Simviation Forums

Hey guys, I have just taken my beutiful simviation sourced F-14B to both the North Pole and the South Pole and am very confusingly reporting very strange graphics behaviour. The land seems to move beneath the aircraft at high speed and strange directions, I put the plane down and panned around the spot views, and again the ground seems to shift beneath the aircraft!!! Clouds also seem to have been stretched slightly in the vertical direction. Can anyone explain these strange occurences, my only thoughts are that the graphics engine has to make a flat surface into a sphere forcing the ground to have to squash together at the poles. Anyway, I seem to be getting into a habbit of writing very long messages so Ill stop there, think I have explained it thoroughly enough for you guys to understand. Cheers
John

the FS world isn't a sphere to begin with, but a cylinder I believe.

I'll let others take care of this question, the above is basicly all I know  ;D

I can explain the north pole, you've been attacked by santas north pole cloking machine which disorients pilots making his workshop hard to spot

as for the south pole, you've been caught in a matrix

yes, i remember the same problem at the south pole, the closer I got, the more the ground moved while I was panning.

it's a strange fluke, but whatever....

basically Nexus answered it. The designers for whatever reason, made the flight sim world a cylindrical shape rather than spherical.

You can't go to the poles. As Nexus said the FS world is a cylinder not a globe. When you reach a certain latitude you start going sideways and skirt the pole completely. That's why the textures behave oddly. It's similar to the altitude limit. Once you reach 100,000 ft the airplane just starts going horizontally. Try taking the X-15 up to 100,000 ft and watch from Spot view. You'll see the contrails going sideways while the aircraft hangs nose up.

The Poles are so coooool!! I thought it was my prescription durgs working on me. God I hate those things. I think I'll try the chopper down there next time, Give up Prescription Drugs and try the outlaw kind I guess.

As for the cylinder thing, all I can figure is it's easier to apply textures that way.

Just goes to prove the Earth really is flat. The US space program was done in a studio. Don't believe all those American lies I tell you!

"Santa, there's a bogey on the scope again... looks like another disoriented pilot"
"Excellent... seems the cloaking device is working just fine."
"But Santa, what if they crash?"
"Same deal as always: you boys go retrieve the bodies, and Mama will make meatloaf for everybody! "
"Wha-you mean-?!"
"You're new, aren't you? Listen, kid, I don't know about you, but I'm sick of milk and cookies, and we can't eat the reindeer!"

Remember: when flying over the Pole, bring a gun.

Saratoga and nexus have the most logical answer in my opinion.  Ever notice how we've got so many different world map projections?  It isn't easy to take a giant sphere and make the textures and coordinates match up as well on a flat playing field as it is with a cylinder.  

FS has been surrounded by the "As real as it gets" slogan for all it existance.  First of all, no pilot in their right mind flies to the poles.  Second, the ground would appear spinning due to cold air and the fatigue of flight probably.

Ya really...why fly to the poles...other than to say you have been to the poles? My thoughts are when they were making the game, they didn't really think many people would be up there on a regular basis. However, I am slightly irritated about the fact that when you take off in Antartica, you fly from under the ground as you climb. Now they put the airports down there, they should get it right...

also, at McMurdo, one of the runways, either at McMurdo Station or McMurdo Ice Runway has a runway that, if you don't land on it dead on center, your going to fall into the water... quite annoying I must say, for the coutple times I've been there

Also, in real-life, GPS systems start to go hay-wire when near the poles.

If it bothers you, don't fly there.