thank you very much

 

Sorry was trying to get sp3 airbus to play nicely with my throttle quadrant so didn't get into comparing - but all in all its just a texture change - if you did see a fps increase you would just turn something else up to null and void it anyway - right

 

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Tell you one thing I am not seeing all of these cool looking cherry blossom stuff - leavless trees is a big one I am not seeing all I am seeing is slightly enhanced stock textures - I think the great looking shots are in FTX regions - and thats not cool if thats true

 

if anyone can give me the settings and places outside of FTX regions I want to know and try it myself

 

HD Trees are loaded - checked dates and new ftx files are there 

I have to say I'm happy with the trees, I had a few points at fspilotshop due to previous purchases, so I got a couple of dollars discount.

 

I was a bit skeptical about them 'improving the models', as I always assumed FSX trees were always just 2 verical planes intersecting each other. Although in the ORBX Trees backup folder there are 2 BGL's so it appears that the models were indeed changed.

 

I just found this too from Microsoft. Here you can see the three LOD models used in ESP

 

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc526979.aspx

 

Like Rich, I'm not blown away by the new HD Trees but they're a definite improvement and even if they improve FPS by 1, it's still better than a kick in the teeth!

Up to 20% also includes 0%. So as long as fps doesn't decrease, Orbx's claim is valid.

Wow...good to know...so the next time I want to sell a car...I can safely state that you can enjoy up to 15/20 percent better miles to the gallon....with my car. "I will guarantee that it will not get less per gallon over my competitors...but...you might/could see 20 percent, MPG better...almost like a engine tune-up upgrade (CPU!)....depending on your foot weight (system specs)."

 

When the guy or gal comes back to say they nowhere got NEAR to 20 percent MPG...not even close...I will borrow your argument.  "Hey...as long as you don't get below a zero increase....what is your complaint?!?!?"

 

Thanks!   I want to soon sell my car...and was stressing about what to advertise along with the feature set!!!

 

(Of course said, all in jest...)  I think the analogy is pretty accurate, though!   I don't think my response would resonate with the purchaser.....and they might be looking for a refund...if the pretty colors of the car and dash wasn't the thrust of what brought them to my dealer lot,....because of the way I chose to advertise my product...

 

))))))))

 

 

However I can now move the tree autogen slider one tick to the max and not see any negative impact

 

That might be enough to get my attention.  I normally don't like acquiring an add-on and immediately pushing sliders, but upping vegetation autogen from normal to dense does look better on my system.  Have not been able to move it up for performance/VAS reasons but if the Orbx trees provide a little overhead, that would be appealing.  Would be interested in hearing if others are able to increase density slightly without causing indigestion...

Like Rich, I'm not blown away by the new HD Trees but they're a definite improvement and even if they improve FPS by 1, it's still better than a kick in the teeth!

 

Neil great one lmao big time - maybe a kick in the teeth will be better you never know lol - always a pleasure reading your post Buddy

Can someone who installed this check to see if they have new tree model files?

 

I'll check. In the mean time, from MS:

 

 

The low complexity model is used almost exclusively by default throughout the simulation. It consists of two vertical cards (rectangular flat polygons) with images on both sides of the cards. The images used are not the same, so that when the trees are randomly rotated during placement, they look suitably different. The model also consists of two horizontal rectangles with an image only on the upper face, so that the model is more convincing when looking down on the tree. One method for creating these top down images is to render the high complexity model, view it top down, and capture the image.

The high complexity model consists of a 3D model of the trunk, and perhaps one or two major branches in a very large tree, with a range of cards with either branches on them, or clusters of foilage.  The branch images can either appear on both sides of the card, or just on one side, depending on the height and angle of the card.

The medium complexity model is similar to the high complexity model, but with larger and few cards containing the branch images.

Models for the four seasons can be made from identical sets of cards, but with different textures applied. There is a range of third party products providing both images of trees that can be used by your own models, and model making tools that can construct tree models for input into 3ds Max.

If a large tree is a particular landmark in its own right, then placing a model with some complexity to it might be appropriate. However for the vast majority of trees, and all other vegetation, the simplest of the models is often the best to use.

 

The textures could be optimized depending on how many mipmapped resolutions are used and also how the transparency channel is implemented.

 

EDIT: I believe that the HD Trees add-on is only new textures, because the ORBX backup scripts and folder only contain the default texture files and nothing else. I doubt that the models would have been replaced without backing up the default versions.

 

Also I want to correct something that I may have said in error previously. I responded to Rob A. that the few vegetation files that were not replaced, were unused in FSX and P3d (I gave Sycamore as an example). Actually, after decompiling the P3d version of AutogenDescriptions.spb to an readable xml file, now I'm not so sure if that is true. 

Check the date on vegetation.bgl in scenery\global\scenery, it has most definitely been updated. It appears the optimization was to remove all the horizontal planes (see Neil's shot above) which reduced most trees from 6 triangles to 4 and drawcalls from 2 to 1. Removing 2 triangles from each tree when there are 100,000 trees on the monitor would eliminate the need for the sim to render 200,000 triangles. Those horizontal planes were already negated in the stock models by making them invisible with a material setting (because they looked stupid, see FSX RTM), that material setting also made each tree go from 1 to 2 drawcalls per tree - for an invisible plane.

