In-game VS Satellite

[Dominique_K 10,150]

6 minutes ago, antier said:

This is what is distressing. Too often, and without wanting to question their knowledge and/or their talents, a certain number of these passionate "developers" create very approximate realizations which often resemble decorations in pasteboard or cartoons. That is to say the complete opposite of what we want to see in FS2020.

Distressing ? Nobody forces anybody to install a freeware creation. I don’t know who are  the « we » in  the complete opposite of what we want to see  but I don’t think I belong to them😉. I look forward to see an exuberant creativity, even if a little amateurish, in FS20 ! 

[Tuskin38 6,532]

You also have to consider how big the planet is. They wouldn't have a manpower or time to make sure everything is completely accurate. I imagine they'd focus on major cities for release and then let others handle the rest.

[bonchie 2,305]

I look at everything within the guise 

2 minutes ago, Tuskin38 said:

You also have to consider how big the planet is. They wouldn't have a manpower or time to make sure everything is completely accurate. I imagine they'd focus on major cities for release and then let others handle the rest.

This is how I look at things. I'm not looking at how the AI recreates an area without photogrammetry and thinking are the trees the correct height. I'm looking at it very broadly. We'll all have places we know personally that don't measure up, but how's the overall presentation and VFR capability of what they are producing? That's my standard and right now, they are surpassing it in ways I didn't think were technologically possible two years ago as far as doing it world-wide. 

Edited April 21, 2020 by bonchie

[Victoroos 205]

On 4/17/2020 at 2:10 PM, aleex said:

Neuschwanstein Castle, Bavaria, Germany

Quite some inaccuracy int he mesh and terrain on the left. Ah well #alpha right? 😉

 

but still, wow, that shot! If I wouldn't know how it looks in Real life..  it keeps amazin mee

[Shack95 2,658]

15 minutes ago, Victoroos said:

Quite some inaccuracy int he mesh and terrain on the left. Ah well #alpha right?

Let‘s hope so... but my gut feeling is telling me otherwise. I really hope I‘m wrong.

[ca_metal 2,025]

If you are expecting the whole World will look 100% accurate you will be disappointed. I don't see why the castle above would improve past the alpha phase, unless Bing covers it with photogrammetry, the results so far are good enough.

Sure with time things will improve, I mean in the long term, be it larger photogrammetry coverage, photoimagery, mesh, better A.I. etc.

Edited April 23, 2020 by ca_metal

[Deleted 250]

what are the next dates of MS and Xbox? Does the E3 take place online due to Corona? Are there other events for publishing the date? 

[Claviateur 789]

1 hour ago, Shack95 said:

Let‘s hope so... but my gut feeling is telling me otherwise. I really hope I‘m wrong.

I love these discussions 🙂

It's not a mysterious process here, it is just the fact that the non photogrammetry world is built with a terrain mesh that has an xy resolution, over which an Ortho (Processed aerial imagery) is draped. In this case it's the same aerial data as the one in Bing and then procedural vegetation is implemented based on available data and with global / regional procedural script using filters and rules.

This process gives the result we see in the screenshot for Alpha, beta or R1 version for the whole planet where photogrammetry is not available...

With Bing Ortho or any other aerial material with such resolution, you will never be able to reproduce the cliffs you see... No matter how high res the mesh data is.. The Ortho will look smudged...

Now to have the detailed and subtle look of the area in any spot on this planet where a custom landmark is created and placed a custom scenery must be done over the global one...

In this case, if they need to reproduce the look of the elevations and vegetation around the landmark, they must exclude, with an additional scenery layer, the whole global procedural process/result for this area and create a custom elevation using custom procedural textures (not possible with the bing ortho) for the cliffs around and create custom vegetation zones as well.

Now they might do this custom process for some spots on the planet, yet I doubt for every area where a landmark is placed, the surrounding will be custom made... And this is normal.

Another technique would be to have any detected steep elevation (cliff) in the virtual terrain, not use the Ortho imagery but rather use generic rocky textures like the author of an Ortho scenery tool did for the other simulator...

All this to say that with Bing aerial material and procedural vegetation, this is the global result to expect unless custom areas are done as additional scenery layers...

