A very small part of...

[WhisperJet]

... at the end of the Russell Fjord where my base in FS9 used to be.

Oh - will you not be returning to FS9 again...?
I always enjoyed reading the colourful reports from McLeland Field...

Cheers,

Nick

[petermcleland]

... at the end of the Russell Fjord where my base in FS9 used to be.

Oh - will you not be returning to FS9 again...?
I always enjoyed reading the colourful reports from McLeland Field...

No Nick,

I won't desert McLeland Field, but I will keep and use FLIGHT as well...At the moment I am touring Alaska with the intention of landing at every airfield. I'm flying to the East at the moment and have only done five but I am touring VFR with a map in my Icon and I am enjoying the scenery by flying the routes at only a few hundred feet. I intend to take my time in this exploring, hence my climbing walk yesterday

Dave,

I don't think the water moves in FSX as it does in FLIGHT...This makes it very different but you need to be close to see it. I doubt whether it would be discernible at airliner heights.

[Garry Russell]

Truth is...and I'm speaking generally here, a lot of improvement in later sim versions and indeed add ons are to do with animation and how that actually work

So in reality it is difficult to show the real advantage in a series of stills. Perhaps the most obvious example is prop animation when a beautifully realistically rendered shimmering disk with the light flicking off the blade looks an unrealistic plain almost invisible disc in a screen shot.

Trying to show the improvements in a series of stills is impossible.

Water, it seems, is the most difficult to get right or at least it has seemed realistc water has been hard to come by, but I can imaging all the true behaviour of water would take the processing power of NASA to behave as it should so it's only ever going to go so far before folks just don't have the resources to run it.

[speedbird591]

Trying to show the improvements in a series of stills is impossible.

I think you've hit the nail on the head there, Garry. If Peter is telling me that what he is seeing is the closest representation of realistic water he's seen in any sim, then nobody is going to convince me that it isn't. With all his experience of flying, simming and his thorough knowledge and understanding of both coupled with the fact that he lives by the sea, I'm not sure that anybody else amongst is as well qualified to offer an opinion!

You tell 'em, Peter!

Ian

[DaveB]

That's me told

Believe it or not, having spent some time living both on and round it.. a consequence of being in the Navy I guess, I have a rough idea of what the sea should look like too though my experience is at sea level, not flying high above it

Having just revisited FSX for the first time since testing DG's V4 Rapide, I can confirm that the water isn't as good as I'd remembered it.. nowhere near in fact It still looks good on long shots with the sun shining off it. Here's a shot that doesn't show that at all



While FSX water isn't as good as I'd remembered it to be, the water in Flight, while different, is.. from those shots, no more realistic. I usually run FSX water at 'low 2'. I cranked it up to max and saw a hit of around 20fps It didn't really look that much better either so it's back at 'low 2' again
ATB
DaveB

[speedbird591]

That's me told

Believe it or not, having spent some time living both on and round it.. a consequence of being in the Navy I guess, I have a rough idea of what the sea should look like too though my experience is at sea level, not flying high above

Oh, yes, I'd forgotten about you jolly jack tars

I don't know who to believe, now. I don't know anything about water, myself - the only thing I do know about is mud. I think mud simulation is a few years off so I'll shut up until then

Ian

[Garry Russell]

I've spent my life surrounded by it and can see it now...well I could if It wasn't raining and I was in the other side of the house, but I do see it most days

It can look so different in so many conditions.

The thing I find about FS and this does show in the pics is it doesn't reflect the sky colour

The sea can be silver or almost white, dark blue, grey, grey blue, light blue green, depending what's above and what's below....anything you can imagine really it can be all those colours.

In FS it tends to be the same no matter what as it is doing the best with a few limited stock textures.

[DaveB]

I think that sums it up mate You either get one end of the scale or the other.. not the subtle bits that are present most of the time. Like reflections on aircraft. Make it rain and completely overcast and you'll still see a reflection of where the sun would be on the aircraft. It aint bad for what we've paid for it but it aint real

At the end of the day, if you're happy with what you see (given it's limitations).. it doesn't really matter

ATB
DaveB

[Garry Russell]

I think the main thing with FS it tagging the brain and evoking memories.

If you revisit a type or a place from the past in FS, the old brain fill in all the details, you memories burst forth and you see through the FS visuals to your happy place.

So someone who flew in Alaska will enjoy the show, where as someone who has lived all their life in Western Australia might not see it in quite the same way but enjoy bush and perhaps desert flying that the Alaskan just won't get.

My local, technically, is poorly represented in FS.9, but there are enough elements there to bring it all back and return me to the times where memories had started to fade, but with the visuals and sounds in FS it all comes back, bright and clear.

We debate whether FS is a game or a sim and it's probably neither and yet both.

But to many of us it is really an experience and you just can't take a screenshot of that

[petermcleland]

Your point is taken Garry about screenshots not being really adequate to show the movement of the sea...Here is a video which most people will not have the patience to watch, but the very last part where I throttle back and pull up and turn right to land on the water, shows the movement of the water very clearly as I'm in that turn and again as I have stopped and shut down the engine and opened the canopy. Those last parts of the video show what I am trying to convey when I talk about the water in FLIGHT.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2SrSnTTup60


BTW. I too have some experience of observing the sea at close quarters, have crewed yachts on two Atlantic crossings and a Pacific crossing from the Panama Canal to Tahiti...I have also taken my own yacht to the Horta in the Azores and back