NZ in X-Plane

[Ian Warren]

Laminar Research , same chaps that did Flight Unlimited 1 ta 3 , they were friggen good , 1995 FU1 sailplane , Brilliant .

[toprob]

Ok, I downloaded the demo (I have tried earlier versions as well) -- nice installer, 1000% easier than MS:) Took about 2 hours to download, and when it downloaded it was ready to go.
Initial impression is that it is equal to about FSXI in some respects, FS2000 in others. Certainly performs smoothly, and the 'default' view I started with reinforced the feeling I've always had, that FSX has an unnatural point of view -- X-plane gave me a real feeling of tearing down the runway. However the mesh/ground texture combo is a bit 'computery' for me, reminds me of early 3D games. I like the blue haze on the distant scenery, something which MS have never got right. However the clouds/atmospherics are quite primitive, and the popping scenery is very distracting.
Like previous versions, it seems to lack a bit of polish when it comes to views -- I may just be more used to MSFS-style view controls, but I found that I couldn't easily look where I wanted. I fired up TrackIR, but no joy -- I suppose support is yet to come.
From the screenshots, I has already formed the opinion that this would make a better ship simulator -- the water looks great!
Overall I find it a little arcadey -- not the way it works, but the way it looks. The aircraft in the demo are nice, but look like the sort of thing I see on the Xbox. They don't appear 'solid' and full-sized, like they do in FSX. The airport where the demo starts -- LOWI -- looks better than I expected X-plane scenery to look, but again it looks like a model. I almost want to run around there with a gun, and fight terrorists.
To be fair to it, though, I really need to give it a week or two. It's a pity that there is no New Zealand in the demo (airports, yes, just no land:) so I can do a proper scenery comparison.

[SteelBlades]

QUOTE (Ian Warren @ Jan 24 2008, 09:09 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Laminar Research , same chaps that did Flight Unlimited 1 ta 3 , they were friggen good , 1995 FU1 sailplane , Brilliant .

Easy mistake to make, but Flight Unlimited came from the merger of Lerner Research and Blue Sky Productions (to make Looking Glass Technologies).

QUOTE (toprob @ Jan 25 2008, 12:09 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Ok, I downloaded the demo (I have tried earlier versions as well) -- nice installer, 1000% easier than MS:) Took about 2 hours to download, and when it downloaded it was ready to go.
Initial impression is that it is equal to about FSXI in some respects, FS2000 in others. Certainly performs smoothly, and the 'default' view I started with reinforced the feeling I've always had, that FSX has an unnatural point of view -- X-plane gave me a real feeling of tearing down the runway. However the mesh/ground texture combo is a bit 'computery' for me, reminds me of early 3D games. I like the blue haze on the distant scenery, something which MS have never got right. However the clouds/atmospherics are quite primitive, and the popping scenery is very distracting.
Like previous versions, it seems to lack a bit of polish when it comes to views -- I may just be more used to MSFS-style view controls, but I found that I couldn't easily look where I wanted. I fired up TrackIR, but no joy -- I suppose support is yet to come.
From the screenshots, I has already formed the opinion that this would make a better ship simulator -- the water looks great!
Overall I find it a little arcadey -- not the way it works, but the way it looks. The aircraft in the demo are nice, but look like the sort of thing I see on the Xbox. They don't appear 'solid' and full-sized, like they do in FSX. The airport where the demo starts -- LOWI -- looks better than I expected X-plane scenery to look, but again it looks like a model. I almost want to run around there with a gun, and fight terrorists.
To be fair to it, though, I really need to give it a week or two. It's a pity that there is no New Zealand in the demo (airports, yes, just no land:) so I can do a proper scenery comparison.

Quite a bit to comment on here!

I'm pleased the install went smoothly. You have to wonder what's so hard about such a thing. MS is supposed to be expert in this field (world's largest software company and all)!

I agree that the look of X-Plane will, because of its independent development, look like it stretches across the development of FS 2004 to FSX. Some of the scenery technology is seen in FSX, some of X-Plane's technology is still at FS 2000 level. All of the actual flying technology is unique though; FSX is in no way technologically ahead of X-Plane here.

