On roads...

[JimmiG 244]

Hi, I would like to comment on this shot:http://fsinsider.com/bell.htmFirst, I want to say that to me, it's one of the most impressive shots released. The level of detail and the accuracy of the autogen is amazing. At this altitude, FS2004 looked like a joke unless you were over something like a Georender airfield. When looking at this shot, you can almost imagine people walking around, cars driving by etc.*However*, there's one thing that really bothers me. It's the interaction, or rather the total lack of interaction, between real life (vector) roads, and the "fake" roads in the texture and textures in general. You can see how the vector road intersects the fake road at an angle, and it looks really, really strange. Also, the artistic style of the real road is very different from that of the fake roads. The fake roads look worn, weathered, partly covered by trees or vegetation along the edges etc., the real road looks like a piece of shoe string or something, just a thin grey band or line.This was a problem in FS2004 too, but the textures were not as detailed, so it wasn't that obvious. Also, let's be honest, FS2004's road network was rather..."sparse". With addons like USA Roads, and more detailed texure packs like BEV, it has become more obvious. I find myself often disabling "residential" roads when using these addons, because they really look horrible with BEV's own residential roads built into the textures.I realize that it's very hard to do something about this, but I would have prefered if the actual textures contained no fake roads. Instead, the "real" roads should look more realistic, blend better with the textures. Ie. the textures should change depending on what types of roads are on top of them..major highway..small back country roads, residential roads...not sure if I'm making myself clear..I want the roads to actually interact with the textures, rather than just being "painted" on top of them.It's also *very* counter-productive that in FS2004, residential roads actually exclude autogen around them. Instead, the scenery systtem should go "Oh, there sure are a lot of residential roads here..I should place lots of autogen around them to simulate a densely populated residential neighbourhood". Instead residential roads now cause the autogen scenery to look very barren and sparse.What do you think? We've had the system of vector roads on top of textures since something like FS5 now. With more accurate road and landclass data, maybe it's time to think twice about using this approach yet again?

[Guest Horst]

To quote:

[JimmiG 244]

I meant the approach of superimposing roads on top of landclass textures without any consideration to either terrain type or road type.

[Guest tdragger]

<>For what parts of the world?

[Guest Horst]

You can not! Yet!Only for a small area on the planet and the game!Data amount for the whole planet?Horst

[FlyingsCool 3]

I have expanded on this topic at the Ultimate Terrain forum (starting at reply 11):http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_post...?TID=15644&PN=1and at BEV:http://www.flightsim-bevs.com/smf_1-0-5/in...hp?topic=1721.0as well as at the topic link Horst mentioned above. (The UT forum posts go into the most detail).As to the question of landuse data: I think the MSFS team did the best they could. The landuse data is built into the landclass. While it may not be perfect, it is there, and I'd be happy if that is what was used. There are plenty of addon developers out there to improve on it.As I note in the threads, for the areas where you have roads, use the roads and the landclass to help develop the autogen and use vegetation style landclass textures for the pixels. Where you don't, the current landclass textures and methods work great!As far as the question of size is concerned for supporting multiple texture sets and more .agn files, I don't think there will be a huge additional set of textures and other files. The areas of population, especially where there is good road data, are relatively small I believe. The only areas that need to really change would be the small/medium/large suburban/urban textures and a few others. The rural textures will probably work about the same as they do now.Finally, I can only imagine that these ideas would be used for FS11 or FS12, as FSX is only a couple of months away from finalization now, if it isn't finalized already.I, for one, who enjoys doing some scenery design, would love to know if the available choices of landclass have been expanded and how they have been expanded. I hate getting 6 story buildings in suburban towns and hope there are some in between landclasses added for that (rather large here in the Northeast US, and I imagine in other areas, too) transition area between urban and rural areas.Thomas[a href=http://www.flyingscool.com/FC_StartJava.html] http://www.flyingscool.com/images/Signature.jpg [/a]I like using VC's :-)

[JimmiG 244]

"For what parts of the world?"Well western Europe and North America primarily, I suppose. Why settle for the lowest common denomninator with scenery accuracy? Why use low accuracy for New York just because there's no accurate data for Siberia (or Sweden...my home town looks nothing like the real world in FS9 ;) )?I think that hermit behind X-Plane is experimenting with scenery placed around the road network, rather than the other way around. Take a look: http://www.global-scenery.org/NYC/pictures/NYC_02.htmlLike I said, I realize it's hard to do something about it, but you *have* to admit that the road crossing looks a little strange in the original pic I linked to? It's not just that pic, either. It happens everywhere and it spoils the realism somewhat for me, especially when flying over areas I know.

[FlyingsCool 3]

Oh, and I'm thinking (and could be wrong) the created .agn files would be relatively small, as well, as they would only hold location/orientation data and pointers to the objects.Thomas[a href=http://www.flyingscool.com/FC_StartJava.html] http://www.flyingscool.com/images/Signature.jpg [/a]I like using VC's :-)

[Guest tdragger]

<Beause we're a global product we don't have the luxury of this type of selective development. So we compromise and try to find a balance that looks reasonable in most cases but may not be optimal for any given place. When we reach a point where hi-res vector data is easiliy and cheaply available for a greater part of the world we may change the way we do things.<>I'm not arguing that it doesn't look strange, just trying to explain why. And for most folks it's more that satisfactory. Besides, we have to leave something for add-on developers to improve on!

[FlyingsCool 3]

I'm feeling like enough has been said about this subject. I think it is clear such functionality won't be in 10, and will be considered for the future. But I don't think it has to be "selective" development. I'm imagining a set of landclass that the software recognizes to call other functions when there is more data available.For those areas that have a full road complement (which I'm imagining won't make it into FSX), the "advanced" landclass is used. When processing the scenery library, those areas that have "advanced" landclass get processed, otherwise, just use the default for the rest.The method I suggested (and I'm sure I'm not the first) should alleviate hand editing, the bulk of the work will go into the shape and data recognition and object placing algorithms to calculate how to locate the "intelligent" autogen.I'm glad the subject is at least getting some recognition, though I think it is a stretch to think of the current solution as being more than satisfactory if the user likes to have an accurate road system. But I must admit it is certainly better than anything before and is only getting better.I have to emphasize, however, how happy I was to have actual roads and water features to navigate by with first USA Roads and FreeFlowNE and then Ultimate Terrain (and how icky I find the clash between the vector and texture roads to be). Those additions were right up on top for immersion in the sim for me, being a GA pilot to begin with. That, being able to model my plane to match my real plane, and the Freeware FSGenesis 38m mesh transformed the sim for me from a game to something I like to use nearly every day in some capacity.Thanks,Thomas[a href=http://www.flyingscool.com/FC_StartJava.html] http://www.flyingscool.com/images/Signature.jpg [/a]I like using VC's :-)

[Guest GA Flyer]

>I'm not arguing that it doesn't look strange, just trying to>explain why. And for most folks it's more that satisfactory.>Besides, we have to leave something for add-on developers to>improve on!In FS9 its mostly over big cities, in the heart of the city, where add-on roads like UT overlayed on the fake roads looks most out of place. The main reasons (that apply to this topic) for me for using UT is more accurate roads and that great night lighting. In the FSX screenshots it looks like the main roads (that are found also on sectionals) are using that same database as what UT does. As well as the rivers, shorelines etc. So I'll trade all the minor roads from UT for the new fake roads since they blend so well now with the auto gen.The bonus will be if we get those great night lights that UT offers.Yes it would be the best if there were no fake roads to make it look strange but maybe future version will allow for more improvements in this area.Until then at least the roads found in sectionals for navigating look to be highly accurate now.Jack

[sightseer 895]

In FS2002 the airport taxiways looked out of place. It seems that both theircolor and texture were adjusted for 2004 and they look really good now.It seems to me that the roads don't look right because they are 'perfect' lines against a grainy bitmap. If the roads had thesame 'grain' as the bitmap they were on top of then they wouldn't lookso out of place. On a totally different note: I'm really hoping that if a runway hasswamp at the end of it then it will be that way in FSX (like MSY).EDIT: BTW - that picture ( and the others I've seen) look really good!

[tasmanet 0]

"between real life (vector) roads, and the "fake" roads in the texture"Dont you have that back to front ???The "fake" roads are from a satalite image.Dead givaway is the car,and the trees that appear under the placed trees. They look like shadows.In my humble opinion there are no vector roads in thatimage, and one crossing a "fake" road diagonallyis a train track.But I wont stake my life on that :( I have a bit of a theory that vector roads will onlybe used where you want traffic moving on them.by that I mean they will be animated vector roads.Does any one know where this town is. ???Tas

[tasmanet 0]

Same area with some modifications and fromother side of road

[Guest koorby]

<>Amen to that!My policy on ground textures is to never have vehicles showing in my textures, because essentially, they look flat from any angle and for low-and-slow VFR'ers that takes away from the realism.I'd rather nothing at all or a sprinkling of real 3D models, than fake cars painted on textures.