4 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

I said in another thread that it seemed it would probably match an enhanced Orbx TrueEarth and some disagreed. I still suspect that's going to be the case, however. The orthos will be higher rez, the building placement will be more accurate, and the roof textures will add authenticity, but the tech itself will probably, be roughly comparable.

Yes I think that's fair enough, but don't underestimate the love and detail Orbx pour into there products. There will be many 100's more custom buildings in there cities making them much more recognizable. Buildings will feature more accurate representation of regional textures and there will be a lot more hand placed objects too. For me I feel the TE scenery will feel more representative of it's true life counter part but the Microsoft AI and texture quality will still mean the cities look good of not as true to life.

 

Edited November 30, 20196 yr by dtrjones

There's going to be tons of places that look a little unremarkable (compared to real life) due to the lack of distinctive POIs, which is just the reality of global-scale, AI-assisted autogen.  Even their comments about judging the heights and layouts of buildings by shadows and roofs, ultimately isn't going to tell an AI what the sides of the building might look like, for example.

What'll matter is whether these places look like good facsimiles from thousands of feet in the air.  People who want to hoon low and slow around cities, will probably stick to the locations that have had some custom attention.

And of course, this leaves a massive space for scenery creators to keep working.

 

 

7 hours ago, Scottoest said:

 

And of course, this leaves a massive space for scenery creators to keep working.

 

I fully concur with that.

What is important is not pure realism which is unreachable anyway, but a convincing environment. A case in point for a city which is not a popular destination  :

Lagos in the default LC enhanced by Global is a rural, sparse city. In a preview of Orbx OLC Africa*, the urban sprawl was here all right but neither the large compound parallel to the airport half-a-mile from it nor the finger-like green mini-valleys which "irrigate"  the sprawl. They are important as they make the landscape immediately recognizable.

 The ortho map ground should bring the whole lot. I don't ask for more than a localized autogen   (including the shantytowns). Up to free or payware developers to customize the emblematic buildings or monuments of the city.

 

* a preview which seems have disappeared from their site 🤔

I want a bunch of "popular" destinations and airports that look great and detailed, and for the rest of the planet to simply look good as I fly by, and at no point make me grimace at some blurry smudge of a texture, etc.  I don't expect my hometown to be terribly distinctive or accurate aside from whatever meager detail Azure can derive from the satellite imagery - colours of roofs, placement of homes, etc. - for example.

Just make the rest of the planet look good enough not to break immersion.  Things like atmospheric haze and light scattering alone, will do a lot to achieve this.  And I expect Asobo will probably keep plugging away at adding more custom detail to more cities and areas of interest, after release.  As will third-parties.

@Scottoest, 

Yep, this is what i hope at release.

But, popular destinations is still a big deal when we talk about the whole world. 😉 

 

What i would like is the opportunity to help in this way freely with the community. 

A common SDK linked with the cloud library growing by the community would be great for me. 

Sure thing, some payware will happen with 3rd party dev but personnaly, i don't like to have big differences from accurate part of the world against other. The consequence is that you fly all the time in this part and don't get back to less detailed ones lol.

This time with this technology, i guess that the wordt "discovering" the world will be taken as it is and it's a gamechanger (simchanger if purists prefer 😉 ) 

I wouldn't be surprised if some business in the background will be connected like for exemple tourism. 

( Already the case for google earth isn't it? 😉 ... )