Although your shots are quite beautiful, MdMax, I'm still waiting on the base package to be improved. Not to the level of detail that OSM2XP and photorealistic textures can bring, but from the perspective of the houses in downtown Manhattan (lack of autogen art assets), rollercoaster bridges (bug in the OSM translations), seasonal texturing (lack of texture art assets), and a new pull of OSM data to repopulate new water bodies and general corrections to the database (Unlike Europe, OSM data is not that good in the United States, especially with mid-to-small water bodies - and only a small handful of cities have any structure data for OSM2XP to take advantage of).I know these things are on the drawing board, but I need to see the proof in the pudding before I invest any money in what "might" get finished before the end of the v10 version run.Cheers!-Greg

Unlike Europe, OSM data is not that good in the United States, especially with mid-to-small water bodies - and only a small handful of cities have any structure data for OSM2XP to take advantage of

Next osm2xp version has .shp file support, you can find a lot of these files for United States (i searched a bit and found complete data for Seattle, Chicago...)

Next osm2xp version has .shp file support, you can find a lot of these files for United States (i searched a bit and found complete data for Seattle, Chicago...)

What does this mean from the perspective of a person that does not know what a .shp file is. Does that mean that a person will be able to use it with osm2xp, and if so how. Thanks. :)

That means that if a city offers a shapefile (a file made of polygons), you will be able to generate a scenery file for xplane.Exemple , Seattle file can be found on the official seattle website http://data.seattle....lines/y7u8-vad7and with osm2xp you get that (beta screens, will get better, and the skycrappers are from another scenery packs made by Honnli and Simmon)):http://images.osm2xp...ttle/1after.jpg

Edited February 20, 201214 yr by Benny_

I'm still only running the demo of X-Plane 10, but I'm trying it out every now and then. Initially, performance was too poor for me to even consider buying the sim, but with the latest couple of updates, it has improved considerably. Still, the strange looking default scenery is making me think twice about ordering it. I don't know in which world such city planning would be plausible...What is OSM2XP exactly? Is it a tool for professional scenery developers, or is it something I, as a regular X-Plane user can download, click a button or two (or 20) and then the base scenery is enhanced automagically to the same level as seen in some screenshots posted here?

I've tried to make it as user friendly as possible, but a basic understanding of xplane scenery system is welcomed.But if you're running the demo only -meaning you only have Seattle area- you won't be able to generate a scenery for this place, as the only data source available for Seattle is a .shp file, that osm2xp will support only on the next version.If you want you can send me a private message, and i'll send you a link to a generated file of Seattle area.Ben

I noticed that it is needed to set roads from default to tons as a minimum. It isn't a big FPS drop but the difference is night and day for me. I also noticed that the graphics seem to be improving as the beta updates progress, or is that wishful thinking on my part? FPS is steadily improving for sure though, so all in all I am quite happy with the direction it is going now. Reason being I really didn't expect XPX to be properly usable on my lowly setup. It doubt it was even mid range 4 years ago. Had to sacrifice some settings etc but I got something good enough to practice my VFR among other things :)I think the base idea of the scenery engine is very good. Reminds me a bit of programming concepts where they found mimicking the real world as in coding everything as objects is the way to go.

So now we are headed into 2014 and.............

 

Still pretty much where we were when the thread started.

So now we are headed into 2014 and.............

 

Still pretty much where we were when the thread started.

 

Well that's a bit pessimistic of you HiFlyer!

 

The situation with terrain and art assets have made a huge leap forward. The new landclass soon to make an appearance in 10.30 and the HD scenery completed by altpilotx ... the lego brick concept ... it's all working out for the positives IMO.

 

Besides that, I feel that many people tend to be a bit selective and myopic in their interpretation on what constitutes a great sim (example of my subjectivism creeping in).

It's so subjective that it's almost pointless discussing ... as one is likely to get as many opinions as there are flight-simmers.

Well that's a bit pessimistic of you HiFlyer!

 

The situation with terrain and art assets have made a huge leap forward. The new landclass soon to make an appearance in 10.30 and the HD scenery completed by altpilotx ... the lego brick concept ... it's all working out for the positives IMO.

