In-game VS Satellite

[ca_metal 2,024]

Like I said before, is really hard to come to a conclusion using the alpha screenshots regarding the autogen accuracy. When we see very sparse autogen on a picture it could be just the tester using lower graphical settings.

Which made me think that was two different scenes showing the Porto - Portugal city. One from the Official video Feature Discovery Series - World and the other from an Alpha Screenshot. The one from the video seemed way more dense and accurate than the one from the Alpha. It could be the settings or just different alpha builds.

That said, I agree with Claviateur, the Beta builds will give us a better idea of the final version than the Alpha builds.

[Claviateur 789]

27 minutes ago, ca_metal said:

Like I said before, is really hard to come to a conclusion using the alpha screenshots regarding the autogen accuracy. When we see very sparse autogen on a picture it could be just the tester using lower graphical settings.

Which made me think that was two different scenes showing the Porto - Portugal city. One from the Official video Feature Discovery Series - World and the other from an Alpha Screenshot. The one from the video seemed way more dense and accurate than the one from the Alpha. It could be the settings or just different alpha builds.

That said, I agree with Claviateur, the Beta builds will give us a better idea of the final version than the Alpha builds.

Oh never thought about comparing the Portugal screenshots, thanks for the hint. That explains it for sure... 

[Shack95 2,658]

Olympic National Park, USA

From the E3 trailer:

[Dominique_K 10,149]

Not bad. I am not too worried about the US mesh 😁 ! See for instance https://www.usgs.gov/core-science-systems/ngp/3dep/about-3dep-products-services

[GlideBy 324]

5 hours ago, domkle said:

Not bad. I am not too worried about the US mesh 😁 ! See for instance https://www.usgs.gov/core-science-systems/ngp/3dep/about-3dep-products-services

I looked through that, and it worries me even more.  First, as you noted, it is US only.  Second, the highest continuous resolution available is 10 meter (1/3 arc-second).  10 Meters.

And a lot of that data is really old.  Like much of the west is 1960-1979 data.

It does offer higher resolutions, but those only cover limited areas of the US.  Now you might hope in the future that they will add more.  And they slowly will.  But on the By The Number page, you see they are seeking funding by partners to try to make things go faster.

I haven't followed how the mesh is generated much.  So it is saddening to find out for the US it is 10 meter resolution.  I hope we have better resolution.  Maybe I am misreading it.  Below is the area covered by the one meter resolution.

[Dominique_K 10,149]

13 minutes ago, GlideBy said:

I looked through that, and it worries me even more.   

 

We are talking elevation map not terrain resolution.  FSX was at 38 m for the US and 90 m for the rest of the world, as I remember it.   A 10 m resolution (1/3 arc-second)  is very good for our purpose ! It means 10 m between two sampling points. You can get lower at 5 m but sometimes it generates artifacts. 

The world is covered by the Shuttle Topographic Mission at 30 m almost everywhere. In Europe, I don't remember right now but I think we have 10 m also. I suppose it is the same in Japan.

I didn't check how old are the data. In anyc ase the relief doesn't change very rapidly, does it ?

 

[GlideBy 324]

@domkle  I guess I am mostly worried about having sharp looking mountains and cliffs.  And not things that look like tall hills.   So maybe the AI can note the area as mountains or cliffs, and put textures, rocks, and details to make it look more realistic.  So I guess it matters what Asobo does with the data.  I just hope I don't have to download texture packs to get decent looking mountains.

Speaking of texture packs, I think most FSX texture packs for mountains were 30cm.  https://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/files/7866/fsx-30cm-generic-project-textures-rocks-mountains/

I am not sure the age matters much.  (On the link you posted, there is a map that shows age of areas)  Maybe it matters for rivers that have switched directions, quarries, earthquake changes, or if they are using it for building heights.  I want to stress that I don't know.  So just throwing it out there.

[Dominique_K 10,149]

11 hours ago, GlideBy said:

@domkle  I guess I am mostly worried about having sharp looking mountains and cliffs.  And not things that look like tall hills.   So maybe the AI can note the area as mountains or cliffs, and put textures, rocks, and details to make it look more realistic.  So I guess it matters what Asobo does with the data.  I just hope I don't have to download texture packs to get decent looking mountains.

Speaking of texture packs, I think most FSX texture packs for mountains were 30cm.  https://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/files/7866/fsx-30cm-generic-project-textures-rocks-mountains/

I am not sure the age matters much.  (On the link you posted, there is a map that shows age of areas)  Maybe it matters for rivers that have switched directions, quarries, earthquake changes, or if they are using it for building heights.  I want to stress that I don't know.  So just throwing it out there.

I do not know how much you know about these matters. So pardon me if I state the obvious.

To be simplistic, the FSX/P3D scenery has three layers on top of each other  :

- an elevation map which gives the height of the terrain and only that.  A 30-meter mesh  (or 1 arc-second)  means that the terrain is sampled in all direction every 30 m. The larger the figure, the flatter is the mesh because of the averaging.

