Colin S

Nice coverage with your airport work!

I'm still alive guys. Tomorrow is last midterm and I hand in my last term paper.

So, this one is a legit post, not just whining again. I found out the issue with the data I was using... it's three nautical mile boundary data... that is, what the census considers important to document. I've gone looking for more extensive data sets, shapefiles that extend into "international waters." This is what the data is mapping for me, and the problem will persist into all the other islands, not just Niihau. The only shapefiles for the rest of the ocean I've found have extremely non-precise coastline definitions, which look awful . Using the SHAPEFILE_MASK command didn't exactly work with any of these. Here's what they claim they are giving me: But when the data is processed by MeshTool, it becomes evident very quickly that they actually short-changed me and gave me the 3NM ocean *.shp: All help is welcomed, if you know anything about where to find accurate shapefiles or how to extend the boundaries (in this case, I wish I could just tell it to make everything outside the 3NM boundary shapefile just ocean. Actually, I wish I could do that for every island). If I don't get a solution soon, I'll take it to the top and ask them about using coastline data as a mask for where to draw land and where to draw water... I'm sure it's possible, but I can't figure it out from the manual.

This is proving to be quite an adventure... Thanks Cameron for informing me of the existence of Tiger. It turns out that the USA decided to only to map out its territorial waters this time. I'll have to read the manual again to find a way of making the rest water.

I already used Pintaderra (once, with extreme difficulty) to smooth things out... worked alright, but I can't make it work every time, it seems to work spontaneously. I probably won't use it on my work here. As for the other tools, I'm not familiar with their purpose and I don't speak Spanish (and Google isn't exactly translating the page very well) so I'll stick with MeshTool. Thanks though

Thanks Cameron! Never would have caught that without your input. Will get my rear in gear. EDIT: Rear in gear, but the Census Bureau needs to get their file names in gear. Any idea what any of these things mean? EDIT: Re-edit: I'll just stick to last year's data, the oceans haven't changed that much... heh. Never mind. Let's see what kind of damage I can do. Cameron, you are awesome. I had come across the water shapefil thing before, but I had no idea what the heck a water shapefile was or where I was supposed to get that. Cheers!

I assume it's something wrong with my script.txt, since I landed with this (this is the coast of the island of Niihau, in stunning ultra-hi-res, but without water being defined... and I don't know how, since documentation on how to properly format and use the script.txt file is pretty much non-existent. Please don't just post the link to the page that explains how to make the script.txt, it's useless to me. I don't understand one bit of it. I need an English translation. I don't need special landclass customization or anything, this is just a base mesh for underneath orthophotos (those of you who know me don't need to be informed of that). Anyways, here's the flop-up: This is currently my script.txt, since I had no bloody idea what I was supposed to do with the bloody thingy. Laugh all you want, and for those of you who have endured my brand of stupidity you may use the nearest hard object to satisfy your frustration with the amazing Colin. Nervous laughter. But seriously, I don't know what else to shove in there. Frankly, if it makes you feel any better, I am beyond thrilled to simply have finally successfully ground up a TIFF file and turned it into some form of workable DSF, as my partner Javier and I have been trying to make his material compatible with the silly X-Plane constraints for the last two and half months. This is literally the only delay holding me back from completing the rest of the islands, other than my three term papers due in a month and a half (hint: Acadian history is quite interesting if you actually dig into it). Anyways, anyone with ANY experience in the world of the MeshTool (all praise, hallelujah) please give me a shout. EDIT: For the pleasure of those who want to know how the Hawaii Photoreal project is actually coming along, here is a shot (ground texture @ 1/6th resolution) of a detail including a very good application of the HD mesh (still no ocean, sorry )

I think I may have unsubscribed from X-Aviation newsletters, will I still receive notification?

Super stoked for this... will definitely upgrade, SkyMAXX might as well be a standalone simulator. For everyone here who doesn't yet own SkyMAXX V2, if they've managed to improve it in V3 (which from the 3D cloud tops I'd say they have) buy it without question. One quick question for Cameron, for those who own V2, will the discount be automatically applied to the price online once you've logged in? Just wondering, even though it's completely irrelevant now. Thanks to John for bringing this to X-Plane, for the occasional humour provided to the community, and making it usable, thanks to SunDog for developing the original technology, and thanks to Cameron for making it available to the market. You guys all rock!

Glad to be of limited use!

