko said:
Some great tips here John.
But I think Cathy has not a problem remembering an already chosen password, but creating a valid password first off.
Yes but a pattern as suggested will almost certainly be valid straight up
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I also had a look at the Canberra region with your suggested settings.
Tree cover on the mountains is much better, and the tree height in the city looks good.
But the bush, ie on Mount Ainslie and in the surrounding countryside is way off:
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3 hours ago, Dmytro Krykunov said:
Hi John,
Thanks for the detailed answer.
Strike1NZTrees from flightsim.to - if you don’t mind, please provide a link to this tool. For some reason I can't find it.
Customizing the color and size for the Australian region is no problem. Are there strong seasonal variations in forest color? What about the heights of trees in cities (I greatly reduced the height of all vegetation in populated areas)?
The eucalyptus bush in Australia really only changes colour in response to rain and drought. At certain times there is a little more colour from blossoms and new foliage but for the sake of the trees program, right across Australia outside the cities one colour set will be all that's required. In the major cities there's a percentage of introduced European and American deciduous trees that change colour with the seasons, but I would say that no more than 25-30% of the trees in the cities change with the seasons. That's Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Adelaide, Hobart and maybe Perth. Brisbane and Darwin would remain tropical all year. Tree heights look best in the cities as per the NZ Trees settings , which would be 15 metres maybe?
Here's the original FTX Australia map with the regions that JV developed. Blue would tend to have brown grass in late summer, autumn and winter, green in spring into summer, with lots of eucalyptus bush, Gold would be similar but longer green grass seasons and tending to a bit more mixed eucalyptus and deciduous or green bush in some areas, Red is dry desert and isolated scrub with small trees at most, and Green is rainforest close to the coast but only scrub and small trees anywhere more than say 50km form the coast.
Here's the zip file for the NZ Trees xml file...
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OK I jumped into the sim in 2D and my first impression is that the effect in 2D (without the OpenXR Toolkit Companion that gives me the option to make the colours brighter and more saturated) is not as strong. So in effect Canberra doesn't look as bad in 2D!
Here's what I'm seeing:
This is cut off effect when a tree size limiter is used.
Here's the same trees without the limiter.
Here's my local mountain in Canberra with HD trees.
Heres' the same in default with tree limiter active
Here's the Australian eucalyptus bush in HD trees (no limiter) It's a bit too green
Here's the same with default, much browner
The pine trees aren't as different as I thought, if I find a better example I'll post it but for the moment it seems the tree selection is working. I still think the default heights of the trees is wrong here.
Here's the default with tree fix
Finally, a famous place near Sydney, it's the Blue Mountains and the colours are quite brown and dull green, but here they are too green.
And here's the default version with the tree height fix
So I can see that in 2D wihout the exaggerated colurs I get in VR, the trees are closer to reality, but generally around southern Australia you'll find that a browner duller palate and shorter tree heights will be much more realistic.
Here's a photo to give you an idea.
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I'll test in 2D and let you know what I see. And yes if trees can be scaled in the program that would be perfect.
The reason I use Strike1NZTrees from flightsim.to is because the Asobo trees in my city are approximately 150-200% of a realistic size. Ever since the first MSFS beta testers and users have complained about the tree height, but Asobo seem to think that they have got it right and have done nothing to change it.
As for the trees and vegetation mix in Australia, John Venema's VistaOz got it right way back and I suspect that the MSFS mix for Australia was developed from that original coding. It's pretty unique and unless you live here it's hard to put a finger on it.
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Here's a tip... develop patterns of keys rather than words. Once you get used to it, all you have to remember is the first letter of the pattern, and the last, and your brain will fill in the rest. I use this, I have all my passwords written down on a piece of paper, but secure!
For instance, maybe you want Orbx passwords to start with O. Look at your keyboard. A pattern might be Oknbvc0864#*. You can write O* or O........ * on your cheat sheet, and as long as you remember the pattern, you can get your password.
Gets around all those password filters that reject words and number sequences too.
