Flight Simulation going forward; Which Scenery philosophy is better?

[anthony31 63]

Hey CarrotrootIs that XP10?If so that is really really really nice.

[MikeT707 1,181]

Hey CarrotrootIs that XP10?If so that is really really really nice.

That is XP10, but unfortunately it is not a screenshot of Hawaii. :)

[Christopher Low 5,377]

As default scenery, I personally think that XP10 looks a damn sight better than FSX. The problem with using generic textures is that they frequently look rubbish (Microsoft's urban and city textures being a classic example). When you scatter cardboard boxes and trees haphazardly all over the place on top of that......well, you're just piling rubbish on top of rubbish.In short, XP10's approach might not be completely realistic, but that "clean" look is a damn sight easier on the eye than generic textures that (in all honesty) can look rather messy at times.EDIT: Please note that I am talking about FSX default scenery here.

[byork 2,259]

Right Alain - and THIS is what you get from that wonderful scenery engine.... A city designed by a manic-depressive city planner who was off his medication for a few weeks. The good thing about this layout is if you are living in the inner-city you only have to walk down the street to get to the swap, forest, park, beach or industrial park. It's actually pretty convenient.

Kinda looks like my 'hood.

[bonchie 2,305]

No doubt graphically, XP10 looks better at ground level.That wasn't what this thread was really about. For me, when I fly into NY I want to see Manhattan. When I fly into Houston, I want downtown to be where it should be. When I fly into Las Vegas, I want to see the strip in front of me. When I fly into Miami, I want to pass over downtown on final. And I want all these places to be where they should be.So again, I think it depends on what you do the most. For me, XP10 simply doesn't cut it on so many levels when it comes to airline operations. For those that like VFR flying, XP10 will probably blow FSX out of the water graphically, as it should six years later.

[turner112 52]

Uh... ok. ROFL-ing? Really? You feel such a strong need to mock the project? What you're saying doesn't even make any sense. They're not creating the landclass data.

Right Alain - and THIS is what you get from that wonderful scenery engine.... A city designed by a manic-depressive city planner who was off his medication for a few weeks. The good thing about this layout is if you are living in the inner-city you only have to walk down the street to get to the swap, forest, park, beach or industrial park. It's actually pretty convenient.

[Mike T 210]

Uh... ok. ROFL-ing? Really? You feel such a strong need to mock the project?What you're saying doesn't even make any sense. They're not creating the landclass data.

Yes, Turner, I did. I dared to "mock" the project. From your Avatar you have been in an airplane at least once and I assumed you looked out the window. In doing so you would have realized that cities don't look like those portrayed in XPlane 10. The "ROFLMAO" comes in when the developer derides the inferiority of OTHER scenery engines and touts the superiority of HIS scenery engine despite its glaring shortcomings apparent to anyone who has been in a high rise building much less an airplane. This is the same arrogance that touts the "superior" method of rendering one AI aircraft per CPU core and the utterly bizarre justification that a 20 core computer would be ideal for running 20 AI aircraft. A 20 core computer? Really? That TOO gets a: On the other hand, no ROTFLMAO for the night lighting which is the best I've ever seen in a consumer sim.

[turner112 52]

Yeah, I've been in a plane at least once, and did, in fact, look out the window ;) (Which is why I generally prefer TileProxy for simulated VFR) - but:You seem to be laughing at someone's "being off his medication", not about what you're suggesting above. And... about the way the engine is portraying the landclass in the beta shots, which, even if finished, still looks pretty good to me.

[John in Brisbane 0]

Hi there avsim -people! First post. Considering how much I use FSX it was high time."For me, suspension of disbelief is essential" ... Yep. A big part of that is smoothness - something I've only just started to get on top of with a new intel cpu, overclocked a fair bit. The frustration of building a computer for the first time specifically for FSX and then having it run so poorly was immense.I keep thinking that sims are being done the wrong way. That there has got to be a better way to get something approximating real life. I urge people to google LIDAR images of the WTC etc - while not the full answer, surely there is a way forward involving the 3d scanning and photographing of the real world and then modelling it in a sim? Sims seem to come from the PoV of drawing things where they are supposed to be, the right size and colour, with the right proportions. Fine. But our eyes are not easily fooled by that - a forest of autogen trees looks pretty impressive on my new rig but I bet I could be fooled much better by a different, less CPU-intensive approach that had either zero autogen or uses it in different ways. Maybe a 3d model of the real shape of the forest canopy with some autogen of leaves and branches to give it density and texture? I am having trouble putting this into words but when flying around in light aircraft, in between remembering check lists and radio boundaries, I keep thinking that the real world is actually simpler than the fsx world, if the right approach was used. Anyway, this is my very first post so I guess I'll get to know the site and what other people have been saying - I bet I'm duplicating other posts!

