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SOAR Ranch in FSX


sf4JC

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I'm not sure if anybody has tried to put the FS9 SOAR Ranch into FSX, but this is what it looks like on my computer. The canopy and one of the buildings need updating in the texture I believe, but I have no idea how to do so to update it to FSX standards. Here are some pics.........By the way, is anyone in charge of the "Maintainance & Grounds Department", the runway seems to have some brush growing on it. Ha, Ha!

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Looks as though the runway hasn't been used in a while.

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Facilities

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Canopy area

sf4JC

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Yup, SOAR Ranch in FSX needs work. I am supprised it looks as good as it does :smiles: . What mesh are you using Peter? The huge problem is how to put the ridge lift back? The only way I can see to do it is fly the routes in FS9 with ccs2004, save the map traces, and then try to imitate the lift in FSX by crerating a mission for the flight using the map/trace from FS9 as a reference. What do you think?

Don

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Not sure if I was meant, Don.

A mission is not really needed, according to the docs the old ridge-lift scenery element still exists. If this works as documented I actually would prefer this over the mission-type ridge-lift, which has some logical problems.

I considered already how we could translate the terrain topology into a reasonable set of ridge lift boxes. The difference between CCS2004 and scenery based ridge-lift is, that most probably you cannot realise lift blocks that are 3x3 arcsec in scenery-files without exploding the scenery engine. So you have to find a method to crystallise the ridge behaviour in more macroscopic entities, and I don't have a good idea yet, how to do this.

At least I see a reasonable way to read out FSX mesh scenery by help of the TMFViewer-Tool, rather than tediously scanning the the whole FSX-Terrain over the SimConnect interface.

On the other hand, the only reason for the problem is, that MS forgot to offer a writeable variable "Vertical Ambient Wind" or "Ambient Wind Y", or so, where there might be faint chance, that all of a sudden it appears with a next update or service pack, probably towards the end of the year. In this case, Peter Dowson may integrate it quckly in FSUIPC, and the function is back. Other (payware!) Add-ons are affected, too, so it is not totally unrealistic.

Therefore I'm a bit reluctant to invest much work into it, rather than waiting for what is in a next update.

regards,

Peter

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On the other hand, the only reason for the problem is, that MS forgot to offer a writeable variable "Vertical Ambient Wind" or "Ambient Wind Y", or so, where there might be faint chance, that all of a sudden it appears with a next update or service pack, probably towards the end of the year. In this case, Peter Dowson may integrate it quckly in FSUIPC, and the function is back. Other (payware!) Add-ons are affected, too, so it is not totally unrealistic.

Therefore I'm a bit reluctant to invest much work into it, rather than waiting for what is in a next update.

regards,

Peter

Okay, that makes good sense. I will continue flying FS9 with the Andes lift I presently have.

Don

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  • 1 month later...

Hey guys, I finally got all the textures at the SOAR Ranch to show up. About a month ago I got the other building by the SOAR sign to show its textures, I just couldn't find out how to get the canopy area to show.

Somehow through Acceleration/SP2 install, the canopy area is now showing up, go figure.

sf4JC

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Hey guys, I finally got all the textures at the SOAR Ranch to show up. About a month ago I got the other building by the SOAR sign to show its textures, I just couldn't find out how to get the canopy area to show.

Somehow through Acceleration/SP2 install, the canopy area is now showing up, go figure.

sf4JC

How about a couple of screenshots? BTW What mesh are you using?

Don

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I'll try to take a few shots today when I get a chance. As far as the mesh goes, I'm using the default at the moment. Were you asking about terrain mesh, or photoreal mesh? I haven't tried TileProxy for a long time, but I think with SP2, that type of scenery is supposed to be better maybe. On my machine, I was getting the "blurries" after leaving the original starting spot, so my computer was not keeping up. So I may load that back up and check it out, but as far as the terrain mesh, I haven't really searched for any for that area. In fact, I think the only terrain mesh that I have loaded was for New Zealand, which was for FS2004 I think. I'm not sure if it made any difference because I loaded it before flying the region very much. Do you know of any good "free" mesh for the area?

sf4JC

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Disreguard what I said about the mesh, I just came upon a site that I had forgotten about. I've downloaded several free meshes from Simviation at http://www.simviation.com/fsx_terrainmesh.htm for FSX, but hadn't downloaded the South America one yet. Do you buy your meshes, or where do you get yours?

Back to the Ranch, the other day when I noticed all the textures showing up, I noticed my framerates were really slow. Since I just installed a new antivirus program, I just thought that it had started a weekly scan or something since I didn't set that option yet. When I got to the ranch today, I noticed again I was only getting 1-3 FPS around the ranch, and steadily increased the farther away I got. So something may be wrong yet with the scenery. I tried to take a few shots, but came up with nothing to show for it, so maybe tomarrow I'll get a little more time to take some shots.

sf4JC

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Here's the ranch. It's not a good quality picture, but I couldn't make it any bigger because of the storage space I have on the message board. Seems as though the runways on my computer are showing more texture as well.

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I was also thinking, maybe if I change the texture to something FSX reads better, it will work. But without trying, I don't know. I also noticed the shade under the canopy area got really dark after Accerleration/SP2. So I'm thinking the problem has got to be the textures in the scenery that are making framerates hit 1-3 per second. I run about 8-12 FPS with the settings I use right now, so it's still a considerable drop. I'm glad Microsoft put the option in for a person to save different settings, so I can go to what I had previously if I made the wrong adjustments. Plus I have made several profiles for multiplayer, screen capture (video), and so on that perform good when in that mode.

sf4JC

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  • 2 years later...

Some other probelms with FSX-MESA mesh (free from AVSIM).

Don't know how to tow out with western wind.

Some graphics issue with the runway 27 shwoing through the mountain.

regards,

Peter

Hey Peter, I finally got around to checking what your problem may have been so as to not include it in an updated version, and also that small mountain formation sure looked familiar. Come to find out, you may have had been using the older FS9 SOAR Ranch version 1 scenery (the FS9 version 2 was released to move the airport away from that "big hill" when using updated terrain mesh, so I believe your terrain mesh is okay). But you don't have to worry about it now.

I will be releasing an FS9 to FSX conversion of the SOAR Ranch airport soon with the permission from Chris Gordan in hand. I want to check a few more things, but it will come within the next few days I believe. Then, it's off to get the FunFly/Contest I've been wanting done finished to set a weekend for it in March.

Scott

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