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flightsimstudio 
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Joined: May-28-2004 Location: United States Points: 70 |
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 Topic: Quick QuestionPosted: May-29-2004 at 3:54pm |
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Am wondering if the textures will by any chance include the old fs2000 style moving night light textures? That would make the sim complete.... |
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akriesman
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Joined: May-27-2004 Location: United States Points: 6013 |
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Posted: May-29-2004 at 4:11pm |
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No, the moving lights are not there. I am not sure this can be done in recent MSFS releases (at least not using the SDK). However, the night lighting has been improved. I hope to have some screenshots up sometime today. |
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Allen
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flightsimstudio
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Posted: May-30-2004 at 4:13pm |
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Actually it can be done, all you have to do is select the old FS2000 road textures and I think choose the right type of 'road' underlaying the texture...
PM me if you want I might be able to help... |
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advela
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Joined: June-08-2004 Location: United States Points: 2 |
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Posted: June-09-2004 at 1:44pm |
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What altitude range (AGL) is USA Roads best viewed at?
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jwenting
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Posted: June-09-2004 at 2:39pm |
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It would of course be illegal to include the (copyrighted) FS2000 textures...
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akriesman
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Posted: June-09-2004 at 5:58pm |
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It's really a matter of preference I think. You can follow the roads at as little as a few hundred feet AGL (although they won't be crisp). The roads were created the same way that Microsoft created it's roads. The use of the road textures have been improved. And of course, there is probably hundreds of times more roads than the default roads (if not thousands). If the default roads look blurry at a given altitude, then the USA Roads will probably look blurry at the same altitude. Roads can only be drawn one way effectively in FS2004 (using VTP2 commands). This really limits the creativity of the developers. On the other hand, if Microsoft provided a way to make more detailed roads, I seriously doubt we could have every road in the USA running without a visible frame rate hit on most machines. As most people probably already realize, the roads have more of a functional effect than eye-candy. That is not to say that they don't improve the sim visually. I am spoiled now, and would not consider flying without them. |
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Allen
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zfehr
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Posted: June-09-2004 at 8:35pm |
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That posting above regarding being able to make the moving lights that were available in FS2000 really caught my eye. If it is possible please look into adding this feature. Zane |
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nwabri
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Posted: June-09-2004 at 9:14pm |
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As stated the developers probably will not be able to do so for this type of release....you may want to check on how to import your old FS2000 road textures to FS2004. Thats going to be the only way to do so.
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akriesman
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Posted: June-10-2004 at 8:20pm |
Zane, While it is technically possible to add support for moving FS2000 style lights, there are reported issues with slowdowns, stability, and lights that float in the air with enhanced terrain. The main problem is that the animation really taxes the system and has been reported to be somewhat unstable in FS2002 and FS2004. If the animated roads taxed the hardware with the current roads (as few as there are), they would kill the hardware with USA Roads (which probably has hundreds of times more roads). I guess the reasons above led Microsoft to take the moving lights out of the product. |
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Allen
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zfehr
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Posted: June-10-2004 at 9:45pm |
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Thank you Allen, Makes perfect sense. I would rather have more roads in the proper places than moving lights anyway. In FlyII I used Terrascene to generate scenery for the entire western US although much of the land information came from government files that were up to 20 years old. The screenshots for this product look even better than the Terrascene stuff and that is impressive in its own right. Zane |
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akriesman
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Posted: June-10-2004 at 11:00pm |
Terrasacene images were typically a lower resolution in FlyII than the landclass textures in FS2004. They were also based on dated data (dated, but freely available). On the other hand, the Terrascenery images allowed for more accurate landclass definitions, because FS2004 landclass is only accurate down to 1200 x 1200 meter squares. Also, since the roads were drawn into the Terrascenery images, you could be more creative with shadowing, etc. The roads in FS2004 are vector graphic images (draw on top of the background). Terrascenery and Photographic terrain can produce some impressive landscapes, but at the cost of disk space and distribution problems. The good thing about USA Roads is that all the roads in the continental USA can be distributed in one 330mb download. Probably more information than you really wanted to know :)
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Allen
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zfehr
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Posted: June-11-2004 at 5:53pm |
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Hello Allen, Those little details do interest me. My Terrascene files take up almost 30GB on my hard drive, very happy to be able to fit your file on ONE disk! Looking very forward to its release, was hoping it would be out before this weekend... along with everyone else reading this forum. Zane |
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akriesman
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Posted: June-11-2004 at 6:25pm |
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We thought we might make it this weekend. But, we are tweaking the night textures just a bit more.
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Allen
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advela wrote: