Developer Blog Video - AU GOLD testing

[John Venema]

Here's a small video-blog insight into the developer's view of the FTX world during testing. Typically, I do about 50 very short "flights" per day, usually in the ultralight which allows maximum viewing flexibility, and I use the SHIFT+O key combo prodigiously to look around at what I've been working on. Sadly, as a developer, I rarely get the chance to really plan and enjoy longer VFR flights. I spend more time slewing and checking than doing any navs

In this short example you're getting a sneak peek at some of the new rural textures to appear in AU GOLD. In this scenario I've been working on the autogen annotation and in this flight I am checking to see if the latest annotation "works" in the sim. That means generally flying low and slow, panning around and zooming. What I am looking for is the correct placement of objects such as houses, sheds, trees - generally to make sure it all works correctly. Do the trees line up ok? Have I selected an accurate variety of tree species for the area? Are their shadows in the right place? Do birds fly where I've placed them? Etc. etc. I do a test flight for each and every single texture tile that is worked on.

You may also notice the large white "borders" on the horizon. Let me explain. During development, we use a special custom landclass test area which lays out all the new AU GOLD textures in a large grid. This allows us to quickly move from one texture class to another and see how they all work together. Therefore you'll see the big white area seperating each class.

Matt Tomkins has a variation on this test area, in which all the texture classes are meshed together, allowing him to test colour blending and the meshing tiles to see how unique texture classes interoperate.

The landclass and beta testing team take a different approach. They spend more time in actual flights over real (non-test) areas to see how their landclass compares to satellite images and if it all works well in situ.

Perhaps this explains a little of the development process behind the scenes.

Enjoy!

http://fsfiles.org/files/ORBXTeam/Videos/au_gold_beta_flight1.zip (43.7MB, HD 720p WMV format, zipped)

Video captured from my development laptop.

[Ed Correia]

Thanks for showing us John. It shows that you guys have a lot of pride and dedication to this product. All the time and effort that you spend on it (even checking the little things like the birds) really makes ORBX a standout product.

Bring on AUGold.

[maxpax444]

Thanks for the update John, it really does dhow your guys dedication to the product!

[mmglads]

Wonderful stuff John, thanks for the video, just whetting our appetites, eh? One question for you - it may have been aired in another post, but what is the spec of your laptop? We're just investing in a new one & it looks like your is fairly "well-specced" - frame rates don't seem to be a particular issue? Our 2 year old Toshiba just doesn't cut it with FSX. Cheers, Malcolm.

[John Venema]

I was getting 55 FPS @ 1280x720x32 during that test, which went down to 30FPS when FRAPS was turned on for the video capture. (It's an FPS killer that app   I test with all sliders maxxed, except airline/GA traffic off.

Specs are Dell Inspiron XPS M1710 Laptop, 2.16Ghz Core2 Centrino CPU, 2GB RAM, WinXP SP3, 7950GTX 512MB video card. Machine is about 18 months old now.

Have ordered a new Dell M1730 with 2.8Ghz CPU and SLI 8800GTX vid cards.

[Matthew Webb]

It's a great video - captures our area really well.

[mmglads]

Thanks very much John, always used Dell in the UK when I lived there, now off to look at the site - can feel the wallet twitching already!

[tennyson]

John,

I really am gobsmacked at the amount of time you personally spend on this forum, keeping us informed and whetting our apetites for more FTX.

I applaud your customer skills and only wish that other vendors would spend the time listening to their public.

Take a bow!

Frank

P.S. C'mon mate, where's the AU Gold. I'm a canetoad and I want to see some canetoad country!!!