England & Wales Photo Scenery for FSX

Theo

"Paul Saunders" <pvs1@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> schreef in bericht
news:Av6dnVcgIqGN5KXaRVnyiwA@pipex.net...
> Theo wrote:
>
>> Is there a Scotland Photo Scenery ?
>
> Unfortunately no. You'd think that in a country as technologically
> advanced as the UK, with such a large population and such excellent maps,
> that there'd be photo scenery of Scotland available by now. I'm baffled as
> to why there isn't. And it's not just the flight sim, it's not available
> at all.
>
> Yet they use aerial photos to make the maps don't they?

I suppose modern mapmaking is mostly done by using satelitepics. Is Scotland
too much north to give a _on top_ view ? They could use the 'old' planepics
instead. Low flying, high res. Or have they sacked the old buggers who used
to work with this 'stone-age system' ?

--
"Beannachd leibh"

Theo
www.theosphotos.fotopic.net

Roger

The message <b6cb6$47389e1e$5357ecf0$10106@cache120.multikabel.net>
from "Theo" <TheoGeenSpam@planet.nl> contains these words:

> > Yet they use aerial photos to make the maps don't they?

> I suppose modern mapmaking is mostly done by using satelitepics. Is
> Scotland
> too much north to give a _on top_ view ? They could use the 'old' planepics
> instead. Low flying, high res. Or have they sacked the old buggers who used
> to work with this 'stone-age system' ?

No doubt Graham will be along in a minute to tell me if I am wrong but I
was under the impression that today's OS maps are still based on the
stereoscopic aerial survey carried out in the 60s and 70s.

--
Roger Chapman
Nearest Marilyn still to be visited - Great Orme.
89 miles as the crow flies,
considerably more as the walker drives.

Bill Grey

In message <QaGdnVCvkaONE6XanZ2dnUVZ8smgnZ2d@pipex.net>, Paul Saunders
<pvs1@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> writes
>
>To be fair though, I'd been getting lazy and unfit anyway, so I can't really
>blame it on the flight sim.

Having seen the Photo scenery and your demo of the flight sim I can
readily see how engrossing flight sim can be.
>
>On the other hand, it can have the opposite effect, it can inspire you to go
>out more often! I've found quite a few locations that have made me think
>"Wow, I'd love to go there!"

I'm sure that with the improved 3D scenery getting to know an area makes
it so much more inviting - or even challenging to get- the viewer out
there.

I've love looking at the samples you'v e posted
--
Bill Grey

Paul Saunders

Theo wrote:

> I suppose modern mapmaking is mostly done by using satelitepics. Is
> Scotland too much north to give a _on top_ view ? They could use the
> 'old' planepics instead. Low flying, high res. Or have they sacked
> the old buggers who used to work with this 'stone-age system' ?

The photo scenery comes from GetMapping's aerial photographic survey of the
UK apparently (which means "planepics" rather than satellite pics). So if
they did the UK, where are the Scotland pics?

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/weblog/

Paul Saunders

Bill Grey wrote:

> Having seen the Photo scenery and your demo of the flight sim I can
> readily see how engrossing flight sim can be.

And you only saw the rubbishy "low res" old version! This new version is 64x
more detailed (i.e. each pixel of the old version now has 64 pixels, an 8x8
pixel grid).

>> On the other hand, it can have the opposite effect, it can inspire
>> you to go out more often! I've found quite a few locations that have
>> made me think "Wow, I'd love to go there!"
>
> I'm sure that with the improved 3D scenery getting to know an area
> makes it so much more inviting - or even challenging to get- the
> viewer out there.

Absolutely. I've even spotted the waterfall at Sgwd Gwladus!

> I've love looking at the samples you've posted

Thanks Bill. I actually chose those to demonstrate the differences between
the two sceneries, not as great screenshots in their own right. I'll have to
put together some samples of how good it can look with interesting weather
and lighting.

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/weblog/

Terry Pinnell

"Paul Saunders" <pvs1@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:

>Terry Pinnell wrote:
>
>> I think both night views and 'active' scenery would be great fun. They
>> were two of the main features that attracted me in the demos.
>
>Did it run okay on your computer?

I meant the video 'demos'.

