Water falls

[marshkop]

  John and Holger, Sirs, I live here in the PNW, been here all my life. Seen most of the province and the cool places here,(but not all), and I think that the one thing that makes this place so wild and amazing is moving water. You see it everywhere in this province moving water and that in itself is what made this place. Rivers, streams, snow, rain, ocean, lakes, rivers that run under other rivers, all year round. We are surounded by water.  Is there any way possible to give us waterfalls and simulate the rivers and streams.  I have UTX for streams and FSGenisis waterfalls for Hawaii. I think you guys could do a wonderfull job and it will be one of those addons that you never knew you needed. Everyone who bought into North America FTX style will want " MOVING WATER " by Orbx.  That would affirm your status of FSX Diamond developers.  Pleeeaaase :'( :'( *

[teecee]

My guess would be that the problem lies in the default FSX.. most of the small rivers and streams simply do not exist in the sim, and those that do are a very poor rendition and mostly misaligned. I believe that to place all these rivers and streams, and the dams and waterfalls that go with them would be a massive job, though in truth I would gladly buy the product if Orbx ever undertook to do it, particularly in Aus, but also in the USA. Teecee

[Holger Sandmann]

Hi guys,

those are good points for discussion.

PNW does include vector stream layers as will NRM and PFJ and we have calm and white water textures that we use depending on the steepness of the slopes.

You may be aware that I've coded several waterfall effects for previous sceneries, including Vancouver+ (FSX and FS9) and the FS9 Columbia River Gorge, Yellowstone River, and Victoria Falls freeware add-ons.

However, I've come to the conclusion that it's generally not worth the effort unless you're dealing with a very large feature like the Bonneville Dam in PNW or have a waterfall right next to an airport like the weir at Concrete. There are technical reasons for this (visual effects tend to randomly drop out and then restart, which looks very odd with a waterfall; effects are often visible for too large a distance; mesh "morphing" when approaching an area moves the effect around) but there's also the important point that you really don't see water moving when flying in an aircraft unless you're hovering in a helicopter in front of a stream or waterfall. What you do see are changes in color and brightness as well as sunlight reflections when flying across a landscape but that's something that cannot be modeled in the absence of a much more realistic lighting model in the sim code itself.

Cheers, Holger 

[fltsimguy]

Well now thanks for that detail Holger.  I tried making some "little" waterfalls and was having problems with them after placing them in the correct spot, they ended up "moving" or shifting, couldn't figure out what was going on.

I to like the idea of waterfalls, as it is like the traffic issue, it adds "life" to the sim.  I very often get outside the cockpit and view around the aircraft to gaze at the scenery, and so a waterfall with some mist actually looks pretty neat.

But I understand there is also a lot of work required to get them to work properly.

cheers.

[marshkop]

  Holger, I loved your waterfalls in Van+ thats why I think you can do it. I know no one can put 'moving water' in the sim but the falls in Van+ were fine. If they were all over I would be happy. The rivers and streams dont need to 'move' but just look like they do. The water masks for the payware prdts. are hard work I know. They dont need to be photo perfect because who has seen every stream or river and then be able to tell that its not perfect. Like traffic for NA I believe it would be a great addon. Not to mention I would pay for it.

  ps. You and Jon are going to have my Van+ up and running with decent fps in the spring is that correct?  I sure miss it.