GaryGB
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Posts posted by GaryGB
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Hee Hee Hee... that Fritz takes after Uncle Elmer doesn't he? :P
Very "open minded", and a lover all creatures, large and small! :lol: :lol: :lol:
GaryGB
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Hi Pups:
Another outstanding installment in your "Holmes at Home" Series! :D
I can tell you are acquainted with classic radio and movies by your repertoire of references; Sophie Tucker... Gawd, I haven't heard that name since my Dad was living. :lol: :lol: :lol:
You might just earn yourself a position as comedy writer for stage and screen someday if you keep up your present efforts! :wink:
PS: My friends and I were quite taken with the antics of Firesign Theater in high school, and with Monty Python since early college; interesting to see their legacy is still being appreciated even today. :P
GaryGB
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I can see this is gonna' be a good run of posts! :P
Funny stuff guys... keep it comin'! :twisted:
GaryGB
"Feta compli"... Gawd that was excellent Chris! :lol: :lol: :lol:
GaryGB
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Hee Hee Hee... Gawd that was funny Pups! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Good to have you back "minding the store" again! :D
I'll have to arrange a refinanced mortgage to get myself one of those record players though! :shock:
Here's hoping to see more "specials" available in the emporium during the holiday season! :twisted:
GaryGB
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(best spoken with a "bleating" tone of voice!)
Nope; just an image useable for some FS9 mischief... yet to be defined pending posts by Emma-ites with vivid imaginations! :lol:
Anyone care to offer an idea on what the big attraction is (really... any idea is welcome, and the funnier the better!) :twisted:
Just think Francois: our very first survey regarding "sheep" in an FS forum!!!??? :P
Where else but the EFFC forum would one find such a thing going on? :roll:
GaryGB
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Hmmm... Just what is attracting all the sheep over to Fritz's hangar lately? :roll:
GaryGB
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Good Show Old Chap! :lol: :lol: :lol:
"Skinny Holmes".... Gawd was that funny! :P
You're on a roll now, Pups... I'm looking forward to seeing more of your literary genius as soon as you get a chance! :wink:
PS: So, would the little puppy Avatar get pinched for "taking a leek" on the wrong plane? :roll:
PPS: That kind of reminds me of a line in the movie "Best in Show" wherein (if I recall correctly) a person enroute to a dogshow with his prized pet in tow is about to board the passenger compartment of an airplane and asks: "Can I take a Shitzu in here, or do I have to stow it in the rear?" :twisted:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_dog_breeds
GaryGB
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Hi Dougal:
Add a little soap to the ton of items needing to be laundered from our Emma Field clubhouse, and you'll have "a Wall... a Wall O' Washing Ton"! :lol: :lol: :lol:
OOPS! Sorry for the pun! :oops:
[EDIT] (...It's a local American thing about odd Indian names! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walla_WallWashington ) :wink:
But seriously, I am sure that Richard Goldstein will correct the water body placement in the geo-corrected 38 meter mesh world of Emma Field in FSX! :wink:
I believe that is the Price Lake water slant you are seeing on the hillside (or is that the Valley Field runway? If so, then I guess I'm way off and it is one of the lakes next to the Lilliwaup marsh!)
Everything in FS2002 and FS2004 was shifted to the SouthEast in most of the USA, and perhaps the rest of the world (Holger would know about the exact details), and using higher 3rd party mesh resolutions (lower mesh meter intervals between elevation data points) or installing older scenery to FSX will reveal misalignments between coordinates of scenery intended for the old default FS8 or FS9 mesh and the coordinates of the real world.
If one loads Emma Field 2004 into FSX and sets the terrain mesh resolution at 152 meters as Heli suggested (yours was probably at either 76 meter or less... ex. 38 or 19 meters in your screenie?), as one flys over the landscape between Emma and Lake Cushman the improved FSX rendering for photorealistic terrain textures shows the old and existing Emma Field 2002-derived Georender texture details to already be quite gorgeous; I can't wait to see what Richard could do using the even higher resolutions now possible in the FSX SDK! :shock:
PS: Hope you're feeling better since we corresponded in our last thread together!