 

Edited April 23, 2020 by Claviateur

[Shack95 2,658]

I‘m not expecting 100% accuracy or super realistic cliffs. I’m aware of how it works technically. I think this particular spot actually looks pretty good (good enough for me anyway). I just hope that the mesh is at least on par with that in previous sims (default) and I really pray that it‘s better than what we see in Bing Maps. The big question for me is what mesh do they use and if it‘s rubbish, can it be upgraded on a global scale (like you can in other sims)? I‘d rather have a blurry cliff with the correct size and shape than a blurry cliff that‘s way too small or too rounded. I could be completely wrong here, but it‘s something (one of the only things by the way) that‘s been nagging me for quite some time now. I‘d love to see some evidence or have a statement showing me that my concerns are unfounded. This is not supposed to be a rant, just my honest concerns. 

[Claviateur 789]

3 hours ago, Shack95 said:

I‘m not expecting 100% accuracy or super realistic cliffs. I’m aware of how it works technically. I think this particular spot actually looks pretty good (good enough for me anyway). I just hope that the mesh is at least on par with that in previous sims (default) and I really pray that it‘s better than what we see in Bing Maps. The big question for me is what mesh do they use and if it‘s rubbish, can it be upgraded on a global scale (like you can in other sims)? I‘d rather have a blurry cliff with the correct size and shape than a blurry cliff that‘s way too small or too rounded. I could be completely wrong here, but it‘s something (one of the only things by the way) that‘s been nagging me for quite some time now. I‘d love to see some evidence or have a statement showing me that my concerns are unfounded. This is not supposed to be a rant, just my honest concerns. 

Oh I see what you mean. Well, the terrain data / mesh resolution was always something problematic in all the simulators I tried. 

Who knows, maybe they have a better data for the final release but I personally doubt.

Even if the terrain resolution could be based on a setting in the graphic options of MSFS, high res mesh data as you know could unfortunately become problematic for streaming especially when coupled with aerial data...

I prefer high res terrain being rather regional and local rather than streamed and considering we will hopefully get the proper tools to generate our terrain, we can create our high res elevations for our areas of interest. Unless you have big SSDs ready for the whole world data with its beautiful rocky peaks 🙂

 

Edited April 23, 2020 by Claviateur

[ca_metal 2,025]

2 minutes ago, Claviateur said:

Oh I see what you mean. Well, the terrain data / mesh resolution was always something problematic in all the simulators I tried. 

Who knows, maybe they have a better data for the final release but I personally doubt.

Even if the terrain resolution could be based on a setting in the graphic options of MSFS, high res mesh data as you know could unfortunately become problematic for streaming especially when coupled with aerial data...

I prefer high res terrain being rather regional and local rather than streamed and considering we will hopefully get the proper tools to generate our terrain, we can create our high res elevations for our areas of interest. Unless you have big SSDs ready for the whole world data with its beautiful rocky peaks 🙂

 

I don’t think the mesh data will change until the first release or any time soon. The mesh data isn’t something they develop in-house, they just get from some provider (in that case, maybe, it was Bing Maps). They can fix some odd issues on the mesh like holes or deformed portions, like we’ve seen on some of the leaked screenshots (on one of them, it was possible to see a mountain made of water on the middle of a lake).

 

Also, I don’t see how their default mesh data will be worst than the mesh data of the other simulators.

 

As long they provide good tools to edit the scenery (the mesh included), I wouldn’t be too worried. The community can improve some areas (be it through freeware or payware add-ons).

[Claviateur 789]

I agree with ca_metal... 

And I just remembered an online tech paper written by the french gentleman who created a wonderful tool to generate Ortho (aerial) scenery for the other simulator.

He made a comparison between different datas featured in packages one can install for the global terrain in that other simulator.  He also compared the packages data with the data we can use in his Ortho scenery tool.

He specifically made the comparison in a rocky mountain as he said, due to the fact that these are difficult to render with mesh generation tools.

I suppose this is a fact that is true for all PC flight simulators (world engines) terrain. 

Data comparison for rocky mountains:

http://oscar.pilote.free.fr/meshtoolortho4xpcomparison.html

 

Edited April 23, 2020 by Claviateur

[Shack95 2,658]

29 minutes ago, Claviateur said:

I prefer high res terrain being rather regional and local rather than streamed and considering we will hopefully get the proper tools to generate our terrain, we can create our high res elevations for our areas of interest.

Fingers crossed

[adino 263]

They have now the best looking grass I have seen in the sim, very well done!

[Claviateur 789]

I will be faster than Shack95 this time as I just located this one 😛