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Sesquashtoo

"Folks, THIS...is why I Ortho..."...

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15 hours ago, brianbash said:

This is where I get a little confused. G2Xpl does ZL15 with no problem for free. I donated $10 and now have a the choice of any zoom level in a fully self-sufficent tool. No sitting around and putting pieces together to build tile after tile after tile. I'm gonna grab a 4TB tomorrow, throw it on my laptop, draw a polygon for Canada/US/Mexico and walk away as it goes to work. Mind you I'm just going to do a giant ZL15 for this first part so that is all still in the free zone.

The first comment in that tutorial that I posted is a guy going off about how it's ransom-ware. Odd to see the 2 extremes. On one side you have people throwing money at the Orbx crew, on the other a guy that took the time to make a tutorial with hopes of assisting others is hearing a story about how a gentleman made a "ransom-ware" tool and should be ashamed of himself. Good grief. A $10 donation is absolutely worth the free time I get in return...and I didn't even have to donate if I didn't want to. Use G2Xpl for ZL15 and Ortho4XP for everything else and people will still have all that money to throw into...well...a .cfg file so that addon wont hinder their enjoyment :)

I started making addon's for FS5.1 in '97 when I was thirteen. My 20 years of tenure is up, time to finally enjoy it for a change. 

 

"Photo or it didn't happen"....fine :)

 

daLOpvf.jpg

You know, Brian, this thread is not about one particular method to fly over Ortho...that was not my intent, as the O.P.  My intent was to show WHY I choose now to only fly over this type of scenery. It lets me believe that I truly have a real flight path progression...no repeated ANYTHING...same shape farm field, town boundary...and blah, blah, as one would get with Orbx Global. That was NOT a dig...but a reference to how Orbx Global renders out its shipped texture library.

So, bottom line to the reader...ortho-on...create...enjoy, whether with this program you highlighted, or by way of how I came to the ortho genre, via Ortho4XP.

All of it is good...right?

Cheers,

Mitch

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56 minutes ago, ryanbatcund said:

I fly pretty much all GA and below FL100.  The incorrect shadows on the terrain doesn't seem to bother me.  Sometimes the seasonal thing does, but as we know, that's a whole other can of worms which will hopefully get addressed some day.  If you do the extra work, you can eliminate the ZL change from airport to general scenery, but I'm too lazy lol.

Yeah, that's another thing that bugs me, but only in publicly distributed files. :happy: 

 Some of the older airports in the .org have a really horrible clash between the airphoto used as a base layer and the surrounding landclass texture and coloring. They jump out like a sore thumb from the scenery, before you can even see the runway. I suppose many of these were developed back in version 9 or earlier, when the landclass texture and coloring was different, or they just didn't have good photos to work with as a base layer.

These are free airports and I know one shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. But in a few cases, I've just reverted to bare fields with no buildings when the base layer is too far off. 


X-Plane and Microsoft Flight Simulator on Windows 10 
i7 6700 4.0 GHz, 32 GB RAM, GTX 1660 ti, 1920x1200 monitor

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I must be missing something here!

I have been creating many ZL16 tiles and now I am reading that a few here are using ZL19 around airports?

Big question is WHY!


Nick Sciortino

 

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19 minutes ago, nicksort said:

I must be missing something here!

I have been creating many ZL16 tiles and now I am reading that a few here are using ZL19 around airports?

Big question is WHY!

"Easy to answer, Nick.  In your Ortho4XP Global .cfg file, you will see where you can turn a default setting for setting this up, from False, to True. You then set in this config section the opportunity, to have a much higher visual acuity, AROUND your airport properties, than your stock z16 that you eye-ball between them in the flight path.  What this will do, is (and it will hit you right upside the head the first time you experience it...) is as you rotate and climb out from your airport, you will enjoy a much higher visual experience 2,3,4 (whatever you set it up as..I keep it to 2 KM's out from the boundaries) and the same for running the final...towards the numbers at the arrival property.  It adds immeasurably to the suspension of disbelief that you are NOT truly taking off from the runway...and what's beyond it...as you climb-out, or as you state the runway is visible....and the wonderfully clear ground elements that you can eyeball as you shoot the Final Approach. 

That's what this is all about. Yes..you can merely keep everything as one zoom factor...but in my opinion, you are not truly leveraging the wonderful power of this program to crank up your visual cue's...and therefore, play down visual disbelief.

Here's a tip, you only need to set this up in your Global .cfg file..BEFORE you next run Ortho4XP, and then make sure at the top of the gen screen, that you set your z factor to default 16, or perhaps try seeing what things delve out at, with z17...but...then you go through all the steps again...and you will then have a z(whatever)/z(whatever) hybrid tile.  The difference is amazing, to only having one set z level for the entire tile...away from the airports, or with approaching, or leaving them.

Another tip, in the same Global .cfg file, at the top, you can set your own personal zoom level default from the stock z16, to anything from z17 to z19.  My default is always z17, so I changed that, that whenever I run the program, it comes already entered as z17 for my zoom level. I also set up in Global, the features (like Complex Mask and Inland Water Mask) as checked on. Stuff like that. It saves you time, and the mistake perhaps of Batching with a tile generation feature off, that you wanted as on... I did that in the very early stages one day of my generating, and had to re-cut over 20 tiles, with Complex Mask as on. What a P.I.T.A. that was!  So, look over your Global cfg file...and also see at the Advanced section that you can also make any capture service, a 'global default' whereby, if your set service can not provide a texture, then it will default to your 'global default' source, for that one sat picture download...and then go right back to your wanted source. This is a very powerful feature, that should be set, in my opinion.

