chris k

Yep - All my development immediately went to 10.10 beta 1, and I'm now running/testing using 10.10 beta 2. HDR rocks on 10.10 =) Release is coming. My big issue is getting the VRAM down, so that Ola doesn't get Texture Swaps.. (and neither do I) when running 'very high' res w/compression i.e. I just cut another 11 tiles down (in half that is, some hi-res some medium res where you aren't looking), saved another 19 Mb of VRAM in the process without sacrificing detail in the areas it counts. If your GTX 570 has 1 Gb of VRAM, You're laughing. =) - CK.

Anyone notice the following change with he runway lights? They're all of *slightly* different colour and intensity...! Very subtle, but WOW - that looks precisely like reality at distance, especially now they're resolved to individual pixels. Again, nicely done LR. - CK.

Patience my son! =) It does take a good 30 mins to sync to Dropbox. I push it there, and as it's syncing I do the posting. Glad to see everyone is very eager to get the new version, though =) - CK.

Beta 0.7: July 15, 2012 - 3 New Tiles done (6-3, 9-3, 9-4) by our man Ropeless! - Northern Tiles cut so they blend with the autogen scenery nicely (cut on road edges to hide the abrupt change) - Replaced XP10 Library Bollards with new White Bollards protecting Glideslope towers (Ropeless Objects) to match "Real Life" at YSSY. - ** All Signage Fixed. ** No Errors in the apt.dat! - Clean and ready to submit to Robin. - Additional Taxi Signs added where they now exist in reality. - ILS Critical Zones marked - Runway Hold Warnings on Signs - More taxiway Centrelines, More Yellow Edge Lines (whew, Bezier curves to the rescue!) - More tarmac roadways marked, signed, speed signs added. - Clutter, Clutter, Clutter! (at runways ends at least) - Runway Edge markings adjusted in cases to be more precise to cut off the white edges properly. - Long Term parking Lot area treed, fenced, marked, polygons added, parking gates added, lit. - Old Tower area fenced, Treed, and Lit. - Additional Water towers as per reality - More Water alpha areas cut, New Water pool North side of Domestic Hangars area near RWY16R Threshold. - Split various 2048x2048 tiles into two: 1 hires (2048x1024), 1 low res (1024x512) where covered by buildings. - Dropped another 5Mb of VRAM - Removed Harbour Bridge (causing FPS hits) - Removed many 3D Tree Objects (causing FPS hits) - Added 2D billboard tress instead in their place (easy on the FPS) - Weather stations added on S side of 34L. using stand in marker beacon objects which look OK. - Added field junction Boxes in various parts of the grass - Added electrical cabinets on the grass, at ILS towers, at weather stations, etc. - Changed many edge markers from yellow-on-black to just yellow: They blend in nice with the ortho and don't look like thy were 'pained on' after the fact. - Transit Vans added to add to clutter. - Moved the REIL Omnidirectional beacons on RWY07 threshold, so you don't drive over them on the run-up. - Added more Vegetation to wooded/treed areas. - Tinkering with Lights to make them not glow in the dark. - Tested in 10.05 and 10.10 Beta 1 (HDR is very very very nice now in 10.10) =) - Plus some minor changes/tweaks to edging, centrelines, object orientation, etc. - 1 Easter Egg added.. More to come. =) - Pls. provide FPS feedback on this (for Ola). Enjoy! - CK.

Sweet! Yeah, Welly is a lot of water, so I found you could really dense up the scenery in that area with little impact. Charlie, you still working on this? - CK.

Ding Ding Ding...! Dhruv is now 2 for 2 in with the quick response. Vote for the next scenery project here: I will weight it not only on total count, but also on those who want to help with the build (and not just be the end-recipients of the scenery) =) - CK.

We're Still Here! Lots of stuff "going on behind the scenes". Expect a .7 sometime today as we nut out some of the changes for this one. Ola - Ive tried to make some object density and other refinements for you to help the FPS. Also been able to (once again) shave about 5Mb off of VRAM. - CK.