GaryGB
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Hi Francois:
I hope you'll be feeling better soon... take your time; I can relate to what you're experiencing, having myself been similarly troubled with such symptoms over the years! :roll:
The good news (and bad news? :twisted:) is... we'll all be here when you're back with the swing of things! :lol: :lol: :lol:
GaryGB
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Hi All:
GaryGB (substituting for Pups, who has been busy doing his schoolwork in Cosmology) temporarily assumes once again the role as designated marketing consultant to the Emma Emporium.
Since Pups' "little puppy" canine Avatar has been inclined to piddle on planes lately, I am pleased to announce the availability of several new special items in the onsite store to complement those in Francois' online store. :!:
Attention Flight Simmers!!!
Been the "recipient" of little puppy's efforts to mark his turf in a constantly changing multi-verse? :shock:
See: http://forums.simflight.com/viewtopic.pc&start=15
and
http://forums.simflight.com/viewtopic.p6&start=30
Just use one of our handy "Oversized Puppy Training Pads" to blot up the mess, then spray some "Urine Gone" onto the affected area revealed by the included UV light, and your problems will dematerialize before your very eyes! :wink:
Got a Pilot's Flight Physical tomorrow morning, and you forgot to "study for your Test" by refraining from things which won't look good on your Urine Test? Well, Urine Luck... (it might just help you!) :roll:
Been drinking Uncle Elmer's Old #5 and not eating enough Emma Field clubhouse bar cheese to "enhance your intestinal fortitude", and now you wish you could at least get some practice time in on your Golf game while you're on the commode? Well, what you need is the new "Potty Putter Piddle Poop N' Putt" to keep you "occupied" (just like the sign on the door says!) :P
And last, but not least, with all the recent interest in racing sims running rampant in the EFFC user community, we've got a special limited time offer (ya' gotta' go back to flying sometime, guys!) on a small quantity of the infamous controllers every gamer has just gotta' have to be in style with the console crowd... the Paradigm X-Shift! :twisted:
Buy yours now, 'cause when they're gone... well, they're gone!
Items ordered through the online store will be shipped via the usual free delivery by "Elite Airways" Air Freight.
Standard EFFC Emporium Disclaimer:
< Not responsible for condition of goods at delivery due to failed parachute deployment; beware of falling bottles! > :mrgreen:
GaryGB
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Another excellent piece of writing Pups! :lol: :lol: :lol:
You just keep outdoing your self each time you sit down to the keyboard... a natural born "comproser" it would seem! :wink:
Well, lets hope the Xmas holiday spirit you have shown here inspires other EFFC visitors and the "Usual Suspects" to bestow gifts of humor and comeraderie upon one another with some more posts and banter this season! :P
PS: Hmmm... lets see what I can come up with next! :twisted:
GaryGB
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Pups lifts his leg to "take a piddle... on an esoteric plane"! :P
See: http://www.air-ameri...t/History.shtml
and: http://www.air-ameri...y/Large7c.shtml
and: http://www.pixagogo.com/Photos/Albums/PGf-UUUgQ__
GaryGB
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Hi Chris:
The Wabbit was in slew mode because we seem to have a "whole slew" of Quantum Tales to tell! :lol:
GaryGB
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Gawd, Pups... that was really outstanding! :lol:
You really have a talent for impromptu writing! :D
Hmmm... creative writing and Cosmology both... :shock:
Might just be another Carl Sagan in the makin' :P
Well, here's hoping for another fine piece of work from the Pupmeister soon! :)
PS: I can just see a musical broadway show evolving from all this; we'll have to come up with a catchy title.
How about: "Quantum Mechanic On Duty"? :twisted:
PPS:
"I'd unravel every riddle,
I'd even take a piddle,
but on an esoteric plane."