 

You were right the first time, veg_Sycamore1.dds is not used. This can be verified by doing an object report on vegetation.bgl with MCX. The Sycamores share a texture with the Oaks, both use veg_Broadleaf_OakSycamore.dds and it's seasonal variants.

 

 

EDIT: I believe that the HD Trees add-on is only new textures, because the ORBX backup scripts and folder only contain the default texture files and nothing else.

 

Jay, did you have a look in ORBX\Scripts\FTXTreesHD\ORBX_AGN_Backup and ORBX_AGN_New ?

 

 

Up to 20% also includes 0%. So as long as fps doesn't decrease, Orbx's claim is valid.

 The right way to handle this feature in a product is express it in a way that shows more understanding of your customers needs.   "In our tests we've seen that those with [older equipment] could see improvements of up to 20%.  .... The reason for this is ..."    Your well to do  users/fanatics are going to buy because they can; but a core client is not always the well financed purchaser.    Don't be afraid to tell people that your product may not help them like it does others.  You are giving away your integrity if you "hide 'defects'" that way, and without integrity all your products will have chips, dents, and dull paint no matter how much you polish.  We've all seen products sell that have no real benefit over competitors or even with no competitor (and very little benefit even as stated by the company) other than the gleam that brand integrity gives it.

[Pure Gold Information]

 

Thanks Jim!

 

 

However, I do like the HD trees, they add a level of variance which actually makes for "less distraction" ... meaning the world looks more plausible, sometimes it's the things that don't draw your attention that can make the virtual world seem that more real.

 

This made my decide to get the addon after all. So true and so important. Thanks.

That might be enough to get my attention.  I normally don't like acquiring an add-on and immediately pushing sliders, but upping vegetation autogen from normal to dense does look better on my system.  Have not been able to move it up for performance/VAS reasons but if the Orbx trees provide a little overhead, that would be appealing.  Would be interested in hearing if others are able to increase density slightly without causing indigestion...

 

I gave it a try and, of course, my VAS increased by about 100MB, but I can miss as much since I just cleaned my system and got rid of everything I dont specifically need, and I just got 1FPS decrease, so that's very nice.

 

I'm not sure, though, if it's TreesHD or the new processor I installed last week. After overclocking I had my system reinstalled last weekend, so I still had a lot of testing and tweaking to do...

 

Check the date on vegetation.bgl in scenery\global\scenery, it has most definitely been updated. It appears the optimization was to remove all the horizontal planes (see Neil's shot above) which reduced most trees from 6 triangles to 4 and drawcalls from 2 to 1. Removing 2 triangles from each tree when there are 100,000 trees on the monitor would eliminate the need for the sim to render 200,000 triangles. Those horizontal planes were already negated in the stock models by making them invisible with a material setting (because they looked stupid, see FSX RTM), that material setting also made each tree go from 1 to 2 drawcalls per tree - for an invisible plane.

 

You were right the first time, veg_Sycamore1.dds is not used. This can be verified by doing an object report on vegetation.bgl with MCX. The Sycamores share a texture with the Oaks, both use veg_Broadleaf_OakSycamore.dds and it's seasonal variants.

 

Thanks, Jim.

Check the date on vegetation.bgl in scenery\global\scenery, it has most definitely been updated. It appears the optimization was to remove all the horizontal planes (see Neil's shot above) which reduced most trees from 6 triangles to 4 and drawcalls from 2 to 1. Removing 2 triangles from each tree when there are 100,000 trees on the monitor would eliminate the need for the sim to render 200,000 triangles. Those horizontal planes were already negated in the stock models by making them invisible with a material setting (because they looked stupid, see FSX RTM), that material setting also made each tree go from 1 to 2 drawcalls per tree - for an invisible plane.

 

You were right the first time, veg_Sycamore1.dds is not used. This can be verified by doing an object report on vegetation.bgl with MCX. The Sycamores share a texture with the Oaks, both use veg_Broadleaf_OakSycamore.dds and it's seasonal variants.

Thanks for the info Jim. Nice to know they actually improved the models then, even though there was not much to improve, but a little bit is better than none.

 

I suppose if you bought the package and just ran all the textures at no larger than 1024, you probably would see a slight increase in performance due to the reduced draw calls. If your flying tubes no need for 2048 variations.

Jay, did you have a look in ORBX\Scripts\FTXTreesHD\ORBX_AGN_Backup and ORBX_AGN_New ?

Neil,

 

Oops, missed those. As you point out, there are new BGL files for ORBX LC Europe and the default vegetation.bgl. Did you decompile them to see what models were changed? 

 

I also increased this setting from 4500 (default) in [TERRAIN]:

 

TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELL=6000

 

That was the maximum in FSX. Maybe Rob A. knows whether that is true for P3d or whether it even works at all. 6000 probably corresponds to the new maximum tree autogen level in P3d.

 

Jay

There are 1352 models in vegetation.bgl, I checked one (veg_tb_Cottonwood_16m) between the new .bgl and the default .bgl. The new one doesn't have a horizontal plane and it has just one drawcall where the default has the horizontal plane (invisible, check with MCX in wireframe render mode) and 2 drawcalls.