New Zealand Pro for X-Plane 10

[alpilotx 505]

This video is showcasing the beautiful landscape of the free (donationware) X-Plane 10 scenery New Zealand Pro created by me (a few months ago). Its my first experiment with a "larger" video, as I haven't done much (well, nothing) in this area before (especially as I am on Linux ... but I was surprised how polished video tools are nowadays).

The scenery can be freely downloaded from my website:
http://www.alpilotx....ew-zealand-pro/

Music is by Mike Andrews from http://audiofarm.org/mikeandrews. Titles are:

• softness
• strings and guitar
  

[skiboj 22]

Looks awesome. Nice work!

[jcomm 6,065]

Whow!

What ekse can I say?

Thax for your remarkable work and for making it available, and for free!!!!

[Emerson67 248]

Amazing! :Applause:

 

:zeland-flag:

[waltari 19]

Beautiful scenery!

[MdMax 233]

Great scenery ! :Applause:

[Comanche 417]

Fantastic Video!

[Muskoka 104]

Andras, that looks great. When can we expect something like that for say, Ontario, Canada? I will even pay you, real money, you make it, I'll pay, my wallet is ready. :smile:

 

Glen

[alpilotx 505]

Glen, I think you know my answer already ... and hey, you even know the problem B). When there is data like the data I have for NZ Pro (which is freely given away by the NZ govt), then there can be a scenery like that. You know, I am a "computer science" type of guy. This mean, I really enjoy to work with big datasets, process them, manage them, transform them, bring out the best of them ... with the help of computers, cool scripts (which I enjoy to build), great algorithms, good tools (like GIS tools, databases etc.). But I am not the one - just like you, if I understand from you correctly in your OSM threads ^_^ - who sits down and plots down all those geographic objects in hundreds of hours. What I like - and do - is, to take existing data (and I am almost always scouting for it), but I don't like to genuinely create it myself (at least I don't like. That is something which the OSM community is quite good at (in the long run) ... even if it often takes some time, and its unpredictable where and what happens (because its "community" driven ... but look at places like for example Germany in OSM ,which is almost entirely community work! So its definitely possible.)

[Muskoka 104]

Andras, I was asking with the best of intentions, not to be smart.

 

Is the data not available anywhere for Canada (even data for sale?), or other places around the world?

 

You posses the skills to do wonderful stuff, make scenery. If the data is available, but needs to be paid for, then "some" developer needs to come forward, purchase the data, get a licence to use it (whatever it takes), make a product, and we will buy it. They do for all the Microsoft product line (addon developers). Their are enough people waiting rather patiently for better (great) scenery like your capable of making. I guess that's all I'm asking.

 

Can some developer not acquire the data from somewhere, and make scenery like you do? If you can do it, great, I will buy it from you. If it ends up being someone else, then I guess I'll buy it from them. But we want to have the option to buy it from some source.

 

Or, are you saying it can't bet done at all? The data is not available for purchase, and we can only rely on "free / open source" data, I really hope that's not the case. I know it's been said before, but one thing we really need is an option to replace the "plausible" world, it's just not good enough for a lot of users out there, it's turning people away. I was hoping a addon developer could provide us with this, someone like you. :smile: Is that not something we can look forward too?

 

Glen

 

edit: My point being, someone "should" be able to make a lot of money offering scenery addons for Xplane, it is gaining popularity. I feel Orbx missed a huge opportunity, they make very nice scenery, and it would look great in Xplane. For whatever reason they chose not to, so be it, end of that story.

 

So, some other developer should be steeping forward and taking the reins, the doors are open, or are they? Why is there no news of current, or future scenery development for Xplane? If there is, and I missed it, please point it out. What I would like to know is, is there ever going to be outside developer addon scenery created for Xplane? Is it possible to do, and if so, what is holding people back? Even if, for instance, North America, it was State to State for the US, or Province to Province for Canada, people will buy it, we want that option from someone.

 

Please folks, no Xplane is in beta debates, I would like to know if we are ever going to see outside developer scenery addons for Xplane, to replace the plausible world, Andras will know, he's qualified to give an accurate answer.

 

I could ask this in PM, but I think there are a lot of users that would like to know if we are ever going to see outside development when it comes to scenery, or are we forever stuck with the plausible world, so I'll ask here, in hopes we can get an answer to an important question. Then users will know what the future holds with regards to scenery.

 

I think that's fair enough to ask, here?

[DannyH73 16]

Hey Andras - this is seriously awesome stuff, and who can argue for what you charge for it!

 

I noticed a donations button on your website, so will be giving to show my appreciation properly :Applause:

[alpilotx 505]

Yes, the world is not like Disneyland :lol:

 

I don't want to go in depths on this, but a few comments.

