Hello!

When turning photogrammetry ON in some areas MSFS applies the textures on very distorted heights - roofs are applied at the floor level, and trees are applied on elevated blocks, giving an aspect or rocks.

It happens at some areas (Orlando and Ft. Lauderdale, for example), and not in others I tested (ex: Miami, Paris, London).

I'm also having issues with bridges everywhere - they are usually under the water level (ex: Thames River, Seine River).

 

I tested with different resolutions (1080p, 1440p, 4K). Turning photogrammetry OFF all becomes normal (without the textures). I tested with rolling cache on and off (same result) - having it off forced it to reload the textures, but did not solve. Already restarted everything, the simmulator, the computer...

Did anyone have some similar problem?

 

In the picture two scenes, with photogrammetry OFF (normal) and ON (roofs at the floor, and the "rocky" trees...).

 

PS: I think it is not internet related (it is a 100Mbps fiber connection, and I monitored peaks of 15Mbps maximum) - seems to be a bug when applying the textures.

 

It is the nature of the beast.  Google Photogrammetry is miles better than Bing and even they have issues with Rocky Tree's and Tree's blending into Building Textures.  You can run with Photogrammetry off, but I find that makes urban areas look very bland.  Especially those with well known unique skylines.

Photogrammetry is a hit or miss technology for me. I find smaller towns / cities like Flagstaff look really good, but cities with many tall, tight buildings like Pittsburgh suffers the effects you mention. I think this has to do with the ability to get good side-shots of buildings when other buildings are in the way (like crowded skyscrapers). I also notice that photogrammetry skyscrapers are way too dark, perhaps because the buildings were in shadow when photoed rather than being lit by the sun.

Personally I wish Asobo would create an algorithm that could look at the basic shape and texture of a photogrammic asset and build an actual AI-crafted asset to drop in its place. To me this would be the best of both worlds. This would solve the "melted wax" appearance of many buildings, along with the dark / muddy textures, bridges rendered as walls, etc. It would take some clever programming, but I believe there is talent out there capable of such a feat.

Photogrammetry (the technology) can be as high fidelity as required for any given application. The problem here is that the application was light-weight mapping software. These assets were never created with such close inspection in mind.

Flight sim specific photogrammetry will come with time as it becomes more widespread. Indeed, anyone with a camera, the right software and some knowhow can make use of this technology, to any level of complexity they deem appropriate.

51 minutes ago, viz said:

Photogrammetry (the technology) can be as high fidelity as required for any given application. The problem here is that the application was light-weight mapping software. These assets were never created with such close inspection in mind.

Not to mention the hit on performance....In another 12 years, our machines will probably be capable of photoreal scenery entirely.  But a quick look at even LOD optimized scenery out there using extensive Google Photogrammetry opposed to Bing results in some HUGE performance unless you have the CPU to plow through them.

 

1 hour ago, Keto Ketchup said:

Personally I wish Asobo would create an algorithm that could look at the basic shape and texture of a photogrammic asset and build an actual AI-crafted asset to drop in its place. To me this would be the best of both worlds. This would solve the "melted wax" appearance of many buildings, along with the dark / muddy textures, bridges rendered as walls, etc. It would take some clever programming, but I believe there is talent out there capable of such a feat.

Actually that's pretty close to what is happening now, but with generic textures.  But even the most Clever AI is going to have a hard time differentiating between a Radio Tower and a building.  Non Photogrammetric areas still have buildings that are the basic shape and size of their real life counterparts (for the most part), but they are generic, and as such the generic textures they use is off.  

I think autogen would look much better than it does, if they just had a wider variety of it, and had some pure "glass" textures for some of the highrises.  

Thank you folks. I could realize that it is a common problem for many people, so it is really an issue form the algorithms. I think that buildings are ok - I never expected a "Street View" quality (not yet in this decade), and some cities (even NY) from high looks great - after you fly with photogrammetry on, you cannot go there with it off and go back to the "generic" buildings. The problem is only if you fly near the objects.

But I think they should work in the AI algorithm to better work with the trees not turning them in rocks - probably it could simply REMOVE the original tree from the rendering and put a simulated tree as in the non-photogrammetric scenarios (the trees look good).

London PG is not good for me. Melted buildings but also the fact that the whole PG area is very dark compared to it's surroundings. It's hard to take PG seriously at the moment and I really am truly astounded at the way people keep defending it by saying it's better than autogen. Whaaat, seriously. Who the heck wants to look at the dark mashup, melted mess when low flying and pretending it's aright? It's embarrassing. Many people have turned PG off because of it.

I would rather purchase nice landmark scenery packs from the various third party developers and have crystal clear beautiful looking buildings that fits within it's surroundings even if it sits with some autogen. Flight simulator isn't quite ready for the PG quality expected of VFR flight simmers.