The reason much of the ground mesh/textures look 'computery' is because the mesh doesn't round off edges very much. It is less realistic, but a) you get used to it and b) it is much of the reason the frame rates are so high - quite simply, the ground mesh in X-Plane has far fewer polygons. The X-Plane priority is to keep the flying smooth first, make the view believable second. I'm sure Microsoft's policy is the reverse. I do wish X-Plane had more land classes though - this is a shortcoming of X-Plane if you ask me. Of course, you can always place a photographic ground onto the mesh just as is common in MS Flight .

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by the clouds/atmospherics being quite primitive. Perhaps you need to explore these settings a bit more, as they're often considered as a strong point of the sim. The size of the clouds is controlled in the Settings Rendering Options window. The type of clouds + altitudes you actually see as you fly is managed in the Environment Weather window. It can also download realtime weather (this is nothing new for X-Plane). The actual movement through weather is far better in X-Plane I've found as the aircraft moves in three dimensions. In MS Flight, atmospherics are not modelled nearly as well I'm reliably informed (by numerous MS Flight folk).

The use of views is a tricky one. I'm pretty ticked at one or two changes made to X-Plane 9. You now have to manually change a couple of the view settings to make it sensible. PM me about getting those right - you'll be happy once I explain them. As far as the TrackIR goes, X-Plane does support it. Go to Joystick & Equipment Equipment tab and tick TrackIR head tracker. Ta-daa!

The scenery at LOWI is fairly typical of the better scenery of X-Plane airports. My beef, like you, is that they look too clinical; like models. They need to be a bit grubby! Not all airports look like this though as some designers know that realism comes from making things look a bit 'used'. With regard to NZ scenery... I'm working as fast as I can on it (converting Lawrie's MSFS sceneries at the moment - with his support)! PM me and I can flick you a few right now (they're not all complete though).

The aircraft in the demo are a real mix; some good, some not so good. Here's the cool thing - you are NOT limited to the aircraft in the demo! Go to http://www.x-plane.org/, http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?autoco...&showcat=16 and http://www.xplanefreeware.net/forums/ and go wild . Any aircraft made for X-Plane 8.50 and newer should work fine in X-Plane 9. Before that, some will, some wont. Those that won't work can crash the sim, so be ready for the occasional program crash. You should however have many hundreds of aircraft to choose from. Jacques Brault brings out a new warbird about every week (they're basic to look at, but pretty accurate to fly due to X-Plane's inherent abilities). Jacques is a machine, and his aircraft are usually must haves.

Another wee note. If X-Pane crashes and you're left looking at the Windows desktop, when you next start X-Plane you will be placed at the location where X-Plane was last time you exited without a sim crash. This is a safety net. X-Plane knows that if the sim crashes, something was wrong, and it's best no to go back there. If you exited X-Plane without a problem, then that is the safe place to return to (with all those settings).

Finally, you're right about needing a bit of time to get used to the sim. It is different from MSFS. I find the same when using the MS sim. At the end of the day, you don't use X-Plane for the views, but for the better flying. The graphics is overall better in FSX. The flying is better in X-Plane. But because you use Windows, you can have both FSX and X-Plane .

[toprob]

QUOTE (SteelBlades @ Jan 25 2008, 08:26 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The use of views is a tricky one. I'm pretty ticked at one or two changes made to X-Plane 9. You now have to manually change a couple of the view settings to make it sensible. PM me about getting those right - you'll be happy once I explain them. As far as the TrackIR goes, X-Plane does support it. Go to Joystick & Equipment Equipment tab and tick TrackIR head tracker. Ta-daa!

Thanks for all that, I admit that I started TrackIR and X-plane, and expected TrackIR to recognise a valid game, but it didn't until I'd clicked the TrackIR option AND pressed ctrl-O. It does work now, I'll try it in depth later tonight as I don't get good results with TrackIR with the sun shining:)

I will also explore the weather options -- at the moment it's tricky to get any sort of weather to show, even with real weather loaded. Maybe it's a nice clear day there anyway...

I did forget to mention that my system is pretty basic, so I will have to take this into consideration during testing.