...I'm gonna be waking up in the middle of the night still laughing about that one! :lol: :lol: :lol:
GaryGB
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Pups Peril - Episode 4: The Quantum Savior of Emma Field
Lago collapsed into a state of Entropy; they didn't realize just how dense it was to drop the ball on Emma field, and hadn't anticipated the gravity of the situation which would result from its impact on the FS landscape. :oops:
The results were rather depressing on the fragile mesh of Emma, and threatened an out of control "death spiral" which could "capture and swallow" the entire Emma Field landscape down into a Black Hole from which nothing could escape. :(
Suddenly, from out of nowhere Pups appeared wearing his "Flying Carrot" costume heading towards the outer rim of the maelstrom taking shape near the center of Emma field. Pups was still spinning from his airborne trajectory as he returned to Earth from his earlier launch:
viewtopic.php?t=54251&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30
During the course of his flight, Pups had experienced "Time Dilation" and in his return to Earth, he experienced an acceleration approaching the speed of light and subsequently transmuted into a wave of Gravitons with a cross-polarization to that of the developing black hole threatening the future of Emma field.
As an aspiring Cosmologist, Pups knew that the Entropy of a system can be related to the amount of information required to describe it, and that when objects are thrown into a black hole the information they contain is hidden from outside view because no message can return from inside. Pups also knew that if the black hole evaporates, this information will be lost in contradiction to the laws of thermodynamics, inducing a black hole information loss paradox.
Determined to enforce full-disclosure by Lago, Pups adjusted his trajectory to counter the downward spiral resulting from dropping the ball on the virtual world of Emma field, perturbing the developing gravity wave and countering the loss of all things Emma into the developing black hole, and causing the disgorgement of all the vital information that all Emma-ites wanted to know.
Unfortunately, Pups was now in a dilemma : the discharge of energy required to adjust his trajectory counter to the downward spiral of things at Emma field had now reversed his time dilation, causing him to shrink, and leaving him enmeshed at the outer perimeter of the gravity well. :???:
Recognizing that a Graviton in Perturbative String Theory is a closed string in a very particular low-energy vibrational state, Pups was now beginning to feel a bit scattered. Every fiber of his being started to feel like closed strings without endpoints, almost as if he had no attachment to his Branes and could move freely between them. :shock:
Pups was startled to see that he had begun to leak from his Brane into higher-dimensional space, (which could explain why gravity is such a weak force!), and as he began to ascend from this plane into another, he felt a sense of communion with Gravitons from other Branes adjacent to our own and he believed that he could now provide a potential explanation for dark matter. :!:
Little did Pups know that as his attractiveness began to leak into the Bulk he was resolving a Hierarchy Problem which had troubled him for what seemed like an eternity, only to now encounter a Mu Problem; worse yet, he was at great risk of causing another Big Bang if his Brane were to touch another Brane paralleling his own if he did not continue to be cross-polarized with the Way of Things at Emma Field.
Bewildered in a moment of self-doubt, Pups wondered if the reason he always wrote about himself in the 3rd person was because his Avatar "Skinny Puppy" was merely one of a countless number of vacuous personas such as we all had established in the virtual world of online existance, and he, like others was compensating by imposing an "Anthropic Landscape" or "String Landscape" onto the virtual world.
Then Pups remembered others had argued that the existence of a large number of vacua puts the Anthropic reasoning on firm ground; only universes with the remarkable properties sufficient to allow "observers" to exist are beheld, while a possibly much larger set of universes without such properties go utterly unnoted. Pups was now more convinced than ever that there was merit in his frequent 3rd person references... it just might save everything he knew to be real!
Pups struggled to impart some order into his universe as he felt himself losing his Ego. In a moment of weak force and humble surrender he found himself accepting the premise that the initial state of the visible Universe (originally a microscopic amount of space before the inflation) had to possess a very low entropy value -- due to random quantum fluctuations -- to account for the observed thermodynamic arrow of time.
Pups had indeed been initially baffled by the fact that his present dilemma was caused by a state of high Entropy on the part of Lago. But in a moment of inspiration, he thought about the 3 Million potential universes packed into a single shot of Uncle Elmer's #5 "Powerhouse" hooch; he remembered that since the small fragment of space from which our Universe grew had to be extremely orderly to allow Inflation resulting in a universe with an arrow of time, it was actually unnecessary to adopt any ad-hoc hypotheses about the initial entropy state which are necessary in other Big Bang theories.
