Author Topic: Scenery design - how to control an object's visibility distance?  (Read 9612 times)

ryapad

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Re: Scenery design - how to control an object's visibility distance?
« Reply #15 on: February 06, 2017, 09:35:34 PM »
I was just throwing the object drawing out there to help a little. Your Alaska location sounds like an interesting project. You might not need to make it that detailed if the approach is that challenging! Spend to much time concentrating on land than looking around at the scenery. 

The airplane is actually a Cessna 120. (Very nice one too) The window was an option from the factory, not just specific to 140's. Apparently you could start with a 120 and it would be the equivalent of 140 if you checked all of the boxes. It also has C85 with a C90 crankshaft giving it 100 HP. It's my Dad's friends (Burke Mees.) My Dad has a Maule, but that's apparently too much to handle for me, so I fly with Burke every once in a while. That little 120 is the squirreliest airplane in existence. One second it pointing on one side of the runway and then it jumps over pointing to the other side. That's just on gravel. Concretes even worse.
                                                 Ryan
             
Eagles may soar, but weasels never get sucked into jet engines.

Stearmandriver

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Re: Scenery design - how to control an object's visibility distance?
« Reply #16 on: February 07, 2017, 07:40:40 AM »
Ah OK, yeah the window threw me.   I've never been in a 120, but flew a few 140s back when I was flight instructing full time.   Took one guy through his whole private in one, did a few flight reviews and proficiency training in the others.   Sweet flying plane.   Sure it can be a little squirrelly but hey, it's a tail dragger, and at least you have some forward visibility.   There's worse.  Wait til you get in a J3 the first time, you'll think there's something wrong with it ;-).  The Maule is an absolute blast but yeah, starting with the 120 is smart.  Learning in those planes, you're going to be so much better off than most people these days.   (And geez, I'm only 41... I feel pretty young to say something that makes me sound that old! )

scotth6

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Re: Scenery design - how to control an object's visibility distance?
« Reply #17 on: July 23, 2017, 09:21:25 AM »
Hi,

I am late to the party, but I was just searching for a related issue, similar to this one regarding small objects popping in to existence, but slightly different.  The objects I am having an issue with are fairly large.

Anyway, I thought I would just post something I learned a while back about modelling small objects such as cones or markers.  The reason FSX won't draw an object until you are a certain distance from it is due to it needing to be a minimum of 1 pixel with default settings.  One way to trick FSX in to drawing smaller objects is to make an object such as a normal sized cone, but then include a larger box beneath the cone, and attach it with a small column or similar.  When you place the object, you just adjust the elevation so the larger block is buried and can not be seen, and the cone appears to be sitting on the ground as normal.  This way, FSX is fooled in to drawing the cone from further out, because it sees the model as larger than 1 pixel sooner.


ualani

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Re: Scenery design - how to control an object's visibility distance?
« Reply #18 on: July 23, 2017, 06:22:36 PM »
That is a really GREAT idea and explanation of the issue. Thanks for that info (not that I'll remember it in the future when I need it.)  :)
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