[SteelBlades]

Here's a quick read of how the Autogen in FSX (and FS9) differs from X-Plane
http://xplanescenery.blogspot.com/2008/01/algo-gen.html

This also goes some way to explaining how X-Plane achieves smoother frame rates (apart from using a second processor &/or core which X-Plane also does).

[tcross]

Steelblades,
just want to say thanks for the B1900D patch you have made for x-plane, great little addon there for jans beech. also are you able to help with the NZ scenery are you able to provide any links to anyone that has made the transfer of MFS to X-plane of NZ scenery, i already have auckland, but really want to get Chch and Marlborough/woodburn. Or what is the best method if i was to have MFS cd to get that scenery for myself including using mesh's off the Virtual ANZ website?
Cheers

[SteelBlades]

QUOTE (tcross @ Feb 15 2008, 08:27 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Steelblades,
just want to say thanks for the B1900D patch you have made for x-plane, great little addon there for jans beech. also are you able to help with the NZ scenery are you able to provide any links to anyone that has made the transfer of MFS to X-plane of NZ scenery, i already have auckland, but really want to get Chch and Marlborough/woodburn. Or what is the best method if i was to have MFS cd to get that scenery for myself including using mesh's off the Virtual ANZ website?
Cheers

Hi,

I'm pleased you like the B1900D. I'm working hard on NZ scenery currently. Thames is mostly done (I have permission from Snowman to upload conversions of his airports), and I've almost finished Mt Cook too. Sadly I've not heard back from Peter Lohr, so don't know if I can upload conversions of his scenery. If you'd like to see Mt Cook Airport in X-Plane, click on this link (the airport images are half way down the page, and this was a beta version, it's better now): http://www.cole.net.nz/peter/Mt_Cook_Skipl...-6,_ZK-MCK.html

I have a rough conversion of Christchurch. It clearly doesn't look right compared to the latest imagery from Google Earth, but it's way better than nothing. I've converted most New Zealand MSFS airports (I had a very busy Waitangi day!), but nearly all of them need some work to be presentable in X-Plane. A surprising number of MSFS airports have incorrect runway placement. X-Plane is a bit more choosy in that dept. as the airfield boundaries are preset. Some Airports wouldn't convert, or used too many built in objects that depend on default FS9 or FSX scenery. Woodbourne was one of those airports. As a point of interest, the mesh is not currently adjustable in X-Plane, so Virtual ANZ's will be no use to you. Even land class changes are cumbersome (but possible as I have done at Mt Cook).

If anyone knows how to contact Peter Lohr, I'd appreciate hearing from you.

PM or email me for further discussion on conversions if you like

[tcross]

Im guessing best bet to try for Peter Lohr will be the HR manager at VANZ hr@virtualairnz.org.nz other then that not sure, will scour the site to find it for you.

NZMC looks amazing, i have been up there a couple of times on the Porters, mountaineering up round the Tasman, using X-8 at the moment waiting for my 9 copy to arrive, but things arnt as realistic but still a fun fly on MCT. Did you do all of the buildings yourself or is it conversions from MSFS? i am interested in being able to do some of the conversions. for myself but just not sure how to go about it, what programs do you use and i am guessing that you have a mac aswell are there problems with the FAT system of windows?

check your PM's i have found Peter's email address from the SDNZ scenery site http://www.sdnz.byethost3.com/

[Snowman]

QUOTE (tcross @ Feb 16 2008, 03:46 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

i am interested in being able to do some of the conversions. for myself but just not sure how to go about it, what programs do you use and i am guessing that you have a mac aswell are there problems with the FAT system of windows?

FAT ??? Who uses the FAT file system these days........................... NTFS is the way to go with Windows..

Lawrie.

[SteelBlades]

QUOTE (tcross @ Feb 16 2008, 03:46 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Im guessing best bet to try for Peter Lohr will be the HR manager at VANZ hr@virtualairnz.org.nz other then that not sure, will scour the site to find it for you.

NZMC looks amazing, i have been up there a couple of times on the Porters, mountaineering up round the Tasman, using X-8 at the moment waiting for my 9 copy to arrive, but things arnt as realistic but still a fun fly on MCT. Did you do all of the buildings yourself or is it conversions from MSFS? i am interested in being able to do some of the conversions. for myself but just not sure how to go about it, what programs do you use and i am guessing that you have a mac aswell are there problems with the FAT system of windows?

check your PM's i have found Peter's email address from the SDNZ scenery site http://www.sdnz.byethost3.com/

Hi Tom,

Mount Cook Airport is a conversion. As long the author doesn't use built-in scenery objects (i.e. default FS9 or FSX items) and not too many of the objects are linked as a group, the conversion process is extremely effective. At Mount Cook I rebuilt the ground textures. This includes the runway, taxiways, roads and car parks. It just looks better if it's done with X-Plane tools. I also slightly moved most of the objects based on Google Earth imagery, so I think the airport layout is very accurate.

To improve the X-Plane part of the equation, I've re-classed the land to look much more genuine with grass on the valley floor, gravel in the (wide) river beds, put more snow on some of the high peaks and added key glaciers. The glaciers I've added are Muller, Hooker, Tasman, Murchison, Fox and Franz Josef. I've also added the icefall from Mt Sefton onto the Muller glacier. I've previously made airfields for each of Fox and Franz, so now it's a real treat to fly between the west coast and Mount Cook Airport via the key scenic attractions. There's a lot of tweaking to do as this really is still beta, but I'm confident that even now it's a massive improvement over the stock scenery.

The software I use are WED (X-Plane's World Editor) for Airport hard surfaces, Overlay Editor for object placement and of course FS2XPlane for the actual conversion. I have no doubt it would go smoother if I did have a PC with MSFS installed, but as I do it on a Mac at least I don't accidentally break copyright by including Microsoft objects and textures.

[s0cks]

SteelBlades. I just tried out X-Plane and I have mixed feelings. I hope you can answer these questions.

The view seems somewhat a handful. I managed to get the pan hat on my joystick to work on the chase view, but only in the basic 4 directions (but not the top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right). Is there a way to do this? Also on chase, the camera follows the plane exactly. So when it dips up and down so does the view. In MSFS the camera tends to stay more steady and compensates for slight plane movement. Anyway to do this? How can I pan VC with my joystick pan hat?

The default planes seem to fly really bad. I can do barrel rolls and loops in a cessna 172 quite easily. The input seems very sensitive. It doesn't take much joystick movement to do a 360 roll. Is this really poor flight physics for the default planes? Is there a way to turn down joystick sensitivity?

How can I increase the visibility distance? The terrain fades away quite soon for my liking. More like a cloudy day even though I have clear skies.

The building models seem a bit... rubbish. They look very out of place on the great land textures. However, I have to say that MSFS NEED to take a look at X-Plane's rendering engine. It is fantastic. I can have maximum buildings, cars, and trees. A screen literally filled with autogen and I take very little frame rate hit. Truely awesome. Something I wish FS9 (or FSX? from what I hear) really needs.

So far I kind of like it. I have a feeling it is one of those games you need to customize and tweak massively to suit your needs. At the moment it feels... arcadey... mainly due to the dodgey planes and views.

BTW. I LOVE the water!!

[SteelBlades]

QUOTE (s0cks @ Feb 22 2008, 05:50 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

SteelBlades. I just tried out X-Plane and I have mixed feelings. I hope you can answer these questions.

The view seems somewhat a handful. I managed to get the pan hat on my joystick to work on the chase view, but only in the basic 4 directions (but not the top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right). Is there a way to do this? Also on chase, the camera follows the plane exactly. So when it dips up and down so does the view. In MSFS the camera tends to stay more steady and compensates for slight plane movement. Anyway to do this? How can I pan VC with my joystick pan hat?

The default planes seem to fly really bad. I can do barrel rolls and loops in a cessna 172 quite easily. The input seems very sensitive. It doesn't take much joystick movement to do a 360 roll. Is this really poor flight physics for the default planes? Is there a way to turn down joystick sensitivity?

How can I increase the visibility distance? The terrain fades away quite soon for my liking. More like a cloudy day even though I have clear skies.

The building models seem a bit... rubbish. They look very out of place on the great land textures. However, I have to say that MSFS NEED to take a look at X-Plane's rendering engine. It is fantastic. I can have maximum buildings, cars, and trees. A screen literally filled with autogen and I take very little frame rate hit. Truely awesome. Something I wish FS9 (or FSX? from what I hear) really needs.

