Fiji mainland Islands Scenery

[Adrian Brausch]

Hi all,..I have looked around myself but cannot find any Fiji mesh that will replace the default FSX Fiji Main Islands which are er.....quite terrible. It is surprising nothing has really been done for Fiji yet,..there is some scenery which provides photoreal scenery for the Western edge of Fiji but doesnt do anything for the mainland Islands...

thanks in advance..

[Ian Warren]

That would be no wonder .. Its Coji not Fiji ... George Speight s fault "Pride of the Pacific" ..... left it in one hell of a mesh

[deeknow]

Hey Adrian,

I did get a link to this in my inbox yesterday, its from the Rokooo guys, I signed up at their site awhile back and they seem to bundle/distribute various stuff, one thing I'm a bit wary of is it's all done through an installer which kind of put me off, anyway they have a new Fiji scenery package that might be worth a look, seems to be mostly photo-real...
http://www.rikoooo.com/en/?option=com_jdow...=68&cid=649

There's also this SRTM mesh which I've never tried as have other solutions, it's a big download but does seem to cover the whole of Oceania..
http://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/fil...nery-all-parts/

[emfrat]

Hello Adrian - This is what FS Global 2010 gives me...not sure about the landclass, but there's plenty of mesh

[Ian Warren]

For FS9 there was also a good scenery for Coji main airport in Nadi .. but mesh and other than .. nothing for FSX tho

[Adrian Brausch]

QUOTE (deeknow @ Jul 28 2013,11:30 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hey Adrian,

I did get a link to this in my inbox yesterday, its from the Rokooo guys, I signed up at their site awhile back and they seem to bundle/distribute various stuff, one thing I'm a bit wary of is it's all done through an installer which kind of put me off, anyway they have a new Fiji scenery package that might be worth a look, seems to be mostly photo-real...
http://www.rikoooo.com/en/?option=com_jdow...=68&cid=649

There's also this SRTM mesh which I've never tried as have other solutions, it's a big download but does seem to cover the whole of Oceania..
http://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/fil...nery-all-parts/

Thanks fella's, yea Deano that photoreal stuff is only the western edges of Fiji not covering the main land islands unfortunately ,..I might give that SRTM mesh tho many thanks for the links !. My main issue with default Fiji is its jaggy coastlines,..it really is unpleasant to fly over ,...I would love to do a Laucala bay WWII Floatplane base base..but without fixing the coastlines it would be pointless ...

[deeknow]

QUOTE (Adrian Brausch @ Jul 28 2013,12:34 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

yea Deano that photoreal stuff is only the western edges of Fiji not covering the main land islands unfortunately

Ah, bu66er. Oh well, hopefully someone like http://islandsim.com/ will get onto fiji eventually, maybe after Rarotonga is done

[BendyFlyer]

Hi Adrian, seems we are following one another around. FIJI Scenery, I have searched hi and low and here is what I have come up with so far that works and is available on the net.

First is the the ASTERGEM mesh titled impGDEMv2_Fiji-etc_30M this is the basic mesh for Fiji and is 100 better than stock FSX stuff. I have downloaded all the ASTER GEM meshs available and installed them all (It too some doing but it is worth it especially the Pacific Ocean area North to South and all the Islands. Highly recommended. This mesh is only available at SIMAVIATION, do a search for ASTER and it will bring them all up. I place the ASTER mesh into a Scenery specific ADDON folder structure outside of FSX along with all my other scenery. It works fine and improves scenery performance and sure eliminates a lot of the clashes and problems you get.

I have also added in two different landclass fixes available for FSX from FLIGHTSIM.com, I dont have access to my hard drive where the originals are stored but there are two different types. The first type changes the scenery texture changeover from coast to hills or the tree-land-rock transistion and this does wonders for your general scenery as well. The second is a new set of scenery files that changes the rock textures for all hills and mountains in FSX and hence with the two you get a complete makeover of them all. You will have to be careful with these last two as you need to replace the original FSX texture sets and I would recommend backing them up or the entire WORLD Scenery folder just in case.

I guess all together these downloads have transformed my FSX scenery to the point where I don't think I need the various world and other large area scenery products available anymore and the effects are great and all in all very realistic.

Back to FIJI, the photoreal stuff available is for the Western Side of FIJI only at the moment. It adds a lot of detail and it not to bad but the meshing or altitude polygons are a bit out and some hills can 'spike', I am still pondering whether to keep this activated but it does add a lot of seaplane bases and ports to the FIJI islands. Other than that there is only a general FIJI AFCAD addon available from Flight Sim. The problem I discovered a while ago is that the Suva area or Laucala Bay where the Sunderlands were based in out in all of the scenery files I have and I am not sure where to go with that. Not really up to doing a photorealistic scenery development at the moment. Still trying to get a handle on adding simple objects so I can have flying boat wharfs etc and certain places in FSX.

And that is it as far as FIJI is concerned. The rest of the Pacific is nicely covered from the Aleutians to Tahiti to Easter Islands etc, they are all nice and added into my scenery as a priority, which is for this sector of the globe from Japan down to Antartica.