My partner in crime notifies me that HD DEM for all of the islands will be sent to me in the next few days, expect to hear a lot of ranting from me soon on the usability of command line tools in the upcoming weeks. Still have no idea what the script.txt is supposed to do, but whatever. I just kind of threw some random stuff from the manual into it. I don't care what land ends up under the orthophotos, as long as it's hard (terrain vs water). As far as I remember this is a 10m mesh, and I will be possibly creating two versions of all the islands from this point on, one for those with computers better than mine (capable or more than capable of running the 10m mesh if it works) and one for those with a worse machine than mine (all the other computers. Mine sits on the fine line of being able to render the larger islands at about 25FPS at full rendering options - not ideal but not too bad). I've also been contemplating making the Hawaii Photoreal project my last involvement with X-Plane, killing all other dormant projects so I can pursue the other goals I have in life without that nagging knowledge of something else needing to be done. In the way of getting anything done in immediate future (like the next month), university has proven to be more interesting this year than I had hoped (never thought I would say that) and that means I actually enjoy spending excess amounts of time reading my textbooks and writing my research papers... You know, how university is supposed to be. Cheers!

X-Plane needs the first disk for authent. Don't use disk 8 for authentication, it won't work. It's better off you use one, or you'll just have a glorified demo-mode with worldwide scenery.

My partner and I are having fun adventures with MeshTool, learning that data has to be super-manipulated before it's even introduced to the program. So far it is seeming like more trouble than it is worth... I hope it's worth it.

You'll be waiting for a while As a heads up, I haven't been very impressed with donations or even feedback since Lanai was released, not too motivated to get Niihau and Molokai done. School takes precedence.

After much delay and deliberation, and with a course load decreased from 27 hours/week to 12 hours/week, I have decided to reboot this project for numerous reasons alongside the Hawaii Photoreal work that I have been focused on for months now. EDIT: I apologize for updating the wrong forum thread a few minutes ago. Disregard that. I am not rebooting the development of a completed project from years ago.

I just want to let everyone know that after much deliberation this is back in the works.

No worries - if you ever do happen to spot a nice place to get a shot, post it over in the What Did You Fly Today thread. Cheers

Niihau is going slow. Messing with some USGS high-resolution mesh information through meshtool, haven't accomplished anything yet. Anyone with any experience with the tool would be welcome for some input on basic pointers.

An update will be released to Lanai to repair the following issues that were brought to my attention by two members of the community who contacted us through facebook (please like us to receive updates): 1. Airport elevation was set to 0.0ASL - meaning that if you had "Runways Follow Terrain Contours" disabled in X-Plane 10.40 (or any other previous versions), your runway would appear as a massive crater in the middle of the island. Those who fly with runway contours enabled - that is, allowing sloped runways - would not have noticed any issues, but I will repair this anyways. 2. There were no startup positions at PHNY Lanai Airport - a real bummer for those who wanted to fly online with networks which forbid runway startups. I have added eight startups, including the four gates and four tie-down options, which will also aid AI aircraft in the use of this airport. One issue not yet addressed but is being dealt with is the ability for AI planes to taxi effectively without bottle-necking at one end of the runway. Finally, I must address a question that I have had five people ask me already: Will the Society Islands be released for X-Plane? Here is my answer: Will users consider providing feedback to the Hawaii Photoreal people (three of us now, two platforms and soon expanding to three) so that alongside work and university we feel some motivation other than personal interest in the project? I hate to answer with a question - actually, no I don't - but we haven't exactly seen much in the feedback world, let alone the donation world, in any way about Hawaii Photoreal other than one certain user who knows who they are who I love for posting their screenshots in a thread about Lanai (thank you, beer's on me). I'm a little torn about the lack of enthusiasm from the community in general regarding this project, and I'm not talking about donations alone. I mean feedback. We like hearing what you love, what you hate, what you think we should do differently, especially on the facebook page. Anyways, Niihau is being pushed out by two or three weeks as moving in hasn't been very smooth to my new home of Victoria, BC. On a lighter note, thank you kindly to those who have taken the time to give feedback through both facebook and X-Pilot PM. Cheers! The update will hopefully be up tonight

Even though it's not flying, still have to include this picture:

Flew the zero around Lanai a few times today in celebration of finishing my summer job... and screwed around with ReShade a bit. Taking screenshots isn't as straightforward as without ReShade but the effects are totally worth it...

What lights mod did you use?