Thanx Alpilotx, we have now a clear picture on the density matter.

Of course every country has its own peculiarity, not easy to find a common approach after all what does count is the believable view of the residential area and what we see with the new autogen is much more polished and...hence...realistic. 

 

 

Well you can do this already in XP10, it really is no different. I did exactly this for my Czech/Slovakia building sets. 

 

Ah, my bad. I thought it was something new after seeing a YouTube movie that mentioned this. But maybe the only new thing was that XP11 comes with German autogen out of the box. (I am completely new to XP, I haven't even bought it yet but am quite interested in XP11.)

It looks great, I just hope the performance impact is not equally great. 

 

Anyway german europe is more plausible than american europe. 

That new autogen is pretty impressive - looks good.

 

 

 

Regarding trees of course in the long distance they are good but at medium/short range the average autogen trees break immersion especially at certain time where shadows make them ugly. In this case I think the best solution would be to have rotating one side BB, the result in FS world is definitely better when flying low or at airport.

 

Gosh no... I absolutely hate rotating BB images in any sim. They always catch my attention and break immersion even worse for me.

 

The trees aren't all that pretty, but I enjoy the ability to have lots and lots of them. I also find that although I've noted that they don't look nice in screenshots, from the moment I take off to the moment I land, I've never ever noticed.

 

I do wish they had a bit higher resolution tree objects to use when building airports though. So long as a builder didn't place hundreds of them, it would be an easy way to have a bit more eye candy around the airport. As well as single coniferous trees that one could place - so many of the airports I've done have been in areas where there's only coniferous trees on the airport grounds.

Not bad for Portugal either :-)

Impressive!

I desperately want them to do something about the trees. I've resorted to turning them off in X-Plane 10 after I started using Ortho, because they stick out like a sore thumb. They look like cartoon 2D cutouts and they blend with absolutely nothing. It's a shame.

 

But the autogen looks great, could easily pass for some Danish towns as well, so I think the German style is a good starting point. 

I desperately want them to do something about the trees. I've resorted to turning them off in X-Plane 10 after I started using Ortho, because they stick out like a sore thumb. They look like cartoon 2D cutouts and they blend with absolutely nothing. It's a shame.

Well, of course its not perfect, but neither are orthos perfect. Because you can almost never guarantee some level of homogeneity in their color representation (without extensive work), you will always have a hard time to perfectly - and consistently - match trees (or other objects) to them. Thats the advantage of landclass based scenery where you use a tuned set of base textures, where its much easier to match objects / trees to them.

 

Of course, both sides (ortho or generic textures) have their advantages or disadvantages ... you just need to be aware of them when deciding to use one or the other.

This looks amazing and an interesting and informative tread too.

But again saying: Great looking autogen buildings. WOW!

If this high quality becomes standard in X-Plane 11 and with some more various buildings hopefully being added over time in the future, we (flightsimmers) can really consider us happy i think.

:smile:

I've resorted to turning them off in X-Plane 10 after I started using Ortho, because they stick out like a sore thumb. They look like cartoon 2D cutouts and they blend with absolutely nothing. It's a shame.

 

I agree with this, the problem with using orthos is that getting a correct colour balance is very difficult. I've tried quite hard in my latest Ortho4XP tiles to try and colour balance the orthos so the greens blend with the vegetation used, it's a real pain and hard work, e.g.

 

Done Nicely

 

..and not so much

 

I think the advantage of having an ORBX type approach to the scenery is that you don't have blending issues. You can design your landclass tiles with textures and objects nicely colour-balanced to match. If you are using Ortho4XP and want to blend them, you will need at a mininum to adjust the saturation and contrast for each tile you do.

Some of the changes I would like see in the future regarding trees is the limited variations, we need more, everything looks too green from my point of view.

 

I agree with this, the problem with using orthos is that getting a correct colour balance is very difficult. I've tried quite hard in my latest Ortho4XP tiles to try and colour balance the orthos so the greens blend with the vegetation used, it's a real pain and hard work, e.g.