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A bit late to the party but I visited all the sites last night and tonight, what an amazing scenery in amazing landscapes!
Firstly: In the ContentHistory.json file there's an entry for IDDP, which isn't in the package,which confused me. I was looking for a list of the locations and this seemed a good way to jot them down . Anyway if you can remove the offending entry it'll clean it up a bit.
OK, here's what I noted:
IDTMN. All good in VR
IDDWL Looked for the drone but didn't see it. The eagle is there. I probably just missed it but worth a check?
IDSML MSFS bug comes into play in the Clear Skies setting in VR. The temp by default is 59 degrees. At this temperature, the snow piles appear when they are within just a few metres (like 5-10 metres or less) of the chopper, and disappear quickly when I fly away. If I notch the temperature up a bit to say 64 degrees, the problem goes away. I'm assuming that this only happens at the highest towers, because it wasn't seen at all the locations. It's not a biggie, I don't know if it also happens in 2D, but worth keeping in mind for a response if a customer complaint comes in. (I'm guessing there's no way to fix this problem, it would appear to be embeddded in the snow piles properties).
IDPYP. All good in VR except for the snow piles issue here as well.
IDMFL All good in VR except that the same father/daughter as one of the other sceneries is used, but not a biggie.IDSRP All good in VR except for the snow piles issue as well.
IDSHE All good in VR. I was thinking as I hovered next to the toilet that if it was turned 180 degrees and modelled with the door open the view for the sitting occupant would be amazing!!!
IDTBM. All good in VR
IDSMA All good in VR. Just a suggestion though, the use of a figure walking but static is a bit noticeable. I would prefer to have the figure in a static situation so that when i see the walking figure not moving it wouldn't look so strange.
IDPPL If I successfully land here do I get a PPL??? No problems in VR except for the same snow piles.
IDBGB No problems in VR.
Amazing package ready for release, GREEN
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I gave this a go but unfortunately it's not for me.
1. With the tree height limiter the trees are cut off square on top and they are slower to load which means that the landscape below is full of popping trees.
2. The vegetation displayed for my local Australian bush is less realistic by far than the default
3. With the low sun in the west looking towards the sun the trees are a vivid yellow, too pronounced.
4. In Canberra at least I had a number of the trees showing up as blue like a jacaranda blue.
5. In areas where there are pine forests I see a lot of bare ground.
In summary, I'm pretty happy with the default trees and neither this nor the REX Accuseason Advanced is better than the default for my corner of the world here in Australia.
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I tell you what, as a platform for simulation of VFR GA flying, MSFS is streets ahead of the other two alternatives. Why?
Real world scenery throughout. It does make a big difference.
Much more realistic weather. In particular the pronounced effects that topography has on the airflow across the landscape. In moderate winds and mountainous terrain, in low powered aircraft you can easily be unable to maintain altitude in pockets of downdrafts. Clouds, colours, haze, they're all as good as any of the sims.
Better aerodynamic modelling. This is a contentious issue because many claim that one of the other sims is more accurate, but not only does MSFS model the momentum and feel of a GA plane, but the added points of airflow modelling often produce surprisingly real consequences, asymmetric stalls, wing washout in some aircraft, and many other subtle aspects. In fact, I've actually had a couple of episodes where I've got into trouble in a turn or climb, and then discovered a real world accident that replicates what happened to me because the airflow modelling simulated real world subtleties never seen before in a sim.
There are areas of the sim that could be improved of course. Turbulence effects on the pilot viewpoint for one. Development of dynamic weather like weather fronts that squall across the landscape with wind shears. Dynamic responsive ATC. And so on.
But... when I put on the VR headset and set up a cross country flight just about anywhere in the world, with real weather, in a GA plane such as the 152 or even the new Diamond DA50, there's nothing else that replicates a real world flight like MSFS does.
So, while it's possible to 'play' MSFS, it's equally possible to simulate reality as close as it's possible with today's technology.
