strange reef

[Dactyl]

hello folks,

there are a few miles north of cairn strange reef-islands. the water texture is not covering them and they like islands but not like reefs.

can someone help ?

regards

jochen

[John Venema]

That is the expected behaviour of the way we implemented the Great Barrier Reef using lanclass textures. We tried using waterclass during the beta testing, but the reef was just not defined enough. We felt the compromise of having non-water reefs was better that not being able to see the reef very clearly at all.

[Remko]

Thanks for the clarification John. Would you know if this decision will have impact on how the reef will look in REX?

Cheers

Remko

[John Venema]

REX does not construct reefs in landclass like we did in FTX. Coral/tropical textures in FSX are just another waterclass texture, so when you install REX and choose a particular tropical set, you will still see them in FTX AU GREEN where we have called tropical waterclass. The REX textures won't replace those hard surface Great Barrier Reef areas though.

If there is an overwhelming demand from customers to want to replace our reef textures with custom ones, I might ask Tim to see if he can look into it

[Remko]

Cheers John. I don't know about an overwhelming demand from your customers, all I know about is an overwhelming personal desire to fly over a GBR that looks absolutely stunning  The REX coral previews look great and I would love to see that work together with FTX in the best possible way!

[tom]

I'm with you Remko, that'd be absolutely awesome (a word that is very over-used, but apt here!)

Cheers

[LBPN]

Yes I agree. I'd like to see some REX corals there.

[macca22au]

Being an ex-boss of the GBR I've flown over many parts many times.  I must say I would like to join those who want REX style reefs.  Its one of the outstanding features of Australia and would look great with a different treatment. 

Let me say however the landside is superb, and the whole Daintree area remarkable in its depicition.

[Holger Sandmann]

Hi guys,

I'm the first to admit that modeling reefs as islands is a compromise, specifically given the absence of FSX water properties. However, as John mentioned already, the alternative is to have "blobs" of reef textures at a 1-sq km resolution placed via water class with default, FEX, or REX textures. The REX previews look fantastic up close but reefs placed as water class will not have clear spatial definition and thus you won't be able to use them for navigation. The screenshots below show the general differences between the two approaches. Moreover, the blending masks used for neighboring water textures are meant to simulate water currents (e.g., swirls and gradual transitions), not the typically well defined edges common to reefs.

We'll glady provide alternate files that remove the current "islands" and maximise the use of REX textures once they are available. I just want to make sure that people are aware that either alternative has its drawbacks.

Cheers, Holger

[Gurdy]

yea .. and Holger, can you also add the Japanese tourists .. and the nude sunbathers on the beaches north of Cairns  ;D ;D

[timest]

At first I wasn't to sure I would like this approach, BUT it's actually MUCH more realistic in design. Holger, I've looked at your files up-close and you did an AMAZING job. Your textures tile beautifully sir I opt for keeping this approach, but perhaps have options to change out textures. Anyways, my 2 cents!!

Excellent job ORBX team. 

[Ken_NZ]

Having just looked at some photos of the GBR I can see that your islands approach isn't as far off as I first thought, though I must say it still looks a little 'funny' to me 

It's probably better than the waterclass only one.

I don't suppose there is some decent source imagery that would give a photoreal GBR? Now that would rock!

[macca22au]

For starters the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority based in Townsville has a pretty good coverage but I suspect it is not free.

I did a flight from Townsville to Cairns, and the islands are superb, particularly Hinchinbrook, while the river systems in the big flat floodplains are astounding in their detail and accuracy.  Every meander, bend, distributary and tributary shown.  It is easy to see how places like Innisfail flood so often.

It was fun going into Cairns to land on RWY 15 to have ATC give me a right hand circuit.  Cairns has a great hill immediately to the west of the runway, and a right hand circuit would probably need a shovel and a spade to dig a tunnel through.  Fortunately with dear old FSX the ATC didn't semm to notice when I peeled off and did a left hand circuit. 

But the scenery is quite outstanding and seems very real indeed.

[Dactyl]

Hello to all,

that there is no misunderstanding of my topic, the reef is very good from a certain altitude. When I went there the first time I was flying very low (about 500 ft) and then the optical effect is that you see these reefs as islands. From a higher altitude they are really great.

And I hope that you guys keep up your excellent work. Orbx are really the best sceneries.

I used to fly in europe (I am from germany) and also in USA/Canada, but when I saw orbx the first time I knew that I don`t want to come (or fly) back.

regards Jochen

[awf]

Hi guys,

We'll glady provide alternate files that remove the current "islands" and maximise the use of REX textures once they are available. I just want to make sure that people are aware that either alternative has its drawbacks.

