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2020 LTS airport announcement and Iceland intro draft: Difference between revisions
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2020 LTS airport announcement and Iceland intro draft (view source)
Revision as of 13:10, 4 November 2020
, 4 November 2020Add rainbow description,screenshot. cleanup
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This is a draft for a [https://www.flightgear.org/tours/ tour] article announcing the 2020.2 LTS, BIKF default airport, and Iceland improvements, as well as focusing on settings to enjoy Iceland properly. | This is a draft for a [https://www.flightgear.org/tours/ tour] article announcing the 2020.2 LTS, BIKF default airport, and Iceland improvements, as well as focusing on settings to enjoy Iceland properly. | ||
What should be the title? "FlightGear 2020.3 LTS: Welcome to Keflavik and Iceland"? It may need "FlightGear 2020.3 LTS" bit to show up in google search results. | What should be the title? "FlightGear 2020.3 LTS: Welcome to Keflavik and Iceland"? It may need "FlightGear 2020.3 LTS" bit to show up in google search results better. | ||
[http://wiki.flightgear.org/File:Iceland_in_FlightGear_2020_01_Volcanic_plume_and_snow_(Aerospatiale_Alouette_III).jpg Volcanic plume and Alouette III screenshot by Thorsten] | [http://wiki.flightgear.org/File:Iceland_in_FlightGear_2020_01_Volcanic_plume_and_snow_(Aerospatiale_Alouette_III).jpg Volcanic plume and Alouette III screenshot by Thorsten] | ||
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====A land born of fire and ice==== | ====A land born of fire and ice==== | ||
A land of fire, as well as ice, Iceland is still growing, and new parts are still being formed under the dancing Northern Lights (remember to turn Auroras on and watch!). An example is the island of Surtsey formed in 1963 - and Surtsey's two volcanic vents are now modeled with multiple levels of activity in the LTS. Surtsey is within viewing distance from | A land of fire, as well as ice, Iceland is still growing, and new parts are still being formed under the dancing Northern Lights (remember to turn Auroras on and watch!). An example is the island of Surtsey formed in 1963 - and Surtsey's two volcanic vents are now modeled with multiple levels of activity in the LTS. Surtsey is within viewing distance from Airport (BIVI). | ||
Volcanic activity at the main crater in Surtsey: | Volcanic activity at the main crater in Surtsey: | ||
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[ [[:File:Iceland,_Bell_412_(Flightgear_2020.x).jpg|Screenshot of overlays with transparency AA turned up high]] ] | [ [[:File:Iceland,_Bell_412_(Flightgear_2020.x).jpg|Screenshot of overlays with transparency AA turned up high]] ] | ||
A place needs 4 dimensions to describe it, 3 in space and 1 in time. Any default setting can only be a moment in time, and in FlightGear the ever-changing cycles of nature are simulated from the Environment > Environment Settings menu. In FlightGear's environment sliders, Iceland is often suited being towards the autumn season with wet ground and moss. The more northern seas away from the south coast can ice up, so remember the ice cover control. | A place needs 4 dimensions to describe it, 3 in space and 1 in time. Any default setting can only be a moment in time, and in FlightGear the ever-changing cycles of nature are simulated from the Environment > Environment Settings menu. In FlightGear's environment sliders, Iceland is often suited being towards the autumn season with wet ground and moss. The more northern seas away from the south coast can ice up, so remember the ice cover control. The snowline is set in Environment Settings too, as is the thickness of snow. Remember to adjust them. The snowline from METAR just a guess based on weather and lattitude. How much snow is on the ground depends on the history of snowfall, and how much snow melted or evapourated because of weather or temperatures. | ||
[Screenshots of varying environment sliders. Probably needs to be cropped or shown as smaller side by side images | [Screenshots of varying environment sliders. Probably needs to be cropped or shown as smaller side by side images. If captions are hard, then can just say something like: "''Varying envrionment sliders (in order): 1. Towards autumn, 2. Later in autumn, 3. Thin patchy snow, 4. Wet ground - puddles among the grass''": | ||
[http://wiki.flightgear.org/File:Iceland_airport_keep_-_summer,_Keflavik_International_Airport_(BIKF)_in_Flightgear_2020_LTS_01.jpg Summer] , [http://wiki.flightgear.org/File:Iceland_airport_keep_-_autumn,_Keflavik_International_Airport_(BIKF)_in_Flightgear_2020_LTS_02.jpg Towards autumn] [http://wiki.flightgear.org/File:Iceland_airport_keep-later_in_autumn,_Keflavik_International_Airport_(BIKF)_in_Flightgear_2020_LTS_05.jpg Later in autumn] , [http://wiki.flightgear.org/File:Iceland_airport_keep-_thin_snow,_Keflavik_International_Airport_(BIKF)_in_Flightgear_2020_LTS_06.jpg Thin, patchy snow], [http://wiki.flightgear.org/File:Iceland_airport_keep_-_water_puddles,_Keflavik_International_Airport_(BIKF)_in_Flightgear_2020_LTS_04.jpg Wet ground - puddles among the grass in lower right quadrant]] | |||
To recreate the turbulent windfields associated with the rugged mountainous terrain make sure terrain effects, terrain presampling, and thermal generation are enabled. The controls for detailed gust controls, cloud shadows, realistic visibility, ground haze and structure are also there. For shorter trips you may want to decrease the sizes of distinct air masses and scales of weather patterns, to see more change, more often. There are far more weather variables under the hood than are (and can be) exposed in the GUI. These weather variables are randomised each time the AW simulation is restarted - press 'Apply' to restart. What you see around your starting point, for each scenario very roughly describing airmasses around you like "Border of a high pressure region", is just one of a huge number of weather possibilities that can exist with those airmasses - for that terrain, at that | FlightGear's Advanced Weather (AW) engine simulates terrain-driven, continually evolving, weather on multiple scales - you can watch the lifecycle of a single cumulus cloud from the first wisps to eventual decay depending on the conditions it encounters. Look under Environment > Detailed Weather > Advanced Weather settings for controls. To activate the weather simulation, choose weather scenarios in the list from "Core high pressure region", through to "Warm Sector" - these describe the air masses around your starting point. "Fair Weather" is also fine, as it's just "Core high pressure region". Other types of scenarios will do things like tie weather to best guesses at vague METARs, and apply the same weather everywhere all the time. Using live METARs will additionally tie FG to weather conditions for the current time of day and season for that location - regardless of the time, date, and season you simulate. | ||
To recreate the turbulent windfields associated with the rugged mountainous terrain make sure terrain effects, terrain presampling, and thermal generation are enabled. The controls for detailed gust controls, cloud shadows, realistic visibility, ground haze and structure are also there. For shorter trips you may want to decrease the sizes of distinct air masses and scales of weather patterns, to see more change, more often. There are far more weather variables under the hood than are (and can be) exposed in the GUI. These weather variables are randomised each time the AW simulation is restarted - press 'Apply' to restart. What you see around your starting point, for each scenario very roughly describing airmasses around you like "Border of a high pressure region", is just one of a huge number of weather possibilities that can exist with those airmasses - for that terrain, at that latitude, and at that time. Remember that to recreate Iceland's cool temperatures, the temperature offset needs be lowered to adjust the weather scenarios used AW simulation - put in a negative value to lower temperatures like "-25". As temperatures decrease, rain will turn to snow or hail as appropriate. With lower temperatures you'll be rewarded more often with stunning halos around the sun and other types of scattering by ice crystals in clouds. | |||
Aurora Borealis, and sun halo. The halo is caused by light bouncing off ice crystals in the atmosphere. The halo is red as the sunlight from the low sun is red. Try setting 'time warp' to 4x or more in Environment > Time to see the Aurora dance a bit more clearly. | Aurora Borealis, and sun halo. The halo is caused by light bouncing off ice crystals in the atmosphere. The halo is red as the sunlight from the low sun is red. Try setting 'time warp' to 4x or more in Environment > Time to see the Aurora dance a bit more clearly. | ||
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[ [[:File:SOTM_2020-01_The_Goddness_of_Love_%26_Beauty_in_iridescence_by_eatdirt.jpg|Screenshot of scattering by ice crystals]] ] | [ [[:File:SOTM_2020-01_The_Goddness_of_Love_%26_Beauty_in_iridescence_by_eatdirt.jpg|Screenshot of scattering by ice crystals]] ] | ||
Iceland's wet, changing, weather and a sun that is often low means a lot of chances to go rainbow hunting. Rainbows aren't just a texture in Flightgear, they are simulated. Like halos, rainbows are the ALS light simulation interacting with the weather simulation - rainbows are light bouncing towards you from rain droplets. Rain falls under specific clouds, and you may only see part(s) of a rainbow. Unlike halos, a rainbow isn't around the sun. A rainbow is a large circle around the point /opposite/ the sun, the anti-solar point. To locate this point draw an imaginary line from the sun to you. To see a rainbow, you should be between the rain volume and the sun. The intensity of rainbow depends on things like how heavy the rain is and the size of raindrops. Very light rain (drizzle) makes subtle rainbows. Flying when the sun is low increases your chance of spotting rainbows. | |||
[ [[:File:Rainbow_in_iceland_(Flightgear_2020.x).jpg|Screenshot of rainbow]] ] | |||
====Exploring a new land==== | ====Exploring a new land==== | ||