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Since they only add points of interest such as buildings and bridges, the impact on the performance of the sim is negligible. However if a scenery area is already taxing your pc hard, then a few objects popping into view might slow tings down briefly as they load.
I have a 4070 card now and on mostly High settings with the LOD sliders at half I don't have any problems with fps except a very few cities and even then it's weather that is the culprit usually.
In short, if you are getting good performance in an area of the UK now, it shouldn't change with these scenery packages.
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I don't remember seeing those when I looked at the Sydney Seaplane scenery. But there's an easy way to check it. Turn off photogrammetry in the sim. If they are still there maybe you have another add on that's causing it.
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Asobo photogrammetry from the look of it. It comes with the territory, nothing you can do except turn off the photogrammetry. Which many people prefer anyway.
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10 minutes ago, Pedrolondon said:
thanks for this information, I appreciate you letting me know. I can see why commercially Orbx have done the North first as there is probably more demand globally outside the UK. As a private pilot based in the south, I could have really benefitted.
Do you know whether I can set up using Xplane 12 and TrueEarth for XP11, there seems to be so many contradictory opions on this matter !?
many thanks once again
Peter
No harm in trying it out, can't do any harm, if it looks messy then revert to whatever you had before. I'm assuming that you own the XP11 version?
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5 hours ago, paulk said:
Lay everything out piece by piece as you disconnect it and put it in order.
Adjust the rudder wires, then piece it back together in the opposite way to which you took it apart.
If you are anything like me you will have a few bits left over 😁
Like the technicians working on the Boeing door plug?
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In your Orbx Central you should see this entry.
Then you should see a similar entry to this
If that is what you're seeing then it is installed and will be in your Community folder as Orbx-airport-pngbushstrips-packs2 either as a folder or a shortcut to your library.
If you definitely don't see all the scenery elements such as houses, trees, animals people you will need to take a screenshot and upload it so we can assess what you are seeing. Note; there's not much difference in the runway textures between the default and this scenery, so don't expect gravel or surfaced runways etc!
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I also just went in to trim my SSDs and found that the only way I could get the full menu to allow defragging/Optimisation was via the Computer Management - Disk Management function in Control Panel, the normal Device Manager pop up in Windows 11 didn't seem to have the function. i've set mine to TRIM monthly.
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I just checked Google and it seems advice has changed since the early days of SSDs. The advice now is to TRIM regularly, Kingston says once a week, you can can set up a regular Optimise Drive in Windows.
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There is the Iris Jabiru for MSFS, 160 and 170, you could change the aircraft engine cfg file to up the engine power to get a model pretty close to the real thing...
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generally the advice is don't bother to touch the SSDs they get no benefit from trimming
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I just did several flights in and around the Melbourne basin in VR and for me it's well and truly as smooth as I would expect. I don't believe there are any further tweaks to performance for the area, the team have put a lot of work into optimising what they have.
The YMML area is quite heavy on even the best machines and maximum graphics are never going to cut it. An LOD slider set higher than 200 and Ultra settings will be too much, and the more complex the aircraft, such as a PMDG, the more you have to compensate.
Performance is on a par with London and New York, and is better than Paris, so I think it's about where you'd expect it to be.
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Stick it in one of the spare usb ports, that'll tell you if there's a fault in the usb socket you're using.
Pretty sure there's a section in W11 where you can calibrate your controls
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27 minutes ago, tyrodes said:
I summited this a long time ago (2023) and was told the developer is aware. If they want to or can fix it is another question. In my option it should not have been released as is, or there should have been a screen shot warning of this problem.
I never saw this in testing nor did anyone else. Chances are it's something Asobo has introduced since the airport was developed that has changed the behaviour of textures.
F62 Hayfork, CA Beta 1 Rob A
in F62 Hayfork California
Posted
Yes, I have tree size addon set to be compatible with the newer Asobo vegetation definitions, by adding lines from the Official biomes file.
I'll post the scrub section of the 10-asobo_species_.xml here, the added sections are scrub small and scrub medium.
You can compare and add as necessary anyway.
