New Zealand and X-Plane

[kiwi_the_iwik]

Hi all,

At long last, I've finally finished Auckland International Airport for X-Plane using bespoke buildings throughout, and have just submitted it for members to download via the x-plane.org website.

Here's the link to the download:

http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/fi ... kland-v10/

I've also included a number of screenshots for you to look over at the bottom of this post.

The next project I'm planning is Auckland city - designed to merge perfectly with this scenery package. I'd still really appreciate some assistance with this work from anyone interested as discussed previously, if possible...

Hoping you all have a fabulous New Year!

Cheers,


Aaron.

[Ian Warren]

Looking great Aaron , that covers that for the x-plane fans

[kiwi_the_iwik]

Thanks, Ian!

So - what are the chances of Mike doing a conversion of his fantastic Auckland City scenery to tie everything together? I'm loving the screenshots that you're putting up...

[Ian Warren]

You would have to ask Mike, still a hell of a lot of work with many area's so he would concentrating on that , course the photoreal and the AGN.

[kiwi_the_iwik]

I'd sent him a PM some months ago, but unfortunately he hasn't picked it up yet.

I've had a chat to Robin a while back about seeing whether he would release an old Auckland FSX SuperCity skyline so it can be converted over to X-Plane, but he said it was Mike's property. If Mike is willing to allow me to utilise the old FSX SuperCity, it would create a really wonderful environment for the X-Plane community to fly around...

Could you please let him know of my request? I'd love to hear from him!

Cheers!

[Ian Warren]

WODGER will do , I do have a new batch screen covering outer Auckland city AGN , such a vast area , so I think Mike would busy with water mask and other details , he has been quiet for a couple weeks ... be the Silly Season that would have done it.

[kiwi_the_iwik]

Ha! Yes, I too am recuperating after a week of celebrating too much and now can't get off the couch. No reason to move, really - we've got a Star Wars channel on at the moment and I'm up to Return of the Jedi.

But I digress...

Orthophotos and mesh I can handle - it's the buildings and objects that are the real stars here. I'd done a trial conversion of the old FSX SuperCity a while back and everything fits perfectly, so all I would require is his blessing after he saw what the conversion looked like. I'm also sure that if he eventually tried his hand at X-Plane scenery, this would definitely provide an opportunity to gain a large fanbase within the community!

[Ian Warren]

You aloud to Digress , tiss is zee silly season and Star War would be a good distraction With the X-plane , you can use photos yet ?

[kiwi_the_iwik]

Absolutely to Star Wars and the silly season, and absolutely to the use of photos!

I have been using data from LINZ, which is an excellent repository for open-source aerial photos. Ortho4XP does the hard work of combining mesh and the photos, and Tony's (antwob) fantastic World2XPlane code creates a highly detailed layer of building footprints, trees, lakes, rivers and anything else you'd find with OSM data. What you get is a beautiful rendition of the landscape!

I've dug up my test scenery, and this is what you get in X-Plane when combined with Ortho4XP, OSM data and some of Mike's old scenery objects (I did the bridge, though).

[Ian Warren]

It is quite different how it displays the scenery, AGN but least the models work, keeps the X men happy

[kiwi_the_iwik]

Agreed - there are a lot of parameters you can change, from the depth of field/fog level through to the colour temperature - and even the level of grey of the tarmac on the roads.

But the best part is that it shows FSX scenery can translate well to X-Plane.

[Ian Warren]

These days for most all flight sims the options really are at ones fingertips, one of the biggest thing I did few years back and even longer again was simply hire a plane take a camera and use your eyeballs to compare, I had a mate stop here years back, Will said to me "WOW when did you take that photo" I said no, that is flight sim back then was FS9 .. the right combination of photo and atmospheric setup and lighting.

[kiwi_the_iwik]

And now the programs are pumping out the sims in 4K! It certainly makes it harder for scenery developers to keep up the level of realism - but that's where depth of field, lighting and LOD come into play to simulate atmospheric conditions.

I've not got a fancy graphics card at all, so these pictures are fairly basic. Imagine if I had a mammoth GTX1080 and turned everything up to the max. Different story. And Santa wasn't kind this year. So I don't have a souped-up system (yet). Boo...

[Ian Warren]

Don't think it is that difficult, today going to ramp up photoreal New Zealand on other sites, what I am seeing at the moment , not shutting down ... its damn well snowballing !

