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#1
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Bridges in FS2004
Have Microsoft not been keeping up on their Bridge Licensing Fees or
something? I took delivery of FS2004 this morning (thanks Play!) and in general the improvements are very impressive, especially in the visuals (Manhattan looks absolutely gorgeous). However on visiting two of my favourite flying haunts, the North West of England and Tokyo Bay, I'm compelled to ask: what the hell has happened to the bridges? The Runcorn-Widnes bridge, a steel arch type, had been rendered in its full glory (graphics of the time permitting) in every release of MSFS back to at least '98 and possibly further. In FS2004 it's been turned into a generic flat thing bearing no resemblance to its real-world counterpart. And as for Tokyo, what have they done with the Rainbow Bridge? Aside from the loop at one end the structure in FS2004 looks nothing like it. I just can't understand this. It's been present and correct (again, graphics allowing) for several versions of MSFS so why drop the model for something that looks like a reject from a Meccano competition? What's really ironic is that the tweaks to Tokyo's graphics in general are magnificent in FS2004; a vast improvement over those in FS2002. I would go so far as to say they're about the best you're going to get with autogen scenery, but that bridge sticks out like a sore thumb and ruins the whole effect. What bothers me is that of the mere half dozen or so places I tried with the new version, two have shown these glaring bridge problems. I find it difficult to believe that in one session I just happened to pick the only two locations where this has been done. There must be more, surely? I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has noticed or notices any more butchered bridges in FS2004, famous or otherwise. -- Kev __________________________________________________ ________________________ "Apply artificial respiration until the patient is dead." From a school First Aid examination |
#2
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Kevin,
I was just flying out of Key West NAS in FS2004, and noticed that while the highway that runs along the Florida keys is there, in some places the highway looks like it dips down into the water! In those places it looks as if the bridge that supports the highway has collapsed. Very strange indeed. Randy L. "Kevin Reilly" wrote in message ... Have Microsoft not been keeping up on their Bridge Licensing Fees or something? I took delivery of FS2004 this morning (thanks Play!) and in general the improvements are very impressive, especially in the visuals (Manhattan looks absolutely gorgeous). However on visiting two of my favourite flying haunts, the North West of England and Tokyo Bay, I'm compelled to ask: what the hell has happened to the bridges? The Runcorn-Widnes bridge, a steel arch type, had been rendered in its full glory (graphics of the time permitting) in every release of MSFS back to at least '98 and possibly further. In FS2004 it's been turned into a generic flat thing bearing no resemblance to its real-world counterpart. And as for Tokyo, what have they done with the Rainbow Bridge? Aside from the loop at one end the structure in FS2004 looks nothing like it. I just can't understand this. It's been present and correct (again, graphics allowing) for several versions of MSFS so why drop the model for something that looks like a reject from a Meccano competition? What's really ironic is that the tweaks to Tokyo's graphics in general are magnificent in FS2004; a vast improvement over those in FS2002. I would go so far as to say they're about the best you're going to get with autogen scenery, but that bridge sticks out like a sore thumb and ruins the whole effect. What bothers me is that of the mere half dozen or so places I tried with the new version, two have shown these glaring bridge problems. I find it difficult to believe that in one session I just happened to pick the only two locations where this has been done. There must be more, surely? I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has noticed or notices any more butchered bridges in FS2004, famous or otherwise. -- Kev __________________________________________________ ________________________ "Apply artificial respiration until the patient is dead." From a school First Aid examination |
#3
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In article ,
Kevin Reilly wrote: What bothers me is that of the mere half dozen or so places I tried with the new version, two have shown these glaring bridge problems. I find it difficult to believe that in one session I just happened to pick the only two locations where this has been done. There must be more, surely? I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has noticed or notices any more butchered bridges in FS2004, famous or otherwise. Ha that's nothing, the Coronado Bridge in San Diego is not there at all! I went to a few places I know, and here is what I found. Th coastlines are generally better defined. The Coronado Bridge in San Diego is missing, but the Coronado hote, San diego Convention Center, Marriott Marina Hotel and so on are all there. The surroundings of the Los Angeles Airport are better defined that in FS2002, for example the cloverleaf for 405 near the airport is there, as well as the road through the airport to Marina Del Rey. San Francisco looks OK, Stanford University is still not there, but the bridges are.In Montreal, the Jacques Cartier Bridge is fully defined, the other bridges look generic. Mount Royal looks like a small hill, but the Oratory is still on the top, and the Olympic Stadium is there. The Quebec City bridges are there as generic flat bridges, but the bend in the Chaudiere River where it enters the St laurence is in the wrong place. There is no road to the airport, presumably people are supposed to get there by skidoo or dog sled... I have only spent a short time with the simulation so far, and I like the new features like the movng map display. I haven't had time to play much with the ATC much, but that is supposed to be improved as well; the command to show a line to the parking lot has been removed because now there are signs along the ways like in real airports, but I wish they still had it. The game is plenty smooth on my 2 gHz system with Radeon 8500 at 1028 resolution and everything pretty much near the max. The clouds look great, I haven't tried the rain yet, which is supposed to be improved. Henri |
