I came from Down Under and when I saw Sydney and Brisbane I assumed that was photogrammetry!  It's only by looking real close at buildings do you realize otherwise. The algorithm which is picking building types and placing them is doing an amazing job.  I think there must be a code override for famous landmarks such as Sydney harbor bridge or the Statue of Liberty etc.  All the other building types and bridges etc will be picked and placed generically.

Greazer.

10 hours ago, FAZZ3 said:

Do you feel disappointed? 

I live in a village and I mostly fly the bush and countryside so if a skyline as seen from 20 miles is convincing thats enough for me 😃. I am more concerned by the feeling given by the urban texture cf. the hot debate we had about Bangkok. I don’t care if the buildings are not exactly the ones in the real world but I do care if I see massive soviet-style habitation blocks in lieu of small two-storey buildings.

6 hours ago, Claviateur said:

I think MSFS business model as a PC flight sim will be the end of VFR scenery as theaters or patches... 

I have not seen so far anything that leads me to believe  that a « theater » scenery like the Orbx PNG will be outmoded. On the contrary, I think that FS20 will open a market for patches as such.  But it is sure that the market  for an umpteenth version of the PNW or South England may shrink...

6 hours ago, Will Fly For Cheese said:

 

As for scenery peddlers - they're dust now and I ain't got a problem with that

I am not sure to understand what is wrong in willing to earn his life by making sceneries and what a « scenery peddler » is.

This hobby wouldn’t be one tenth of what it is if there was only the freeware. It has become what it is because some freeware guys took the plunge to make a life out of it, the risk to invest their time and money to recreate the aviation world (and more) and/or to market those who did. And they were so good that they have grown to be small companies. But I see no less passion in what they do. 

 

8 hours ago, Chock said:

then they are going to be in for a big disappointment.

Apocalypse Now or the Day After Release
 

1 hour ago, Dominique_K said:

I have not seen so far anything that leads me to believe  that a « theater » scenery like the Orbx PNG will be outmoded. On the contrary, I think that FS20 will open a market for patches as such.  But it is sure that the market  for an umpteenth version of the PNW or South England may shrink...

Long before the Alpha was released, I took a good look at the available images and speculated (and mentioned in another thread at the time) that I expected that non-photogrammetry areas in MSFS2020 were likely going to look like very highly advanced X-plane TrueEarth addons.

I've seen nothing since then that markedly changes that impression.

If I had to guess, I would say that the vast majority of outside (3rd Party) scenery for this sim will be as enhancements of offline mode areas, and almost certainly airports and their immediate surroundings.

And of course, planes.

4 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

If I had to guess, I would say that the vast majority of outside (3rd Party) scenery for this sim will be as enhancements of offline mode areas, and almost certainly airports and their immediate surroundings.

The question is whether the landscapes of (3rd party) developers will look better than the box. Improving at this level is a lot of detail work. 

Photogrammetry is just the cherry on top, the cake is the outstanding quality of the regular scenery.

5 minutes ago, Deleted said:

The question is whether the landscapes of (3rd party) developers will look better than the box. Improving at this level is a lot of detail work. 

That's going to be a question. I've seen some scenery developers that very lovingly put a lot of work into the buildings and houses they create. On the other hand, I've also seen sceneries apparently using converted SketchUp models that are barely acceptable, and would probably stand out like a sore thumb in the new sim.

I guess we'll all see how it goes.

2 hours ago, Dominique_K said:

I have not seen so far anything that leads me to believe  that a « theater » scenery like the Orbx PNG will be outmoded.

There is a potential issue, though. ORBX may decide to make a new TE Washington or Drzewiecki Design a new Seattle region including advanced POIs, perhaps even new/better buildings etc. Shortly after release, Bing may decide to come up with an update for full or part of Washington, or MS may decide to make a new Azure AI run over the area making ORBX/DD incompatible or completely obsolete.

The difference is MSFS, contrary to our presents sims which are basically updated all 2-3 years only, seems to become a rather moving target.

This may sound not so probable, but it's certainly not excluded. Airports are another thing I suspect as airport add-on developers might be given an opportunity to exclude anything within the airport boundaries and substitue it by their own creations. On the other hand, excluding large regions (e.g.) by add-on developers doesn't seem to make sense to me and being even contrary to the whole scenery concept of MSFS.

Kind regards, Michael

Edit: I recall DD even saying once they are not going on with their planned Tokyo region scenery as it doesn't make sense for MSFS but perhaps will deliver a POI package only. While they are full speed with the Tokyo airports package, as recently confirmed.