>> Can you fly to a point in daylight, view the scenery from there (with
>> no plane and no cockpit), and *then* switch to night mode to see what
>> the view looks like at night? Or must you get there by moonlight?
>
>You can change the time of day at any time. That's handy if you park your
>plane (or helicopter) on top of a summit or other viewpoint, then want to
>check what it looks like at different times of day. You can change the
>weather in an instant too.
>
>Also, although you have to start every flight from an airport, you can
>switch to the map screen at any time and move your plane to a different
>location, which is the quick way to get somewhere which is a long way from
>any airports.
>
>Another useful option is that you can change the speed of the simulation, so
>you can increase the speed to turn your microlight into a high speed jet, or
>alternatively, decrease the speed of your jet to savour an interesting bit
>of scenery. Or you can just pause it of course.
>
>I like the spot view best (behind the plane) because when you use the hat
>control you can pan around and look in any direction. One good way of doing
>it is to put the plane on autopilot and forget about the flying completely,
>while you pan around and look at the scenery. Of course, you are limited to
>a single direction if you do that, or to the flight plan if you've created
>one and locked the nav to the GPS.
>
>I'll mention FSDiscover! again. With normal flight planning you are
>restricted to using airports and fixed navigation points, which is fine for
>normal flying but a bit limited for scenic viewing. But with FSDiscover you
>can create flight plans to visit any named point. So with a UK summit list
>loaded (if anyone wants a copy of mine, email me) you can set the plane to
>fly to any peaks you like, and just use the spot view to pan around while
>the plane flies itself.
>
>Paul

Thanks for the follow-up. Particularly like the sound of autopilot ;-)

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Mike..

Following up to "Paul Saunders" <pvs1@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:

>. The Horizon
>scenery looks much better, not pin sharp (you wouldn't expect it to be sharp
>this close to the ground), but a lot more detail can be seen in it.

this is all just a trick to get me to upgrade :-) (Horizon does look
better)
--
Mike
Remove clothing to email

Paul Saunders

Mike.. wrote:

> this is all just a trick to get me to upgrade :-) (Horizon does look
> better)

It's not perfect though, it has its problems.

For example the flat airport problem. That was always annoying, but now it's
even more annoying because the resolution is so much better. Previously the
scenery was just a blur as you were approaching the runway so it didn't
really matter anyway, but now that you can see all that detail down low, the
"plateau" effect is really annoying.

Another thing, the airports aren't aligned properly with the photo scenery.
I know they never were with the old one, but I bought all the aiport disks
for the UK which did align them perfectly. Now I'll have to buy them all
over again, if/when they become available. Apparently there are some
available which have partly corrected the plateau effect, which sounds like
an improvement.

There are some lakes which have that horrible cliff effect on the edges.
This is due to Microsoft's default lakes, it's not Horizon's fault. There
are patches available on the Horizon website to correct this though, but I
haven't downloaded them yet.

Lakes are not made of "real" water yet, but I believe that's due to be
patched too. The real water looks excellent, and the coastline is vastly
improved over the last version. I was flying around Gower this morning and
as I turned the plane to look back toward the sun rising above the horizon,
the reflection of the sunlight across the water looked so realistic I felt
as though I was actually there for a second.

Islands (like worms Head) and other detailed bits of coastline are not
perfect in shape, but at least they're not completely flat like they used to
be.

Finally, there are places where the photo scenery isn't perfectly aligned
with the mesh. This isn't their fault of course, it's due to distortions in
the aerial photography and typically occurs on hills. Fan Hir is
particularly bad, with the top of the cliff stretched over the top of the
ridge. Exactly the same was true with the old version, but it looks worse
now because it's so detailed. Since I'm now flying much lower to enjoy the
detail, any flaws are much more obvious and annoying. But it's still a big
improvement on the whole.

I won't be throwing FS2004 away just yet though. I've got a lot of nice
addons for that, particularly the airports and planes (and the Canary
Islands scenery of course), and it has the advantage that I can now turn
*everything* up to the max and still get frame rates of 60+.

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/weblog/

Paul Saunders

Now that Terry has upped the bar by putting some videos of Memory Map
online, I feel I have to respond to that challenge... :-)

So I've put together a video of the Horizon VFR scenery in Snowdonia. I've
never done anything like this before, but since Terry mentioned a cool
little program called FRAPS, which captures video from computer games, I
decided to try it out.

I was using the trial version so it has a watermark across the top. When I
recorded the video grabs I was just experimenting, so none of the grabs were
planned in advance. Which was a pity, because later, instead of just posting
them as they were, I decided to play around with Windows Movie Maker
(WMM)and create a proper video, with edits, titles and music. If I'd known
that in advance I'd have planned my video grabs better.