[metalnwood]

Nice work kiwi!

I bought the xplane 10 beta when it first came out 5 or 6 years ago and while I was impressed with some things, I wasnt with others. Over that time a lot of my flying has been with DCS and I would check in with the latest x-plane patches to see how things were going.

In the last year, and a bit longer, I have not been doing much flight simming as I got the oculus rift and have not used sims that have not supported it. So instead of behind a yoke I have been behind a wheel racing in the rift and loading up the slight sims to see how they are going.

About a week ago I tried DCS in the rift and it has come a long way. Finally I can get back in to flight simming again. This got my enthusiasm up as flight simming is my first true simming From back with the sublogic simulator on the C64.

One thing led to another and I saw there was the xplane 11 beta. Then I say that flyinside was offering oculus rift support. Did the demos and a couple purchases later I was trying it all out in FSeconomy doing a passenger run. X-plane in the rift is really a nice product!

Anyhow, how I ended up on your thread is that I went looking for some scenery and at the org you had posted yesterday nzaa. I downloaded it and installed and gave it a run. Not thinking about your scenery I jumped on here wondering if other people were doing more with xplane these days. Actually, I was wondering if anyone in auckland had the 100+ gigs of the HD mesh I could get on a usb hdd!

Then I saw your post and realised you made the nzaa I just downloaded

The xplane11 beta looks really nice but finding some aircraft didnt work. Thankfully using plane maker for v10, opening and saving them, makes them work in xp11.

I am not a scenery developer and can't say that I have any time to help out but from what I have seen your work is excellent.

The airport is installed, I have screwed up something else which makes auckland look bad. Probably some scenery order issue confirmed by no ground lights at night. OSM street data must be hidden.

I can see myself doing some more GA flights in xplane. I might as well remove FSX and get some space back. My kids might be interested in learning a thing or two as well. I will load up skyvector and plan a route and they will either think it's really cool or time to go and do something else

Thanks!

[toprob]

I see that Orbx have cancelled their X-plane plans, a bit of a kick in the pants for many, but not surprising really -- they need to look at the market, and it would be too big a risk betting on X-plane at the moment.

[towerguy]

looking good,

just a couple of observations for updates (if you are doing any) from looking at the screenshots.

DHL parking is usually parallel to Twy B down at C2/C3

and the biggest one of all - there are only two small areas at NZAA that have the blue edge lighting - there is almost none at all out on the airfield, only green Twy center-line lighting.
This makes a huge difference in the realism.

cheers
PS I am slowly building up some photos of the field taken from the Tower for builders if required.

[kiwi_the_iwik]

Thanks so much for the feedback, Towerguy - I really appreciate it!

I had only used references from Google Earth and Apple Maps, although online NOTAMs of NZAA from CAA have confirmed the aerial imagery that show DHL's parking ramps cater for 2 x aircraft in exactly the places specified.

I'd also just double-checked the published CAA documents (http://www.aip.net.nz/pdf/NZAA_AD2.pdf) and looked at the section regarding taxiway lighting (NZAA AD 2.15 Other Lighting, Secondary Power Supply), which notes that all apron taxiways are bordered by blue lighting with green centre lighting.

Cheers,


Aaron

[towerguy]

I haven't checked the document you refer to about the taxiway lighting

I've just sat and looked out the bloody windows of the tower for the last 20years - I guess I must have just missed seeing them.
But if the "book" says they are there ... then it must be true ... yeah right.

In fact I decided before sending this to go and have a read of the link posted.

The remarks about the blue edge lighting are listed but in the 'other' lighting section i.e. not the main lighting section and even then it is only note 5 and lists only the Apron edge and Twy lighting ie over by Twy D8 and a small section around C5, ( there may be a bit around the new section of Twy E now but I will have to check that out.)

If you refer instead to the page further up - NZAA AD 2-6, section 2.9, you will see that in the main section on lighting it lists the Twy lighting as only Green center line.

rgds

[towerguy]

and as for DHL,




Note the two smaller arrows pointing out the TURN indications on the apron. This is to indicate the aircraft TURN to one or other of the Nose wheel parking blocks ( big arrows) therefore aligning the aircraft facing PARALLEL to Twy B aligned either 05 or 23. They then do not infringe the side clearances for the taxiway which in that area needs to be Code F compliant.