So far I kind of like it. I have a feeling it is one of those games you need to customize and tweak massively to suit your needs. At the moment it feels... arcadey... mainly due to the dodgey planes and views.

BTW. I LOVE the water!!

Hi s0cks,

I'm pleased you've given X-Plane a look. Firstly the views. I use my hat switch to control the autopilot and use two rocker switches to control view direction (I have a CH Products Yoke: http://www.c74.net/xplane/_pilotshop_CH.html). While the hat switch should work, you may ned to change it from displaying specific left/right/up/down views to pan left/right views. Go to Settings Joystick and Equipment Buttons to change this. Oh, and use General Up and Down for now.

There are a bunch of different external views-
"A" closely follows the aircraft from the rear
"C" does a sort of flyby, by maintaining the speed and direction at the moment the view was engaged. This is a great view for a slow flyby, or a peel-off
"Shift \" is the circle view. Use the hat switch or arrow keys to move the view in all directions (up, down, left & right")
"@" is the regular flyby, the camera is stationary as the aircraft zooms by. Having said that, the hat switch or arrow keys will move the view for a different angle for the flyby
"T" is the tower view, from the nearest tower (including the aircraft carrier)
"Control O" used to enable the 3D (virtual) cockpit. If yours isn't set that way, all of X-Plane's controls can be reassigned to other keys, key combos and joysticks - so you can set the sim exactly how you like!

Check out the View menu in the menu bar at the top of X-Plane's screen (hidden until you move the mouse to the screen top). There is an issue with the current implementation of keys within the cockpit. I'll be talking with Austin (X-Plane's designer) about this over the weekend. The way MSFS does its following has no exact equal in X-Plane (different horses for course I guess).

The default control sensitivity is too high, I agree. Go to the Settings Joystick and Equipment Center tab, and use the sliders to desensitise the joystick (full non-linear is what I find best). Once you do this X-Plane will feel wonderful.

The visibility distance is controlled in Environment menu Weather. Look for Visibility on the middle left of the screen. Max is 25 nautical miles (about 46km) to keep frame-rate up. The distance will drop with adverse weather and X-Plane automatically reduces the visible distance if the frame-rate drops to 19 fps.

Strictly speaking, X-Plane doesn't have autogen. Autogen, as MSFS does it, is computed realtime as you're flying. X-Plane's is pre-computed when the ground scenery is made. In other words, the buildings etc. come fixed on the DVDs. This has a number of benefits. It means the designers have great control over what goes where. In the USA, most cities have the major buildings placed very carefully, so can look very good. In NZ however, they look pretty odd. Another advantage of pre-computed is speed. During flight, X-Plane is not burdened with creating autogen as the buildings have been preset. This is part of X-Plane's high frame-rate secret. The good news is that exclusion zones and custom scenery have priority over the default objects, so they don't crop up when third party scenery designers (like me) don't want them to.

If you want some NZ airports, PM me and I'll share a few that I've converted from MSFS (only any good if you've actually purchased the sim). They're all still beta, but better than nothing. It's a slow process making the airports look spot on, but I'm getting there. The key thing is to remember that X-Plane's priority is the flight model, scenery comes second. Only a few years ago X-Plane scenery was plain awful, now at times it rivals FSX. I dare say that in time X-Plane will come even closer to MSFS, while still offering the superior flying experience. The design of X-Plane's scenery model is very sophisticated and flexible. The quality of the scenery is limited only by the skills of the third party developers.

Oh, and even in the downloadable preview, you're not limited to the aircraft X-Plane comes with. Go to http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?autocom=downloads and knock yourself out!

Feel free to contact me directly with any other questions

[tcross]

Thanks for that peter,

Finally X-plane 9 has arrived in the middle of installing the Aus and NZ scenery, annoying that it isn't all on the same cd again. Also forgot to transfer over the plugin for the 1900, so going to find all of that now. Are you able to provide me with a link to the airports of NZ that you have been able to make,

Cheers
Tom

[victor_alpha_charlie]

Is there a large jump between X plane 8 and X plane 9? Similar to FS9 and FSX, except normal computers will actually run X-Plane 9

[tcross]

I felt that there was a large gap, terrain and graphics wise, I liked the new look of the water reflections, but they use up alot of your RAM so turned those off, as flying at 17000ft you really dont care what the water looks like i'd rather have fast and good graphics in the terrain and planes.