Cheers, Holger

Despite the great work I don't like the Islands found it very odd was already wondering... ;-)

But in general there should be water where it supposed to be.

[Meerkat]

Holger, what about the alpha blending capabilities of FSX? Is it impossible to let the reef polys be covered by 2.x water effects - that's what I'm missing most. Especially when looking against the sun the reef really appears as islands, dark and non-reflective.

But I'm sure you considered this and there must be technical constraints 

My 2 cents...

[Wolter van der Spoel]

Gentleman,

Alltough personal tastes differ and there always be personal preferences,

I think we should try and look a bit further than what you see close up,

Holger twisted himself in I do not know how many bends and twists and you guys don't want to know how many versions and hours went down the drain.

As Tim allready mentioned it is a helluva technical achievement to get it as it is now, and I quote:

At first I wasn't to sure I would like this approach, BUT it's actually MUCH more realistic in design. Holger, I've looked at your files up-close and you did an AMAZING job.

Your textures tile beautifully sir I opt for keeping this approach, but perhaps have options to change out textures. Anyways, my 2 cents!!

Excellent job ORBX team. 

So the final say hasn't been said about this, also bear in mind that the Team and Holger in particular has done some real groundbreaking work here, go through fsX and see if you can come up with a reef that looks as life like as this one from a decent altitude, we seem to forget that this is a flightsim, not a boating sim where we sail close and to the Island or reefs in this case.

And who knows what the future may hold for us on this subject, but at the moment the limitations of fsX dictate that the Team has to stay within certain parameters of what is technically achievable, and I think you all can relate to that.

my 2 cents added to Tim's 2 cents

[awf]

Gentleman,

my 2 cents added to Tim's 2 cents

Nice screen shot Wolter )

But for me personally it doesn't workout if you are slow and low (that's why I have FTX...)

I'm looking through this form different perspectives and I'm aware of the fact that development takes

time. If you are indeed at FL300 it doesn't matter but I think most are flying GA stuff?

But the time invested shouldn't be the argument for this approach and leave it as is ;-)

But I still find water should be where it supposed to be that simple maybe you could offer both so you have best of both worlds.

I'm always for choices for the user / simmer out there.

As for the technical approach I think a bit different as Tim here lol

Cheers

[Wolter van der Spoel]

Hi Andre,

I did not say that things should be left as they are, I merely said that at the moment there are some limitations as to what is feasable within fsX, and yes by all means, if you have a solution or workaround, I'm sure that Holger and the Team are all very interrested to hear all about it.

een ouwe Hagenees in 't Gooi

[Holger Sandmann]

Hi guys,

to answer some of the questions:

I don't suppose there is some decent source imagery that would give a photoreal GBR? Now that would rock!

Ken, photoreal coverage would of course be the best option, especially with the semi-transparency of water features that FSX allows for. However, the show stoppers for larger areas - the Great Barrier Reef covers about 350,000 sq km with close to 3,000 individual reefs - are the licensing costs of high-res imagery (about US$ 15-30 per sq km!) and the huge HD space requirements (Aerosoft's Lord Howe Island's photoreal file is 130MB in size; multiply by 7,000 or so to cover the Great Barrier Reef).

Holger, what about the alpha blending capabilities of FSX? Is it impossible to let the reef polys be covered by 2.x water effects - that's what I'm missing most. Especially when looking against the sun the reef really appears as islands, dark and non-reflective.

But I'm sure you considered this and there must be technical constraints 

Markus, when I found out that we could use Alpha channels to model non-seasonal water bodies I thought we could use a similar approach for the reefs. Unfortunately, there's an interaction between land polys turned into water via Alpha channels (i.e., the reefs) and adjacent "regular" water polys (i.e., the ocean). Somehow the water effects code gets screwed up and you end up with a moving pattern of rectangular patches as in the screenshot below. I've spent many hours trying different combinations of Alpha channels, polys, etc., but the issue didn't go away.

One approach I still want to look into is similar to what is used by the FS Altitude product for FSX. Its satellite imagery at 15m (!) resolution - which cuts down on both cost and HD space required - only shows at higher altitudes. At lower flight levels the standard land class ground or water textures are displayed. That way we could have photoreal reefs for high-altitude flying and "blobs" for low-altitude flying. However, there are technical problems as well, like clouds or color/hue inconsistencies in the source imagery, the manual labor involved in creating the blending masks, and I've also heard from FS Altitude users that the automatic transition between photoreal and ground textures looks odd. Anyway, I'll do some tests and report back on that.

