Ortho

[cwburnett 1,809]

15 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

Thanks for your Google Drive link, I'm going to try out your Sweden overlay shortly. I've also coincidentally been building Swedish ortho for the first time ever over the past two days. Haven't actually tried it out apart from the first tile, so I'll be interested to see how SE2 shapes up compared to ARC (which is usually my favourite, I just thought I'd try something different this time).

I have uploaded mine, so can PM you the link if you want. I broke it up and labeled it by grids, so if you also build SE2, you can swap in Arc vs SE2 to see the difference if you like. 

15 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

I note that you posted some French pics - do you have an overlay/autogen for that country? It's one I'm really missing at the moment.

I got everything for France from this thread: https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/491023-france-photoreal-freeware/page/3/

Since there's a lot to unpack in there, this is where I got the autogen: http://www.f-bmpl.com/index.php/france-scenes-vfr

It is in French, but basically for each region you'll generally find a link called something like "[Autogen] - Pays de la Loire v3.10" 

They also have points of interest for download, but some of these do not render correctly in v5 and just create a big flashing black box, so I've disabled them.

I just downloaded that for each region and then combined. The 'right' way to do it would be to use scenproc to combine, but I just overwrote duplicates because it only causes a small problem at the borders and I wasn't going to be low/slow near any of the borders and haven't noticed a problem.

15 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

Quick question about Ortho4P3D - you mention using higher res around your Swedish airports. Does the high_zl_airports function work in Ortho4P3D? I have heard mixed reports, and have not tested it myself.

That feature doesn't work, no. When I say 'near airports' I just mean that for the grids that have airports in them, I use a higher ZL, but I'm pretty conservative. I use ZL15 and ZL16. Near an airport, I use ZL16 at 100%, but in overflight territory I use ZL15 at 75% compression.  Tiles that are adjacent to an airport tile, I use ZL15 at 100%.

Note that I don't build my BGLs with Ortho4P3D, I build my tiles using PSCreator (https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/resources/pscreator-alpha.253/) because it will build blend masks based on a shapefile of the country borders, so my BGLs are actually only to the border of the country and there's no 'overflow' into the next country.  That tool also allows me to specify a compression level for each BGL.  I care about this compression and being conservative on ZL because I haven't even finished all of Europe and I've nearly filled 3TB of SSDs.

Edited June 17, 2020 by cwburnett

[OzWhitey 3,353]

1 hour ago, cwburnett said:

I have uploaded mine, so can PM you the link if you want. I broke it up and labeled it by grids, so if you also build SE2, you can swap in Arc vs SE2 to see the difference if you like. 

I got everything for France from this thread: https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/491023-france-photoreal-freeware/page/3/

Since there's a lot to unpack in there, this is where I got the autogen: http://www.f-bmpl.com/index.php/france-scenes-vfr

It is in French, but basically for each region you'll generally find a link called something like "[Autogen] - Pays de la Loire v3.10" 

They also have points of interest for download, but some of these do not render correctly in v5 and just create a big flashing black box, so I've disabled them.

I just downloaded that for each region and then combined. The 'right' way to do it would be to use scenproc to combine, but I just overwrote duplicates because it only causes a small problem at the borders and I wasn't going to be low/slow near any of the borders and haven't noticed a problem.

That feature doesn't work, no. When I say 'near airports' I just mean that for the grids that have airports in them, I use a higher ZL, but I'm pretty conservative. I use ZL15 and ZL16. Near an airport, I use ZL16 at 100%, but in overflight territory I use ZL15 at 75% compression.  Tiles that are adjacent to an airport tile, I use ZL15 at 100%.

Note that I don't build my BGLs with Ortho4P3D, I build my tiles using PSCreator (https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/resources/pscreator-alpha.253/) because it will build blend masks based on a shapefile of the country borders, so my BGLs are actually only to the border of the country and there's no 'overflow' into the next country.  That tool also allows me to specify a compression level for each BGL.  I care about this compression and being conservative on ZL because I haven't even finished all of Europe and I've nearly filled 3TB of SSDs.

If you're happy to pm me the sweden link, that would be great. Let me know if there's anything I can help you with in return. 🙂

I just tested your overlay with my new SE2-sourced ortho, just west of ESGG. Looks like they play well together. Here's a pic FYI:

Interestingly, it looks like the ESGG tile - the first one I downloaded - is the best one for SE2, the others need a bit of post-processing which I haven't done yet.

[cwburnett 1,809]

9 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

If you're happy to pm me the sweden link, that would be great. Let me know if there's anything I can help you with in return. 🙂

Looks great! PM sent.

I would definitely be open to collaborate on different areas. In summary:

I have downloaded from others: Hawaii, Ireland, Holland, Spain (including Mallorca and Canary Islands), France, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Malta, Hungary, Serbia, Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Slovenia, Macedonia, Cyprus, Lebanon and Israel.

I have made myself: Morocco (needs more work), Greece (needs part redone), Germany, Denmark, Luxembourg, Belgium, Poland, Sweden, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria (finishing today), Western Turkey (finishing tomorrow probably).

Once that's done, I am going to try to make an EOX2 low res flyover area for parts of Africa, since I have airport scenery for Morocco, Nigeria and Kenya. I'm hoping that can be somewhat lightweight with high compression only for viewing above 25,000 ft.

I have been debating whether to ignore, build or buy the UK (Orbx).

I have downloaded some Norway stuff from https://www.flightsimnorway.com/index.php but haven't had time to test any of it out.

By the way, if you don't have it, the NL2000 stuff for Holland is fantastic. Seasons, 3D objects, airports, autogen, the whole package and an installer.

[Dirk98 354]

Did anybody make Nevada?

