Scenery popping

[Reader 2,021]

1 hour ago, carbonbasedlifeform said:

What is alpha fading?

Simply put: it lets objects fade into and out of view. FS2004 had this but FSX didn't (amazingly...). In FSX (and other sims) objects like autogen are either on or off, in view or not, while in FSX2004 they gently came into view and away again: this eliminates the very obvious instant popping.

[ca_metal 2,015]

1 hour ago, carbonbasedlifeform said:

What is alpha fading?

Regardless of what stage of development we're at, aren't there going to have to be some tradeoffs if you're flying low? Isn't this just a current limitation of 3D graphics in general?

 

It's a mask to make things appear/disappear more gradually, so you don't see the object popping.

[carbonbasedlifeform 179]

Does alpha fading create an artificial horizon that limits visibility?

[Reader 2,021]

9 minutes ago, carbonbasedlifeform said:

Does alpha fading create an artificial horizon that limits visibility?

No, it works with objects like autogen, regardless of visibility. So even if you can see 600 miles in the distance objects closer can come into view more gradually.

[Paraffin 2,197]

13 minutes ago, carbonbasedlifeform said:

Does alpha fading create an artificial horizon that limits visibility?

No, as in the above comment, it smoothly fades in autogen like buildings, roads, and trees. It's independent of the base terrain mesh, so you'll still see things like big mountains near the horizon if the atmosphere is clear enough. It's also independent of atmospheric effects that might reduce visibility of autogen like haze or rain.

Ideally, all those elements work together to provide a realistic and slowly changing view as you fly, with no sudden changes. It's the sudden changes like shifts in texture and autogen pop-in that breaks immersion.

[cepact 517]

The problem is not only the autogens appearing/disappearing instantly but more the fact that the meshes are switching level of details in a noticeable way

so it may be a little bit harder to fix this since they have to implement smooth transitions/animations from one level of detail to another

 

[RALF9636 1,951]

2 hours ago, cepact said:

The problem is not only the autogens appearing/disappearing instantly but more the fact that the meshes are switching level of details in a noticeable way

so it may be a little bit harder to fix this since they have to implement smooth transitions/animations from one level of detail to another

 

Indeed. That is one of the major annoyances for me in P3D and I really don't want to this LOD popping of mesh and textures again in the new sim. I hope they find a way to avoid that.

[Krakin 5,748]

I noticed it as well and my solution (in case its not ironed out by launch) will be to cache, cache, cache. I do most of my flying over the Caribbean so I won't have to kill my hard drive and if i have to check out other places, the variable LOD won't bother me that much.