Also steelblades have you found that the B-1900 with plugin does not work on X-9, it just seems to bounce all over the place even with twinprop's and your cfg file. It is fine without it, but then you remove the systems it is there for.

[SteelBlades]

Hi tcross,

Heh, X-Plane couldn't fit on even 20 CDs - they're dual layer DVDs - the only way to ship the huge amount of high quality mesh data that comes as std. with X-Plane (8 & 9) is this way - a pain, but reality. The B1900D plug-in is a bit funny in X-Plane 9. It did two things that are now part of X-Plane as std. 1) variable spinning propellor disk and 2) activated low RPM when fuel mixture/condition settings are low. Of course the key thing the plug-in did was adjust the weight and CoG and display detailed fuel use/weight change, and this I do miss. Oh well, hopefully Jan Grundke will update it soon.

Hi victor-alpha-charlie,
The gap between X-Plane 8 and 9 in terms of hardware is almost entirely focused the graphics card. Before X-Plane 9, little use was made of pixel shaders and the like. Now, things are hotting up, so a decent card is the order of the day. In X-Plane 8, my ATI 9600/256 was more than enough. Not with X-Plane 9 - you really need a card no older than a year or two. In terms of the sim, the biggest obvious change is much more accurate mesh data. NZ mountains are now pretty darned good. The other improvements are too long to list here, but they include fancy reflective water, forests all over the place, flight model tweaks and a big improvement to 3D modelling for cockpits.

The CPU speed requirements of X-Plane 9 are no greater than X-Plane 8, but having dual processor or dual core helps much more in X-Plane 9. If you don't have dual processor or dual core, the sim won't be slower, but if you do it'll be faster.

--

If anyone wants some NZ airports for X-Plane, you'll need to send me a Personal Message so we can arrange it. None of them are finished yet as I'm still waiting on X-Plane tools to be released (I'll be beta testing one of the key ones). I'm happy to share some of what I do have though, even if they're not perfect. Just drop me a line.

[xplaneuser]

Hello All, I just stumbled into this rather old topic here and saw that there is interest in X-Plane and NZ. I am on a world around tour with X-Plane in a Cessna 206T. Of course I have virtual visited NZ and converted some of the MSFS sceneries myself.

Go and find out how marvellous X-Plane is and how nice NZ looks there:

Visit the website. To go to the NZ section quickly choose "route southwards" and find on the leftside menu "New Zealand Tour 1" or "New Zealand Tour 2". You can watch embedded videos as well! Enjoy.

Chris

[Ian Warren]

QUOTE (xplaneuser @ Jul 6 2008, 11:03 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hello All, I just stumbled into this rather old topic here and saw that there is interest in X-Plane and NZ. I am on a world around tour with X-Plane in a Cessna 206T. Of course I have virtual visited NZ and converted some of the MSFS sceneries myself.

Go and find out how marvellous X-Plane is and how nice NZ looks there:

Visit the website. To go to the NZ section quickly choose "route southwards" and find on the leftside menu "New Zealand Tour 1" or "New Zealand Tour 2". You can watch embedded videos as well! Enjoy.

Chris

Hello Chris , I'm not a Xplane man , but have to take my hat of to you for this effort , around the world and possible .. maybe the NZ be your fav spot , now your heading home i guess

[Mattnz]

Amazing collection of shots, Chris. Thanks for sharing them with us

Particularly liked the ones of the Mount Cook area - looks stunning

[xplaneuser]

QUOTE (Ian Warren @ Jul 7 2008, 12:18 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hello Chris , I'm not a Xplane man , but have to take my hat of to you for this effort , around the world and possible .. maybe the NZ be your fav spot , now your heading home i guess

Great you like the idea . I am in Nome/Alaska at the moment (choose "Route northwards" in the menu) and will cross Canada and return via Greenland, Iceland and GB to Hanover/Germany (kind of crazy ). The screenshots are from X-Plane 8.64 but the new version 9 is even better.

Cheers
Chris