Ground shadows and traffic

[BernhardS]

One question regarding ground shadows: the shadows of buildings, cars, containers are painted onto the ground texture, which looks very good. But jetways show no shadow, so one has the feeling, as if they hang in the air. That looks a bit strange.
Car traffic ist not so smooth, its more like stuttering. Oliver Pabst made some terrific car traffic in GermanAirports EDDV and EDDF. Wouldn't it be possible here too?
Many objects pop-up really late. I would prefer an earlier pop-up. Perhaps one can change that a bit.
I really love this scenery, it's a much needed airport and you designed it in a very professionel and outstanding manner! Thanks very much.

Bernhard Scharbert

[virtuali]

One question regarding ground shadows: the shadows of buildings, cars, containers are painted onto the ground texture, which looks very good. But jetways show no shadow, so one has the feeling, as if they hang in the air. That looks a bit strange.

That's the issue. The nice hand-painted shadows in the background, don't really match the realtime shadows generated by FS with the too sharp outlines.

We might have painted shadows on ground for jetways as well but, since very soon we'll have an AES version with animated jetways, it would look even stranger to have a jetway that moves, leaving its shadow behind.

The other alternative would have been using FS default shadows for everything, losing the nice and smooth hand-painted shadows, and losing quite a bit of fps as well, since realtime shadows does have a cost.

We think that this (nice shadows everywere, no shadows for jetways) is the best possible compromise between looks, performances and future AES compatibility.

Car traffic ist not so smooth, its more like stuttering. Oliver Pabst made some terrific car traffic in GermanAirports EDDV and EDDF. Wouldn't it be possible here too?

That's an FS9 known issue with large animations that cover lots of area, that they have overcomed using their own module. We are doing it for FSX, and even better, because there we use the ground AI engine, so ground traffic in FSX is really smooth, and behave* properly, cars do not crash into AI but stops and wait, etc...

Many objects pop-up really late. I would prefer an earlier pop-up. Perhaps one can change that a bit.

Creating scenery is always a compromise between visual quality and performance. Since the models were developed for FSX, the LOD settings were choosen very aggresively, to get the best possible performance in FSX. Even if we could afford a little bit more slack in FS9, that would have meant rebuilding all the models for FS9, and having to mantain two different versions of the source files.

At least, because of such extreme optimization, we have what is probably the faster FS9 scenery around.

[BernhardS]

We might have painted shadows on ground for jetways as well but, since very soon we'll have an AES version with animated jetways, it would look even stranger to have a jetway that moves, leaving its shadow behind.

Agree we all your arguments, that is correct. But also with AES we have just 1 single moving jetway (the player one), but 30 of them, which stand still. So these 30 look better with this shadows than that single one, which moves only, when I'm at the jetway.

Bernhard Scharbert

[OPabst]

We might have painted shadows on ground for jetways as well but, since very soon we'll have an AES version with animated jetways, it would look even stranger to have a jetway that moves, leaving its shadow behind.

Agree we all your arguments, that is correct. But also with AES we have just 1 single moving jetway (the player one), but 30 of them, which stand still. So these 30 look better with this shadows than that single one, which moves only, when I'm at the jetway.

Bernhard Scharbert

Hi Bernhard,

Why did you have only 1 single Jetway with AES? In AES every Jetway is usable and animated by AES, not only one.
Btw, the shadows will be generated by AES (for all Jetways), when you switch it on in FS Display config.

Releated to the Groundtraffic: For GAP the traffic is done with the FS9 Dynamic Scenery, which is not anymore available for FSX. So now, this technic is not the best solution for sceneries, developed for both sims.
The FS Animation System is not optimized for long path traffic, so sometimes they looks not so good, but that's more a limitation of the FS System.
But one point all developers make wrong: When the define the "pivot" (turnpoint) of the cars and trucks, they use the center of the object instead the rear wheel axis. So when the car is driving a corner, it looks strange. Maybe this could be changed by moving the center to the rear wheels, then it looks much better.

brgds
Oliver Pabst

[BernhardS]

Thanks Oliver,
but you misunderstood me. I wanted to say, that there is only 1 single moving jetway at the same time which is moving. When I use my jetway all others jetways (used by AI) dont't move and coz of that, the painted shadows would be on the right place.
But you said that your jetways use the fs-shadow...........that's what I want and so my question is answered  .
Concerning your FS9 ground traffic in GAP: it's still perfect and I like it as much as I like your AES which I use in many airports. Still hoping for an AES version of Lago's LIRF  .
Bernhard Scharbert

[OPabst]

Thanks Oliver,
but you misunderstood me. I wanted to say, that there is only 1 single moving jetway at the same time which is moving. When I use my jetway all others jetways (used by AI) dont't move and coz of that, the painted shadows would be on the right place.

Ok,

sorry, I see this point, that's true, AES don't animate it for AI Traffic. That's maybe the showstopper for older Cloud9 sceneries, because when they use there own module to place/display this jetways, I am not able to remove them without changing the original modules. I will take a look to that.

brgds
Oliver Pabst