Anyway, for what it's worth, here it is:
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/m...1-snowdonia.wmv
It's 39MB, but given that it's 856x480 and lasts just over 5 minutes, I
think that's a pretty good file size (Terry posted one that lasted only 31
seconds which was 30MB).

If anyone is reluctant to download a file that big for any reason, here's a
smaller one:
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/m...donia-small.wmv
It's only 13MB and is 428x240, but the picture and sound quality really
suffer, so I'd recommend downloading the larger one instead if you can.

A few notes about the video.

Firstly, the format is stretched slightly, so the mountains look slightly
flatter than they really are. It's not really noticeable but I thought I'd
mention it. The original video had a ratio of 16:10, but WMM only has output
options of 4:3 or 16:9, so it had to be the latter.

You may notice occasional problems with the scenery not loading fast enough.
For example the scenery is a bit blurred in some places, although I've cut
out the worst bits (you may not really notice in the compressed video) and
occasionally the flight sim "stutters". Both of these are commonly caused by
flying fast planes where the scenery can't load in fast enough to keep up
with the plane. But to be fair it doesn't happen often with my new computer.

In one clip you may notice red names on the scenery. Those are summit names
displayed by FSDiscover! I accidentally left them switched on for one video
grab. You can't read them properly at this video size, but at least it shows
what they look like.

I wanted to show the effects of real weather in these video grabs, so I had
real time weather switched on. Unfortunately (if that's the right word), the
weather just happened to be very clear at the time, so the visibility is
mostly excellent (except at the end when it got a bit hazy) and there are
hardly any clouds. Next time I must fly in more interesting weather!

Finally, I think this video demonstrates one more important point about the
flight sim. It's not just a good way of looking at detailed 3D photo
scenery, it's great fun too! I bet you don't have so much fun looking at
Memory Map! :-)

One more thing. Since this is my first attempt at video editing, I'd be
interested to hear any constructive criticisms from more experienced video
editors (bearing in mind that the video grabs weren't planned in advance,
plus the limitations of WMM).

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/weblog/

Terry Pinnell

"Paul Saunders" <pvs1@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:

>Now that Terry has upped the bar by putting some videos of Memory Map
>online, I feel I have to respond to that challenge... :-)

>So I've put together a video of the Horizon VFR scenery in Snowdonia. I've
>never done anything like this before, but since Terry mentioned a cool
>little program called FRAPS, which captures video from computer games, I
>decided to try it out.

Great news. There don't seem many FRAPs users around in the
groups/forums I use (it's aimed at gamers), so it will be good to have
someone to discuss issues with occasionally.

>I was using the trial version so it has a watermark across the top. When I
>recorded the video grabs I was just experimenting, so none of the grabs were
>planned in advance. Which was a pity, because later, instead of just posting
>them as they were, I decided to play around with Windows Movie Maker
>(WMM)and create a proper video, with edits, titles and music. If I'd known
>that in advance I'd have planned my video grabs better.

>Anyway, for what it's worth, here it is:
>http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/m...1-snowdonia.wmv
>It's 39MB, but given that it's 856x480 and lasts just over 5 minutes, I
>think that's a pretty good file size (Terry posted one that lasted only 31
>seconds which was 30MB).

Excellent, congratulations! Tempered with apologies for possibly
triggering the risk that your video-making will get as time-consuming
and addictive as mine ;-)

I'm glad you went straight to MovieMaker too. I was planning to see
what my Mem-Map MPGs ('MM' won't do now!) looked like as WMVs, and
MovieMaker was one of a couple of progs I intended to try. Of course,
if you want to add titles and a music track as you've done with this
first example, it's the *obvious* choice, at least in the free
category. But I've been trying to minimise those 'OT!' risks ;-)

No challenge, no contest! Although the scenery looks very similar,
it's much better at close range in FSX. And the weather and lighting
adds two more dimensions to play with.

>If anyone is reluctant to download a file that big for any reason, here's a
>smaller one:
>http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/m...donia-small.wmv
>It's only 13MB and is 428x240, but the picture and sound quality really
>suffer, so I'd recommend downloading the larger one instead if you can.

Apart from a miserly 30MB of free space at Pipex DialSpace, I don't
have my own host. Maybe I ought to do something about that.

>A few notes about the video.
>
>Firstly, the format is stretched slightly, so the mountains look slightly
>flatter than they really are. It's not really noticeable but I thought I'd
>mention it. The original video had a ratio of 16:10, but WMM only has output
>options of 4:3 or 16:9, so it had to be the latter.

