fsx-se Why does my scenery look like a checkerboard?

[LABOX 40]

Hi Everybody,

 

This problem has been bothering for quite some time now. Whenever I fly outside ORBX regions my terrain tends to look really unnatural, the same patterns are repeated over and over again.

 

I´m aware of the fact that default FSX just looks this way once you fly a bit higher and that products like UTX will help making things look better.

 

Still there´s one thing I don´t understand: I still get these awful patterns when I use addon-landclass and mesh (The picture below is scenerytech africa for landclass and Freemesh X, somewhere close to Cape Town)

 

Shouldn´t these two products combined with FTX Global solve the issue. Or is it vector - data I need? I´m really confused and it´s kinda hard to find info out there, since there´s a gazillion topics about mesh and landclass, but I couldn´t find a topic about my checkerboard textures...

 

My scenery library is sorted roughly like this:

 

Addon Airports

Fotoscenery

Orbx Regions

FTX Global

Landclass Addons

External Mesh

Default Scenery

 

 

This is what the ground textures look like:

 

 

And these are my display settings:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

CHeers, Arne

 

 

[andreh 125]

I don't know exactly what's wrong, but you're right that landclass addons should get rid of that. It would seem that something isn't working in your setup. I would start checking if the landclass is installed correctly

Andre

 

[JRBarrett 3,069]

The quality (texture variability) of add-on landclass can be a hit or miss sort of thing, depending on the source data that was available to the developers, which often comes from government agencies in specific countries.

SceneryTech landclass was a definite improvement over the default that came with FSX, but it still has limitations. If the source data indicate that a specific region is "farmland", and the landclass only has two or three variations of a "farmland" texture, you end up with the situation shown in your screenshot - endless repetitions of an identical texture.

ORBX OpenLC is a major improvement because they have many, many more variations of each type of landclass - and probably better quality source data.

With SceneryTech landclass, the American Midwest looked very much like your screenshot - a checkerboard of repeating identical tiles. With Orbx, the same area looks much better - as it uses dozens of variations of "farmland".

The difference can be seen in the size of the landclass data in the sim. The SceneryTech landclass for North America was a single file, only a few dozen megabytes in size, while the Orbx OpenLC is well over a gigabyte, consisting of dozens of files. 

I know that Orbx eventually plans to have OpenLC for the entire world. Europe, Canada, USA and Central America are currently covered - with South America planned for release sometime this year, and Africa in work as well.

Vector will improve the layout of roads, coastlines, etc. but OpenLC is what is needed to cure the "checkerboard" landclass texturing.

[LABOX 40]

Thanks for the replies, guys!

Jim, this makes sense, since some miles further away the terrain looks much better, so it´s just not enough data there... 

Andre, I can see the landlass works, terrain looks different / better than the default landclass, it´s just not the same quality everywhere...

Best, Arne

[JRBarrett 3,069]

Some of the problem comes from the resolution of the original GIS source data, but mostly it's a case of vendors like SceneryTech, Cloud9 etc trying to cover an entire country, while keeping the costs of their landclass addon relatively low. SceneryTech filled an important niche in the early days of FSX, but Orbx has gone far beyond with OpenLC - but, at a higher price. (Well worth it IMO!)

Even in the real world, some regions look somewhat monotonous from the air, and the American Midwest is a good example. When states like Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma were being opened up for settlement in the 19th century, they were seen as being perfectly suited for agriculture, because the terrain was relatively flat, and the soil was of very high quality.

When surveyors came in to subdivide the land, they laid it out in perfect square plots, often one quarter, one half, or one mile per side, with the boundary lines (usually marked by roads) running exactly north/south and east/west. It made it very easy to sell the land to incoming settlers and farmers, who knew exactly how much land they would be getting, since it was all laid out very logically.

So, even in the r/w, much of this area really is a "checkerboard" You can see it clearly if you use a satellite image viewer like Google Maps, and zoom in to the states mentioned above.

But, of course, not every square plot is the same as every other. This is where the Orbx landclass really shines, compared to the less expensive and simpler SceneryTech product.

[andreh 125]

57 minutes ago, LABOX said:

Thanks for the replies, guys!

Jim, this makes sense, since some miles further away the terrain looks much better, so it´s just not enough data there... 

Andre, I can see the landlass works, terrain looks different / better than the default landclass, it´s just not the same quality everywhere...

Best, Arne

Then it's probably what Jim said - your landclass product is so-so quality. I use Orbx OpenLC. Iused UTX before. Also good, but not as good as Orbx. UTX has vectors too so all in all a good product. No pattern repeat with either. Highly recommended 

Andre

[LABOX 40]

26 minutes ago, andreh said:

Then it's probably what Jim said - your landclass product is so-so quality. I use Orbx OpenLC. Iused UTX before. Also good, but not as good as Orbx. UTX has vectors too so all in all a good product. No pattern repeat with either. Highly recommended 

Andre

I had UTX Europe before, it was good, but I always had compatibility issues with ftx regions.  I'll wait and see if ORBX is releasing more LC - products then I guess. Time to start saving

thanks again for your replies, seeing much clearer now...