http://www.x-plane.c...and-x-plane-10/ "OSM contains significantly better road data in every part of the world." http://www.openstreetmap.org/ Exciting stuff.

It's still a texture though. There is no real benefit in this kind of thing. What you need is accurate terrain for the locations you will be flying. I.e. just around airports and significant points of interest. The trick is to use photoreal where it matters and use carefully designed tiles to replicate the rest of the environment.

It's not a texture, but a vector data. Basically what UTX is, but out of the box. Add XP10 autogen generation system, and you have good looking towns and cities. It's a major feature that sparked my interest in XPlane 10.

It's not a texture, but a vector data. Basically what UTX is, but out of the box. Add XP10 autogen generation system, and you have good looking towns and cities. It's a major feature that sparked my interest in XPlane 10.

Yes - but it's still effectively a 'texture,' in the sense that if you disable autogen it will (I assume) remain. If you disable autogen then the entire city is not going to disappear is it?

Yes - but it's still effectively a 'texture,' in the sense that if you disable autogen it will (I assume) remain. If you disable autogen then the entire city is not going to disappear is it?

It depends how XPlane render vector data on the ground. In FSX roads looks like texture. In Rise of Flight and DCS it's a geometry wrapped on terrain. How it's done in XPlane we don't know yet. If you'll disable autogen and vector data city will probably disappear. We'll have to wait for more info though.

It depends how XPlane render vector data on the ground. In FSX roads looks like texture. In Rise of Flight and DCS it's a geometry wrapped on terrain. How it's done in XPlane we don't know yet.

It IS vector data, and not painted like a texture on the ground. As such, it will also be able to show more complex road "configurations" (well, at least its the plan, and it might no always work perfectly). Like for example overpasses, etc ... And if you completely turn it off all the roads/objects (well, what you would call autogen) ... then of course, there wont be left much more than some base terrain texture (which has no traces left of the urban objects) on the ground. So, usually it will be advisable to have a good enough hardware to have at least a bit of the city on (but still, its not a necessity).

Thanks for info. Any chances for screenshots of European cities? ;)

Wow, hey, there are really funny ideas floating around about the "terrain engine" (if its ready or not). I really need to ... uhm ... smile. Well, let me put it this way. The terrain engine, like I would define it, is really more or less ready. In that I mean, that XP10 is capable of rendering the terrain (it has the code to spit out piles of geometry, use shaders, put down textures in many different ways, show forests, and more or less show all the roads / houses). But there is something else, that is a good reason not to jump the gun ... it is artwork. I mean, all the stuff that is needed to bring life in the sim, which essentially gives the terrain/graphics engine something nice to show you. And in this part there are many ongoing efforts to bring in as much as possible ... And even if it looks already quite impressive in many regions, there are still others which can use some touching up (or the artists still have the freedom to change this or that). BUT, there is also another aspect to this. And maybe many of the non X-Plane users might (or will!) be a bit confused (old school X-Planers are already used to it) ... X-Plane is a product, that is never really finished (well, in the sense of a monolithic product like - lets say - Microsoft Office). It is and always was an ongoing, dynamically growing, evolving software. And maybe many don't know this ... but X-Plane gets a LOT of updates all over its life cycle (of each major version). Its not just like one or two SPs like with MS. No, there are always improvements. Sometimes just bug fixes, but often even major features are introduced over the run of a version. AND in the same way, X-Plane can also evolve on the artwork side. If we prepare the data (scenery data!) well enough (we try hard), then we have quite a lot of ways to build upon it over time. So if some textures don't get finished (or need to be polished/changed) ... then we can easily ship them via updates (and will do so). So, it can easily happen that the landscape will change/evolve for some time after the first release. This is good, because X-Planes team is not endless ... so, having a way to evolve over time helps to leverage the potential of the team. AND there is one more thing. Tom Kyler told it a few pages earlier. What we don't achieve in artwork, can always be extended by 3rd party too (and that doesn't only means payware)! We show you what is possible, and then there are those endless possibilities in X-Plane to improve on that, add in new content etc. etc. (well, to be honest in an abstract way, its not that much different from MSFS ... where the default sim isn't in all aspects super exciting, but only begins to shines when all the potential gets used). In XP10, the engine is there to do really cool stuff! PS: and I think, sooner or later, there will be more scenery screenshots (just don't ask me when, as I am not the one to decide this). LOL , I just see, that Ben has just put out some similar lines in his blog:http://www.x-plane.com/blog/2011/10/this-is-the-calm-before-the-storm/

Can you confirm that XP10 will ship with a new terrain/texture engine or is it possible you start off shipping it with XP9 scenery until the other is ready like is being shown in these shots? Your post worries me a bit.

I'd certainly hope so, given that all 3rd party efforts are built on 5 year old software. Frankly, if out-of-the-box X-plane 10 doesn't blow out-of-the-box FSX out of the water in every single way it is a complete failure.

People have been telling Austin that ever since 1994. And X Plane just keeps getting better and more popular. It's not as cut and dry as you make it out to be. People who have grown accustomed to the MSFS franchise (######) will ALWAYS criticize X Plane. For some people, nothing Austin and his dev team do to x plane will ever be enough. Nothing short of perfection will be enough. And even then, there will be criticisms. Truth is, thousands of FSX users have migrated or expanded to x plane 9. That, to me, says volumes. Austin must be doing something right because he is succeeding. And it's only going to get more popular with XP10 as there are many improvements in just about every facet of the sim, not to mention the addition of AI traffic and full ATC.

People have been telling Austin that ever since 1994. And X Plane just keeps getting better and more popular. It's not as cut and dry as you make it out to be. People who have grown accustomed to the MSFS franchise (######) will ALWAYS criticize X Plane. For some people, nothing Austin and his dev team do to x plane will ever be enough. Nothing short of perfection will be enough. And even then, there will be criticisms. Truth is, thousands of FSX users have migrated or expanded to x plane 9. That, to me, says volumes. Austin must be doing something right because he is succeeding. And it's only going to get more popular with XP10 as there are many improvements in just about every facet of the sim, not to mention the addition of AI traffic and full ATC.

from a xplane ###### .. you say ###### like its something bad.

Can you confirm that XP10 will ship with a new terrain/texture engine or is it possible you start off shipping it with XP9 scenery until the other is ready like is being shown in these shots? Your post worries me a bit.

Is this okay? Pretty good terrain from what I can see, and having used FSX recently, well above the default and some addons I've used.

http://www.x-plane.c...and-x-plane-10/ "OSM contains significantly better road data in every part of the world." http://www.openstreetmap.org/ Exciting stuff.

This is where the real awesomeness of XP10 would lie for me. UTX did this only with Alaska and for some reason the project stopped there although there certainly were some bigger plans. XP10 tries to achieve this for the whole world using OSM data. What worries me a lot is the large areas of the world where OSM is lacking a lot like Australia, PNG, large parts of Africa, etc. I heard that the US would be filled up from other vector sources but I am not sure about the rest of the world. Liewise I hope that there would at least be some minimal variation in buildings autogen shown iw. not the same US suburban buildings all over the world. Alex Alex

FSX looks terrible when you have lots of residential vector roads from something like UTX on top of a 2D texture with built-in residential roads in the texture.

Default FSX textures and autogen look terrible from any angle. It's better to get nice photoscenery instead

People have been telling Austin that ever since 1994. And X Plane just keeps getting better and more popular. It's not as cut and dry as you make it out to be. People who have grown accustomed to the MSFS franchise (######) will ALWAYS criticize X Plane.

I like FSX, and I'm not a fan of XPlane 9, does it makes me a ######? I've tried both, and simply chose the one that suits me better. XPlane 10 has my interest, but I'll wait and see how it will look. And I'm not going to argue where you can find more ###### ;) It is possible to install and use both sims, right? That's what I'm going to do.

It's better to get nice photoscenery instead

Not for me. I'm not a fan of photosceneries, that's why I'm interested in XPlane 10 and it's technology.

I like FSX, and I'm not a fan of XPlane 9, does it makes me a ######? I've tried both, and simply chose the one that suits me better. XPlane 10 has my interest, but I'll wait and see how it will look. And I'm not going to argue where you can find more ###### ;)

Consider the term "######" as someone who will vigorously criticize the smallest defects in an opposing product but will never acknowledge the positives...no matter what is shown to them as evidence, and at the same time, severely praise their favorite product and never acknowledge the negatives...again, regardless of what is shown as evidence.I will freely and happily admit that as far as systems simulation goes, FSX and it's 3rd party developers get my vote. Payware scenery such as FlyTampa and Orbx, also, have brilliant quality products. Can't fault them at all. When it comes to the actual flying (which I am most interested in), I can't say FSX hits the numbers better than X Plane. This is purely my opinion and not meant to convince others to agree with me. Also, systems heavy add ons are fast coming to X Plane.

It is possible to install and use both sims, right? That's what I'm going to do.

Absolutely, 100% yes! I have FS9, FSX and X Plane installed on my system. Not to mention, Activesky 6.5 and Activesky X, FSNav and all the other bells and whistles that come with them. However, after more than 10 years of simming and real flying, I prefer X Plane.