HD MESH V3 Question

[Colonel X 1,428]

Guess I'll just stick to purely using HD Mesh v3 with default textures then.

 

That's the way to go for a modern, lean and consistent experience.

[alpilotx 505]

So ALL photoscenery, whether custom made or bought such as Real Scenery Oahu includes it's own mesh if I'm not mistaken?

Yes ... for every large scale scenery (countries / states ... or simply, anything that would cover at least a 1x1 degree area), you can expect it to be that way.

 

Even though there is also a phototexture-overlay function in X-Plane ... no sane developer would use it for large scale scenery, because for larger areas, that would completely tank performance. This phototexture-overlay function is only meant for small area scenery, like an airport, or maybe a city ... because at that scale, it has no serious performance hit, but frees the developer from the need to create a phototextured mesh for the entire 1x1 area (and above all, this way his large scale scenery works with all other mesh products placed below it ... because it uses phototexture-overlay tech).

[captain420 3,099]

tonywob, thanks for the link. I have a question after reading that, the latest w2xplane downloads on simheaven's website, those will provide your scenery with different types of objects and offer more variety depending on the region for X-Plane, while the HD/UHD mesh is basically higher resolution mesh that will give the land/water more detail, such as coastlines and also include landclass data as well?

 

Because I ran a test of New York City in X-Plane 10.50 beta 5 to see the new autogen for buildings, I set the objectst to extreme, using HD Mesh v3, and a custom orthophotoscenery for that area that I made using ortho4xp, and I saw a lot of buildings, objects. So, you're saying all those autogen objects are coming from that orthoscenery that I made? Because from what alpilot is saying is that both HD mesh and orthophotoscenery have their own mesh, and only one will be chosen and utilized at any given moment. Whether which one gets loaded depends on which order they are listen in your scenery ini file. And since all of the HD Mesh v3/UHD Mesh files are last in that list due to the name "zzz_____" It will load my orthophotoscenery instead.

 

Does HD/UHD Mesh from alpilot include landclass and OSM data? If I use the default vanilla scenery will I also get the same exact roads, buildings objects in the same area or are they different?

[tonywob 4,768]

Firstly HD and UHD mesh are simply upgraded versions of the default scenery in that they give much more definition and accurate zones (or landclass if you prefer). These sceneries do use some information from OSM, but they also use other information as well to give decent coverage as OSM isn't very consistent with its coverage. Alpilotx's sceneries do not add new artwork or building types, they simply make better use of the ones that are already in X-Plane. The buildings are all autogenerated within zones, so you won't see your house, but you will see the general shape of your town. As already explained it's a complete scenery, mesh and objects and is fantastic (I use it for Alaska and New Zealand and the detail is great).

 

World2XPlane doesn't generate a new mesh, but it will change the buildings, roads and forests on an existing mesh (This is called an overlay scenery). It will place buildings exactly where the real ones are in real life, and forests as they are in real-life as long as the data is good (I also have something called pro sceneries which use government data for very accurate data). It won't look too good mixed with HD Mesh in some places as the textures don't match, but some areas look very nice (UHD Norway and Norway Pro are very nice together). Generally, people use these with photoscenery to give very accurate objects and forests.

 

Both World2XPlane and HD Mesh have roads from the same data source which is OSM, World2XPlane is generally more up-to-date because it was generated more recently, but HD Mesh has nicer and smoother roads which are more optimised (the OSM data has been sanitised), however they are less accurate as they hug the landscape less accurately, but the difference is negligible and World2XPlane has been blamed for lots of recent crashes in X-Plane 10.50 recently because it simply imports the roads straight in without sanitising them whilst HD mesh is much cleaner and more "compressed' so it works on a more global level.

 

For real accuracy, using just photoscenery and W2XP together (this must be higher in priority) will give you very realistic and accurate scenery, but requires a lot of disk space. On the other hand, HD/UHD mesh on its own will give you consistent scenery but less accurate and photorealistic (but better on system resources and disk space).

 

It really depends on where and how high you generally fly.

[captain420 3,099]

Thanks tony for explaining it for me. I guess it's a matter of what I prefer. Either using w2xplane with photoscenery, or going the more less taxing on the system but simple route of HD/UHD Mesh.

 

So you're saying to choose one or the other, but it's not recommended to use w2xplane with HD/UHD Mesh?

 

I guess for flying high with tubeliners = photoscenery/w2xplane, extended dsf. and for GA and low flying, extended dsf off with HD/UHD Mesh.

[tonywob 4,768]

Yes, it really depends on what you and where you want to fly. HD Mesh is great for flying fast and high, UHD/Ortho and World2XPlane is great when flying low and you want the extra detail (e.g for helicopters).

 

I wouldn't recommend both UHD Mesh and World2XPlane together unless you have a good system to support it.

[alpilotx 505]

Well, on the HD mesh Scenery v3 page, there is a quite extensive list of improvements in brings (compared to default scenery):

• http://www.alpilotx.net/downloads/x-plane-10-hd-mesh-scenery-v3/#Introduction

And it combines quite a few different data sources to get the result you see. Most importantly detailed landclass data (depending on the worlds region, I use different land use / land cover data sources to achieve this) ... which can give you relatively accurate forest positions too (of course, not as precise as with w2xp scenery where you have good OSM source data), as i use - in the meantime - very high resolution satellite measured forest data.

 

To give you a "feeling" about how many different data sources I mix (to get the special sauce), I also have an official data sources acknowledgment list on my page:

• http://www.alpilotx.net/downloads/x-plane-10-hd-mesh-scenery-v3/#Data-Sources-Acknowledgments