 

 

Definitely but an even bigger problem is, when you aren't using accurate OSM data / W2XP data, rely just on default or HD Mesh overlay for autogen, then the tree placement also becomes extremely inconsistent and their 'weird looking nature' becomes very apparent. Seeing those trees littered over yellow fields, sometimes into urban areas, golf courses and quarries really ruins the look. 

Some of the changes I would like see in the future regarding trees is the limited variations, we need more, everything looks too green from my point of view.

 

I agree X-Plane could use more shades of green in deciduous and mixed deciduous/conifer forests. There could be more color variation in urban and suburban areas too, where many trees are ornamental plantings of various types.

 

On the other hand, a uniform green carpet -- the way it's represented now -- is actually fairly accurate for primarily conifer forests and tropical rain forests.

 

I used to do a lot of aerial photography over tropical forests in places like Venezuela, Brazil and Costa Rica. Except for scattered flowering trees, it was a solid sea of dark green. You'd think there would be more variation since there are so many different tree species, but everything is fighting for forest canopy space with maximized chlorophyll. With the higher latitude conifer forests like you see up here in the Pacific Northwest, there are very few different species so the color is uniform.

think the advantage of having an ORBX type approach to the scenery is that you don't have blending issues. You can design your landclass tiles with textures and objects nicely colour-balanced to match.

 

And back to pros and cons... To me, the major disadvantage of Orbx style landclass tiles is having scenery tiles that include burnt-in roads.

 

It's personal preference of course, but I'd rather have XP style scenery where the only roads that are present are those that are supposed to be there. It's hugely frustrating and immersion breaking to be flying in an area where you know where the smaller roads are supposed to be, only to find them crossed by fake roads in the underlying imagery.

 

I think this issue becomes more prevalent not only in areas where you are familiar with the landscape, but also in regions where the roads are laid out in a repeatable pattern. For example, much of Alberta (the Canadian province where I've grown up and currently live) follows a grid pattern in line with the Alberta Township System which is developed from the Dominion Land Survey which set out a pattern for road allowances.  Within populated rural areas (unpopulated areas have scarce roads), you can depend on a road grid, depending on density, of 1 mile by 2 miles. 

 

Orbx style image tiles, with it's burnt in roads, fails miserably in such regions; you end up with the correct road grid as supplied by either the simulator or add-on vector scenery, plus the underlying roads that are present in the imagery used. It makes for a mess - the Orbx imagery has these nicely annotated trees and farm yards and whatnot, that are near fake roads, which often are smack dab in the middle of a section grid.  You might have to have grown up in a rural setting with those grid roads to fully appreciate how flawed the end result is, but I still think it's highly relevant to anyone wishing to simulate VFR flight over such regions. You simply can't depend on the visual appearance of the road network.

 

Whereas in XP, upgraded with proper OSM derived roads and helped by the wonderful Tree Lines and Farms scenery, does a *very* respectable job at replicating the overall layout and feel of western rural areas with the full road grid present. Sometimes there's a bit too many trees for drier regions, and of course the farmyards are mostly missing (in older, higher density, western Canadian rural areas there's a farmyard, or the presence of where one used to be, alongside the road in almost every quarter section), but it's still more than feasible to fly VFR based almost purely by the roads and villages.

 

Sorry - went on a bit there, but sometimes I think that Orbx scenery is solely admired for it's eye-candy, and it's effect on realism is ignored.

 

Sorry - went on a bit there, but sometimes I think that Orbx scenery is solely admired for it's eye-candy, and it's effect on realism is ignored.

Well, I don't know why you mention Orbx all the time, as if they are the bad boys, but this isn't an Orbx 'feature': it's an Microsoft FS and hence also an P3D problem. So replace Orbx in your post with FS or P3D and it will be a bit more balanced. At least Orbx managed to make something nice out of that flawed system.

 

Don't get me wrong, though: I do agree those baked in roads are absolutely horrifying. Just don't blame the wrong guys.