PM or email me if you need more info or I can help.

I will now go and check out the Japanese built stuff. I have found having completely done Japan that their freeware stuff is excellent and the only issue is trusting the automatic script loader as it is in Kenji script and not English and they always place it into the FSX Scenery ADDON Folder which means I then move it afterwards. Off to see what it is like!

OH and the ASTERGEM mesh is also available for NZ, I did not load it for OZ as I have ORBX Au series installed and that is fine for me. Still tossing up whether to go with VLC NZ or ORBX NZ not sure given what I have done with my scenery so far whether there would be a significant improvement in terrain and apart from Auckland city area (especially the Hobsonville area) the various freeware airports and sceneries for NZ have made it as close to NZ as I can get, from what I can remember but if you live there it may not be so good.

[BendyFlyer]

Quick note the Scenery via the Japan site is the Tiberius Kowalski Western Division scenery that I already have. It is ok apart from the hill spiking issue in some areas. Get the same problem with the Tonga stuff too.

Here are some pics

1. Aster Gem Plus Fiji Western Division


2. Same area with W Fiji Addon disabled



3. Bog Standard FSX with only rock, shoreline transition and tree mods



FIJI is the only place this happens and I cannot resolve the conflicts except to go with FSX stock with enhancements.

[Adrian Brausch]

thanks guys for your help,..it would seem that as yet there is no fix for those bloody awful jagged coastlines of Fiji,...just cant enjoy that area with coastlines drawn with a ruler ,..thanks Mike I have downloaded the Fiji Aster mesh and will give that a go. Lacala Bay,..my old man did a scenery for fs9 (never released),..am trying to get him motivated to re make it for FSX (and finish it for FS9 haha),..don't hold your breath...

[Ian Warren]

QUOTE (Adrian Brausch @ Aug 7 2013,11:24 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

..my old man did a scenery for fs9 (never released),..am trying to get him motivated to re make it for FSX (and finish it for FS9 haha),..don't hold your breath...

Hmmm as i said many times before .. i'm a Bird not a Fish .. CUJI as we all now it today .... breath Holden .. look Ford to that

[BendyFlyer]

FWIW, it seems straight lines in coastal areas throughout FSX is a problem, even with ORBX, not sure why but the program seems better at drawing vertical curves than horizontal ones. The variety of meshes and mesh settings does not help either, I tried a variety and have just left it at ORBX's recommended 76 metre and 1 metre settings, I cannot really see the difference with less, well not yet! I deactivated the Western Fiji scenery completely, after a good look at it it draws coast lines all over the place for some reason and gives reefs and lines where they should not be.

Another issue I find with photo-real scenery is the textures used by some for tropical water etc. I use REX where you can set all these textures and their shaders are second to none so with some of the scenery's the colours end up downright, well psychedelic is the only word I can think of. I guess a lot of people have never seen real tropical water or reef systems and from all my flying for real over water over the years, you can get bright blue water in the funniest places and places with reefs can be downright grey in colour some times, just depends on the light and cloud cover as well. For example in cr@p weather with a low overcast all water takes on a grey appearance and is as dangerous as white out in the Antartic if your operating down low, you lose all depth perception, which is why a radar altimeter is standard fitting for this type of flying.

Ah the never ending search for realism in FSX. If you have a look on the net at some pics of Laucala Bay in Fiji it is estuarine in appearance and just a slightly deep blue with no reef discolouration in sight. Suva Harbour over the other side is a grungy green. Yet all the scenery programs texture this as shallow reef water so it ends up being bright blue.

Yep and the Fiji Islands are a real disapointment, so much great scenery but no good rendition for FSX. Guess that wont change while the big banana remains in charge! Back to other things.

[Ian Warren]

I'll screen a few with the ORBX global land class later today .. won't really change that much i don't think but it may be enough to decide it is CUJI .

[BendyFlyer]

OK here are some screenshots using FTX Global. West around the Island from Nausori.







AND FINALLY THE NEW AIRPORT SCENERY FOR NAUSORI AND A LITTLE PLUG FOR THIS SCENERY NICELY DONE, LIKE IT AND THE AI TRAFFIC.



I think FTX Global works its magic well enough and there is a significant general improvement. That said the straight or jagged coastlines are an FSX issue I am afraid and only photo scenery will fix that. Same with major towns or cities if your want realism. For example Suva and Nandi were ok in FTX Global but Lautoka was basically missing.

[Ian Warren]

It dose make it a totally different environment simply takes away that bland look and i have notice the USA Arizona ground texture has really been lifted .

[AdrianPetford]

I use Stephen Rothlisberger's 70m LOD 9 SRTM mesh (available on Simviation) and Charles Reid's Fiji landclass (on Flightsim.com). Both intended for FS2004, but work very well with FSX and FTX Global. The Rothlisberger mesh has some issues around tile edges in places (not sure whether this affects the Fiji tile) but has been fully processed for spikes and voids in the data. I found the ASTER mesh better for resolution but it has been oversampled so excessive spiking is present.


Ade