 

Besides that, I feel that many people tend to be a bit selective and myopic in their interpretation on what constitutes a great sim (example of my subjectivism creeping in).

It's so subjective that it's almost pointless discussing ... as one is likely to get as many opinions as there are flight-simmers.

Not pessimistic, just observant. When this thread first started (2011?) people were pretty much told the same thing. The changes were coming, the fixes were around the corner.... Don't be so impatient......

 

So here we are going into 2014

 

And the same things are still outstanding, and it's still pessimistic to point them out.

 

I used fs2xplane today and converted an old FSX scenery. You knew what I saw? A city with all the buildings lit up at night. Something so simple and basic that even low budget flying games manage to do It. And we are still waiting for seasons, ATC is still broken.....

 

How long is enough before it's alright to raise a hand and ask what's up?

Oh well, here's some of my perspectives and why I disagree with your POV.

1. I fly with SkyMaxx Pro ... with Joan's NOAA weather generator ... clouds easily rival REX. I have REX for XP 9 .. and Essentials for FSX. SkyMaxx Pro trumps them both.
2. There's HD Mesh to be had and scenery's are there and getting better (same landclass to be used in 10.30).
3. Airports are being built and the WED tool is actually becoming useful.
4. Traffic Generator is maturing ... albeit slowly.
5. The planes are getting better ... magnificent in some cases ...Pete's DH-2 Beaver is due out soon too.

My XP world is replete with goodness :lol: . Yes, I'd definitely say that my XP experience has improved a LOT since a year ago ..

 

I guess my main point is that the 'plausible world' aspect is like a 'default' that you can choose to keep or modify your scenery to suit.

Same with the default clouds. It's irrelevant that the standard clouds look sucky. I just disable the option and use SkyMaxx Pro .. and my framerates increase to boot.

 

I think every default sim needs extra stuff to make the experience viable on a subjective level ... for me this is now the reality for XPX, and I count it as being extremely viable for my subjective taste.

I fly with SkyMaxx Pro ... with Joan's NOAA weather generator ... clouds easily rival REX. I have REX for XP 9 .. and Essentials for FSX. SkyMaxx Pro trumps them both.

 

Dont get me wrong, I love SkyMaXX. In fact I have been pushing for Silver Lining and Triton to be integrated into X-plane 10 for quite a long time. http://forum.avsim.net/topic/362912-ive-looked-at-clouds-from-both-sides-now/  and http://forum.avsim.net/topic/400258-this-is-what-our-flight-sims-could-look-like/page-8 and other places!

 

But for me that's kind of the point. If everyone just says happy happy happy, then who pushes for improvement? 

 

There's HD Mesh to be had and scenery's are there and getting better (same landclass to be used in 10.30).

I have nothing bad to say about the mesh, except that I hope that finally the land-class data gets used to stop implausible things like private houses around the lakes in central park from happening........ I just note the issue. If X-plane goes to Steam, believe me others will comment on it quite a bit more strongly. 

 

Airports are being built and the WED tool is actually becoming useful.

Yup, crowd-sourcing can be quite powerful: and I've noted previously that there are already WED scenery's that look better than their payware counterparts. I'm quite curious to see if this will spur the vendors to greater efforts, or push them towards other markets instead.

 

The planes are getting better ... magnificent in some cases ...Pete's DH-2 Beaver is due out soon too.

 

No problem with the planes. Xplane has planes coming out of its nose!! But after an adjustment, so will P3D; that was never an issue. The issue for me is that the other sim will have planes and more, and XPX seems to be mostly about planes and instruments. Perfect for a limited market, and if LR is happy with that, so be it: but they wont inherit the crown from FSX that way.

IMO it's not about inheriting the crown. I think (and hope) there will be room for more than one sim. Along this vein I truly hope that P3D becomes a viable platform for the people who are drawn to it.

 

For myself, I'm interested in both and would like to see both improve over time.

 

Eventually, I suspect that the main sims will all reach the same point as far as the fidelity of the experience is concerned, without losing their unique strengths.

 

Agreed that critique is important to further development, however this I believe is more constructively conveyed with a positive outlook. After-all, we don't want the devs who work on our toys to feel they are not appreciated. It would be misery working that way!