Right now as I am typing this, in the background, I am generating between my high acuity tiles z17/z19, at z16/z19 to fill in between those low flight level VFR areas.  I plan to fly over this terrain at FL180 or higher. But..as I leave those airports within these tiles, or fly on Final, for two KM's out...I will enjoy much elevated visual cues, and that is the reason one does this. Try to keep better visuals in the higher zoom factors as you are closer to the ground in the arrival and departure phase of your flight plan.

Hope this helped,"

Mitch

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Mitch - thanks for the explanation but now I need to check something else out. I am not sure what level "ZL" are my tiles I generated with ortho. I was reading this thread and I assumed (that word again) that 16 was a much cleaner, closer tile than 19. I am pretty sure (at least I think I am) that I did it as close, clearer as I could. I guess I will check it as soon as I can and report back...

Heck at my age I could have done them by Crayola and not known the difference.


Nick Sciortino

 

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35 minutes ago, nicksort said:

Mitch - thanks for the explanation but now I need to check something else out. I am not sure what level "ZL" are my tiles I generated with ortho. I was reading this thread and I assumed (that word again) that 16 was a much cleaner, closer tile than 19. I am pretty sure (at least I think I am) that I did it as close, clearer as I could. I guess I will check it as soon as I can and report back...

Heck at my age I could have done them by Crayola and not known the difference.

Nick, I can assure you, that Ortho4XP is set up, by default, that you did indeed create your tiles (if you changed nothing on the Tile Generation Screen) at a zoom factor (z) of 16.

The good news, is that you can set it up in the drop-down menu to anything between 16 or lower, or as high as 19 BEFORE you start creating a tile , tile by tile, or to use the Batch Mode/Method.

To remember, Nick...as we all had to learn, is that the lower the z-factor, the actual element resolution, is cut in half!  So...z16 will give you 1/2 the crispness and acuity in visuals, that z17 will. z17 is one half the visual acuity of z19.

So...the sweet spot (in my personal opinion) with visuals, as well as storage of files, is a setting of z17/z19 (for those extended KM's) out from all your airport properties located within that tile you are generating.

Have fun...and there is a learning curve...but one that won't render a heart-attack, in the process. :)

MItch

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Level 19 is 8 times better than level 16. Approximately 20cm per pixel for zl 19, 1.6m per pixel for zl 16. Big difference. There is a cost, of course: zl 19 take 8 times as much room on your disk. That's why people use it only around the airports, where it really matters.

Keep this in mind: the bigger the zoom level (zl), the more details you can see.

Pascal

 

29 minutes ago, nicksort said:

Mitch - thanks for the explanation but now I need to check something else out. I am not sure what level "ZL" are my tiles I generated with ortho. I was reading this thread and I assumed (that word again) that 16 was a much cleaner, closer tile than 19. I am pretty sure (at least I think I am) that I did it as close, clearer as I could. I guess I will check it as soon as I can and report back...

Heck at my age I could have done them by Crayola and not known the difference.

 

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3 minutes ago, Pascal_LSGC said:

Level 19 is 8 times better than level 16. Approximately 20cm per pixel for zl 19, 1.6m per pixel for zl 16. Big difference. There is a cost, of course: zl 19 take 8 times as much room on your disk. That's why people use it only around the airports, where it really matters.

Keep this in mind: the bigger the zoom level (zl), the more details you can see.

Pascal

 

 

Great addition of concise information to the thread, with thanks! :)

Mitch

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8 hours ago, captain420 said:

Very nice, wish they had something like this for P3D, Ortho4P3D or something.

 

Btw, you did the entire US using Ortho4XP, what source did you use? Bing?

I used Bing. 


100454.png
Captain K-Man FlightBlog Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCulqmz0zmIMuAzJvDAZPkWQ  //  Streaming on YouTube most Wednesdays and Fridays @ 6pm CST

Brian Navy

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Bing has good consistency, but in certain areas (Colorado/Kansas border e.g.) it looks like 50 shades of grey. USA2 has better colours, but they are not as consistent I find.

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4 minutes ago, domae001 said:

Bing has good consistency, but in certain areas (Colorado/Kansas border e.g.) it looks like 50 shades of grey. USA2 has better colours, but they are not as consistent I find.

It could have been an overcast day when the sat camera took the shots over that area...

I have been logging what areas were captured in what season, on different sources, and have been using that as a blend of the state I am converting. Bing has captured most of New York, and parts of Vermont, in the forestry colors of the Fall. Looks fantastic in XP. 

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12 hours ago, Murmur said:

Infact, the big difference is that with X-Plane you can use real buildings (sourced from OSM) instead of the randomly placed autogen. Can't be beaten. Oh, and the other difference is that it's all free/donationware. :wink:

 

Wow great video so real looking :biggrin:


Rich Sennett

               

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18 hours ago, Sesquashtoo said:

Great addition of concise information to the thread, with thanks! :)

Mitch

Thanks, but I made a mistake.

In fact, a full tile at zl 19 takes 64 times the disk space of one at zl 16 !

Pascal

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Sesqaushtoo

You make a great salesmen for external drives. I never thought about where I can park the Orthos sceneries that can take up so much spaces until I came your posts and your images look really good. 

It kind push me to run out to microcenter pick a 5 Tb drive. 

But I want to ask a quick question: when your making your tiles, for your based are you OSM or B1.  For the Grand Bahamas island I try OSM but didn't workout so well so I use B1 and it look much better. Just wanted to see if there was any room for improvement.

Bob

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