Seasonal Tree Colors

[MikeT707 1,181]

2 minutes ago, AnkH said:

Thats a bummer, I dont want fall colours in the northern and southern hemisphere at the same time...

No worries. You should be able to change presets in between flights, so if you are flying in Seattle in November, you will see the colors that you have chosen, which would likely be autumn colors. When you want to fly around southern Argentina, you would load a preset that works for November in southern Argentina, maybe a Spring preset, and not see autumn colors. 

Here are a couple of pics with Spring Green colors in Southern Argentina

[gr8av8r 36]

Looks really great! Love what you guys and Bijan are doing with the tree colors. I really love the mix of colors in the 3rd screenshot of your sample presets in the original post. Beautiful! 

A couple of questions:

1) Do you plan on creating a winter deciduous tree (no leaves)? Guessing that will be a tough one but hoping it's possible.

2) When do you and Rob plan to release this add on to the community?

Excited to see the final product. Keep up the great work!

[CFIJose 5,485]

14 minutes ago, MikeT707 said:

No worries. You should be able to change presets in between flights, so if you are flying in Seattle in November, you will see the colors that you have chosen, which would likely be autumn colors. When you want to fly around southern Argentina, you would load a preset that works for November in southern Argentina, maybe a Spring preset, and not see autumn colors. 

Here are a couple of pics with Spring Green colors in Southern Argentina

 

Hi Mike,

Is this a freeware package that you and Rob are working on?

[Silicus 877]

Not to want to diminish your work, please see this as constructive criticism:

The problem is when doing only trees, they 'stand out' too much, compared to everything else, make it look 'fake'. In the fall everything turns brown/brownish, red/red-ish, the grass and bushes, meaning the ground as well to a point. The whole landscape changes color, not only trees!

In your example picture the trees turned colored, but the fields/grass are still fully green/greenish, not convincing, not immersive.

Plus trees have different shades of color within. But that is being very picky!

Just my 2 cents (Canadian).

[MikeT707 1,181]

8 minutes ago, gr8av8r said:

Looks really great! Love what you guys and Bijan are doing with the tree colors. I really love the mix of colors in the 3rd screenshot of your sample presets in the original post. Beautiful! 

A couple of questions:

1) Do you plan on creating a winter deciduous tree (no leaves)? Guessing that will be a tough one but hoping it's possible.

2) When do you and Rob plan to release this add on to the community?

Excited to see the final product. Keep up the great work!

Thanks for the kind words and I agree, Bijan has done some great work. 

1) This only uses MSFS assets so unless Asobo comes up with trees without leaves, the best I can do is reflected in the picture below.

2) Rob is a great member of the Avsim community and has a many things that take up his time, so I would rather Rob speak to that. 

For Winter, the best I could figure out is to have a tree with brown leaves:

 

[CFIJose 5,485]

9 minutes ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

Yes.  I may add a few other options outside the original scope, but will be free.

Cheers, Rob.

Nice!

[Noel 4,492]

1 hour ago, MikeT707 said:

No worries. You should be able to change presets in between flights, so if you are flying in Seattle in November, you will see the colors that you have chosen, which would likely be autumn colors. When you want to fly around southern Argentina, you would load a preset that works for November in southern Argentina, maybe a Spring preset, and not see autumn colors. 

Here are a couple of pics with Spring Green colors in Southern Argentina

Really nice looking stuff!  It begs an important question:  why not have a data table that loads the specific set based on the day of the year, latitude/elevation you're at?  This really is what is demanded and I would imagine that might be where Asobo takes the idea and it does not sound impossible to do.

[MikeT707 1,181]

1 hour ago, Silicus said:

The problem is when doing only trees, they 'stand out' too much, compared to everything else, make it look 'fake'. In the fall everything turns brown/brownish, red/red-ish, the grass and bushes, meaning the ground as well to a point. The whole landscape changes color, not only trees!

