I'll be over the white cliffs of dover

[napacon]

FOR MANY YEARS I THOUGHT THAT ONE OF THE GREAT AIR SEA LANDMARKS <RICH IN HISTORY AN IMPORTANT PART OF WW2 WOULD BE REPRESENTED WITH REALISM.. CONTEMPLATING OUR WAR BIRDS!BUT AS FAR AS I KNOW,OTHER THAN SOME WHITE RIBBONS?? I NEVER LOCATED A GOOD ONE...BEGS THE QUESTION?? ARE THERE ANY GOOD WHITE DOVER CLIFFS OUT THERE???THNX


http://i1126.photobucket.com/albums/l609/beana51/DSC00133_zpsew9vbxdz.jpg (http://s1126.photobucket.com/user/beana51/media/DSC00133_zpsew9vbxdz.jpg.html)

[spatialpro]

I never finished this:

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php/24620-Can-someone-make-a-scenery-for-Dover-Cliffs

[DaveB]

Blimey.. that was 2009 so you've had long enough Andy:biggrin-new:

The white cliffs are almost non-existent with the default mesh and poor with GenX. Flightsim doesn't do sharp cut-offs very well.. unless they're in parts of scenery where they shouldn't be!:dizzy:
ATB
DaveB:)

[Ganter]

ORBX have a stab at it in England Region_EU - but I think Orbx would be the first to admit - and as Dave says, with the inherent problem with FSX and vertical depiction - they don't do cliffs awfully well.

https://s1.postimg.org/ou0c2altr/whitecliffs1.jpg (https://postimg.org/image/xp16ctam3/)

The port of Dover is well done and the old Radar station is still up on the hill above Dover castle.
https://s8.postimg.org/rp62mgonp/whitecliff2.jpg (https://postimg.org/image/vljeig9n5/)

[Ganter]

FOR MANY YEARS I THOUGHT THAT ONE OF THE GREAT AIR SEA LANDMARKS <RICH IN HISTORY AN IMPORTANT PART OF WW2 WOULD BE REPRESENTED WITH REALISM.. CONTEMPLATING OUR WAR BIRDS!BUT AS FAR AS I KNOW,OTHER THAN SOME WHITE RIBBONS?? I NEVER LOCATED A GOOD ONE...BEGS THE QUESTION?? ARE THERE ANY GOOD WHITE DOVER CLIFFS OUT THERE???THNX


http://i1126.photobucket.com/albums/l609/beana51/DSC00133_zpsew9vbxdz.jpg (http://s1126.photobucket.com/user/beana51/media/DSC00133_zpsew9vbxdz.jpg.html)

Mind you- looking at your pic and Orbx - they haven't done a bad job on the mesh.
Those pesky Orbx trees still springing up in places they shouldn't.

https://s29.postimg.org/b7dwc2x3r/whitecliff3.jpg (https://postimg.org/image/lhgbbbmz7/)

[DaveB]

No.. much as it pains me to say it, the ORBX version is much better than GenX. You can actually tell it's the White Cliffs for one so good on 'em for that:encouragement: Mucho disappointed that Horizon couldn't have done better:(

ATB
DaveB:)

[Dimus]

Il-2 CLOD has one of the best renditions imho:

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii181/VDimus/VDimus130/Launcher%202016-12-06%2023-52-49_zpseg7ci2rt.jpg~original (http://s264.photobucket.com/user/VDimus/media/VDimus130/Launcher%202016-12-06%2023-52-49_zpseg7ci2rt.jpg.html)

The only way this can be shown nicely in FSX is to use 3d objects, much like Frank Dainese has done for Devil's Tower, Yosemite Park and others.

[IanP]

There are two problems with recreating the white cliffs in the MSFS engine, both to do with performance and the wonderful initialism "LOD".

In order to keep your sim running at a reasonable rate, the detail of the terrain drops off very quickly, replacing huge sharp textures with small stretched and blurred ones and tightly packed mesh points with much more widely spaced ones. The net result is that what should be a clearly defined vertical cliff very quickly becomes a blurred and sloped bank. There's only one way around, it, which is the create a 3d model of the cliffs, keeping the face vertical at all levels of detail and then blending it into the mesh scenery. This has been done before - I don't know whether anyone here remembers the fantastic Normandy coastal sceneries available for FS9, but they were done brilliantly. No-one seems to want to take on Dover, though, in the current gen civilian simulators. :(

Ian P.

[Ganter]

There are two problems with recreating the white cliffs in the MSFS engine, both to do with performance and the wonderful initialism "LOD".

