Colin S

No, this isn't a "why does X-Plane's water look the way it does" post. I'm not quite that immature (close, though). Here's my issue: I've been successfully making UHD mesh for the Hawaiian Islands (See: Niihau). I use a lovely little LUA script that makes water in certain areas follow the colouration rules set by a script file. For the area around Hawaii, I have the nice dark default ocean colour change to a lighter blue around the islands as it does in real life. No idea what resources X-Plane uses to determine where the "shallow" water starts. I heard at some point that X-Plane 10 has bathymetric data despite not using for anything... or maybe it does. Anyways, with my new custom mesh, the ocean only follows the colour rules for deep ocean, with no gradient towards the UHD mesh area land that I have made and NOT inserted redundant bathymetric data into. If anyone can give me a quite run down of how water colour LUA scripts work (I know the latest RTH has water controls, their shallows don't work around Colin's UHD areas either), it would be hugely appreciated and I might be able to make the Hawaiian Islands looks just that little bit better. If you want pictures of the water, I might be able to provide once I'm home. As for the topic category, I didn't think this counted as scenery, maybe help, but I felt that general discussion would be playing it safe. Anyways, I need help and I know this community is awesome with that sort of thing! As a side note, Niihau has been updated to fix a bunch of ugliness including reduction of file size.

Looks really cool - can't say it's my kind of product to buy (being someone who spends about 10% of time in sim and about 90% in QGis or WED) but I'd say it looks like something that will be a must-have for serious pilots.

Update: This will be fixed in the next week, I found a serious problem on Niihau with shoreline alignment. This happens a lot and this is just a case of me not noticing. When you have to cut up a giant FSX orthophoto into sixteen or more smaller X-Plane 4096 sized ones, mistakes are made. I apologize to the few who have downloaded this scenery and plase stay tuned. Windows 10 is giving me a massive headache as usual (Microsoft finally tried to compete with the lack of functionality that iOS held a monopoly on for so long), so not today or any time in the next few days.

Sifting through photos in the endless piles of pictures my parents took, I ran across a weirdly accurate prediction of my future obsession - I'm wearing a plane covered shirt and I am at the controls of the great B727. Just a trip down memory lane...

Note to all those attempting to use Niihau V0.5: It has been pulled due to a file error, I am currently troubleshooting it now, and will hopefully have a bugfix done for later today.

Thanks! It's up in the file library as of now!

When a lack of a thing presents itself, the creation of such a thing would be advised. X-Plane uses a universal asset distribution system for textures, objects, and so on, meaning that you can add a livery folder to any existing aircraft and hey presto you can add liveries Hope this helps!

New livery available now!

It's here...

The first scenery project I tried starting when I joined the X-Plane community back in 2009 was Hawaii, because I was so obsessed with Hawaii (I still am). I was let down immediately by the lack of user friendly and GUI-controlled tools out there, as at that point my knowledge of computers was basically PowerPoint and Excel. Over the years I slowly figured out how to everything with the patient help of great community members like Chris, sometimes going right to the top, asking for help from Ben and Andras (who kindly obliged and helped me through my multiple vapourware stages). Two years ago I found Javier's (the guy who started the HP Project) original promotional video and I realized that, jackpot, I had finally found a starting point: a scenery conversion. I had no idea what it would involve. I was already extremely skilled with orthophotos - but that's pretty much it. So, I started with the easiest island: Kahoolawe. The smallest, without airports, and also likely not to destroy my reputation if I destroyed it - which I did, and I will be completely redoing it in a few months. Between university in the fall, winter and spring and work during the summer - one summer was spent in a park without internet connectivity, which stopped development entirely - I slowly learned some of the skills I needed. With Kahoolawe, I learned manual placement of orthophotos using Google Earth as a coordinate aid (not a source for imagery). With Lanai, I learned FSX airport conversion, scratch airport development (all the ground textures are 100% original to X-Plane), the ins and outs of how FSX orthoscenery is laid out, *.for files, and how to make water overlays look acceptable. Finally, Niihau, I've gone a step further and with the suggestion of Javier, I learned the basics of GIS work to modify DEM for HD Mesh, as well as georeferencing the non-georeferenced tiffs that I have to work with for X-Plane. Now that I have learned all these skills, I'm just about worthy of working on the most important islands of the chain, the ones with the big airports and the beautiful scenery. You can't start big. If you start big, you get an utterly mediocre product. I've worked my way up, essentially promoting myself as I go based on how well I am able to achieve certain goals, and then decide to move on to bigger and better things when I'm ready. There really wasn't a short answer, I'm sorry.

Then you'll have to fly to Hawaii! Although we have no islands with major airports completed yet, after Molokai will be Maui, which has an airport that is certainly large enough for heavies.

Not so much "what did I fly today" as "where did I fly today"

HD Mesh has been conquered... georeferencing custom orthophotos has been conquered... it's almost ready, folks. Next up: who knows. Still waiting for word from headquarters whether I need to rebuild Lanai for HD mesh or whether I should focus on Molokai.

What plane/livery is this? I know it's not mine... I only made one because I couldn't find an Aloha one. I don't know if the HD liveries work with XP9 but I've uploaded an HD version with corrected colours and a better tailfin emblem. Also, XP9 is still a pretty sweet version, I have it installed still and occasionally open it up because I haven't bothered transferring all my scenery and aircraft to XP10. XP10 is just for development for me, XP9 is for fun and flying. PS - never mind! I just noticed the extra windows over the cockpit, this is -700 from XPFW... sorry

My god what clouds do you have man?