What size was your input AVI file? What specific output option did you
use? (BTW, it would be helpful to see the brief specs of your PC, and
OS. Are you using Vista?)

You could probably somehow get your 16:10 video in a 16:9 output
frame, i.e. with small side-bars, to avoid that distortion. But most
people seem much more tolerant about aspect ratios than me. I'm
frustrated if my circles become ellipses ;-)

>You may notice occasional problems with the scenery not loading fast enough.
>For example the scenery is a bit blurred in some places, although I've cut
>out the worst bits (you may not really notice in the compressed video) and
>occasionally the flight sim "stutters". Both of these are commonly caused by
>flying fast planes where the scenery can't load in fast enough to keep up
>with the plane. But to be fair it doesn't happen often with my new computer.

Yes, I did notice both of those flaws. Is it easy in FSX to slow it
right down? More important, how easy is it to switch off the plane
altogether? Combining the two would give something closer to the sort
of 'tours' that I like for walk planning/reviewing.

>In one clip you may notice red names on the scenery. Those are summit names
>displayed by FSDiscover! I accidentally left them switched on for one video
>grab. You can't read them properly at this video size, but at least it shows
>what they look like.
>
>I wanted to show the effects of real weather in these video grabs, so I had
>real time weather switched on. Unfortunately (if that's the right word), the
>weather just happened to be very clear at the time, so the visibility is
>mostly excellent (except at the end when it got a bit hazy) and there are
>hardly any clouds. Next time I must fly in more interesting weather!
>
>Finally, I think this video demonstrates one more important point about the
>flight sim. It's not just a good way of looking at detailed 3D photo
>scenery, it's great fun too! I bet you don't have so much fun looking at
>Memory Map! :-)

Arguable - I enjoyed making those video in Mem-Map! But if I could
have FSX and its 120 GB of scenery and weather etc up and running on
this PC tomorrow, and if it could view at any speed, along prescribed
tracks as well as manually, with no plane or cockpit instruments
visible, then for sure Mem-Map and GE would get used far less. If only
because of that darned 24 hour day limitation I keep hitting ;-)

>One more thing. Since this is my first attempt at video editing, I'd be
>interested to hear any constructive criticisms from more experienced video
>editors (bearing in mind that the video grabs weren't planned in advance,
>plus the limitations of WMM).
>
>Paul

Apart from the flaws you already mentioned yourself, nothing
significant comes to mind. Obviously, a larger image would be ideal,
but there's that big trade-off in file size. I'd personally make my
'location' titles stay up a bit longer, and maybe reduce their size a
tad. But as I said above, overall: excellent!

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Theo

"Paul Saunders" <pvs1@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> schreef in bericht
news:eJ6dnRmmhsmlf6LanZ2dnUVZ8q6onZ2d@pipex.net...
> Now that Terry has upped the bar by putting some videos of Memory Map
> online, I feel I have to respond to that challenge... :-)
>
> So I've put together a video of the Horizon VFR scenery in Snowdonia. I've
> never done anything like this before, but since Terry mentioned a cool
> little program called FRAPS, which captures video from computer games, I
> decided to try it out.
>
> I was using the trial version so it has a watermark across the top. When I
> recorded the video grabs I was just experimenting, so none of the grabs
> were planned in advance. Which was a pity, because later, instead of just
> posting them as they were, I decided to play around with Windows Movie
> Maker (WMM)and create a proper video, with edits, titles and music. If I'd
> known that in advance I'd have planned my video grabs better.
>
> Anyway, for what it's worth, here it is:
> http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/m...1-snowdonia.wmv
> It's 39MB, but given that it's 856x480 and lasts just over 5 minutes, I
> think that's a pretty good file size (Terry posted one that lasted only 31
> seconds which was 30MB).

Hi Paul/Terry,

Great stuff, Paul. How much time did you need to put scenery and video
together in total ? Because I'm not familiar with the area in real life the
switches from one scenery to another are a bit difficult to follow for me. I
think that would be different for me with Scottish mountains.
As mentioned before there's no detailed scenery covering Scotland but would
it be possible to use the 'fly-through' in Anquet (with the OS-map as
scenery) and convert it to WMM ?
You used the trial version, how much costs the program itself ?

--
"Beannachd leibh"

Theo
www.theosphotos.fotopic.net

Paul Saunders

Terry Pinnell wrote:

> Great news. There don't seem many FRAPs users around in the
> groups/forums I use (it's aimed at gamers), so it will be good to have
> someone to discuss issues with occasionally.

