Ok we can try again...
Sorry for the delay, work etc.

Since last time I have reinstalled and patched and retaken these with fsuipc showing VAS in the overlay. I realise they aren't the easiest to see on lower than 4k screens but you get the idea.

They are just what has been requested, I can take more. To keep the number of screen shots down I have just stuck to either utx or vector plus lc. A couple also have ftx eu in there aswell for good measure!

All screens are using global textures rather than GEX purely because I don't want to spend another £90 on textures just yet.

All settings in Prepar3d are maxed, everything to the right. All vector and LC and utx options are enabled.

 

http://tutmeister.co.uk/paris/

 

http://tutmeister.co.uk/munich/

 

http://tutmeister.co.uk/zurich/

 

http://tutmeister.co.uk/edinburgh/

 

http://tutmeister.co.uk/chorley/

 

 

Chris

Interesting stuff, thanks Chris.

 

The obvious conclusion is that there is no obvious conclusion to be had - it depends on where you are and the accuracy of the landclass in that particular area - The Chorley shots being the optimum case in point. What I do pick up on is the extra variety of the landclass with Global/OpenLC. That does at least prove they are designed to work together!

 

The UTX textures also have a benefit in some areas - but enough to pay that much for so little extra, if someone already has Global/Vector/OpenLC ? 

Thank you Chris for taking your time, really acknowledged.

 

I tend to agree to Luis, it really depends and obviously there is no convincing winner. Making big cities within the pure Landclass/Vector/Texture data approach (i.e. without hand placement) seems to  be a quite serious problem.

 

To see what is indeed possible as such contrast these to Jon Patch's/Holger Sandmann's Vancouver plus, being very close to Google (and what I recall from memory). But in this case one City alone costs as much as a complete UTX package.

 

Kind regards, Michael

Thanks Chris for making those comparison screenshots.

And here I was thinking that ORBX OpenLC was heavier on VAS.

Exceptional effort, much thanks.

 

I agree with the above posters.  Its actually disappointing to see the Google view compared to flightsim views, I was thinking that they were much more accurate. I guess only a truly custom design will give accurate results.

I think the reason Utx has a higher vas costs is because it has finer autogen. It tends to have smaller autogen houses and other buildings in larger quantities. The roads, rivers and bridges are more detailed too although in some cases they are far too wide.

Vector and lc tends to be slightly more accurate in placement though.

 

In general a mix of orbx lc and Utx autogen is proably the best solution but not many people are going to buy both!

I think we have to acknowledge that these products are only approximately correct, even orbx full regions are only approximately correct. The only way you can have it accurate is like earth simulations were trying to do with photo textures and hand placed buildings and autogen.

 

If anyone has any more requests, feel free.

 

Chris

Tell you one program I will never load again is Vector - its not good and a sim hog also messes up your sim when trying to remove it even if you do it proper I always get burnt using it especially when removing it - I'm done with that

I think the reason Utx has a higher vas costs is because it has finer autogen. It tends to have smaller autogen houses and other buildings in larger quantities. The roads, rivers and bridges are more detailed too although in some cases they are far too wide.

Vector and lc tends to be slightly more accurate in placement though.

 

In general a mix of orbx lc and Utx autogen is proably the best solution but not many people are going to buy both!

I think we have to acknowledge that these products are only approximately correct, even orbx full regions are only approximately correct. The only way you can have it accurate is like earth simulations were trying to do with photo textures and hand placed buildings and autogen.

 

If anyone has any more requests, feel free.

 

Chris

That is why I use photoscenery for Europe. The whole western europe and a great part of southern europe is photoscenery only. And because I fly a 737 I have no ag active, just custom objects.

 

As photo scenery uses a lot of free VAS , by disabling ag I can finish my flights.

Of course I miss ag when being at final....

I think the reason Utx has a higher vas costs is because it has finer autogen. It tends to have smaller autogen houses and other buildings in larger quantities. The roads, rivers and bridges are more detailed too although in some cases they are far too wide.

