Giving flat scenery some dimension

[tonywob 4,769]

Photo scenery can be pretty lifeless and flat, which is why many prefer to use a more generic approach (e.g. ORBX style regions). But it doesn't need to be this way. I recently made some changes and added some new old village style buildings, new hedgerow and shrub textures and added them to the world-models library for World2XPlane and (Soon, Outerra). The effect (where there is data) is very convincing.

 

Shortly after departing Sheffield City airport in the UK , showing cattle and hay bales in the surrounding fields. New custom hedgerows and trees have been added so they don't block out the airport. 

 

 

 

Over the East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Coast. Little villages are easily defined and visible, as well as different vegetation types and smaller, more realistic hedgerows surrounding fields (Which includes small flowers). You can fly along using an ordnance survey walking map and pick out the real farms, roads, villages and wooded areas.

 

 

Cattle grazing in fields

 

 

 

 

More variety of buildings and less generic red-roofed houses (which are only really common in Eastern Europe). I've added over 100 new houses (old and new) which are seen in the UK, Ireland, France and 

the Netherlands.

 

 

 

 

 

..and finally, tidal water features such as mud and sand banks are now shown and transform coastal areas

 

[raex-flight 3]

Very nice!

[uwespeed 497]

This doesn't LOOK real, it IS real(ity) :o ^_^.

[Pugilist2 878]

Great job Tony!

[User72 28]

WOW! Well done Sir!

[1mikel151 71]

Very nice!

[Always3Green 0]

This doesn't LOOK real, it IS real(ity) :o ^_^.

+1 

[scotchegg 4,186]

Absolutely incredible Tony.

[CaptCWGAllen 49]

Brilliant - thanks Tony.

[MdMax 233]

Beautiful shots ! :Applause:

 

When using World2XPlane, I prefer removing the rules for adding trees where there are no trees in RW (waterway=ditch, waterway=drain, landuse=farm, landuse=farmland, ...). Trees everywhere are looking great, but it's not realistic.

[tonywob 4,769]

 

 

When using World2XPlane, I prefer removing the rules for adding trees where there are no trees in RW (waterway=ditch, waterway=drain, landuse=farm, landuse=farmland, ...). Trees everywhere are looking great, but it's not realistic.

 

It's quite difficult to get this correct (IMO, either too much, or too little). In the above screenshots I've made some new artwork for small shrubs and flowers, and instead I've surrounded farmland, drains and ditches with these smaller shrubs. I've also randomised(made fuzzy) the placement, so that not only is the spacing more random, but some fields have them, some don't. If all farmland was tagged with the (barrier=*) tag, then this would solve the problem, but unfortunately not many people go into such detail, so it's all guesswork.

 

I think the new rules work very well in the UK, but are still too excessive. Luckily though, you can customise your scenery as you like and disable trees, etc.. :smile:

[uwespeed 497]

Would it be possible to introduce a value for the randomness in the configuration file, so that the user can define how many trees, shrubs etc. he would like at the fields, rivers, ...?

 

Apart from that - still a great program.

Note to self: I should write a small tutorial, how to simply create regionalized buildings by applying textures to the many houses I built. This way, even my grandma (if she still was alive) should be able to contribute to World2XPlane - it would be this easy.

[tonywob 4,769]

 

 

Would it be possible to introduce a value for the randomness in the configuration file, so that the user can define how many trees, shrubs etc. he would like at the fields, rivers, ...?

 

You already can, just change the density of the forest, the value is between 0 and 255, 0 being empty and 255 being maximum density. You'll notice that the default config varies the density from values between 150-250, so you can change the values to something lower.

 

Additionally, in 0.6.0 for line rules, you can choose a maximum count of random objects to appear along any lines. I've used this to place the odd tractor or two driving along farm tracks.

[uwespeed 497]

Ok ... understood. To be honest, I didn't mess around with W2XP myself lately, because simheaven has all I need already pre"compiled" for download.