In your example picture the trees turned colored, but the fields/grass are still fully green/greenish, not convincing, not immersive.

Plus trees have different shades of color within. But that is being very picky!

 

Good points and regarding the different shades of color that trees have within, the way that I am creating presets is a way of using colors that are very close to each other but have a bit of variation. For instance, the green trees in a preset will actually be made up of multiple greens that are very similar but have a slight variation in their RGB (Red Green Blue) values. Add this to the variation that the ground color has effect on the tree color and you should see a natural looking pallet of color variation.

In regards to the grass, I have definitely noticed the bright green grass when compared to autumn colors. One thing that I have found that makes the appearance much better is a specific Reshade module. Take a look at the first picture, which has very green grass and compare it to the second picture which is modified with a Reshade module. Makes a big difference. 

 

[Mace 1,904]

1 hour ago, Silicus said:

Not to want to diminish your work, please see this as constructive criticism:

The problem is when doing only trees, they 'stand out' too much, compared to everything else, make it look 'fake'. In the fall everything turns brown/brownish, red/red-ish, the grass and bushes, meaning the ground as well to a point. The whole landscape changes color, not only trees!

In your example picture the trees turned colored, but the fields/grass are still fully green/greenish, not convincing, not immersive.

Plus trees have different shades of color within. But that is being very picky!

Just my 2 cents (Canadian).

Ah, and there is (just) one limitation of photoscenery.

However, I believe it is now possible to alter these colors via shaders, which may make it possible to alter ground colors.  Not sure if the SDK or tools are available to do this (?) at the present time though. (?)

[Mace 1,904]

1 hour ago, MikeT707 said:

For Winter, the best I could figure out is to have a tree with brown leaves:

Is it possible to make the leaves transparent?  I.e. some sort of alpha channel effect or something similar?

[frankla 44]

3 hours ago, FrankR409 said:

Very sharp..I’m still waiting for Asobo to do this to avoid mods, but it does look sharp.

Yeah.  But not many have voted for seasons and it is not in the Asobos top wish list.  😔

[gr8av8r 36]

1 hour ago, MikeT707 said:

Thanks for the kind words and I agree, Bijan has done some great work. 

1) This only uses MSFS assets so unless Asobo comes up with trees without leaves, the best I can do is reflected in the picture below.

2) Rob is a great member of the Avsim community and has a many things that take up his time, so I would rather Rob speak to that. 

For Winter, the best I could figure out is to have a tree with brown leaves:

Thanks Mike, for the screenshots of the winter season!! Considering the limitations of the sim, I really like the look of the brown leaves for winter! The other screenshots you have from higher altitude look really good too. Besides, in the midwest USA we do have some trees that turn brown but retain their leaves until spring. So, the effect is not that unrealistic. Adding a layer of snow to cover the green photoreal scenery and you have a very realistic winter look (at least for the midwest USA). Looking great!

 

 

 

 

 

[Dillon 2,197]

4 hours ago, MikeT707 said:

I wanted to share some images with the flight sim community of a project that Rob Ainscough and I have been working on for a couple of months.

Nevermind, I see you answered my question already in this thread.

Edited November 13, 2020 by Dillon

[CFIJose 5,485]

2 hours ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

Yes, we've been working on this for a month or so ... there are some limitations, but all feedback welcome.

Cheers, Rob.

How long before it's available to test?

[MikeT707 1,181]

15 minutes ago, gr8av8r said:

Thanks Mike, for the screenshots of the winter season!! Considering the limitations of the sim, I really like the look of the brown leaves for winter! The other screenshots you have from higher altitude look really good too. Besides, in the midwest USA we do have some trees that turn brown but retain their leaves until spring. So, the effect is not that unrealistic. Adding a layer of snow to cover the green photoreal scenery and you have a very realistic winter look (at least for the midwest USA). Looking great!

Thanks for the comments. Asobo did a really great job with snow and I find winter in MSFS to be beautiful.