- a landclass map which selects the right textures to be applied. A wood texture where there is a wood in the RW, a village texture where there is village etc. These textures can be default or an addon like OrbX Global or the textures pack you refer to. 

- and a vector layer which draws rivers, roads, railroads, water bodies etc.

They have only one thing in common, their relative geo positioning (which is not so great in FSX/P3D with streams running along slopes and not in the valley for instance) . They don't interact with each others.  You can have an excellent mesh without any texture. You can have beautiful mountain textures on a totally flat terrain. You don't want any of that of course. The FSX 30 cm textures pack has nothing to do with the 38 m mesh. It is just an artistic addon. The textures can indeed be used as a cosmetic cream to hide the flaws of the mesh or the vector networks but with a very limited success. 

The age of the data doesn't matter  for the mesh (exception would be a huge volcano exploding a mountain, a rare occurrence). It does for the vector map (new roads for instance), and for the landclass map (new urban or agricultural developments etc.).  

 I am not too much worried for the US as they have nice meshes available. More for the rest of the world.   
 

EDIT at least I hope for a mesh in FS20 as good as Pilot’s in P3D which is not so bad but expensive.

Edited March 25, 2020 by domkle

[Claviateur 789]

15 hours ago, GlideBy said:

@domkle  I guess I am mostly worried about having sharp looking mountains and cliffs.  And not things that look like tall hills.   So maybe the AI can note the area as mountains or cliffs, and put textures, rocks, and details to make it look more realistic.  So I guess it matters what Asobo does with the data.  I just hope I don't have to download texture packs to get decent looking mountains.

Speaking of texture packs, I think most FSX texture packs for mountains were 30cm.  https://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/files/7866/fsx-30cm-generic-project-textures-rocks-mountains/

I am not sure the age matters much.  (On the link you posted, there is a map that shows age of areas)  Maybe it matters for rivers that have switched directions, quarries, earthquake changes, or if they are using it for building heights.  I want to stress that I don't know.  So just throwing it out there.

Again, not sure the AI does the things you mentioned, they can rather be done in a much less sophisticated way and they are already done in other 3rd party applications for other simulators...

But you have a point here because you reminded me this scene from the airport video. The rock cliffs here are not from the Ortho but rather procedural. Or maybe the whole island is procedural. It looks a bit artificial with an airport like a sticker over it:

Edited March 25, 2020 by Claviateur

[Shack95 2,658]

8 minutes ago, Claviateur said:

The rock cliffs here are not from the Ortho but rather procedural. Or maybe the whole island is procedural. It looks a bit artificial with an airport like a sticker over it

Yes, this definitely looks hand-crafted. And artificial, I agree. A bit like that island in Myst.

[Claviateur 789]

11 minutes ago, Shack95 said:

Yes, this definitely looks hand-crafted. And artificial, I agree. A bit like that island in Myst.

If it is, then it could be the result of in-engine terrain creation tools like those in many other world engines (ex: Unigine).

One paints the terrain elevation with a brush including the type of landuse on the terrain... And the engine guesses depending on few factors if the cliffs must have rocks etc.

Jut guessing of course but this is a type of capability many engines have.

Edited March 25, 2020 by Claviateur

[Dominique_K 10,149]

I don't know how Asobo does. My post was meant to clarify the differences between mesh, textures, vectors etc as they always have been in the FS family of sims, including with patches of PR imagery. XP I don’t know. It seemed to me, rightly or wrongly,that some of our fellow simmers needed it 😉.

[Claviateur 789]

1 hour ago, domkle said:

I don't know how Asobo does. My post was meant to clarify the differences between mesh, textures, vectors etc as they always have been in the FS family of sims, including with patches of PR imagery. XP I don’t know. It seemed to me, rightly or wrongly,that some of our fellow simmers needed it 😉.

You explained it very well, that was the terrain architecture in the FS ESP engine. Yes let's see how the new Asobo engine works with terrain layers...

XP is not like ESP/FS, all the terrain components you mentioned are baked and compiled in 1 file in XP. Each terrain file covers 1 geo tile. Yet the terrain mesh in XP does not morph like FSX (LOD) when you change your view distance. However, modifying the XP terrain components using the native SDK is almost rocket science and only the experts close to the developers of the simulator can do this. 

Whereas as you explained, compiling any of the terrain elements you mentioned for FSX was pretty much straight forward if you have the data. Each component was a standalone BGL file... But the terrain morphs ewwww 🤢

Edited March 25, 2020 by Claviateur

[mSparks 2,086]

37 minutes ago, Claviateur said:

However, modifying the XP terrain components using the native SDK is almost rocket science and only the experts close to the developers of the simulator can do this. 

I dont know where this comes from (perhaps people who did RTFM being impatient - or just protectionist - with people who didn't RTFM), but its so far from the truth its not even funny.

Edited March 25, 2020 by mSparks

[Claviateur 789]

2 hours ago, mSparks said:

I dont know where this comes from (perhaps people who did RTFM being impatient - or just protectionist - with people who didn't RTFM), but its so far from the truth its not even funny.

It comes from the very few who know how to do it...