Cool. It's very simple and straightforward to use though, so I don't imagine
there'd be many issues.

One problem I had was the keyboard shortcut to start the video. There are
literally hundreds of shortcuts in flight sim, so I had trouble finding any
free ones that worked off a single key. Luckily I noticed that the numbers 5
to 0 are available.

> Excellent, congratulations!

Thanks.

> Tempered with apologies for possibly
> triggering the risk that your video-making will get as time-consuming
> and addictive as mine ;-)

Actually I really enjoyed it and I can't wait to do another one. It makes a
nice change to find a new creative activity to occupy me, especially one
that's so relevant to my other interests. I'm now wondering about the
possibility of hosting videos on You Tube and embedding them in my web
pages, or hosting them myself for better quality. I could create a series of
landscape based videos on different areas.

> I'm glad you went straight to MovieMaker too.

Why is that? It struck me as being a little too basic, especially concerning
output file sizes.

When I looked for a DivX codec to download, I came across this software,
which looks interesting:
http://www.divx.com/divx/windows/au...n&cid=DP0000173

> I was planning to see
> what my Mem-Map MPGs ('MM' won't do now!) looked like as WMVs, and
> MovieMaker was one of a couple of progs I intended to try. Of course,
> if you want to add titles and a music track as you've done with this
> first example, it's the *obvious* choice, at least in the free
> category. But I've been trying to minimise those 'OT!' risks ;-)

Yes, an obvious choice compared to all the other software out there. I have
no idea which is best or most suitable for me, and most of it costs money of
course.

> No challenge, no contest! Although the scenery looks very similar,
> it's much better at close range in FSX. And the weather and lighting
> adds two more dimensions to play with.

Yeah, but that video didn't really show them off to their best effect.

> Apart from a miserly 30MB of free space at Pipex DialSpace, I don't
> have my own host. Maybe I ought to do something about that.

Yep, you should. I'm with UKHost4U. The basic package is only 4 quid a month
and you get 2GB of space and most importantly, 100GB of bandwidth per month.
This is far more than most UK hosts offer. I'm only using a small fraction
of the bandwidth at the moment, but if I start putting a lot of videos on my
site, my bandwidth usage could go up a lot. Their business hosting only
costs £8 a month, gives you 8GB of space and 400GB of bandwidth per month,
but the basic package is fine for me at the moment.

> What size was your input AVI file?

It wasn't a single file, I can only record 30 second clips with the trial
version. I used 11 clips totalling 3.7GB, with about 30 seconds snipped out.

> What specific output option did you use?

For the full size file I used "High quality video (large)", which has a
variable bit rate at 856x480 at 25 frames per second (my originals were 20
frames per second).

For the small version I used "Video for broadband (340 Kbps)", which has a
bit rate of 340K at 428x240 at 25fps. I tried the 150 Kbps option but the
quality was awful.

> (BTW, it would be helpful to see the brief specs of your PC, and
> OS. Are you using Vista?)

Windows XP SP2, Athlon X2-5600 dual core processor, 2GB RAM, GeForce 8600GTS
graphics card with 256MB RAM.

I have got Vista installed, but it's not practical for me to use it yet due
to hardware incompatabilities. My modem won't work with it, nor will my
joystick, so I can't use it for the internet or for flight sim yet.

> You could probably somehow get your 16:10 video in a 16:9 output
> frame, i.e. with small side-bars, to avoid that distortion.

Not with WMM, at least I couldn't find an option to let me do that.

> But most
> people seem much more tolerant about aspect ratios than me. I'm
> frustrated if my circles become ellipses ;-)

Same here, I can't stand aspect ratios being wrong. It's strange that
computer manufacturers have opted to make 16:10 the standard for widescreen
computer screens, whereas widescreen TVs are 16:9.

> Yes, I did notice both of those flaws. Is it easy in FSX to slow it
> right down?

If you want to enjoy the scenery at it's best, then you should fly a slow
plane. The microlight is perfect for that, pootling along at just 60-70
knots. My MiG was flying at around 300 knots, 5 times as fast! Normally you
fly high at those kinds of speeds, but I like the excitement of low flying.
I think a fast plane is good for a video if you want to show off a lot of
real estate in a short period of time, but a slow plane is definitely better
for savouring the experience, or even a helicopter where you can just hover.

Of course, you could just change the speed of the sim, no matter what plane
you're flying.

> More important, how easy is it to switch off the plane
> altogether?

