Server Maintenance

We'll likely have our server going down in the next couple of days for maintenance and it may be down for a couple of weeks.

Will port the server over to a new location as well as we're no longer able to support a dedicated server due to the high costs and low volume of sales. So that will also take place in the next couple of weeks.

Due to the dwindling size of the FS community I've decided to go back to the land of Television full time and move FS Dreamscapes to more of a community based group. Am still figuring out the nuts and bolts of it all but I am still working on Oahu and Ultimate VFR USA coverage, however if things continue as they are we might need to consider shutting up shop after we finish up our current projects.

For all who have prepaid for products don't fear we will be providing ongoing support and providing you with what we have advertised. This is a tough time due to the world economy spiralling out of control but we are still committed to what we have started. We might look at selling our technology or freelancing with other developers in order to see our vision realized.

More news to come soon...

Ultimate VFR Xtreme Oahu - Beta/Preview Build 4

We've uploaded a build for Ultimate VFR Xtreme Oahu which is Beta/Preview Build #4 and is available for all pre-order customers of Ultimate VFR Xtreme Oahu.

The build only covers 60% of the island and requires the previous build to be installed, however we are anticipating being able to finish up the entire island's water mapping (hopefully inland waterways won't bog us down), within the next couple of weeks.

The beta/preview #4 build includes basic autogen vegetation as well as watermasking for the island. Water flattens and other vector scenery items are not as yet built as we need to complete the whole island's water mapping before those elements can be completed.

Also one more thing...

We have given everyone who has pre-paid for Ultimate VFR Xtreme Oahu a free copy of Ultimate VFR Guam to say thanks for your support and hanging in there with us. It has been a much bigger journey than we ever anticipated but what we will bring you is way beyond what we ever envisioned at the start...

We're also prepping new forums, unfortunately we've had to nuke the old forums as there was way too much spam starting to happen and a lot of the information was way out of date. They should be up and available shortly. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause but we figure it's best to do a refresh on our forums.

Ultimate VFR Guam

Ultimate VFR Guam is almost complete. We just need to revise a few things, remove airport plateaus and build in road traffic more fully. Guam is looking very nice indeed and will be a modular system.

There will be a base photoimagery layer to start with and various other layers including autogen, 3d buildings and more in future.

Manual Watermapping for Utah and California will commence shortly and will all be done by hand now which will take time but will be worth the results. Oahu is 60% complete right now and will have imagery finalized in the next few weeks.

Full Speed Ahead

I know it's been a while since I've blogged here, I've mostly been on Facebook so if you want the very latest info in development click on the Facebook link to the right.

Last week one of our business partners pulled out and has meant the end to our 5m elevation data products but it's not the end of our work.

This last week has seen some really heavy work going on with Ultimate VFR Xtreme Oahu with extremely intense watermapping taking place, and I have to say, inland waterways with changes in elevation and rocky outcroppings sure do provide a challenge.

We're now about 45% complete on the final watermapping process and estimate that we should be finished with the photoscenery for Oahu in the next few weeks.

Can we give an exact date? No, it's simply too hard to do given that inland waterways are inconsistent across tiles, one tile will have no water, one tile will take 1/2 a day to work on like this monstrosity I mapped yesterday.

The level of detail over such a broad area is something that I don't believe has ever been done before for Microsoft Flight Simulator. Here's a few development shots to show what we're doing.

Following on from that we have a new team member on board helping to build Ultimate VFR Guam. Progress is at 95% as of last night and the sample from a few days ago shows how the progress was at 50%, there's only 1/2 a tile to go with watermapping, then follow up quality control and blendmasking, all of which should be relatively quick.

Onto Ultimate VFR California and Utah. Right when we were a day or so away from release, our business partner who had provided water maps for the state notified us of their decision to scale back their operations as they've gone through massive downsizing and restructuring in the last year with over 70% of their workforce slashed, unfortunately they've had to make the hard decision to do the same with their partner program.

This was a huge disappointment to us as we were really ready to start rolling out the datasets, however, this has actually worked to our benefit and we believe we have now found data that meets our standards and if all goes well, Ultimate VFR Utah and Ultimate VFR California should be back on track within the month, as our priority right now is completing Ultimate VFR Xtreme Oahu and also getting Guam out the door. Guam will be a freebie for all who have purchased photoscenery from us before.

So now I need to get back to rendering, Oahu is calling me and we have a very good outlook for the days ahead.

Office Moved

Thankfully all of the medical challenges have passed since moving back to the Philippines.

