Tsawwassen released

Larry’s Tsawwassen terminal, including several BC Ferries vessels is released!

VancouverPlus support forum change

Support for VanPlus may now be found at this link.  If you have an issue first peruse the old forum archive.  Thank you!

Spirit of Vancouver Island

Larry has posted screenshots of the Spirit of Vancouver Island, worth a look-see!

Queen of Nanaimo

Larry has fixed up this vessel nicely.  See his page.

Jetway exclusion issue with FSDT CYVR and Van+ V3

Sebastian reported a problem wherein certain jetways in FSDT CYVR did not appear if VancouverPlus V3 was installed and ORBX PNW was not installed.

Some history: MS placed a fictional building at that location which was quite ugly and we excluded it. But of course FSDT excluded the building and our exclusions was no longer needed. This was originally released as a stand-alone download, and was the first free download available for FSX when it was first released, called CYVR_building_fix.

The fix: place this file in <drive letter:>\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\FSAddon\VanPlus v3\VanPlus_Lower_Priority\Scenery. If you repair or reinstall VanPlus you will need to repeat this.

No guarantees though.  As one very well known developer said, “Jetways are a pain in the neck. Somehow the interaction between local excludes and different layers of ADE files (default plus addon #1 plus addon #2 …) makes their behavior/appearance almost impossible to predict.”

VancouverPlus and VictoriaPlus on Steam

According to Zenobyte on this thread (scroll down a bit) in the Steam forum:

“Installed.. Orbx FTX NA Series ( Pacific Fjords, Pacific Northwest, Southern Alaska, Northern + Central Rockies, and Northern California) as well as Victoria+, Vancouver+ v3 and Tongass Fjords X… All installed without issue.”

FSX Steam edition is out

It’s only U$5 for the next 36 hours, 80% off.  It’s FSX Gold edition with a few bug fixes.  Many questions are posed and answered at Steam and AVSIM.

Cheap way to get a cloud backup copy.

Tsawwassen terminal almost done

Larry’s work leaves me speechless!  Still more work to be done…also featured: Queen of Cumberland, Spirit of Vancouver Island and for old-time’s sake, the Queen of Nanaimo.  Those vessels are incomplete in these screenshots.  Note that the terminal is designed to work best with VancouverPlus, but it is not necessary.  ORBX FTX PNW is required if you don’t have VancouverPlus.

Tsawwassen Terminal

Tsawwassen Terminal

Tsawwassen Terminal

Tsawwassen Terminal

Tsawwassen Terminal

Tsawwassen Terminal

Tsawwassen Terminal

Tsawwassen Terminal

Tsawwassen Terminal

Tsawwassen Terminal

Tsawwassen Terminal

Ganges – Kanaka Wharf

I restarted Ganges.  Twice.  I just was not getting the quality I wanted.  These images are very early, lots of detail to do and refinements to add, but I thought a few screenshots were in order.  These are in FSX with texture_load_max=4096 in fsx.cfg.  Will be part of SaltspringPlus.

Ganges – Kanaka Wharf

Ganges – Kanaka Wharf

Ganges – Coast Guard Station

Ganges – Fever Tree

A fun trip for Christmas

To visit my son’s family in Maple Ridge I plan to fly CYWH (Victoria Harbour, modelled in VictoriaPlus) to CAJ8 (Pitt Meadows, modelled in VancouverPlus, adjacent to CYPK) with Harbour Air.

On floatplanes previously I’ve flown CYWH to CAM9 (Vancouver Sea Island), CYHC (Vancouver Harbour) and CAE5 (Whistler), as well as a tour out of Ketchikan (5KE)

Saturna and Sturdies Bay

I believe with these Larry has completed all the minor terminals in the BC Southern Gulf Islands.  The big ones (Swartz Bay, Tsawwaasen, Departure Bay, Duke Point) lurk.

Saturna

Saturna

Saturna

Saturna

Sturdies Bay, Galiano

Sturdies Bay, Galiano

Sturdies Bay, Galiano

Sturdies Bay, Galiano

 

Gabriola Island Terminal

Larry’s Gabriola Island Terminal is off the production line…

Gabriola Island Terminal

Gabriola Island Terminal

Gabriola Island Terminal

Silver lining

My development computer wouldn’t boot the other day, and after some poking around I found that the boot drive was dead as a doorknob.  A boat anchor (for a small boat).  Data is on another drive so is fine, but I hate to put more $ into this ancient computer, first built in 2006 for nearly $5k, upgraded in 2008 for nearly $2k.  And everything runs fine on my new Lenovo laptop (i7, 4700HQ, 8Gb SSD, 1TB HDD, 16Gb RAM), but it lacks the large area of my desktop monitors, and the comfort of working at a desk.

So I found this 256Gb SSD (not the fastest of drives, but it’ll do, Donkey) for $110 with free shipping, should arrive next week and teach that old dog new tricks.  Bad news is that I need to reinstall Vista on it.  Ew.

Suspicious MS Support Site

A site at http://nwaha.org/ has attempted to post comments on my blog.  It looks like a Windows support site, but it’s very suspicious, encouraging the user to download “fixes” to Windows problems, which are actually executables.  Whois reports the owner as a proxy, so whoever runs it is hiding.  There is no contact info on the site.   Beware!

Here’s what the site does apparently: scroll down to the post by Jim Young. 

 

Non-linear development – PNW Ferries and SaltspringPlus

So with all the teasers, why hasn’t Larry published his PNW ferry stuff or at least part of it?  We’ve stated that it’s hooked into my work on Saltspring, so how is that progressing?

Here’s some background.  What Larry and I are doing could better be called “exploring” than development, bouncing around on whim from area to area, adding this here, improving that there.  Releasing in increments, given the already complex installation, is a recipe for chaos.  So we don’t know how long it will take because we don’t know the scope.

This is being done primarily for fun.  And in my case, for various reasons I haven’t been able to give it much attention lately, which is actually part of a greater personal exploration.  Hence the lack of updates and screenshots.

So we have no dates for ourselves, let alone anyone else!  VictoriaPlus V8 for ORBX PNW has been more popular than expected, so we appreciate the support.

 

 

Queen of Cumberland at Mayne Island

Some more of Larry’s great work.

Queen of Cumberland at Mayne Island

Queen of Cumberland at Mayne Island

Queen of Cumberland at Mayne Island

Queen of Cumberland at Mayne Island

Queen of Cumberland at Mayne Island

More PNW Ferry Scenery

Here’s the balance of Larry’s current work.  He’s also going to include a nifty pilotable Zodiac so you can zip around the terminals.  All shots in Prepar3d.

Penelakut

Penelakut

North Pender

North Pender

Long Harbour

Long Harbour

Fulford Harbour

Fulford Harbour

Long Harbour

Crofton

Crofton

Crofton

Vesuvius

Vesuvius

Crofton

Vesuvius

Thetis Island

Thetis Island

Penelakut

Stealing Larry’s Thunder

… well some of it.  Here are some shots at Chemainus ferry terminal of Larry Robinson‘s not yet released PNW Ferry System, featuring the MV Tenaka and Pacific Explorer tug.  Note in the third shot the default ferry for comparison.  This freeware work (still not finalized, for example there no effects in the below), which includes all terminals on Saltspring, will nicely complement SaltspringPlus.

MV Tenaka

Larry vs. Default

MV Tenaka

MV Tenaka

MV Tenaka

MV Tenaka

MV Tenaka

Pacific Explorer at Chemainus

Tenaka at Chemainus

Git yer upgrade here!

More than one third of the folks who purchased VictoriaPlus V8 PNW directly from my website between May and August have not taken advantage of the free upgrade available to SP1 at FSS.  Log in using the same email address you used for your Paypal purchase and select VictoriaPlus for purchase, you’ll find the price is $0.00.

An old scam still floats about

Looking for interesting twitter feeds to follow I found dozens of “flight simulator” feeds that all led to “Pro Flight Simulator.”  This apparently is a classic case of “buyer beware” and surfaced around 2010.  This site describes an interesting product for $49 with additional options that can total $140.  But according to source #1, source #2, source #3 it is simply an old version of the free open source Flight Gear program repackaged with no change in functionality. So you can choose to pay $49 for outdated technology or $0 for something better.

A more recent spin on the scam is called VirtualPilot3D.

Many say it’s not illegal, but it’s certainly slimy.  Certainly the VirtualPilot3D website is said to show copyrighted screenshots from other programs, and that is illegal.

So like anything else, do your research before you buy to make sure you’re getting value.