[SamSam 0]

I believe the way to go is to use/include more and more geographical data when available and default to procedural stuff otherwise.To illustrate this, see the work of France VFR around their "3D Automation" that is discussed here (in french). Basically, they are using high resolution orthophoto and DEM as a basis. The vector layer is the classic road and hydro network databases (think UTX). But they are also using the land register (and other undisclosed sources) to put every houses with their correct high and roof style. The cherry on the cake : their tool generate custom 3d building (when not rectangular). Reagarding trees and vegetation in general, most countries have good land use databases. IMHO, the result is nothing short of brillant! Plausible... and actually real !Is Microsoft able to do that at the global scale ? I believe they have most of the ingredients with their GIS project and the data they are already licensing for things like Bing map. How many GB on my HD ? Well, why Flight could not stream its data from a Live server (think Google Earth) ?

I urge people to google LIDAR images of the WTC

AFAIK, LIDAR is a method to get high resolution DEM. For flight sim, the current NEXTMap products have a good enough resolution.

[mgh 89]

Is Microsoft able to do that at the global scale ? I believe they have most of the ingredients with their GIS project and the data they are already licensing for things like Bing map. How many GB on my HD ? Well, why Flight could not stream its data from a Live server (think Google Earth) ?

Of course Microsoft is capable but, unless the financial returns are worthwhile, it won't. The costs of doing this an a global scale would be prohibitive in terms of a $50 game. Microsoft is developing Flight to make money.

[SamSam 0]

Of course Microsoft is capable but, unless the financial returns are worthwhile, it won't. The costs of doing this an a global scale would be prohibitive in terms of a $50 game. Microsoft is developing Flight to make money.

How should we know about the financial balance ? Here the main cost is probably the developpement of the tools to generate the sceneries. People are used to pay for additional content in their games (especially in the flight sim genre) and Microsoft probably knows that they could sell region of detailed scenery in its Flight market for a good price (say 30$). It's like drugs "the first dose is free" (think Hawaii) but once your are addicted, you can spend a lot of cash in addons and hardware...

[mgh 89]

How should we know about the financial balance ? Here the main cost is probably the developpement of the tools to generate the sceneries. People are used to pay for additional content in their games (especially in the flight sim genre) and Microsoft probably knows that they could sell region of detailed scenery in its Flight market for a good price (say 30$). It's like drugs "the first dose is free" (think Hawaii) but once your are addicted, you can spend a lot of cash in addons and hardware...

Common sense suggests that if Microsoft implemented evey suggestion that's been proposed in in these forums Flight would be unviable and wouldn't be developed. A little more realism is needed.

[Benny_ 3]

In my opinion, you can't beat a photoreal scenery+ openstreetmap generated scenery.Open street map is an incredible project, really.The amount of information you can add to the map is mind blowing, and the things that can be done with this data with flight simulation in mind is just crazy.Here's a screen of an old version of osm2xp, textures are nicer now but whatever you got the point, every house is at its perfect place, and has its perfect shape.It could be even closer to reality.You could add more informations about those buildings into openStreetMap.Roof color... walls colors... materials...The application that is generating the scenery just needs to understand those informations and add the right thing in the sim.You can also check a video here : http://www.youtube.c...bed/8DSb4LN2jK8I think that openStreetMap is a really good thing for flight simulation, and i hope that more people will understand that and contribute to it, and create tools/scenery/whatever that is using this data.I will soon release a major update to my tool, osm2xp (http://osm2xp.com).I will also make it open source soon, and will try to add support for other flight simulators than xplane.A FSX/Flight implementation would be nice for sure, but the main problem is the fact that FSX is using 3D "final" objects, when xplane lets you draw textured vectors (so drawing a complex shaped building is easy).Now it would be nice to see people with motivation to overcome those limits , rather than people willing to buy products of company that are in the flight simulation only to make money, and are using private data sources.And OSM isn't limited to buildings/landmarks/roads.Just check schiphol airport : http://www.openstree...oom=15&layers=MI hope you see what can be done with this wonderful project.Ben

[MikeT707 1,181]

In my opinion, you can't beat a photoreal scenery+ openstreetmap generated scenery.Open street map is an incredible project, really.The amount of information you can add to the map is mind blowing, and the things that can be done with this data with flight simulation in mind is just crazy.Here's a screen of an old version of osm2xp, textures are nicer now but whatever you got the point, every house is at its perfect place, and has its perfect shape.It could be even closer to reality.You could add more informations about those buildings into openStreetMap.Roof color... walls colors... materials...The application that is generating the scenery just needs to understand those informations and add the right thing in the sim.You can also check a video here : http://www.youtube.c...bed/8DSb4LN2jK8I think that openStreetMap is a really good thing for flight simulation, and i hope that more people will understand that and contribute to it, and create tools/scenery/whatever that is using this data.I will soon release a major update to my tool, osm2xp (http://osm2xp.com).I will also make it open source soon, and will try to add support for other flight simulators than xplane.A FSX/Flight implementation would be nice for sure, but the main problem is the fact that FSX is using 3D "final" objects, when xplane lets you draw textured vectors (so drawing a complex shaped building is easy).Now it would be nice to see people with motivation to overcome those limits , rather than people willing to buy products of company that are in the flight simulation only to make money, and are using private data sources.And OSM isn't limited to buildings/landmarks/roads.Just check schiphol airport : http://www.openstree...oom=15&layers=MI hope you see what can be done with this wonderful project.Ben

Will this work with XP10? Great stuff by the way.