The new office is nicely set up and is up and running. Quite happy with the new setup. Now to get the old DVD burner back up and operational as well as the old P4 computer.

Today I'll be taking a few screenshots and then will start prep for getting some new data available in the store...

Oahu Beta Panoramas

Some panoramics of Ultimate VFR Xtreme - Oahu including some shots showing it with Aerosoft's Dillingham X...

Battles

For some reason, ever since the day I flew back to the Philippines I've been facing minor but irritating battles...

Firstly the day I flew back I came down sick with food poisoning. Took a week to get better.

Then I came down sick with a respiratory infection which knocked me out for 4 days.

Then I ended up with a severe sunburn while on a long awaited vacation.

Then I got burned on the wrist by some hot cooking oil while making lunch on Monday.

Then I got burned on the right hand middle finger while again preparing lunch the next day.

Followed by some sort of acne flare up in my nostrils and arms that have been extremely painful and are slowing me down today, and am considering seeing a doctor tomorrow.

I'd post photos but they'd not really be appropriate for this blog but I'd sure like these battles to end so I can be back up to full speed.

In the meantime Oahu only has one more DVD of source data to prep, and then final assembly.

Back in the Philippines

It's been a busy 3 weeks of moving back over to the Philippines to prep for our eventual move to Australia once we get a fiancée visa for Melanie.

I spent the last month prepping for the April 9 flight to Manila, then came down sick with food poisoning from some bad pizza at Little Caesar's at K-Mart in Guam. The next few days were spent trying to find a driver up to Baguio City with the 32" monitor and the 2 suitcases. Several days and $200+ later we arrived back in Baguio City.

I spent the next few days gaining back my strength after the food poisoning incident and then suddenly had to travel down to Melanie's old family home in the province in the Philippines where I quickly came down with a respiratory infection that knocked me on my back for 3 days straight. Being that it's a remote town in the Philippines there was no internet there and I had no 3G access there.

Next we headed back to Baguio, on a grueling 9 hour bus ride during the last few days of Holy Week (i.e. Easter is huge in the Philippines), we had a very cramped ride back to Baguio and arrived late Sunday night. The next day we were scheduled to go on vacation (I've had maybe 3-4 vacations in the last 20 years), and headed back down to San Fernando, La Union on Tuesday last week.

After a refreshing 5 days down by the ocean, snorkeling, gaining back strength from the heavy travel itinerary and after a 2 hour ride standing up in a bus that had people standing in the aisle and going up a 7000' mountain road with twists and turns and several thousand food drop offs right next to the road, we made it home to Baguio City.

The last few days I've been catching up with getting the office set back up and have almost got the hard drives brought back online. I should hopefully have them all fully functional by tomorrow.

Oahu is about 3-4 weeks behind schedule due to the move, travel and vacation time, but all watermapping is complete except for one dvd, next up is the assembly process and then getting her all packaged up for download.

I'll start back with the video blogs as soon as I get my box of belongings that were shipped from Guam to the Philippines. More news tomorrow.

News News and More News

Well I have some good news, some good news, some better news and some not so good news, oh and more good news...

I am now a fully fledged United States Citizen as of March 11, 2011. I had my Oath Taking Ceremony here in Guam and am proud to be an American.

Good news is that Oahu is in the final stages of completion and I've started a $14.95 pre-launch sale and expect to have Oahu released by end of April.

More news is that now I have my citizenship I can head back over to Manila and get back into operations full time due to the much lower cost of living. I'll be flying out on April 9 and now have a place for rent in Manila which will mean more reliable and much faster internet service.

The not so good news is that I'll be busy packing this week and the next in preparation for the company move again. This is also due to the Television Station I've been working at shutting down. The flip side of that is that I now have a very good network here on Guam and can travel to and fro easily. This all means DVD backup service will be put on hold for a few days.

The other good news is that Melanie and I are planning on getting married in the next few months and will have Melanie's help with the business operations. It also means that shortly I can hire staff in the Philippines to help run the business.

More news to follow, and pictures to be posted on the Oahu product page shortly.

March 2011 Update

Alrighty, after a year here on Guam my time is almost up. I was sworn in as a U.S. Citizen last week and the TV station is also shutting up shop at the end of this month.

I'll be moving operations back to Manila (not Baguio) where there are fewer problems with electricity and internet connections.

We might be moving the wedding date up on our schedule as well.

The server was offline for about 20 hours due to maintenance at the data center our server is at but after a reboot everything has been restored.

Oahu is progressing well and is nearing finalization.