 

First of all, I don't say its not possible. Almost everything is possible .... BUT .... Sometimes there is free data, but its absolutely not appropriate for scenery comparable with NZ Pro (yes, not even the very good NZ pro data was trivial to use and needed me a few months of tuning, processing etc.! Thats something many don't know!). Sometimes there is data for sale, but either it has the same shortcomings as I mentioned before (namely, its not usable for the scenery creation) or its exceptionally expensive. Sometimes there is absolutely no data ... in that case (but similarly in the previous two cases), you can pay someone (there are many companies out there who do geodata creation at large scale), who creates you the data ... which will set you back again by some big amounts of money (well, effectively, as far as I understand, most of the money involved on ORBX side is to do exactly this: model the geographic regions theycover, place all the geodata where it needs to be, create gazillions of custom 3D objects). And of course - I don't debate this - sometimes you are lucky, and you find free data like with NZ, or reasonably priced good data (but this is rare).... Or we can be happy enough with OSM which - even if many debate it - in my eyes has still a lot of potential in the long run for the future (and falls in the free category, and is quite good for many aspects of scenery creation - while still less good for others - but improves by leaps and bounds) ... and already shows it in many areas of the planet (which are more lucky than Canada, when it comes to data coverage - but even Canada improves).

 

Well, whatever is the way to go ... I for my part am NOT going to walk down the commercial route (for many reasons, not just business ... but also because X-Plane is something I mostly do in my free time ... ... even if its sometimes a quite extensive hobby) and will stay - for my peace of mind - in the free/donationware area (which implies, that I usually work with freely accessible data as my time permits and what makes me happy).

 

From a technical standpoint there is absolutely no reason (other than a steep learning curve, time investment needed, good technical understanding of how geodata works, how the X-plane scenery system works and on a basic level how a sim works and how 3D graphics work). The scenery system is not a closed system and is documented (how else would cool tools like OSM2XP work etc.? How else could I have done my forest scenery add-ons for XP8/XP9) and as such usable by everyone. Maybe the only "hindrance" is, that there is no well documented tool to do the base mesh processing (the tool is there http://dev.x-plane.com/cgit/cgit.cgi/xptools.git/ , just that possibly no one with a half hearted approach would ever have a chance to understand it - as it was until now not developed by Laminar with 3rd parties in mind ... as developing that way pulls away from other resource). BUT, as the basic principles of the base mesh are not magic, everyone with serious intentions (and available skills) could reproduce the way its created (even with self created tools) ... The only question is, if anyone would dare to "invest" the time / money to do so (at this point).

 

Finally, thanks for the compliments on the plausible scenery (many are quite happy with it as a default scenery ... compared to other default sceneries) ... which was in many parts my work too (I did all the data processing, but I didn't do the textures,neither did I create the city environment). But I would like to remind you, that NZ Pro has more of the Global Scenery than many might imagine (lately I even got a very kind and friendly question from a guy, on which zoom level I used for that NZ Pro "photoscenery" B) ). It has the same "plausible" - cough - city artwork, the same ground texture artwork (ok, I have extend by 3 new landuse types ... which are until now not in the Global Scenery, but might come at a point), the same forests artwork, the same road artwork .... just organized in a more detailed way, by more detailed data. The few real add-ons are "only" the many extra buildings/objects (because the NZ data had those point informations) and tree-lines (and few other little extras) ... all the rest is "only" a supercharged Global Scenery.

 

And by the way ... in the scenery area - for a long time - the Beta argument was irrelevant. The scenery system of XP10 is quite stable since its release (even in many aspect compatible with XP9) ... so here most of the arguments of the aircraft discussions don't hold true. And 64bit only improves this area in that the memory constraints are finally removed ... but it didn't change anything in the way the scenery system itself works.

 

(ok, now I went more in depth than planned).

[w9nwrwi 26]

Andras,

Thanks for a great video (music to fly by), prompted me to download your NZ scenery. Works & looks just great.

What a nice flight from NZCH to NZHK following highway H73. Took one wrong turn, did find my way out over some great scenery.

 

 

Excellent job on both counts.

 

Chuck

[Muskoka 104]

Andras, thank you very much for the detailed response. Just have to wait and see what the future can bring.

 

And no, the plausible world is not horrendous, but as we all know there are folks not too impressed with it. Just asking if something could / can be done, might give someone sitting on the fence some hope for the future?

 

Thanks again...

 

Glen

[alpilotx 505]

And no, the plausible world is not horrendous, but as we all know there are folks not too impressed with it. Just asking if something could / can be done, might give someone sitting on the fence some hope for the future?

I am fine with that, as long as there are at least as many who are positive about it .... And there will always be improvement (textures improve continuously in little steps, autogen will improve int he same way, global scenery might get a re-cut some time, and new ideas are always floating around ...) ... its the X-Plane way of things (some love it, others hate it B) ).