Cheers, Holger

[RobdeVries]

This is from Aerosoft's Tahiti X. Is it photoreal? Looks very convincing. However I understand it will cost a lot of disk space to cover the GBR. However how about mixing photoreal around land/islands and your methode further into the ocean (where we fly higher) and removing the brownish edge from the reefs?

[Holger Sandmann]

Hi Rob,

agreed, looks great indeed. I'm using the same approach for mudflats and estuaries near some of the airfields of my Alaska add-ons and it looks spectacular. However, the source imagery is public domain and we're talking less than a dozen small areas. The issue we were facing with the GBR was to recreate a huge area in a way that looks OK without breaking the bank or requiring hundreds of man hours. High-res photoreal is simply not an option for the GBR.

I expect that a few well-known near-shore reefs will eventually become available as freeware OZx add-ons using GE or VE 1-m imagery. For the ORBX it's either water class only, reefs-as-islands, or (if feasible) the low-res photoreal/water class hybrid approach I mentioned above.

Removing the current shoreline textures is easy but it will create an ugly knife-sharp edge where the reef texture meets the ocean.

Cheers, Holger

[big-mike]

Hi Holger,

i would like to know,which files i could delete being responsible for the reefs?

I have FEX installed,and i found that the reefs are looking better with it.

Thank you

Mike

[Holger Sandmann]

Hello Mike,

most of the near shore reefs are included in the base water files and cannot be removed on their own. However, the reefs farther offshore are in two separate files plus two exclude files. To deactivate them rename the following files in [FSX]\ORBX\FTX_AU\FTXAU16_SHORES\Scenery to *.BGL.bak :

cvx_000_Orbx_Australia_reefs_excludes_SC-SF_55.BGL

cvx_000_Orbx_Australia_reefs_excludes_SC-SF_56.BGL

cvx_Orbx_Australia_reefs_SC-SF_55.BGL

cvx_Orbx_Australia_reefs_SC-SF_56.BGL

If you have FSX Deluxe and the SDK installed you can load the files into TMFViewer.exe (in Microsoft Flight Simulator X SDK\SDK\Environment Kit\Terrain SDK) to examine their spatial extent.

Once REX is available we'll check out its reef textures and then will prepare an optional patch that removes all reef "islands" and replaces them with REX optimized water class. Assuming that FEX uses similar classes for reefs that patch should work equally well for FEX users.

Cheers, Holger

[Nils]

I like how they are. I'm using FEX too and it complements them well, with the right theme.

FEX alone would make it very hard to find the reefs.

[Guest SimFreak]

Just wanting to tune in here and say that I see strong points on both sides. I just picked up the Aerosoft Tahiti and being the seaplane fan that I am I'd definitely prefer the 'real water' option. So I'd love to see an option for this coming available. Maybe even an on/off mode thing, though I guess you want to restrict that as much as you can.

Anyway, I'd be very happy to have the option to turn the reefs into water! Right now I like the looks of it but the borders look mightily strange to me. Especially since for most of the time I don't fly above say 5.000 feet anyway.

Thanks for the support you offer guys. It's great to be a customer of such a company!

[big-mike]

Hello Holger,

thank you for reply.I made the changes you`ve explained,but those "islands" are always there.The same,when i delete these files.

But it`s no problem,i can wait for the patch and enjoy "green".

Mike

[Guest victor]

is there any word on the mentioned patch to remove the reefs supplied in the green package?

would it be possible to create an alpha for those textures to make them invisible and if so what files are we looking at?

[Sniper31]

I, for one, support the reefs the way they are in FTX AU Green. Further, I would rather support the Orbx development team spending thier very valuable time and efforts working on the additional payware and freeware airports and also the much longed for AU PNW.

That's my 2 cents worth.

[skypilot]

here's a thought to ponder? Just looking at the pictures of the sea/float plane and looking at the floats. Do they generate and downward lift? when you look at them they look like a wing upside down? They have a flat top to walk on and a rounded leading edge similar to a wing which is the water side......

[Holger Sandmann]

Hi Victor,

sorry, I missed your post somehow.

is there any word on the mentioned patch to remove the reefs supplied in the green package?

We haven't worked on that yet as we wanted to wait until after the release of REX and also gauge the level of interest in the user community in such as patch. I'll take it up with the dev team again.

would it be possible to create an alpha for those textures to make them invisible and if so what files are we looking at?

Unfortunately, that won't work. Our original idea was in fact to use Alpha channels to model the reefs but there is an inherent shader issue within FSX that leads to sections of the water effects dropping out, which creates a very unsightly effect of dark squares moving with the user aircraft.

Cheers, Holger