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Geofa

A few real sim compares

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GeofI always love viewing your comparison shots which do show that the sim ground textures are way off the mark compared to our real world counterparts.Strange thing i took a couple of shots in the exact same position ;-)Excuse me for fiddling with your shots :-)Thanks Peter

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Agreed on the ground textures. I wonder if substituting textures produced from actual photos would produce more reality...hmmm.Same way I feel about "hand drawn" panels vs. photographic-but I seem to be in the minority here.Not sure I get the picture part?!http://members.telocity.com/~geof43/Geofdog2.jpg

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>Agreed on the ground textures. I wonder if substituting textures produced from actual photos would produce more reality...hmmm.Same way I feel about "hand drawn" panels vs. photographic-but I seem to be in the minority here.Not sure I get the picture part?!

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I use Paint Shop Pro.I agree about the textures-I have always thought ms from the beginning always had a "neon" artificial look.But you just gave me the idea-what would happen if we replaced the textures with real shots taken from aircraft?I am at the moment trying the road texture. The first shot is a shot of a major road I took the other day-rotate it like shot 2-and save in the texture folder at the same size. I don't know if this has been done-but what if all the hand drawn artificial textures were replaced by real textures!I'll see if I can get any results-thanks for the idea!http://members.telocity.com/~geof43/Geofdog2.jpg

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GeofLooking at your road snippets has given me an idea which would be a service to scenery creators.It would be useful to have a picture database at Avsim where examples of roads, rivers, factory buildings, forests etc etc could be held taken from different parts of the world and used as examples.Maybe even cloud types ;-)Then People like you and I could be of service when we are snapping away Peter

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Guest JonP01

Geof,The fundamental problem with FS2002 is that in the end you have a 256 pixel x 256 pixel texture tile covering something like around 1300 metres x 1300 metres (from memory - I'm probably wrong on the exact figure, but whatever it is the resolution is extremely low). Consequently the tiles are going to look extremely unrealistic until you reach a certain height. Even then the fact remains that at this optimum height (and above) the human eye can resolve far greater detail than the simulator is capable of providing.Reading a recent aircraft accident report, a consulting opthamologist commented that the human eye is normally capable of resolving a 5mm circumference overhead wire at a distance of 150 metres (though not in the case of this fatal accident). So FS has a millenia of improvement ahead to even approach such levels of detail, and of course most of these improvements are dependant upon hardware improvement rather than the availability of information resources and the ability of programmers. Infact I am sure most game graphics artists would much prefer already to provide a "complete" landscape environment rather than fool the eye with endless repetitions of tile after tile (that, through careful use actually don't look too repetitive though).After noting that the FS2002 VRF UK scenery was available, I persued enquiries as to whether information sources were available for producing the same thing for Australia. I could certainly do it, as the imformation exists. The baulking point was that each digital photo was going to cost me something like $55 AUD, and I would have needed several hundred of them even to cover just New South Wales.Still, scenery such as the UK VFR product certainly shows that a reasonably convincing facsimile of real life landscape detail is available so long as you are prepared to fly within a particular altitude envelope. Where simulation games still need to improve in general is in their ability to render a convincing landscape at all altitudes - not just the "sweet spot" of around 4,000 - 7,000 ft AGL. Obviously at very low altitudes FS2002 is simply a mass of disorderly, mip-mapped pixels. I guess the upcoming Lock On Combat Simulator will be interesting from the point of view of being able to vary the landscape detail at varying altitudes, as it claims to be a pioneer in this respect.

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Thanks for the good information.I guess I am still a little puzzled. The UK VFR product while it looks incredible in its' own right from the screen shots I have seen of it still has an unrealistic (to my eyes)look to it. I guess I am wondering why a more realistic out the window view can't be done with textures even at their present stage-either ms or digital.The ms ones to me look like they were hand drawn in a paint program-the colors are too sharp and neon, and the digital photo scenery in a different sort of way has an unrealistic color look of strange colors and a washed out look.I guess I am not addressing the detail of the textures as much as the look of them vs. what one sees out a real aircraft window.Perhaps the answer is just future technology.http://members.telocity.com/~geof43/Geofdog2.jpg

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Hi, The Main reason why the picture are not comparable, it is simply because you are sawing generic texture, generic texture are used to cover virtualy the entire world from a certains altitude including the trees in the texture. Generic texture are not detailed for specific area, you will saw the same texture over and over others area. The texture can be improved but not 100% accurate like your picture. There is the Ms generic texture lennart_txt_2002.zip from lennart thats are good.Photo Sat is the solution to get closer to your picture. Ms is not able to do the entire world with photo sat, it's cost so much $, this will take so much DVD Cd and tons of GIG in your Hard Disk.Still with Photo sat, the result at low altitude is not accurate. The scenery engine need A multy scenery texture layering according to the altitude.When we are below 4000 feet, the set of texture generic set appears, texture will fade effect) When we are above 4000 feet, another set of texture texture appears ( texture will fade effect) In This version Of Msfs, they have including the Multi texturing, that's smooth more the texture at the ground.etc.The only way for now, is to download or buy scenery photo sat thats cover your area.Msfs is not an, Combat Flights thats cover a small area, this will be easy for them.ThanksChris Willis[link:fsw.simflight.com/FSWMenuFsSim.html]Clouds And Addons For MsFs


Kind Regards
Chris Willis

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I think I understand this and I happen to be a believer in the generic texture method . I guess my question is how to get these generic textures to look more realistic.Below I took the generic ms texture-the second and 3rd are similar textures from photos I took flying over trees at about 3000 ft. Would there not be a way to make these real textures appear instead of the neon drawn looking ms ones-or would the stretching destroy the photo look? The photo ones look much more real to me-no way to get them in the sim? :-) As Peter mentions above-would not actual shots of buildings, roads, rivers, etc. at different altitudes, provided by pilots, help improve the realistic look of the stock textures?http://members.telocity.com/~geof43/Geofdog2.jpg

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