 

Edited June 7, 20206 yr by pmb

 

1 hour ago, pmb said:

There is a potential issue, though. ORBX may decide to make a new TE Washington or Drzewiecki Design a new Seattle region including advanced POIs, perhaps even new/better buildings etc. Shortly after release, Bing may decide to come up with an update for full or part of Washington, or MS may decide to make a new Azure AI run over the area making ORBX/DD incompatible or completely obsolete.

The difference is MSFS, contrary to our presents sims which are basically updated all 2-3 years only, seems to become a rather moving target.

This may sound not so probable, but it's certainly not excluded. Airports are another thing I suspect as airport add-on developers might be given an opportunity to exclude anything within the airport boundaries and substitue it by their own creations. On the other hand, excluding large regions (e.g.) by add-on developers doesn't seem to make sense to me and being even contrary to the whole scenery concept of MSFS.

 

 

It depends of what you call a region. I referred to the PNG  sceneries (same for the Samoas), what Orbx calls an Experience package, the default scenery with cosmetic touchups  (mesh, some ground textures) , a larger airport decently reproduced (AYPY, NSTU) and some superb quaint airfields/strips and villages, some 100-odd miles around. The product has obviously never interested John Venema   as it is less a cash cow than PNW or GB South. That kind of products should be well adapted to the new sim environment. I am not in the alpha so I don't know but I don't see anything like Tapini or  the Ofu village airfields in the trailers and screenshots. What about the clusters of dirt strips in Idaho or Alaska ? Again nothing.  

 About the moving target. LM has introduced a  new paradigm of an update every 6 months, give or take. Contrary to what the FS community common wisdom says I've never been convinced that was a good thing. FSX big  freeze had an enormous advantage, stability. It allowed the Orbx, the A2A, the Milviz  and so on and so forth to emerge. I've not seen the same blossoming of new addon companies since P3D really took over. Of course Heaven forbid a new freeze but I hope that MS will be more prudent than LM. Wishful thinking, I know. 

 

Edited June 7, 20206 yr by Dominique_K

I'd be more than happy to pay a monthly subscription if it meant continuous development and improving of the scenery.

But airport developers will always have their place as it's not really possible to model every airport in ORBX quality. Not if you have to care about every other aspect of the sim.

I recently took some time to look for photogrammetry coverage in Google Maps throughout central Europe and was kind of blown away that it is not simply centered around single cities, but complete regions now.

For example you'll find hundreds of square kilometers areas that encompass the entire Ruhr and then goes on to include Düsseldorf, Cologne and Bonn and their surroundings.

The greater Stuttgart area is completely covered, also hundreds of square kilometers.

That is really something I want to see in the sim.

1 minute ago, Farlis said:

I recently took some time to look for photogrammetry coverage in Google Maps throughout central Europe and was kind of blown away that it is not simply centered around single cities, but complete regions now.

For example you'll find hundreds of square kilometers areas that encompass the entire Ruhr and then goes on to include Düsseldorf, Cologne and Bonn and their surroundings.

The greater Stuttgart area is completely covered, also hundreds of square kilometers.

That is really something I want to see in the sim.

Google ain't Bing though. Google maps are way more advanced.

1 minute ago, Thomasso said:

Google ain't Bing though. Google maps are way more advanced.

I know. But by comparing one can find out for which areas in the world there is existing data already. Maybe Asobo and MS will consider branching out in the future to widen the coverage.

Combining both datasets into one would be ideal.

18 minutes ago, Farlis said:

I know. But by comparing one can find out for which areas in the world there is existing data already. Maybe Asobo and MS will consider branching out in the future to widen the coverage.

Combining both datasets into one would be ideal.

Who owns this data? I thought Google did.

4 hours ago, Dominique_K said:

I have not seen so far anything that leads me to believe  that a « theater » scenery like the Orbx PNG will be outmoded. On the contrary, I think that FS20 will open a market for patches as such.  But it is sure that the market  for an umpteenth version of the PNW or South England may shrink...

Not sure the same effect will happen in MSFS. Any detailed scenery won't stand out radically as it does in actual simulators. The transition with the default world when it comes to details will precisely stop making these regional addons as VFR islands (just change a little from my Theatre analogy)  😁

17 hours ago, FAZZ3 said:

Do you feel disappointed? I’m kinda bummed out that my city, Dubai, one of the best in the world in terms of skylines and infrastructure, isn’t modeled in photogrammetry. I get that there’s a dedicated team for Bing maps but their lack of recent updates makes me have less hopes in them.
 

From what I see, many prominent cities in major countries aren’t modeled as well. I guess this is where third-party scenery developers could come in, but the cities which do have photogrammetry by default look really incredible. I guess you can’t have it all. 

As a Dubai resident also, I would love to be able to fly over Busines Bay, the Palm, the Marina etc. in full photogrammetry quality! Inshallah this will come in time..!