Red-eye to Lanai...

A little special something coming your way later today...

Anyone who downloaded Lanai, Molokini, or Kahoolawe, needs to follow those files immediately as major updates/total overhauls are coming to those scenery files in the next few months. Niihau will be released first, then updates will follow with the combination of Molokini into Kahoolawe and the re-release with HD Mesh, then finally Lanai, which will probably take quite a bit of extra time as it has an airport and lots of roads and whatnot. Please check the new thread about the HD Mesh.

Hi all, this is essentially a referendum, and I need at least fifteen people to respond positively if I am to take the "yes" path. In the last two weeks I went from "what the heck is GIS" to "I can pretend to understand QGIS." In doing this, I acquired the skills needed to create HD Meshes. You might say "but that just needs DEM..." and I will say "but you also need coastline data that is accurate. Which doesn't exist. Even from the US Census." I have drawn the entire outline of Niihau perfectly to match the mesh, as oppose to cutting its dramatic cliff faces in half. This was originally (and still is) for the purpose of the Hawaii Photoreal project, which is still going. However, I realize that not everyone's computer can render HD Mesh and orthophoto scenery. Below I have included a picture what the relief of the HD mesh looks like. I have already run a quick export through MeshTool (not perfect yet, a bit of touching up, so no screenies of that yet). However, I guarantee that the mesh is splendid and makes flying over and around the island spectacular. This will soon be a major update to the island of Lanai - I will be completely re-releasing the project, as the existing Lanai contains more than one type of mickey-mousing. I also didn't have the official coordinates of the imagery (both myself and Javier, the FSX guy, are still teaching ourselves everything to do with scenery as we go), meaning I had to guess at the location - which I did pretty well - but it meant that things aren't quite snug - valley edges don't match up with the terrain, etc. So the question is, do you want a UHD mesh for the islands as they are released separately from the photoreal scenery (do be installed just like Andras' HD Mesh) or should they be included (they would still need installation into their own scenery file like alpilotx mesh). All feedback is welcome. Some questions I can answer before they are asked: What is the resolution of this new mesh? 10m/30ft. Will it be compatible with other scenery? Yes, except for Andras' HD Mesh. Is it the same thing as alpilotx HD Mesh? No. In honesty, aplilotx is better. The only thing I have done better is a higher resolution and lined up the coastlines with the USGS DEM, so you won't have the awkward vertical cliffs that result in stretched textures. Meaning it may melt your GPU. It doesn't have fixed things like forest boundaries, cities, etc., like alpilotx stuff has. It's basically just an upgrade of mesh leaving the same textures on the surface. If you want default scenery that looks like custom scenery, get the alpilotx stuff. Andras works black magic, I just Google QGIS tutorials. Will it be one massive package for all the islands? No, it will be each individual/set of islands. For instance, Niihau, Kaula, and Lehua will be one pack, as a Kahoolawe and Molokini will be in one basket. Lanai and Molokai may be together, but it depends on file size as X-Pilot has limits. Is this vapourware? It is Colin S posting this, so this question deserves to be put forward. However, as it stands, at least part of this is not vapourware, meaning I could actually click upload and publish the Niihau/Lehua/Kaula portion right now if I wanted. Nothing else is done yet. I am rather well known for getting excited about doing something and then never finishing it due to its scale. However, I have a partner and the occasional cash incentive (and a mention in the Laminar Research newsletter). Anyways, short answer, no, this is done already. Not vapourware. This is PHNL. This isn't KBLI V4. This is actually possible. Will it be freeware? Yes. But frankly, the only reason that I decided to kickstart my X-Plane work this week was because all of a sudden we got an influx of donations spawning from the Laminar Research newsletter, meaning that donations actually do affect how much work I am willing to do and how good my work is.All feedback, positive or negative, is welcome. Also, don't forget to "follow" Lanai if you downloaded it since it will receive an important overhaul (complete rebuild) in the next few months). PS - yes, that lake near the top left will be modified so it doesn't climb up a hill.

Adventures in HD Mesh Generation I am a total idiot when it comes to anything without a full GUI that isn't designed for idiots to use. That being said, with the help my of my partner in crime, I finally got a workflow strategy for the UHD mesh on Niihau (and all other Hawaiian Islands). You can all laugh at how mickey-mousey this is, but at least it makes sense. Acquire DEM data from the USGS Create script file for MeshTool that starts with "BACKGROUND terrain_Water," so that you don't empty the Pacific Ocean. Get QGIS (I'm not claiming I understand how to use it all, I promise). Load your DEM into it. Vectorize the raster data and load the attributes table. Select everything that does not have a 0/null value. Save that as a shapefile. Add a line to the scriptfile that declares that everything within the constraints of this newly created shapefile - which determines where the island ends and where the ocean starts - will be land. Execute MeshTool.If anyone sees any flaws in this plan (other than that you won't theoretically have rivers and lakes generated as water) please let me know. All this because the US Census TIGER data for coastlines is incredibly inaccurate (it's detailed but really wrong) compared to the 10m DEM that I'm using. It cuts hills in half to put an ocean there instead, and the smaller islands (Kaula, for instance) are in the wrong place altogether, leading to a flattened island when in reality it's a steep sided dramatic thing.