You can't do that in spot view. That doesn't bother me, even though the
plane is there it's the scenery that I'm concentrating on. It is helpful to
see the plane though. It's easier to fly if you can see which way it's
pointing!

For an uninterrupted view you need the 2D cockpit, where you can turn it off
completely. Unfortunately you're pretty much stuck with looking straight
ahead, it's not really practical to pan around, although you can look in
different compass directions temporarily. You can pan around in the virtual
cockpit if you choose a plane that doesn't have a virtual cockpit, if that
makes sense! (Many freeware planes don't have virtual cockpits.) But it's
very awkward to fly when you're looking in a different direction to the
plane (although you could put it on autopilot).

Another problem with the cockpit view is that the world tilts when the plane
turns. It's realistic, but not the best way to view the scenery IMO, that's
why I prefer spot view. I'll put together a video with no plane in view to
show you what it looks like.

> Combining the two would give something closer to the sort
> of 'tours' that I like for walk planning/reviewing.

Well I don't think you'll get anything quite like you do when you "fly" a
route in Memory Map, planes don't move like that!

>> I bet you don't have
>> so much fun looking at Memory Map! :-)
>
> Arguable - I enjoyed making those video in Mem-Map! But if I could
> have FSX and its 120 GB of scenery and weather etc up and running on
> this PC tomorrow, and if it could view at any speed, along prescribed
> tracks as well as manually, with no plane or cockpit instruments
> visible, then for sure Mem-Map and GE would get used far less.

Prescribed tracks is a bit more difficult. You can use auto-pilot, but it
doesn't follow such specific routes as in MM, it's much better at flying in
straight lines with occasional turns! But as I said, FSDiscover! has an
autopilot option which flies between any named points that you want it to,
and you can put place names anywhere. I haven't really explored this option
fully yet, I've had some problems with it, but that's probably because I'm
not doing it right. I think you have to start and end at an airport, and you
have to set an altitude above the ground too, so your height varies with the
terrain (which is different to normal autopilot which flies at a fixed
altitude above sea level).

> If only
> because of that darned 24 hour day limitation I keep hitting ;-)

It's not how much time you've got, it's how you spend it! :-)

> Apart from the flaws you already mentioned yourself, nothing
> significant comes to mind. Obviously, a larger image would be ideal,
> but there's that big trade-off in file size.

Larger than 840x525? FRAPS won't do that on my monitor. Anything over
1152x864 and it can only do half size.

> I'd personally make my
> 'location' titles stay up a bit longer, and maybe reduce their size a
> tad.

Yeah, that's what I was wondering about. Did I use too many titles, or not
enough? I'd prefer to have more control over where they appear on the screen
too.

> But as I said above, overall: excellent!

Thanks.

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/weblog/

Paul Saunders

Theo wrote:

> Great stuff, Paul. How much time did you need to put scenery and video
> together in total ?

Not long really. I flew around for just 15 or 20 minutes when I did the
video grabs, then it probably took me an hour or two to put the video
together. I probably could have done it faster but I wasn't familiar with
the sofware.

> Because I'm not familiar with the area in real
> life the switches from one scenery to another are a bit difficult to
> follow for me. I think that would be different for me with Scottish
> mountains.

Yeah. They're actually all quite close to one another. That's what I meant
when I said that I didn't plan the video properly. I should have worked out
a logical route and put the clips in the correct sequence. I suppose a
single uninterrupted video of a flight would be best, but I'm limited to 30
second grabs at the moment.

> As mentioned before there's no detailed scenery covering Scotland but
> would it be possible to use the 'fly-through' in Anquet (with the
> OS-map as scenery) and convert it to WMM ?

I really don't know if it would work with Anquet.

> You used the trial version, how much costs the program itself ?

It's quite reasonable, only $37.
http://www.fraps.com/

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/weblog/

Terry Pinnell

"Paul Saunders" <pvs1@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:

>Terry Pinnell wrote:
>
>> Great news. There don't seem many FRAPs users around in the
>> groups/forums I use (it's aimed at gamers), so it will be good to have
>> someone to discuss issues with occasionally.
>
>Cool. It's very simple and straightforward to use though, so I don't imagine
>there'd be many issues.

I suppose I really meant issues arising downstream from the FRAPS
capture - rendering/encoding, fps settings, AR setting, etc.