Thanks.

[cwburnett 1,809]

37 minutes ago, Dirk98 said:

Did anybody make Nevada?

Thanks.

http://www.blueskyscenery.com/download.html

Nuvecta autogen for the US is pretty good and is usually $4 per state at pcaviator.

Edited June 22, 2020 by cwburnett

[OzWhitey 3,353]

2 hours ago, cwburnett said:

http://www.blueskyscenery.com/download.html

Nuvecta autogen for the US is pretty good and is usually $4 per state at pcaviator.

Bluesky is pretty low-quality. I've tried it, but it's not something I use.

Nuvecta is a but "meh" as well, your autogen is just as good or better, CW! 

Has anyone made autogen for the US states with scenproc? It seems like an obvious project. The reality is that the payware autogen in 2020 can often be surpassed by freeware alternatives, if that is available.

[cwburnett 1,809]

I wasn't unhappy with Utah, but didn't spend much time there.  Other than Megascenery, I'm not aware of other freeware US ortho, but I suspect it could be built easily with the tools I listed earlier in the thread. And I agree, OSM data is probably good enough in the US to easily make good autogen.

[OzWhitey 3,353]

20 minutes ago, cwburnett said:

I wasn't unhappy with Utah, but didn't spend much time there.  Other than Megascenery, I'm not aware of other freeware US ortho, but I suspect it could be built easily with the tools I listed earlier in the thread. And I agree, OSM data is probably good enough in the US to easily make good autogen.

Desert regions aren't hard to make look good, so Utah is probably fine.

The current screenshots on BlueSkyScenery are underwhelming. I tried their ortho a few years back, but haven't sampled it lately. If you want free + no work, they would still be the way to go.

I have megascenery v3 for Utah, which is also fine but not spectacular.

I would definitely go for an Ortho4P3D build here.

CW, the tool you mentioned earlier - PSCreator sounds interesting. I've downloaded it but haven't fully looked through the documentation yet. I think the yearly subscription to ArcGis would probably put off 95% of potential P3D amateur scenery builders, so Ortho4P3D will be the best and simplest choice for most.

Re: some of your earlier comments:

Once that's done, I am going to try to make an EOX2 low res flyover area for parts of Africa, since I have airport scenery for Morocco, Nigeria and Kenya. I'm hoping that can be somewhat lightweight with high compression only for viewing above 25,000 ft.

EOX (specifically, EOX2) is a little underwhelming, even from high altitude, OK if you sharpen before building. I would use a ZL14 Arc rather than EOX if possible. With my latest building, I've only used it for the region around Gander, that you fly over when crossing the pond, and also for greenland. In x-plane, I also used EOX2 for the Amazon and central africa.

I have been debating whether to ignore, build or buy the UK (Orbx).

I bought all of the Orbx TE. It's OK, and worth it if you like the region. For the southern UK, where online tiles are good, I would build your own GG17/18 or similar, far superior to Orbx. This is what I've done, and combined it with the Orbx overlay/objects. For the northern UK, it's not easy to build so Orbx is actually a decent solution.

By the way, if you don't have it, the NL2000 stuff for Holland is fantastic. Seasons, 3D objects, airports, autogen, the whole package and an installer.

My FS Earth Tiles journey was inspired by a very early version of this. But I also have the Orbx TE for the area, which is simpler to install (many years since I installed NL2000, so it may have got easier).

Right now, I'm jumping all over the place with my ortho flying. Chile at the moment, Andes look great!

 

 

[cwburnett 1,809]

@OzWhitey thanks for the feedback.

Re: Africa, yes, I was once again underwhelmed by EOX2 even at 30k' ... I did Tunisia as a test and it is not great. I am trying one more thing and then I think I'll look at other options as you suggested, namely a compressed ZL 15 or 14 approach.  I had an odd problem with ZL 14, namely for some reason, P3D would load my ORBX Global LC tiles in my immediate vicinity, so if I look straight down, I see LC in my immediate vicinity and then the ortho further out. It isn't noticeable in the cockpit, but is from spot view.  I think it has to do with LOD.

Re: PSCreator, yes, the ARCGIS subscription is a bit of a put-off, but I really wanted/needed to be able to build ortho by country boundary, because that's the form factor that autogen/OSM data comes in. I can't easily download OSM data for a particular grid, though I suppose I could use the Ortho4XP built-in OSM downloader, but it is way slower than just downloading from geofabrik.  I decided that since TE GB would cost more than an ARCGIS subscription, and I could use PSCreator to make all of Europe for the cost of just TE GB, it was worth it. Haven't looked back. I have an older i5 that is literally running 4 instances of Orth4XP and 4 instances of PScreator basically all day every day.

Re:UK, I think I will build it. I suspect GIS/OSM data is pretty good in the UK, and I don't have any payware UK airports anyhow and might skip that, so it really is just annoying when flying between continental Europe and Ireland.

Re: Bouncing around, interestingly I have all the US ORBX regions, NA OLC, lots of payware airports in the US, Central America and Colombia. I definitely will build Colombia. I also have Orbx AU v2 and tons of payware Oceania - Tahiti, Samoa, PNG, etc. I haven't installed ANY of that in v5 yet as I've been enjoying this Europe project so much.  I've honestly ignored Europe in the past 20 years of simming, so it is all new territory for me. The simmarket sales in April, including a bunch of free Europe airports, plus the Justsim 5 EUR sales ended with me getting something like 20 payware European airports, so I've just been keeping busy flying to all of those...I'll get back to the the Americas and Oceania eventually...unless MSFS comes out first and is as good as it promises to be...if it isn't, I'll need 5 more TB of hard drive space 😉