I am not talking of autogen, just pure textures. If you notice V3 the mountains look very good but the moment you head to Nepal or even to the Western Ghats (India) they look creepy to me.

 

Now V3 is using default textures so why the difference. 

Well ... as always, there is more to the story than just plain textures :-) Something - the scenery - needs to tell X-Plane to where and how to deploy which textures. So, the same textures can look very convincing if they are mixed / placed well ... or can look very boring if that is not the case. Their placement however is largely controlled by the quality of the input landclass (land cover / land use) data which is used during scenery generation (and which largely controls the placement of those textures)!

 

And while in some region (those which I also did in HD quality : http://www.alpilotx.net/downloads/x-plane-10-hd-mesh-scenery-v3/) landclass data is great (and brings great versatility to the landscape) .... in others I (and thus Lamina - as I supply this data to them) still do not have better data to work with.

Well ... as always, there is more to the story than just plain textures :-) Something - the scenery - needs to tell X-Plane to where and how to deploy which textures. So, the same textures can look very convincing if they are mixed / placed well ... or can look very boring if that is not the case. Their placement however is largely controlled by the quality of the input landclass (land cover / land use) data which is used during scenery generation (and which largely controls the placement of those textures)!

 

And while in some region (those which I also did in HD quality : http://www.alpilotx.net/downloads/x-plane-10-hd-mesh-scenery-v3/) landclass data is great (and brings great versatility to the landscape) .... in others I (and thus Lamina - as I supply this data to them) still do not have better data to work with.

Andras, 

 

 You have already explained this to me before  

 

 

A question though: why do I get tree-tops coming out of building roofs? Doesn't w2xp exclude autogen trees where there are buildings? OSM has the same issue. Am I doing something wrong?

 

Tony, is the above normal? Trees sticking out of low flat buildings. It's killing immersion. I have the autogen set to max, both for buildings and trees. Any ideas?

 

 

Tony, is the above normal? Trees sticking out of low flat buildings. It's killing immersion. I have the autogen set to max, both for buildings and trees. Any ideas?

 

Already replied to this, so maybe you missed the post earlier on. But, no it isn't normal (in most cases)

Already replied to this, so maybe you missed the post earlier on. But, no it isn't normal (in most cases)

 

Yeah, it seems I missed the spot.. Thanks. Guess I'll have to check my scenery library.

I need to learn blender as running into limitations on sketch up. Blender baking textures, and creating UV wrapping paper is good thing. Want to buy photoshop and learn it just license cost is high and stuck with paint net. Regionalization of autogen is good for XPX just need like 6 houses styles in 5 different colors. Gas stations with OSM data is wicked accurate same with car washes W2XP is great software it's impossible to pull in fsx.

You might try Paint Shop Pro (not too expensive - several versions) or the freeware Gimp which is very powerful and similar in capability to Photoshop although it lacks 3D capability last time I checked.

 

And although I have rejected Adobe since they went to their rent-forever software scheme, you can rent Photoshop for $9.99/month - slightly more outside the U.S.  It is no longer available in pay-once boxed format.  If you quit paying the monthly fee, it will disable itself in 90 days.  If you don't need the 3D features in Photoshop (just use it for textures, etc.) you can get by with PSP or Gimp.  You probably need an editor with layers capability.

I did a test in USA region (small area) and after I'd done W2XP (which worked as it was supposed to it seemed) there were the buildings as shown on OSM website, but I lost all autogen trees of any kind for that area.

 

Was that a setting I missed maybe?

Was great to have the new buildings, but losing the trees was not so great 

 

 

I need to learn blender as running into limitations on sketch up. Blender baking textures, and creating UV wrapping paper is good thing. Want to buy photoshop and learn it just license cost is high and stuck with paint net.

 

Yep, once you've learnt how to use Blender you'll find it much more powerful and quicker to use than Sketchup. The baking feature is great, especially for baking ambient occlusion, normal maps etc.. One thing it doesn't do yet is let me UV map all the different parts of my model at the same time (I need to join them all together). It has a steep learning curve, but it's worth the time and effort IMO.

 

Photoshop is expensive as you have to pay monthly for it. I bought a subscription for a year, but it's not just me using it (my girlfriend makes cards etc), so the cost was worth it. The difference it has made to my workflow has made it worth the cost. If you're on a Mac, there is also Pixelmator which works well. There is also GIMP, but I found the interface quite clunky, but many people love it.

 

 

 

Was that a setting I missed maybe?
Was great to have the new buildings, but losing the trees was not so great 

 

You probably wanted to generate with smart-exclusions enabled, so that you're not relying completely on OSM data for the trees and buildings. You can do this in the config file by setting smart-exclusions to true and regenerating.

Yep, once you've learnt how to use Blender you'll find it much more powerful and quicker to use than Sketchup. The baking feature is great, especially for baking ambient occlusion, normal maps etc.. One thing it doesn't do yet is let me UV map all the different parts of my model at the same time (I need to join them all together). It has a steep learning curve, but it's worth the time and effort IMO.

 

Photoshop is expensive as you have to pay monthly for it. I bought a subscription for a year, but it's not just me using it (my girlfriend makes cards etc), so the cost was worth it. The difference it has made to my workflow has made it worth the cost. If you're on a Mac, there is also Pixelmator which works well. There is also GIMP, but I found the interface quite clunky, but many people love it.

 

 

 

 

You probably wanted to generate with smart-exclusions enabled, so that you're not relying completely on OSM data for the trees and buildings. You can do this in the config file by setting smart-exclusions to true and regenerating.

 

Thanks Tony - Definitely on me (as I figured) - Will go try again right now.  

Thank you - That was it on the trees (needed Smart Exclusions)

 

So - Question I can't figure out.

 

What's the difference between generating scenery areas with W2XP vs using the SimHeaven OSM for North America?

 

(probably stupid question - my apologies in advance)

What's the difference between generating scenery areas with W2XP vs using the SimHeaven OSM for North America?

 

SimHeaven's OSM scenery is using an older application called OSM2XP. There are many differences between this and W2XP. OSM2XP just places generic facades and forests, whereas W2XP places regional buildings (real objects), and uses lots of tricks to try and fill out the scenery. It also generates roads, etc.. Some other things:

 

• W2XP supports buildings and forests with holes in them. OSM2XP does not. Think of buildings with courtyards, forests with lakes etc..
• With available artwork (Mostly Europe), W2XP will place problem house models. OSM2XP places generic facades
• W2XP has hundreds of little rules, e.g. Surrounding fields with trees, filling car parks with cars, caravan parks with caravans, etc. OSM2XP doesn't
• W2XP will generate 3D buildings from OSM 3D data if available. e.g. The skyscrapers in New York. This has been much improved in the latest version of 0.7.0 (When it's eventually out)
• W2XP is very highly configurable and can be configured to do almost anything with the data inside OSM.
• W2XP is still being developed. 0.7.0 will include autogen, support for non-OSM data.

One important thing to remember though, this all depends on good data. If there is a lack of good data, then at present, the scenery will be pretty disappointing. http://world2xplane.com/2014/03/16/how-will-my-regioncountry-look-using-world2xplane/

 

Also, there is a lot of artwork for Europe, not much for the US. So the US makes use of the facades the same as OSM2XP if no matching objects/buildings are found.

Thanks Tony!

 

I see what you mean - Ugh.

No go for USA basically everywhere (just looking at the comparison shots and what to look for on OSM website)

Even knowing that it wouldn't do much, or anything, for the US, I downloaded and tried to install world2xplane.exe and it says "Failed to find or load ini file".

 

Stuck, but without much to expect here, probably not a biggie.

 

John