Autogen-thoughts and another 180-thoughts

[Guest kwilson]

Let me just start by saying I have no desire to tell other people what they should be doing with their sim. You know what you like so I'm not going to waste time trying to tell you to change.With that out of the way let's begin.Re The Volcano. Seems like a bit of landclass changes may have made the volcano easier to pick up. A barren texture instead of the forest texture would have made it easier to spot.Re Autogen over ground textures. One of the problems with autogen is that it is placed over an aerial picture of the ground (whether PR or LC it is still an aerial picture). If you wanted to be 100% accurate a developer would have to place grass textures where all the tree textures are and then place autogen trees over that (this would of course take a million years to edit all the ground textures, especially for photoreal). What we have at the moment is an autogen tree on top of a picture of the top of a tree, not at all realistic. In addition, with the much better resolution of textures in FSX the placement of those trees becomes more critical. In FS9 you could throw trees down willy nilly becuase the blurry textures wouldn't accurately show each trees location. In FSX you can see where each individual tree is so placement becomes more critical.Personally I like autogen. Mind you I fly in FTX Australia most of the time and the autogen textures there are much much much better than the default FSX ones. I fly close to the ground sometimes (less than 1000') and love dodging between the trees and houses. I also find it helps when on the ground or approaching an airport (although I hate the autogen trees that block an approach to a runway, where's the chainsaw?) It's a pity FSX broke the alpha fading of autogen that FS9 had. Perhaps in FS11 they will have a system where autogen fades in only when close to the ground but disappears when above 1000' or 2000' so you can enjoy the ground textures.

[ryanbatc 12,856]

I also find it helps when on the ground or approaching an airport (although I hate the autogen trees that block an approach to a runway, where's the chainsaw?)

A little OT but there's a file in the avsim libraries called "lumberjack" search for Jim Keir and you'll find he did two files, each for different distances from the runway. Handy little addon - it reduces the trees on short final at a lot of smaller airports.

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Hello Luis,As developers we'd like to point out a few problems with your assumptions and clear up any misconceptions of how we care about a product.

Hello whatever your name is,I am sure that you have made some effort with your product and thank you for your short comments concerning the process of creating custom textures. I suppose that I know as much about the process as anybody else, perhaps even as much as you.What I have noticed from the screenshots of your product is that you do not seem to have bothered making any color corrections to your source images, none at all. All the screenshots I have seen show washed-out ground textures with a blue cast (from the original source image, not from FS). This seems like a serious lack of attention to detail.In addition, releasing a product based on images with cloud cover seems astonishing, as you have done for Florida.The problems, it seems, are not with my assumptions at all. Obviously, 30 seconds of color correction by a non-graphics professional does not make a perfect picture, but simply shows that it is possible to make something better by those who are willing to make the effort. The result is much better than your product because it is a step in the right direction, better brightness, better contrast, less blue. Compared to the picture of the real thing (Geof's picture), it comes a lot closer than your version. With more effort, the color balance and levels can be improved also. In addition, you may have created new autogen trees, but do not seem to have bothered to balance their textures to the ground textures, which is why the trees are so visible.As for the autogen placement, the screenshots speak for themselves, buildings placed haphazardly, trees running up what should be barren hills...Of course, people have bought and will continue to buy these products, and that is their right. If they find enjoyment in them, then there is no problem as far as I am concerned. It is just that I have spent too many years and too much effort on these matters, and it hurts my sensibilities to see substandard add-ons that could have been better with a lot more effort. Of course, if it were freeware, I would not ever mention the faults, but that is not the case here. Luis

[Petraeus 147]

Of course, people have bought and will continue to buy these products, and that is their right. If they find enjoyment in them, then there is no problem as far as I am concerned. It is just that I have spent too many years and too much effort on these matters, and it hurts my sensibilities to see substandard add-ons that could have been better with a lot more effort. Of course, if it were freeware, I would not ever mention the faults, but that is not the case here. Luis

This discussion once more raises the question for me of whether to buy the latest Megascenery downloads. I have their Oahu and Reno and Las Vegas, which look good to my eye, but comments like yours suggest that they've not put the effort into the more recent offerings. Which in turn might suggest that their business model is changing from one of low-throughput individually-crafted works of high quality, to one of high-volume mass-produced works of variable quality. Sort of Morgan to Mini. Would that be a fair assessment?And yes, Geofa, sorry, I know this is supposed to be about autogen! :(

[sightseer 895]

Geoff - I think your problem with the crater not being visible might actualy be a landclass slope issue. Maybe higher resolution mesh would help. or maybe an updated/improved landclass slope definition fileas far as the way autogen looks... I like it. It looks good enough. Im aware that most problems are created when the color and resolution of the autogen dosent match the ground textures. I've wondered if it were possible for autogen to use the ground texture in its creation. Wherever there is a tree (according to the agn file), then the graphics engine could look at the ground texture and assemble a tree out of that. I dont know how that would look but it might work.I also wish there were 'forest objects'. These are just like any other object but they are large blocks of 'forest'. I tend to think they would be difficult to get them to follow the terrain though. I dont know how it all works so I cant really add that much.all I know is that I like the way trees and buildings make my approaches look quite real. There is nothing more fun than sinking down in amongst the trees to land. Its also just as enjoyable to take off while looking out your side window and watch the ground peel away and sooner or later the clouds are passing by at an angle.

[Geofa 108]

Geoff - I think your problem with the crater not being visible might actualy be a landclass slope issue. Maybe higher resolution mesh would help. or maybe an updated/improved landclass slope definition fileas far as the way autogen looks... I like it. It looks good enough. Im aware that most problems are created when the color and resolution of the autogen dosent match the ground textures. I've wondered if it were possible for autogen to use the ground texture in its creation. Wherever there is a tree (according to the agn file), then the graphics engine could look at the ground texture and assemble a tree out of that. I dont know how that would look but it might work.I also wish there were 'forest objects'. These are just like any other object but they are large blocks of 'forest'. I tend to think they would be difficult to get them to follow the terrain though. I dont know how it all works so I cant really add that much.all I know is that I like the way trees and buildings make my approaches look quite real. There is nothing more fun than sinking down in amongst the trees to land. Its also just as enjoyable to take off while looking out your side window and watch the ground peel away and sooner or later the clouds are passing by at an angle.

It is for sure a landclass issue-though it still wouldn't look very real with the desert brown. However, as the shot shows-the autogen trees completely make it unrecognizable and the removal of them makes it appear.I agree -the trees are great low down-it is from above I am complaining about.

[meshman 109]

Geoff - I think your problem with the crater not being visible might actualy be a landclass slope issue. Maybe higher resolution mesh would help. or maybe an updated/improved landclass slope definition file

Nah, while there was some ability to recognize the physical layout using 10m mesh, within the sim it was all trees.Even before Geofa started this thread I had gone exploring in Google Earth and when I saw Cinder Cone I was struck by the area and it's not-too-distant history. Off to the tools I went and was able to make a rough grab of the area and checked it out in FSX. Then, a couple of hours making a blendmask to form the lava flow into the surroundings. What surprised me was how Ultimate Terrain X was fairly accurately showing the lava mass in the sim, although as normal texture, not as lava. But it fit in pretty good and it melds well with Geofa's mission work.For someone who grew up about 35-40nm away from the general area it's a nice refresher course on Kalifornia and it's history.

[Toys_R_Us 0]

Geof and Luis:You may have opened up an extraordiary new can of worms for some third party developer.It was about a year ago that I discovered the remarkable photo correction capabilities in Photoshop. That came after my digital photos seemed to always turn out so lousy. Then the camera manual pointed out that post output photo correction is required for those that want really good digital photos. And then I very quickly could see what "RAW" was all about.What if someone developed a batch texture editor in a WYSIWYG format where one could push a button, after they see what they want, and save a whole texture replacement (custom modified) copy set in a named folder to the "filter" conditions of a single WYSIWYG example window editor ?Would this give you what you are seeking ?Bob (Las Cruces, NM)

[Geofa 108]

Nah, while there was some ability to recognize the physical layout using 10m mesh, within the sim it was all trees.Even before Geofa started this thread I had gone exploring in Google Earth and when I saw Cinder Cone I was struck by the area and it's not-too-distant history. Off to the tools I went and was able to make a rough grab of the area and checked it out in FSX. Then, a couple of hours making a blendmask to form the lava flow into the surroundings. What surprised me was how Ultimate Terrain X was fairly accurately showing the lava mass in the sim, although as normal texture, not as lava. But it fit in pretty good and it melds well with Geofa's mission work.For someone who grew up about 35-40nm away from the general area it's a nice refresher course on Kalifornia and it's history.

...and what strikes me is how incredibly cool this looks now and I thank MeshMan not only for the work here-but for the other enhancements he made to the airport and surroundings. Simply incredible stuff!Bob-sounds like a great idea!

[sprintz 0]

Please do take a look at the Autogen S.D.K. and you will find that there are much smaller tree sizes available, all the way down to a dozen feet or so. Therefore, the problem is not that autogen trees are too tall, but that the wrong size trees are placed in certain locations. This is very easy to fix, simply load up the Annotator and change from very tall to medium or short trees, as desired.Best regards.Luis

Interesting, thanks. I didn't delve in too deep, but I did spend a bit of time looking at "AutogenDescriptions.xml". I see that there are much smaller trees available, from young to very old for many types. I guess the problem, then, is not the "size" of the autogen trees per se, but instead the way the sim very frequently places huge trees in inappropriate places. Too high of a concentration of the "very old" types I guess. I wonder if editing down some of the max scale and min scale numbers would do what it sounds like they'd do?

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Interesting, thanks. I didn't delve in too deep, but I did spend a bit of time looking at "AutogenDescriptions.xml". I see that there are much smaller trees available, from young to very old for many types. I guess the problem, then, is not the "size" of the autogen trees per se, but instead the way the sim very frequently places huge trees in inappropriate places. Too high of a concentration of the "very old" types I guess. I wonder if editing down some of the max scale and min scale numbers would do what it sounds like they'd do?

Those are interesting possibilities, and you could spend time changing the scales. Perhaps an easier solution is to just load up the Autogen Annotator and change the annotation for those ground textures. Generally, using the Annotator, you can choose exactly what to add, for example:Here you can see that there are different size entries for Oaks, Maples, Poplars, etc. and so it is with all trees. Perhaps the guys at ACES simply placed a mix of all sizes since they were rushed for time (and probably also proud of the amazing variety of trees in this version of FS), but we can easily change the annotations to smaller trees. If you are really interested in doing this, please see:Using the Autogen Annotator in the Avsim libraryhttp://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?&DLID=107335This will show you how easy it is to change those tall trees to smaller sizes.Hello Bob,Precisely, that is it. In fact, it has already been done, and right here at Avsim. There was a fellow member of the scenery design forum who created an automated process for coloring and correcting aerial images - and that was many years ago.More mundanely, Photoshop already offers many possibilities along this line, and it is all in the user manual. For example, just using the Automatic Levels will often give amazing results. In general, though, anybody who works with aerial images knows that the blue must be eliminated and the brightness augmented considerably in order to get good results. In fact, I put this in the tutorial I wrote last year on the process for FS X.Best regards.Luis

[dhwang 0]

My initial post seems to miss the target. Sorry!What I don't like about autogens is they keep poping up which distracts me from flying. Let's hope FS11 will be as smooth as racing games.

[sightseer 895]

Meshman - Your solution looks great. I dont really know how it all works and I got to thinking after I made my post that some areas have steep terrain but still have vegetation (like Hawaii) and other areas have gradual terrain with no vegetation. I dont really like the way FSX tries to throw different textures in for different gradients. It doesnt hang together well.In fact, for me, FSX doesnt visually hang together well overall. Some people call it 'cartoony'. Its a good description. My opinion (completely based on little knowledge) is that it has something to do with the way all the objects seem to be written to one buffer and then ground is written somewhere else and then its all layered together. It makes it hard to look at. I have no idea what the solution is but it seems that FS9 was easier on the eyes and held together better (for whatever reason). Of course I havent played FS9 in quite some time so I could be just remembering wrong.but anyway - its good enough for now. FSX does have more immersion than FS9 did (IMO). and I can 'see' farther. I like that. I think that the technology that allows me to 'see farther' is also the technology that makes it harder to look at. i dont really know, though. and actually, some people (like FTX and the guys who have done the freeware airports) have done a fantastic job. It doesnt really look 'cartoony' for some reason. I dont know what the answer is.

[Geofa 108]

Now this is what I call realistic autogen-and everything else!Thanks Todd for the thread!http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtopic=240837

[Guest megaSceneryEarthDevelopers]

This discussion once more raises the question for me of whether to buy the latest Megascenery downloads. I have their Oahu and Reno and Las Vegas, which look good to my eye, but comments like yours suggest that they've not put the effort into the more recent offerings.

Hi,We'd like to clarify that the megaScenery Earth project uses exactly the same process we used with Oahu and Reno. The MSE project is intended to cover the entire USA and not all of the USA is available at the same quality as the megaSceneryX products.We do use the best data available at the time. Because the USA is so huge there will be variations in quality that we have no control over. Our goal is to provide the best possible product given the limitations of what we have to work with. To take one area as an example you'll find that the Utah product is excellent because the source data we use is excellent.Yes, we do color correct our product, we use the latest data for autogen, we use the latest data for night. So to assume we don't put the effort in is probably because the process that we use is not disclosed. As any developer knows, there are a thousand things that go on behind the scenes that make up developing the product that appear 'simple' to the end user but are technically quite a challenge.Whether you buy MSE or not is up to the individual. We're not the only company making scenery and people are free to choose. What we do offer is the widest coverage of the USA available for photoscenery, at the best quality available for a given sale price to the public, with autogen and night lighting.