#4
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Of course, I meant to say
"FS2002 had none" Walt Bertram wrote: FS98 and FS2000 had one or more patches. FS2004 had none. Icebound wrote: snip MS has not been known to patch their flight sim versions. |
#5
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Henri,
You are in luck! The progressive taxi (magenta) line can be accessed through the ATC dialog box after contacting ground control. After the taxi instructions are received, an option appears for the progressive taxi, hit the 1 key and the line appears. Good Flying! "henri Arsenault" wrote in message ... In article , Kevin Reilly wrote: What bothers me is that of the mere half dozen or so places I tried with the new version, two have shown these glaring bridge problems. I find it difficult to believe that in one session I just happened to pick the only two locations where this has been done. There must be more, surely? I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has noticed or notices any more butchered bridges in FS2004, famous or otherwise. Ha that's nothing, the Coronado Bridge in San Diego is not there at all! I went to a few places I know, and here is what I found. Th coastlines are generally better defined. The Coronado Bridge in San Diego is missing, but the Coronado hote, San diego Convention Center, Marriott Marina Hotel and so on are all there. The surroundings of the Los Angeles Airport are better defined that in FS2002, for example the cloverleaf for 405 near the airport is there, as well as the road through the airport to Marina Del Rey. San Francisco looks OK, Stanford University is still not there, but the bridges are.In Montreal, the Jacques Cartier Bridge is fully defined, the other bridges look generic. Mount Royal looks like a small hill, but the Oratory is still on the top, and the Olympic Stadium is there. The Quebec City bridges are there as generic flat bridges, but the bend in the Chaudiere River where it enters the St laurence is in the wrong place. There is no road to the airport, presumably people are supposed to get there by skidoo or dog sled... I have only spent a short time with the simulation so far, and I like the new features like the movng map display. I haven't had time to play much with the ATC much, but that is supposed to be improved as well; the command to show a line to the parking lot has been removed because now there are signs along the ways like in real airports, but I wish they still had it. The game is plenty smooth on my 2 gHz system with Radeon 8500 at 1028 resolution and everything pretty much near the max. The clouds look great, I haven't tried the rain yet, which is supposed to be improved. Henri |
#6
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On Wed, 30 Jul 2003 henri Arsenault wrote:
Ha that's nothing, the Coronado Bridge in San Diego is not there at all! I've seen this for myself, now. It's not the only one, either. Thanks to Henri and all who responded on this point. I hadn't been keeping tabs on the FS web-based forums so I had no idea this was such a well-documented problem. I've now looked at a few forums and websites and it really does seem to be fairly major. What's curious is that now I've come to examine the Tokyo bridge issue in detail, and looked at the FS2004 model more closely, the actual TOPOLOGY of the new model is really OK. In fact it's arguably closer to the real thing thanks to the increased polygon count. However the GEOMETRY of it is way off. If this really is a pseudo-autogen model it looks almost to my untrained eye as though the 'anchor points' (or whatever the technical term is) have been put in slightly the wrong place. I've uploaded some comparison photos to the gallery at the following website http://idle.thehueys.com/bridges/Missing-Bridges-2004 and it seems to me that if the bridge towers were placed closer to the bay coastlines like their real-world counterparts all of the other parts of the structure would 'stretch' into place. It would look almost spot on. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable in FS scenery construction could take a look and let me know if I'm barking up the wrong tree on this issue. What interests me further is that we have dozens of bridges reported missing in action, yet the first page of the gallery link above shows, among other things, an EXTRA bridge where there shouldn't be one. And it's a fairly complex model as well, almost as though it's been specifically designed to go somewhere and ended up somewhere else. Does anyone recognise it, and perhaps know where it should be in the real world? You can perhaps see where I'm headed with this. We have at least one bridge that's in the right place but the wrong geometry. We have several reported cases of bridges that aren't where they should be, and at least one that is where it shouldn't be. All of which suggests to me that many of the bridge problems could well be down to simple *typos* in the scenery database. Even issues with bridges in the right place but of the wrong type could be explained by this, if generic bridge types are defined by a flag pointing to a generic model and the flag is wrong. Could this be the case, or am I putting 2 and 2 together and getting 6? As I said, I know nothing of FS scenery design or implementation. If I'm way off target, please let me know. Because the way I see it, if these are simple database errors rather than complex modelling errors, they should be relatively straightforward to fix. Certainly more straightforward than defining exclude files and designing models from scratch which is, I believe, the way scenery problems are normally tackled. -- Kev __________________________________________________ ________________________ "If you won't tell me who told you that, it's not worth the paper it's written on." Malcolm Rifkind |
#7
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Kevin Reilly wrote in message ...