In order to keep your sim running at a reasonable rate, the detail of the terrain drops off very quickly, replacing huge sharp textures with small stretched and blurred ones and tightly packed mesh points with much more widely spaced ones. The net result is that what should be a clearly defined vertical cliff very quickly becomes a blurred and sloped bank. There's only one way around, it, which is the create a 3d model of the cliffs, keeping the face vertical at all levels of detail and then blending it into the mesh scenery. This has been done before - I don't know whether anyone here remembers the fantastic Normandy coastal sceneries available for FS9, but they were done brilliantly. No-one seems to want to take on Dover, though, in the current gen civilian simulators. :(

Ian P.


True. True.

Orbx does that quite a bit. e.g; The Needles - Isle-of-wight

https://s23.postimg.org/uo2gj0oqj/needles1.jpg (https://postimg.org/image/e0aygityv/)

I think to do it for the white cliffs would be an enormous 3D model and bang would go your frames too, as well as flickering textures and tearing, etc - all those lovely things we expect from dear old FSX.

[spatialpro]

I managed to resurrect my old screenshots from almost 8 years ago!

The first shows it worked pretty well on shallower slopes:

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4222/34009456203_41ccf1dc62_c.jpg

At-or-near-vertical slopes weren't so hot though:

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4167/34009450463_8463d5922e_c.jpg

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4228/34779029006_e6e9662b88_c.jpg

I never did do the water blend!

I resolved that instead of 2.5D terrain true 3D mesh was the best option, as used at the time by Aerosoft and their Lord Howe Island:

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4250/34432629230_09c6f7874f_c.jpg

That was too big a deal for me at the time, plus I moved first to Orbx England and then P3D, so this project was quickly got forgotten.

To make a proper 3D White Cliffs of Dover wouldn't be a big deal now, given the tech I have to hand... in fact it'd be relatively easy... the only trouble is I would need to sail (or fly low) up-and-down the lengths of the cliffs to capture the data. I certainly have the inclination, and I could make the time, but I don't have the means to do this! SO, if anyone owns a boat or plane (or know others who do) who would do the trip for free I'd be up for making this project live again...!

[DaveB]

One can only imagine the frame hit on something built like that!! I have (had) problems flying near St.Michaels Mount which is a 3D object which comes with GenXver2 onward. Dave Garwood had a look at it for me and was shocked to find it was well in excess of 50,000 poly's and had thousands (literally) of platforms:-O No wonder my FR dropped to 2fps if I got too close!! It wouldn't let go either. I've since dragged it kicking and screaming through MCX.. binned the horrible flickering trees and thousands of platforms and can now fly close to it without my pc going into cardiac arrest. The White Cliffs would be considerably bigger.

EDIT: You posted while I was typing Andy. That doesn't look half bad at all.. superior in every way to GenX. SWMBO is currently flying from Naples to Gatwick. I'll send her a text to get the pilot to fly up and down the cliffs a few times so she can take phots:biggrin-new:

ATB
DaveB:)

[spatialpro]

FWIW, a similar fate befell my Yosemite NP...

This is Half Dome with 1m terrain:

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4190/33976186094_1164deaa79_o.jpg

Back then I didn't have the means to make a proper 3D Half Dome and again the project fell by the wayside, then Orbx did the job properly:

http://i60.tinypic.com/2rohq53.jpg

[spatialpro]

One can only imagine the frame hit on something built like that!! I have (had) problems flying near St.Michaels Mount which is a 3D object which comes with GenXver2 onward. Dave Garwood had a look at it for me and was shocked to find it was well in excess of 50,000 poly's and had thousands (literally) of platforms:-O No wonder my FR dropped to 2fps if I got too close!!

Hmmm, it needn't be like that! A well designed model, with properly decimated mesh and proper LOD, would hardly make an impact. I wouldn't fear a 3D White Cliffs of Dover because of that. Given the opportunity I'd like to prove it so (and that goes for St Michaels Mount too)!

One way of doing it is by UAS ("drones" to the ill informed!). I'm a CAA qualified commercial UAS pilot, but flying the White Cliffs would take AGES as it is so big/long it would eat up battery life and require many flights. There are also the legal aspects.

Andy

[DaveB]

No.. the SMM model with GenX v2 was in no way optimised. It also has a ground (read sea) tile surrounding it which is also taking up valuable resources. After recompiling it all in MCX, some adjustment was needed including lowering it some 28ft so you don't get to see the sea tile and the attached objects now sit on the FSX sea/sea mask. I've never seen such a small model be so huge!! Nice as it is/was.. it would have been better had the author optimised it. Still looks good without the trees (many other 3D objects from the GenX pack have these same, horrible, shimmering trees) and is now reasonably frame hit free;)

ATB
DaveB:)