<Species name="scrub">
<Variations>
<Variation>
<Size min="5" max="9"/>
<Imposter stiffness="0.0" frames="8" textureIndex="0" relativeOffsetY="-.17"/>
<MaskColor r="0.35" g="0.31" b="0.27" maxDistSquared="0.08"/>
</Variation>
<Variation>
<Size min="5" max="10"/>
<Imposter stiffness="0.0" frames="8" textureIndex="1" relativeOffsetY="-.17"/>
<MaskColor r="0.35" g="0.31" b="0.27" maxDistSquared="0.08"/>
</Variation>
<Variation>
<Size min="7" max="10"/>
<Imposter stiffness="0.0" frames="8" textureIndex="2" relativeOffsetY="-.17"/>
<MaskColor r="0.35" g="0.31" b="0.27" maxDistSquared="0.08"/>
</Variation>
</Variations>
<Material name="{B1CD5B9B-DD55-404B-8E2E-619DBA2C378D}"/>
</Species>
<Species name="scrub_small">
<Variations>
<Variation>
<Size min="0.5" max="1.5"/>
<Imposter stiffness="0.0" frames="8" textureIndex="0" relativeOffsetY="-.20"/>
<MaskColor r="0.35" g="0.31" b="0.27" maxDistSquared="0.08"/>
</Variation>
<Variation>
<Size min="1" max="2"/>
<Imposter stiffness="0.0" frames="8" textureIndex="1" relativeOffsetY="-.25"/>
<MaskColor r="0.35" g="0.31" b="0.27" maxDistSquared="0.08"/>
</Variation>
<Variation>
<Size min="2.5" max="3"/>
<Imposter stiffness="0.0" frames="8" textureIndex="2" relativeOffsetY="-.25"/>
<MaskColor r="0.35" g="0.31" b="0.27" maxDistSquared="0.08"/>
</Variation>
</Variations>
<Material name="{B1CD5B9B-DD55-404B-8E2E-619DBA2C378D}"/>
</Species>
<Species name="scrub_medium">
<Variations>
<Variation>
<Size min="1" max="2"/>
<Imposter stiffness="0.0" frames="8" textureIndex="0" relativeOffsetY="-.25"/>
<MaskColor r="0.35" g="0.31" b="0.27" maxDistSquared="0.08"/>
</Variation>
<Variation>
<Size min="1.5" max="3.5"/>
<Imposter stiffness="0.0" frames="8" textureIndex="1" relativeOffsetY="-.25"/>
<MaskColor r="0.35" g="0.31" b="0.27" maxDistSquared="0.08"/>
</Variation>
<Variation>
<Size min="2" max="2.5"/>
<Imposter stiffness="0.0" frames="8" textureIndex="2" relativeOffsetY="-.25"/>
<MaskColor r="0.35" g="0.31" b="0.27" maxDistSquared="0.08"/>
</Variation>
</Variations>
<Material name="{B1CD5B9B-DD55-404B-8E2E-619DBA2C378D}"/>
</Species>
<Species name="scrub_big">
<Variations>
<Variation>
<Size min="5" max="10"/>
<Imposter stiffness="0.0" frames="8" textureIndex="0" relativeOffsetY="-.17"/>
<MaskColor r="0.35" g="0.31" b="0.27" maxDistSquared="0.08"/>
</Variation>
<Variation spawnRatio="0.3">
<Size min="5" max="10"/>
<Imposter stiffness="0.0" frames="8" textureIndex="1" relativeOffsetY="-.17"/>
<MaskColor r="0.35" g="0.31" b="0.27" maxDistSquared="0.08"/>
</Variation>
<Variation>
<Size min="5" max="10"/>
<Imposter stiffness="0.0" frames="8" textureIndex="2" relativeOffsetY="-.17"/>
<MaskColor r="0.35" g="0.31" b="0.27" maxDistSquared="0.08"/>
</Variation>
</Variations>
<Material name="{B1CD5B9B-DD55-404B-8E2E-619DBA2C378D}"/>
</Species>