You can't use WED to move those, as they;re not part of the apt.dat Just use X-Plane itself - Go to the Local map, then hit the [edit] button. You can move any of the NAVAIDS around you want. This includes: ILS Localizers Glideslope Towers FIXES VORs NDBs - CK.

Aha! There's the secret sauce. =) You and I have the exact same mantra: "Make XPX what [we] think it can be." Keep it up my man! - CK.

We are in the end-game now.! =) Weekend is nigh. I'll do the accounting and cleanup of the repository and see where we are. Have some good feedback from others on FPS and VRAM; and I'll try to cull and optimize as much as I can this weekend as well. - CK.

I found Water Reflection to -> NONE has immensely helped out FPS across the board in any mode. It's a nice effect in mountainous/lake filled regions as eye-candy, but I get a mass boost when I turn it off .. Don't need eye candy when I'm trying to do a "greaser" by hand on a Visual Approach in VATSIM.... (Autopilot? LOC/GS? What's that!?) =) - CK.

Another Screenshot Just taken (originally 1920x1200): Settings: HDR does seem to use an extra 100Mb of VRAM for some reason vs NonHDR on the exact same scene. However, much does get swapped out to system RAM if needed to fit inside my 512Mb. A 1 Gb VRAM User should have 0 problems as these settings on even a modest (4870 or 5770 style) card. 5870 should fly. I'm VRAM and Fill-rate limited (my CPU is pinned, its the Gfx card that cant keep up) System: MacPro 2009, 2.96 Ghz 4-Core Xeon, 12 Gb DDR3 RAM, Radeon HD4870 512Mb, OSX 10.6.8 - CK.

Those are in the YSSY scenery Maccas is by Skyflyer. The BP Gas Station is an XP10 Library Object. - CK.

Ramp: Luggage Dollys. 3 x cargo Palettes cart parking cargo pod cargo pot lot cargo pod parking Thankyou! I was using a stand-in from OSX for these types of objects. Glad to see this is now in the lib. New Facades: fence ranch fenced parking blue hangar blue warehouse white hangar white warehouse white office Parking items: Row of cars 7 space 10 space yellow marks yellow caps Forests: Park.for? grass.for? NEVERMIND these are OSX ones from a backup lib. not XP10. - CK.

Z-Buffering Problem on the new cargo_terminal.fac - CK.

Failed to find resource 'lib/airport/Common_Elements/Fueling_Stations/com_Cvrd_Station.obj' Damn, Not your fault Tom. I used one of your "com_" objects directly, which is not meant to be called like that.. I'll use the .AGP instead - CK.

Hehe thanks for the swift reply Tom. I just realized I could answer my own quesiton - I can just "diff" the old library.txt's with the new ones. Thanks on the pointers too into what sections of lib/airport are updated. /me scurries off to start the WED Spelunking! - CK.

Whoa! You have a direct line to the Ben-i-nator himself? Damn, wish I had that kind of access.. although, I wouldn't know what to say anyways =) - CK. Update: No issues in HDR Mode for 10.10 beta 1 for me: Specs: MacPro 2009 2.9Ghz Q-core Xeon (nethalem) 12G DDR3 RAM ATI 4870 w/512 Mb VRAM OSX 10.6.8

WOW. Love the new Sodium Lights. Also noticed the "twinkle/glare" of any bright light as been toned down at distance (which is good). WOW! Is all I can say now for the HDR night ligting. EGADS thats AWESOME. - CK. P.S. Sorry to anyone reading/viewing - my screenshots of the tweaked HDR mode simply cannot do it justice (vs in-sim 1920x1200 @ 40 FPS)

Kudos to Tom on updating the cargo terminal.fac. Looks great! Is there a breakdown of all the new/updated art assets in 10.10 ? (or is this left as an exercise to the reader? =) - CK.

You mean "He will add to his already existing Fame!" =) - Ck.

Hehe. Ahh the trials and tribulations of HDR. - CK.

Lookin' good - Keep it up! Always good to hear you chime in Charlie. Glad you're still pumping out scenery for the NZ/Pacific areas. They need a champion! - CK.

Sweeeeeet! - CK.

Or what....! - CK.