>One problem I had was the keyboard shortcut to start the video. There are
>literally hundreds of shortcuts in flight sim, so I had trouble finding any
>free ones that worked off a single key. Luckily I noticed that the numbers 5
>to 0 are available.
>
>> Excellent, congratulations!
>
>Thanks.
>
>> Tempered with apologies for possibly
>> triggering the risk that your video-making will get as time-consuming
>> and addictive as mine ;-)
>
>Actually I really enjoyed it and I can't wait to do another one. It makes a
>nice change to find a new creative activity to occupy me, especially one
>that's so relevant to my other interests. I'm now wondering about the
>possibility of hosting videos on You Tube and embedding them in my web
>pages, or hosting them myself for better quality. I could create a series of
>landscape based videos on different areas.

Lots of possibilities, depending on your aims. Time is the main
restriction here. I'm focused mostly on making my own DVDs, in which
GE (and possibly in future Mem-Map ... and FSX!) captures contribute,
combined with 16:9 JPG photos and 640 x 480 movie clips from my Canon
Ixus 60, 2D map screenshots (edited in PaintShop Pro), etc.
>
>> I'm glad you went straight to MovieMaker too.
>
>Why is that? It struck me as being a little too basic, especially concerning
>output file sizes.

Only because I was just about to try it myself, to see how the quality
v size trade-off looked.

>When I looked for a DivX codec to download, I came across this software,
>which looks interesting:
>http://www.divx.com/divx/windows/au...n&cid=DP0000173

Agreed. If you try it, let me know how you get on.

>> I was planning to see
>> what my Mem-Map MPGs ('MM' won't do now!) looked like as WMVs, and
>> MovieMaker was one of a couple of progs I intended to try. Of course,
>> if you want to add titles and a music track as you've done with this
>> first example, it's the *obvious* choice, at least in the free
>> category. But I've been trying to minimise those 'OT!' risks ;-)
>
>Yes, an obvious choice compared to all the other software out there. I have
>no idea which is best or most suitable for me, and most of it costs money of
>course.
>
>> No challenge, no contest! Although the scenery looks very similar,
>> it's much better at close range in FSX. And the weather and lighting
>> adds two more dimensions to play with.
>
>Yeah, but that video didn't really show them off to their best effect.
>
>> Apart from a miserly 30MB of free space at Pipex DialSpace, I don't
>> have my own host. Maybe I ought to do something about that.
>
>Yep, you should. I'm with UKHost4U. The basic package is only 4 quid a month
>and you get 2GB of space and most importantly, 100GB of bandwidth per month.
>This is far more than most UK hosts offer. I'm only using a small fraction
>of the bandwidth at the moment, but if I start putting a lot of videos on my
>site, my bandwidth usage could go up a lot. Their business hosting only
>costs £8 a month, gives you 8GB of space and 400GB of bandwidth per month,
>but the basic package is fine for me at the moment.

I'll look at UKHost4U this week.

>> What size was your input AVI file?
>
>It wasn't a single file, I can only record 30 second clips with the trial
>version. I used 11 clips totalling 3.7GB, with about 30 seconds snipped out.
>
>> What specific output option did you use?
>
>For the full size file I used "High quality video (large)", which has a
>variable bit rate at 856x480 at 25 frames per second (my originals were 20
>frames per second).

It's a long while since I did much with MovieMaker, so I'm rusty. But
I do recall there were many customised output options you could
import. And that I think I often used the High Quality DVD PAL
setting.

>For the small version I used "Video for broadband (340 Kbps)", which has a
>bit rate of 340K at 428x240 at 25fps. I tried the 150 Kbps option but the
>quality was awful.
>
>> (BTW, it would be helpful to see the brief specs of your PC, and
>> OS. Are you using Vista?)
>
>Windows XP SP2, Athlon X2-5600 dual core processor, 2GB RAM, GeForce 8600GTS
>graphics card with 256MB RAM.

OK, a pretty powerful system!

>I have got Vista installed, but it's not practical for me to use it yet due
>to hardware incompatabilities. My modem won't work with it, nor will my
>joystick, so I can't use it for the internet or for flight sim yet.

When I do upgrade, I'm almost certainly going to stick with XP. I hare
of too many problems, software and drivers that don't work.

>> You could probably somehow get your 16:10 video in a 16:9 output
>> frame, i.e. with small side-bars, to avoid that distortion.
>
>Not with WMM, at least I couldn't find an option to let me do that.

Maybe you're right. I'll take a look when I can.