 

Since when did UTX have "finer autogen" and smaller autogen houses? It doesn't. UTX is a vector placement of road, rivers, streams, water bodies, landclass and water class.

 

None of those items control autogen or autogen placement. Anything to do with autogen comes from the underlying ground textures, be it Global or GEX, and how they annotated the autogen and if they are using custom autogen objects. The landclass just calls on the sim to display the appropriate ground texture for that area, but those ground textures come from Global, GEX, or stock ground textures. The only custom textures that UTX includes are for the items listed in the UI called "Other Terrain Features" for golf courses, glaciers, cemeteries, etc., but 5 hose items as far as I know are annotated with default autogen objects.

 

The only product that Scenery Solutions makes that includes it's own objects are the Mega City line that right now only includes the south central US.

 

Also, regarding the widths of the streets and highways, you can adjust those widths in the UI to make them narrower or wider.

Cmpbellsjc,
Have you actually looked closely at the screenshots? Have another look at tell me they don't have different autogen and building placement. I see where you might misunderstand me, I'm not saying it provides all new autogen objects, but it definitely calls different autogen and places it differently.
Yes I know you can fiddle to change the width of roads and rivers to make them more realistic, but this is a comparison of as it comes, fresh install straight from the manufacturers.

 

Note, this is not me saying which is more accurate, Im just pointing out that utx seems to use finer autogen and far more minor roads etc, not necessarily more accurately placed. It is just a possible reason as to why it uses for vas - at least with everything maxed at high resolution.

 

Links to sections showing detail.

http://tutmeister.co.uk/paris/detail/

 

For ease of viewing here is an animated gif that shows it.

Chris

Exceptional effort, much thanks.

 

I agree with the above posters.  Its actually disappointing to see the Google view compared to flightsim views, I was thinking that they were much more accurate. I guess only a truly custom design will give accurate results.

 

Accurate compared to what ? This goes to the heart of flight simulation - the ground changes ALL the time from a seat in a real airplane, Season, weather, light, heat, forest fires, guerrilla gardening, house-building developments, Mrs Miggins watering her plants to be green in a heatwave, the school changing its fencing, new roundabouts or junctions, the council forced to make cuts to the grass cutting programme - the list goes on and on and on.

 

And none of it matters unless you habitually fly over the locale in question and KNOW it  - from the seat of a real plane. 

 

We seem to be hung up on what `accurate` even means - that Google image was out of date the moment it was taken so does not represent a true benchmark by which comparisons can be made, only as Chris has done - a comparison with what other tools make of it.

 

I used FSX a LOT to become familiar with an area I was going to fly in in the real world - back in the day when I bought my holiday home in the South of France I pre-flew the various routes from my home field to the customs airport and on to the local airstrip to become more familiar with the ground features, diversion routes, no fly zones and visible features on route - I then marked some on my real charts or added to my navigation notes on the kneeboard. And like every pilot I mean the unchanging features such as major road, rail and conurbations, substantial VRP's like hospitals, cathedrals, rivers and lakes, and prominent features. I did not expect the ground or the `autogen` to be a true representation, ONLY a representation - towns where towns should be, roads where roads should be, rivers where rivers should be. As long as the key features are right, and a few of the VRP's are in play, that is as good as it gets with current tech.

 

In that P3D, FTX Global, Vector, Open LC, UTX, GEX and all the myriad other products are still not `true to life`. They couldn't be unless they represent that new hospital wing as its constructed, that new roundabout for the spur road into the freshly-built housing estate, that new school - even Mrs Miggins being carted off to the rest home and her plants not being watered any more, so you can't put the wingtip on the green garden in the street as you make the turn to base.

 

But what they do achieve - and its purely in the mind of the beholder, NOT judged against the real world, is a truer representation.

