England & Wales Photo Scenery for FSX

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

I see. I'm guessing we should be using 25fps? So I'm locking my flight sim
frame rate to 25fps max, recording the FRAPS videos at 25fps and creating
25fps videos. That should work best, yes?

What's AR?

I notice my latest video is a bit flickery, but so are the originals. I
think it's probably because I turned the flight sim weather settings up to
the max, and that's a real frame rate killer in heavy weather.

>>> 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.

Correction, when I said output file sizes, I actually meant the dimensions
of the video.

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

It seems pretty good to me, and the file sizes are much smaller than the
videos you posted. Not DVD quality of course, but these are for posting on
the internet.

>> 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.

Okay. I've heard very good things about DivX, but I'm not sure about
compatability though, it's not a common file format, is it? But the codec
can be used to encode AVIs, which is what FRAPS recommended with the
VirtualDub software.

I like the sound of being able to create DVD type menus with it, for playing
in compatabile DVD players, but I doubt that many are compatable, so it's
not something you could give to most of your friends.

> I'll look at UKHost4U this week.

I've been very happy with them so far.

> 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.

I'd like to be able to set the exact video dimensions. I didn't see any
options for that.

> And that I think I often used the High Quality DVD PAL
> setting.

Well if you're making actual DVDs then that would make sense.

>> Windows XP SP2, Athlon X2-5600 dual core processor, 2GB RAM, GeForce
>> 8600GTS graphics card with 256MB RAM.
>
> OK, a pretty powerful system!

Yeah, I'm quite pleased with it. Only cost me just over £500 from Novatech.

>>> 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,

You might be surprised, it's good fun.

> and even if I have to I
> definitely don't want to *see* any of it when I'm trying to look at

If you're just "scenic flying" I really don't think having the plane in the
image is an issue. As you zoom out it becomes smaller and it doesn't bother
me at all. You can change the view distance if you want so you could put
yourself a long way behind the plane and make it really tiny.

> or capture the scene.

Well obviously not, if your purpose is not to show off the flight sim.

>> Prescribed tracks is a bit more difficult.

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

I'll have to try that next. I'll create a flight plan that links a series of
summits and see how it works. The type of aircraft might make a big
difference, for example when turning.

>> 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?

No. Actually the explanation seems a bit vague.

On the support page it says this:

"What is the maximum resolution supported by Half/Full-size video capture?

The maximum resolution for Half-size capture is 2560x1600. Full-size video
capture is limited to a maximum of 1152x864 (4:3) or 1280x800 (widescreen).
If Full-size is selected and the game is set to a resolution higher than the
maximum, Fraps will automatically switch to Half-size when recording."

But on the main page it says this:

"Fraps can capture audio and video up to 2560x1600 on dual-core CPUs
(1152x864 single-core)"

I thought I read somewhere that even if it's dual-core, it has to be a 64
bit OS for the full size, but I might be confusing that with another piece
of software I downloaded, Taksi.

Simple to test though, I'll just try it!

>> 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).

Are those paid programs?

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.
>
>I see. I'm guessing we should be using 25fps? So I'm locking my flight sim
>frame rate to 25fps max, recording the FRAPS videos at 25fps and creating
>25fps videos. That should work best, yes?

Yes.

>What's AR?

Aspect Ratio. For video, still something of a black art to me! Mainly,
of course, because video pixels aren't consistently nice and square
like stills. When making DVD-compliant MPEG files you can't simply
divide width by height (720/576 = 1.25, not 16:9!) but have to watch
out for 3 separate ratios: Pixel Aspect Ratio (PAR), Display Aspect
Ratio (DAR), and Storage Aspect Ratio (SAR).

The subject is way OT here and I'm no expert anyway, so suggest you
consider lurking/registering the forums at http://forum.videohelp.com
and the rec.video.desktop newsgroup. I occasionally get a lot of help
there, although sometimes even the 'experts' take a rather cavalier
attitude to AR issues. By contrast, as mentioned, I have almost zero
tolerance to distortion, so I get fussy about encoding 'correctly'.
Confused too ;-)

>I notice my latest video is a bit flickery, but so are the originals. I
>think it's probably because I turned the flight sim weather settings up to
>the max, and that's a real frame rate killer in heavy weather.
>
>>>> 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.
>
>Correction, when I said output file sizes, I actually meant the dimensions
>of the video.
>
>> Only because I was just about to try it myself, to see how the quality
>> v size trade-off looked.
>
>It seems pretty good to me, and the file sizes are much smaller than the
>videos you posted. Not DVD quality of course, but these are for posting on
>the internet.
>
>>> 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.
>
>Okay. I've heard very good things about DivX, but I'm not sure about
>compatability though, it's not a common file format, is it? But the codec
>can be used to encode AVIs, which is what FRAPS recommended with the
>VirtualDub software.