You can perhaps see where I'm headed with this. We have at least one bridge that's in the right place but the wrong geometry. We have several reported cases of bridges that aren't where they should be, and at least one that is where it shouldn't be. All of which suggests to me that many of the bridge problems could well be down to simple *typos* in the scenery database. Even issues with bridges in the right place but of the wrong type could be explained by this, if generic bridge types are defined by a flag pointing to a generic model and the flag is wrong. Could this be the case, or am I putting 2 and 2 together and getting 6? As I said, I know nothing of FS scenery design or implementation. If I'm way off target, please let me know. I strongly believe you are right. Why? Because of what I have found with regards to the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway near New Orleans. The Causeway, at 24 miles long, is the longest bridge in the world - but it doesn't show up over the waters of Lake Pontchartrain in FS2004. Yet, the bridge *does* show up, over *land*, moved exactly 24 miles north of where it should be! It's as if it hop-scotched over itself. Is this a lat/long problem? Or is it a bit more complex? If it's some sort of toggle in the code or database, it would explain why the bridge is there, but not where it should be. So I would tend to agree with you on your conjecture. Krunch |
#8
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Flight Sim Friends,
Another area to look at is Tampa/ St.Pete. In "real" life are three bridges from Tampa across Tampa Bay to St.Pete/Clearwater. The bridges vary in length but all are around 5-7 miles long. The first mile or so is over land jutting into the bay. This area is portrayed in FS 2004 but the bridges are no there. Try a flight out of KTPA, use RWY 18R and make a right turn after departure to see what I mean. So what is everyone's guess? Will MS issue a patch for the obvious problem? Also, why is all of the water aqua in color? Does anyone know if the beta version floating around had the bridge problem? I wonder how such an issue escaped MS. Overall, the simulation is GREAT!!! Good Flying! "Captain Krunch" wrote in message om... Kevin Reilly wrote in message ... You can perhaps see where I'm headed with this. We have at least one bridge that's in the right place but the wrong geometry. We have several reported cases of bridges that aren't where they should be, and at least one that is where it shouldn't be. All of which suggests to me that many of the bridge problems could well be down to simple *typos* in the scenery database. Even issues with bridges in the right place but of the wrong type could be explained by this, if generic bridge types are defined by a flag pointing to a generic model and the flag is wrong. Could this be the case, or am I putting 2 and 2 together and getting 6? As I said, I know nothing of FS scenery design or implementation. If I'm way off target, please let me know. I strongly believe you are right. Why? Because of what I have found with regards to the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway near New Orleans. The Causeway, at 24 miles long, is the longest bridge in the world - but it doesn't show up over the waters of Lake Pontchartrain in FS2004. Yet, the bridge *does* show up, over *land*, moved exactly 24 miles north of where it should be! It's as if it hop-scotched over itself. Is this a lat/long problem? Or is it a bit more complex? If it's some sort of toggle in the code or database, it would explain why the bridge is there, but not where it should be. So I would tend to agree with you on your conjecture. Krunch |
#9
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Skyhawk wrote in message ... Flight Sim Friends, Another area to look at is Tampa/ St.Pete. In "real" life are three bridges from Tampa across Tampa Bay to St.Pete/Clearwater. The bridges vary in length but all are around 5-7 miles long. The first mile or so is over land jutting into the bay. This area is portrayed in FS 2004 but the bridges are no there. Try a flight out of KTPA, use RWY 18R and make a right turn after departure to see what I mean. So what is everyone's guess? Will MS issue a patch for the obvious problem? Also, why is all of the water aqua in color? Does anyone know if the beta version floating around had the bridge problem? I wonder how such an issue escaped MS. Overall, the simulation is GREAT!!! Good Flying! in ref to bridges being out of wack in FS2004 could this be a national security type thing? |
#10
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This reminds me of the first time I went to Minsk for a Congress in
1986 under the communist regime. They gave us a map, but almost all of the important buildings were in the wrong place! But the streets were OK. I was told that it was to confuse any potential invaders. so if one wanted to go someplace, one had to ask a knowledgeable person to show one where it was on the map. No wonder the Soviet Union collapsed under its own weight (there are those who think it was because of the Pope, and some who even think it was because of Ronald Reagan; in fact it was because no one there knew whether he was coming or going). maybe Microsoft hired one of those Soviet mapmakers... Henri |
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