 

It is purely a matter of perception and the only way to get a view (literally) of that perception is to take a flight in a real plane across the real world.  How many here have actually flown around Chris' Chorley, for example ? I haven't, even though I've criss-crossed the UK in light aircraft for more than 20 years. MY perception is driven not by the efficacy of the buildings in towns, but far more by the juxtaposition between conurbation and countryside - is the `shape` of Chorley right ? If your perception is different then that is the justification for spending money on addon products, but don't kid yourselves your making it `realer`. Just more real in your own mind of how you think it should be. As you fly in real planes you soon recognise that you are looking for different features in a completely different way - `large dark spec at the foot of the hill` = lake. Shimmering ? Only if its sunny and the light is coming from the right direction. Even major roads are often almost invisible from slant angles as in the UK much of the motorway network is cut into the landscape so even as a most prominent feature, seen at an angle from only a few miles away you see the impression of a scar in the landscape, not necessarily the road itself. 

 

Finally, a technical point - the value and volume of autogen displayed is affected by the selections made for the display of vector graphics far more than people often realise. Chris provides a firm and consistent basis for comparison - but using default settings for the installation.

 

If you tweak those features you improve the perception of the towns and cities (if not the `realism`) - for example by removing secondary and tertiary roads and letting the autogen and ground textures suggest a road, rather than actually displaying one. As you remove or uncheck those features, the autogen does change to alter the type and balance of buildings displayed.

 

And it's noticeable that UTX in default setup gives undue prominence to lesser water features and smaller rivers, so that also needs modifying. To meet the perception. not the reality.

Cmpbellsjc,

Have you actually looked closely at the screenshots? Have another look at tell me they don't have different autogen and building placement. I see where you might misunderstand me, I'm not saying it provides all new autogen objects, but it definitely calls different autogen and places it differently.

 

The difference I see between the two is the the Paris Global, LC, Vector is displaying a bunch of either commercial or apartment buildings near those 4 big buildings and Global and UTX is displaying a bunch of houses in the same area and houses are naturally smaller than commercial buildings or apartment/high rise/multi level buildings. Plus that could be come of the Other Terrain Features that are turned on which include their own textures and autogen annotation, but won't change the size of the buildings, just render different ones. However, if the landclass is calling for a bunch of houses rather than larger buildings, then it will appear that there are more objects or smaller ones because houses are smaller and more can be fit into a cell than larger commercial buildings.

 

That being said, the higher VAS consumption will probably come from the amount of residential and secondary roads turned on. In the UTX UI it has a performance meter that shows how much of a performance hit each feature will cost when turned on. A very useful feature that will help to determine which features to use depending on the type of flying you do.

Superimposition of vector data DOES change the annotation of the autogen beneath. You can't have superimposed autogen-on-autogen and if the vector autogen is called it has priority rather than underlying landclass calls. This is basic scenery stuff and has been since the earliest FSX days

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc526967.aspx

 

As for the comment about Paris - houses in the centre of Paris ? There are almost NONE. They are all apartment complexes. It's a feature of the city - and goes to the heart of what I referred to as perception in my prior post. If UTX is displaying houses, it is wrong. You use it as an example of right !

 

 

See what I mean about perception of reality ?

 

In my mind both renditions of Paris are plainly "wrong". I don't speak about singular features, but the whole structure is plainly wrong. I knew it was wrong in Global/OpenLC/Vector and now I know it is using UTX, too.

 

Here is a rendition of Munich which is in the same way "right"

 

http://www.aerosoft.de/shop-rd/bilder/screenshots/fsx/vfrgermany3/vfrgermany3_3.jpg

 

Munich has a comparable general structure as Paris, i.e. mainly apartment complexes in the city. This is Aerosoft VFR Germany, it's autogen annotated photoscenery, i.e. another approach, it's 7 years old, and performance is (still) pretty terrible - but IMO it looks "right". I am sure when France VFR will release Paris in their Regional series (using a similar approach as VFR Germany) it will look right, too. But again, this one will cost as much as a complete UTX package.

 

My conclusion so far: Obviously It is impossible to create an affordable proper rendition of European large cities using the LC/Vector Approach.

 

Kind regards, Michael