I used to compress my very large GE-captured AVI files in VirtualDub
with DivX, but now I just import them as they stand into my editor
(MoTV or Womble).

>I like the sound of being able to create DVD type menus with it, for playing
>in compatabile DVD players, but I doubt that many are compatable, so it's
>not something you could give to most of your friends.

That's my impression too. Never got into trying it though.

>> I'll look at UKHost4U this week.
>
>I've been very happy with them so far.
>
>> 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.
>
>I'd like to be able to set the exact video dimensions. I didn't see any
>options for that.
>
>> And that I think I often used the High Quality DVD PAL
>> setting.
>
>Well if you're making actual DVDs then that would make sense.
>
>>> Windows XP SP2, Athlon X2-5600 dual core processor, 2GB RAM, GeForce
>>> 8600GTS graphics card with 256MB RAM.
>>
>> OK, a pretty powerful system!
>
>Yeah, I'm quite pleased with it. Only cost me just over £500 from Novatech.
>
>>>> 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,
>
>You might be surprised, it's good fun.
>
>> and even if I have to I
>> definitely don't want to *see* any of it when I'm trying to look at
>
>If you're just "scenic flying" I really don't think having the plane in the
>image is an issue. As you zoom out it becomes smaller and it doesn't bother
>me at all. You can change the view distance if you want so you could put
>yourself a long way behind the plane and make it really tiny.
>
>> or capture the scene.
>
>Well obviously not, if your purpose is not to show off the flight sim.
>
>>> Prescribed tracks is a bit more difficult.
>
>> That sound like another downside for me, unless FSDiscover! really can
>> follow any track/route I specify.
>
>I'll have to try that next. I'll create a flight plan that links a series of
>summits and see how it works. The type of aircraft might make a big
>difference, for example when turning.
>
>>> 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?
>
>No. Actually the explanation seems a bit vague.
>
>On the support page it says this:
>
>"What is the maximum resolution supported by Half/Full-size video capture?
>
>The maximum resolution for Half-size capture is 2560x1600. Full-size video
>capture is limited to a maximum of 1152x864 (4:3) or 1280x800 (widescreen).
>If Full-size is selected and the game is set to a resolution higher than the
>maximum, Fraps will automatically switch to Half-size when recording."
>
>But on the main page it says this:
>
>"Fraps can capture audio and video up to 2560x1600 on dual-core CPUs
>(1152x864 single-core)"
>
>I thought I read somewhere that even if it's dual-core, it has to be a 64
>bit OS for the full size, but I might be confusing that with another piece
>of software I downloaded, Taksi.
>
>Simple to test though, I'll just try it!

That's my preferred method ;-)
I currently don't have to worry about screen sizes over 1024 x 768,
but I'm confident you'll find you can capture at least that size.

>>> 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).
>
>Are those paid programs?

Yes.
http://www.womble.com/
http://www.codejam.com/

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Paul Saunders

Okay Terry, I've done the flight plan autopilot test. Here's a video to show
you what happened. This probably won't interest anyone else, unless they're
thinking of buying FSDiscover! to use with FSX.

No music or titles this time, I just joined the video clips together. It's
an 18MB download.
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/m...t-plan-test.wmv

Here's a screenshot of the flight plan as created in FSDiscover!
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/m...flight-plan.gif

I've left the FSDiscover! summit names and flight plan switched on in the
video, so that you can see clearly what happened. In practice you'd probably
switch these off for a video. The red names are the summits, the yellow
arrows indicate the flight plan route. The plane is on FSDiscover!
autopilot. I'm not controlling it.

The video starts just before reaching Red Hill, the third waypoint (in the
bottom left of the flight plan screenshot). As you can see, it's an insanely
sharp turn for a plane, but I wanted to see what would happen.

The plane starts to turn before reaching the waypoint. Since the turn is so
sharp it overshoots and takes a while to get back on course. It does so just
before reaching the next waypoint at Glascwm Hill, but doesn't turn in
advance this time (perhaps because it had only just got back on course). So
instead it overshoots the waypoint, but only slightly. It soon gets back on
course because it's quite a gentle turn.

The next waypoint is Gwaunceste Hill. The plane doesn't seem to be too fussy
about staying perfectly on the flight plan line, but it's close enough.
Again it starts to turn before reaching the waypoint, but it's not too sharp
and it manages to get back on course quite well. The video ends as the plane
is heading toward the next waypoint at Llanfihangel Hill.

Overall the flight plan worked well, but for best results you should
obviously avoid really sharp turns. It would be easy enough to do this by
inserting extra points of interest to use as waypoints. These can be placed
anywhere so you can fine tune your flight plan as much as you want.

Since the plane tends to turn before the waypoint, if a turn is sharp it
won't actually reach it, so don't put any sharp turns at summits if you want
to see the summit before it turns. You could add a point of interest just
beyond the summit to prevent the plane turning too early.

Flight plans have to start and end at an airport. I don't know why, because
you can active a flight plan at any time. I tried deactivating it during the
flight, then I flew back to an earlier point in the flight plan, reactivated
it and it continued from there. So if the area is a long way from the
airport you could take off, switch to map view, move the plane, find the
flight plan and activate it. Or you could simply speed up the sim to get
there quicker.

A couple of other points. If you look closely at the terrain you may see
"ripples" in the scenery. These are height changes and look to me as though
the terrain mesh was created from contour lines (it's a 5m mesh so perhaps
these are 5m contour lines?). I haven't noticed this in any other areas yet,
just this area.

The other thing is the cockpit view. I turned it off to give you a clear
view of the scenery, which is what you want, but I couldn't find any way of
changing the position, so you're stuck with a dead-ahead view, which
unfortunately means 50% sky. I couldn't find any way of tilting it down. But
I'm pretty sure I managed to do it before, I just can't remember how.

I'm also wondering whether it would work better if I used a helicopter,
since that tilts downward as it flies forward, but I'm not sure if
helicopters work properly with autopilot.

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

Terry Pinnell

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

>Okay then, here's another video to show off some different aspects of the
>photo scenery.
>
>This time I've chosen a little known area which will be unfamiliar to most,
>the Gwaunceste Hills, just south of Radnor Forest. I'm not even sure if
>that's the correct name for the area, but the highest summit is called
>Gwaunceste Hill so...
>
>Here's the full size video (856x480). It's only 3 minutes this time, and
>17MB:
>
>> http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/m...-gwaunceste.wmv
>
>And here's the smaller version (428x240). It's 8MB:
>> http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/m...ceste-small.wmv
>
>Part of my reasoning for choosing this area was to make a change from bloody
>Snowdonia! I'm sure we're all sick of the sight of that place by now! After
>all, the reason this discussion started in the first place was me pointing
>out that the flight sim is excellent for studying an unfamiliar area before
>visiting it. So here we have an area that will be unfamiliar to most.
>
>It's also interesting in that most of the summits are covered in vast
>swathes of heather, so it's very useful to be able to study the tracks
>through the heather to work out practical walking routes around the area (in
>conjunction with the footpaths marked on the OS maps of course). This is a
>real case in point, because I haven't visited this area yet, so I am keen to
>work out some good routes here.
>
>The second aspect I wanted to show off was the weather in the flight sim. So
>far we've been looking at it on beautiful sunny days, but today it was
>pouring down so this was the perfect opportunity to see what it looks like
>when the weather is really crap. Provided you fly low enough you can still
>see the ground and it's really quite atmospheric flying in rain and fog. You
>also don't get distracted by distant views.
>
>And you can get lost! So apologies for not naming everything accurately in
>this video, I didn't have a clue where I was at the end of it!
>
>And the third aspect was to show off the 2D cockpit view with the cockpit
>turned off. As I point out in the video, helicopters are excellent for
>scenic flying because they fly slow, can hover, can rotate without banking,
>and they tilt down to move forward which gives you a better view of the
>scenery. However, they are a lot harder to fly, especially if you want to
>hover.
>
>And that's another aspect, slow flying to appreciate and study the scenery.
>Not so dramatic to watch in a video, but this is how you'd probably do it if
>you were studying an area to identify paths and so on.
>
>Paul

That's more like it - helicopter flight with cockpit switched off
looks exactly what I want! Dry throughout the trip too ;-)

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Theo

"Paul Saunders" <pvs1@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> schreef in bericht
news:_bKdnSdE-J9NGa7anZ2dnUVZ8sijnZ2d@pipex.net...

Paul, considering your fascination with waterfalls : does FS show you
running waterfalls with realtime weather switched on ? I dreamt about it
last night :-)Should be really handy when planning a photo shoot.

--
"Beannachd leibh"

Theo
www.theosphotos.fotopic.net