>> But most
>> people seem much more tolerant about aspect ratios than me. I'm
>> frustrated if my circles become ellipses ;-)
>
>Same here, I can't stand aspect ratios being wrong. It's strange that
>computer manufacturers have opted to make 16:10 the standard for widescreen
>computer screens, whereas widescreen TVs are 16:9.
>
>> Yes, I did notice both of those flaws. Is it easy in FSX to slow it
>> right down?
>
>If you want to enjoy the scenery at it's best, then you should fly a slow
>plane. The microlight is perfect for that, pootling along at just 60-70
>knots. My MiG was flying at around 300 knots, 5 times as fast! Normally you
>fly high at those kinds of speeds, but I like the excitement of low flying.
>I think a fast plane is good for a video if you want to show off a lot of
>real estate in a short period of time, but a slow plane is definitely better
>for savouring the experience, or even a helicopter where you can just hover.
>
>Of course, you could just change the speed of the sim, no matter what plane
>you're flying.
>
>> More important, how easy is it to switch off the plane
>> altogether?
>
>You can't do that in spot view. That doesn't bother me, even though the
>plane is there it's the scenery that I'm concentrating on. It is helpful to
>see the plane though. It's easier to fly if you can see which way it's
>pointing!
>
>For an uninterrupted view you need the 2D cockpit, where you can turn it off
>completely. Unfortunately you're pretty much stuck with looking straight
>ahead, it's not really practical to pan around, although you can look in
>different compass directions temporarily. You can pan around in the virtual
>cockpit if you choose a plane that doesn't have a virtual cockpit, if that
>makes sense! (Many freeware planes don't have virtual cockpits.) But it's
>very awkward to fly when you're looking in a different direction to the
>plane (although you could put it on autopilot).
>
>Another problem with the cockpit view is that the world tilts when the plane
>turns. It's realistic, but not the best way to view the scenery IMO, that's
>why I prefer spot view. I'll put together a video with no plane in view to
>show you what it looks like.

>> Combining the two would give something closer to the sort
>> of 'tours' that I like for walk planning/reviewing.
>
>Well I don't think you'll get anything quite like you do when you "fly" a
>route in Memory Map, planes don't move like that!

That could be an issue for me. Maybe I'll change my mind if/when I get
it, but I really don't want to fly a plane, and even if I have to I
definitely don't want to *see* any of it when I'm trying to look at or
capture the scene.

>>> I bet you don't have
>>> so much fun looking at Memory Map! :-)
>>
>> Arguable - I enjoyed making those video in Mem-Map! But if I could
>> have FSX and its 120 GB of scenery and weather etc up and running on
>> this PC tomorrow, and if it could view at any speed, along prescribed
>> tracks as well as manually, with no plane or cockpit instruments
>> visible, then for sure Mem-Map and GE would get used far less.
>
>Prescribed tracks is a bit more difficult. You can use auto-pilot, but it
>doesn't follow such specific routes as in MM, it's much better at flying in
>straight lines with occasional turns! But as I said, FSDiscover! has an
>autopilot option which flies between any named points that you want it to,
>and you can put place names anywhere. I haven't really explored this option
>fully yet, I've had some problems with it, but that's probably because I'm
>not doing it right. I think you have to start and end at an airport, and you
>have to set an altitude above the ground too, so your height varies with the
>terrain (which is different to normal autopilot which flies at a fixed
>altitude above sea level).

That sound like another downside for me, unless FSDiscover! really can
follow any track/route I specify.

>> If only
>> because of that darned 24 hour day limitation I keep hitting ;-)
>
>It's not how much time you've got, it's how you spend it! :-)
>
>> Apart from the flaws you already mentioned yourself, nothing
>> significant comes to mind. Obviously, a larger image would be ideal,
>> but there's that big trade-off in file size.
>
>Larger than 840x525? FRAPS won't do that on my monitor. Anything over
>1152x864 and it can only do half size.

Is that a trial version limitation? I can capture my 1024 x 768 screen
if I want. Typically in GE I capture a 1016 x 576 window for an AR
close to 16:9

>> I'd personally make my
>> 'location' titles stay up a bit longer, and maybe reduce their size a
>> tad.
>
>Yeah, that's what I was wondering about. Did I use too many titles, or not
>enough? I'd prefer to have more control over where they appear on the screen
>too.

I'd have to study it again to comment helpfully on the frequency.
Don't recall wondering 'where's that', so I'm guessing it was about
right. Yes, MovieMaker's titles are rather inflexible I recall. I'd
typically add them in my editor (MemoriesOnTV and/or Womble MPEG Video
Wizard).

>> But as I said above, overall: excellent!
>
>Thanks.
>
>Paul

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK