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#3975836 - 07/02/14 07:55 AM For Lieste - Portland & Weymouth  
Joined: Sep 2013
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Pielstick Offline
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As requested by Lieste - some shots of Portland and Weymouth in X-Plane 10 using Simheaven's ZL17 photoscenery and World2XPlane object placement.

I think the Simheaven photoscenery is based on Google Earth imagery. The W2XP stuff is still in beta, but basically it uses OpenStreetMap data and runs it through an algorithm to place buildings, forests, roads, etc in the correct location as indicated by the OSM data. It's not perfect and very reliant on the quality and quantity of OSM data, but it can make more accurate results than the old fashioned "autogen" object placement in MSFS.

I'm very familiar with the area myself, having spent a lot of time on ships operating out of Portland. Last time I was there was during the 2012 Olympics when my ship was operating as part of the security operation.

Click on the pics to open them in Imgur at full size for a better look.


Looking back down Chesil Beach towards Portland. Not a bad representation at all. You can see the coastlines are rather crudely cut out, but considering this guy has covered pretty much all of Europe and it's freeware I'm not going to complain too loudly. I'm not so sure about the trees on Chesil Beach though.


Looking across Weymouth and the surrounding area.


The marina is overdone, that's a result of the object library using jetties that are too big. You'll also notice most of the buildings in Weymouth's shopping precinct are missing - again likely a result of the data being missing in OSM.


Not a bad representation of the harbour. They've even got the two old WW2 Mulberry harbour sections in Castletown. They've also got a pretty good representation of Q-Pier, the Outer Coaling Pier and Deep Water Berth. I'm not so sure about the trees that are on the sea wall though....


Some of the buildings on the Verne. They've managed to get pretty good representations of Castletown, Fortuneswell, Easton, Weston and Southwell.


The lighthouse on Portland Bill is there as well. Again note the crudely cut out coastline.


Finally the whole area at night.


Is it all perfect? Nope. Is it better than the default? Yes miles better. Considering the scenery is all available for free, and the only real caveat is going to be hard drive space then this really is pretty good.

Just remember it's Portland and you shouldn't mention the rabbits!

Last edited by Pielstick; 07/02/14 07:59 AM.
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#3975848 - 07/02/14 09:28 AM Re: For Lieste - Portland & Weymouth [Re: Pielstick]  
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Lieste Offline
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Yep, that is because "Rabbits" is a safety word from the old quarrying. As the spoil piles settled, the resident bunnies would scatter above ground, giving a few minutes of "Rabbit" warning saving lives. As "Rabbits" had a useful & real meaning it was made a thing to refer to Lagomorphs as Bunnies at all other times.

Fun trivia: They changed the title on posters and of the film and dialogue for W&G Curse of the Were-Rabbit to be "Were-Bunny" for showings in Portland's Cinema.

Thanks for the images. Definitely some shortcomings, but the sort of thing that should improve with the evolving source materials. Do you know if it is updated at all? It is much better than defaults in either XP or FS (I only have 2002). It is also better for general tootling than just a photoscenery, as there is (mostly) some vertical element. The trees look a little dark for my taste (compare to the scrub along the side of the Fleet).

#3975857 - 07/02/14 10:33 AM Re: For Lieste - Portland & Weymouth [Re: Pielstick]  
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Pielstick Offline
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The Engine Room
The Simheaven photoscenery has all been updated fairly recently to incorporate the HD Mesh V2 from AlpilotX. Previously the Simheaven photoscenery only used the default mesh in XP10.

The World2XPlane stuff is currently in beta. I've heard there's a fairly substantial revamp of the UK parts of the scenery in testing at the moment. The W2XP programme itself uses the OSM data - OSM is being constantly updated, so it's really just a matter of periodically running the latest OSM data set through W2XP and it will export the scenery to XP10 format. What I'm using here are the readily available exported scenery made with the latest beta version of W2XP.

I think the base photoscenery is maybe a little washed out, but to be fair it is free. The good thing about XP10 is there's an awful lot of tweaking you can do under the hood. You've got a basic video gamma setting in the rendering options. Fairly recently somebody opened up a whole raft of new settings hidden away that control the atmospherics and shadows and you can make some pretty radical changes to how the sim looks. Throw in stuff like MaxxFX which is a post-process plugin that also lets you mess about with the brightness and colour balance.

I'm still experimenting and trying to find the sweet spot that works for me in terms of the colour, shadows and atmospherics. Still, as you say - this is a huge leap over what comes off the disk in FS9/FSX/XP9/XP10.


As for the rabbits, thanks for the background. I heard it was something along those lines but that's the best explanation I've had. I must have spent many months there over the last decade or so. To be honest I prefer it to being in Plymouth which is the other place we end up when we're in that part of the world. My wife always likes coming to visit for a weekend and having a meal in The Cove (if you can get a table booked!). I always walk through Castletown on the way from the port into Weymouth and think it's probably hardly changed since D-Day.

#3975859 - 07/02/14 10:40 AM Re: For Lieste - Portland & Weymouth [Re: Pielstick]  
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Pielstick Offline
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Pielstick  Offline
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Joined: Sep 2013
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The Engine Room
In fact whilst I remember it.... some of the best pub grub I've ever had was in Weymouth.

Round the back of Brewer's Quay.... I can't remember the name of the road but it's got an old army barracks associated with the old fort the pub is named after - The Nothe Tavern. Since someone told me about it I've never missed an opportunity to go there when I'm in Portland.

Last edited by Pielstick; 07/02/14 10:51 AM.

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