Just as Pups felt he was going to lose his sense of self as he communed with other Gravitons, he remembered there are two other points of tension between Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity. First, General Relativity predicts its own breakdown at singularities, and Quantum Mechanics becomes inconsistent with general relativity in a neighborhood of singularities (however, no one is certain that classical general relativity should necessarily be trusted near singularities in the first place). Second, it is not clear how to determine the gravitational field of a particle, if under the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle of Quantum Mechanics its location and velocity cannot be known with certainty! :idea:
Pups now felt that since the gravitational field of a particle cannot yet be determined, he should therefore have unlimited degrees of freedom (in a global sense at least), and could now do as he pleased, so he deftly neutralized the threat to Emma field, leaving naught but a hole in the ground as the black hole and its associated gravity waves dissipated.
Pups had now saved Emma field! :P
As he walked away from the event horizon, Pups began to wonder if it had all been a dream... so he figured he'd go get a shot of Uncle Elmer's #5 Powerhouse booze and contemplate what had just taken place in the terrain mesh of Emma field from the standpoint of Topological Quantum Field Theory. :)
Pups also wanted to resolve the nagging self-doubts he felt after seeing how easily he had begun to leak from his Brane into higher-dimensional space. After all, String Theory started out as a generalization of Quantum Field Theory where instead of point particles, string-like objects propagate in a fixed spacetime background. :?:
Pups reasoned that although String Theory had its origins in the study of quark confinement and not of quantum gravity, it was soon discovered that the string spectrum contains the Graviton, and that "condensation" of certain vibration modes of strings is equivalent to a modification of the original background.
In the background of his mind, Pups contemplated his Quantum History. He now felt like twice the man he used to be; because of his superimposition of spin networks with the other gravitons he encountered at the threshold to a higher dimension, Pups now realized he had a 4-geometry and that he was no longer bothered by his 2-dimensional complex. As an eX-Graviton, maybe he would adopt a new Avatar as the "G-Man"! ;-)
As he walked into the clubhouse, Pups was oblivious to what was going on in the background, and when the clubhouse door closed behind him, the Wabbit settled down and took up residence in the hole created as Lago dropped the ball! :mrgreen:
GaryGB
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Hi Dougal:
Thanks for your reply! :D
When you you are up to it (no rush), I would welcome clarification on whether instead of FSV you meant FSG?
Hope you will be feeling better soon! :wink:
GarYGB
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Hi All:
I thought that was the tower for the new "Tesa Coil" high voltage generator we were planning to use for control of the Seattle area weather. :shock:
(Just Kidding!) :lol: :lol: :lol:
Hey Dougal, I love the effect you have with the clouds in that screenie above; could you tell me what add-in or default setting weather you used to get that cloud appearance (and what was the date and time of day for that flight too please) ...really interesting! :D
Thanks for your help with this. :wink:
GaryGB
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Hi Bob:
Glad to hear that worked for you! :P
It was only fitting... Emma Field is "# 1" with most of us here anyway! 8)
GaryGB
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Hi Bob:
Just happened to see this post... there are some hits to be read on SimFlight by searching with the keyword "Visualfx".
PS: I will follow up later on the Emma Field reinstall issues... eventually! :wink:
Toodles, :D
GaryGB
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Hi Chris:
I saw a couple of references to specular and other attributes (ex: links to bump mapping) partly capable of being implemented or linked somehow inside the aircraft ".MDL" file, as well as via external associated texture files; wasn't sure I understood it very much on a quick scan.
EDITED:
A search on [ ".dds" ".MDL" specular ] turns a few FS things up on Yahoo.
http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?p=17873
http://www.aerodynamika.com/cgi-bin/yab61446408/3
Hope this helps! :D
PS: What... no responses to my NEW post at: http://forums.simflight.com/viewtopic.p3&start=45 ? :roll:
GaryGB
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Hi Simon:
Nice to hear from you again! :P
CBris probably has checked into this by now, but (in case you weren't already aware) I believe the Martin Wright utilities
( http://www.mnwright.btinternet.co.uk/index.htm )
would be one's best bet for conveniently viewing and interconverting the .dds texture files (which I believe was reported to be a new type of DXT5 originally used in CFS3?). :idea:
see also: http://forums.simflight.com/viewtopic.ps&start=15
These are also used in FSX scenery textures, and there is a few threads on how to convert them into editable forms out in the FS forums, particularly in regards to downsampling for better FPS.
There was a couple of alternatives to MartinWright's utilities (including imagetool for FSX) mentioned for the batch conversion process discussed with their pros and cons in the threads on scenery conversion.
see: http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=&mode=full
I haven't noticed many threads on the .dds interconversion process for working with aircraft textures, but here's a few:
http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=ype=search
http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=&mode=full
http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=&mode=full
Hope this helps! :D
GaryGB
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Hi Chris:
Thanks again for sharing some insight on the parameters which can make a difference even on a powerful system such as you built. :)
As for my own hardware considerations, since I am still running on an AGP system, I must necessarily make use of the PCI Latency tweak, the AGP Aperture Size and other AGP BIOS setting tweaks.
I agree about the benefit from studying the FPS display for learning and evaluation purposes; I got into the habit of always having it on screen in both FS8 and FS9 as I was agonizing over my earlier video card(s') performance as I did tweaks and evaluated feasibility of using various freeware scenery packages.
But as you say, after one gets a reasonable working configuration, since FSX lets us save a loadable "settings profile", one can afford to turn it off.
Interestingly, back in the days of FS9, I had actually read somewhere that having the flight parameter display lines (incuding the FPS numbers themselves!) turned "on" actually decreased framerates!
Personally, I am always flying in the spot view, and I often find the flight parameter display line for altitude and airspeed to be a desirable convenience. 8)
Although I normally fly with summer season/unchanging fair weather/sparse clouds, and turn all traffic/AI stuff off, I hadn't thought about the realism afforded by multiplayer providing traffic with less of a performance hit than with AI; I'll have to look into that some time! :shock:
I plan to do more testing with the FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION tweak, as I have read elsewhere that it seems to interact with the TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT tweak in determining the ranges used on each to produce better performance; that will take a little more time to see what each does in relation to how the other is set. :wink:
Another interesting issue related to FSX performance and "autoconfiguration" of slider settings and (hypothetically, at least) the machine specific responsiveness of the FSX sliders is the observation that if one installs and sets up FSX on lower machine settings (ex: lower clock speed) and then after installation turns the clock speed back up, the system seems to run even faster with reportedly different slider results (better). That one looks like an intriguing option to research further for those that have the time! :roll:
see: http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=&mode=full
'Shaws!
GaryGB
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Hi Francois:
Thanks for sharing your perspective... the importance of "flyability" certainly is critical to the FS user experience. :)
I was indeed very impressed with the last minute optimizations that ACES put into FSX with the retail version which increased the flyability (which we have often previously described in FS9 as "smoothness" of flight dynamics) down into the lower teens. The crucial maneuverability of the aircraft during landings is easier to achieve now even in those lower FPS ranges. :P
And I agree, once we get smoothness achieved better in FS, we don't need to be as concerned now about absolute FPS as a goal; rather we can concentrate now on maximizing the gorgeous visual detail FSX is capable of rendering. :idea:
As far as FPS goes, I'll welcome as many FPS as I incidentally end up getting in coming years with CPU and FSX program code improvements.
But first and most importantly, perhaps like you as well, I will want to be able to fly without stutters or any compromise of the smoothness of aircraft handling while having lots of visual scenery enjoyment during my flight. 8)
GaryGB
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Hi Chris:
Thanks for the insights from the leading edge of hardware capabilities! :)
I feel better about the tweaked performance on my existing computer knowing there is some common factors which can benefit both high and low end computers, as I delay my upgrade... awaiting another major breakthrough in CPU technology or a multicore programming breakthrough for FSX! :roll:
GaryGB
Ouch! High water at Emma
in Emma Field Flying Club
Posted
Equally at home on the water as he is on gravity waves, the Wabbit checks out the "slanted lake wave action" near Olympic National Park! :lol: