Scenery question (addon)

[Matheus Vallim 22]

Hi, all,

I used to make sceneries for FSX and now I’m willing to do it again for MSFS.

My question is regarding the cities. We know that we have some cities well modelled in the simulator (photogrammetry from Bing/ASOBO), but most of them are not.

It is not that difficult to import photogrammetry cities from google though and it is quite easy to find lots of cities already converted for MSFS.

The problem in my view is that those conversions are usually not good and the performance is bad in general. We see lack of good lighting and good textures and reflection. And the more detailed the buildings are, the worst the performance.

In your view, would you prefer

- to have a good quality scenery of a city with its main POI buildings in high detail like parks, big buildings, churches, stadiums, factories, bridges, power plants etc OR

- to have a full photogrammetry city, even if it costs 3D details and/or performance?

Thanks for your time reading this topic!

Matheus

Edited April 22, 2021 by Matheus Vallim
Wrong title

[pmb 5,137]

Personally, I prefer AI-generated cities with added POIs as you mention. Most of the AI cities generated by Asobo/Blackshark AI are quite good but just miss the  characteristic POIs.

On photogrammetry: As far as I know (as a layman in this field) there are programs to optimize performance of photogrammetry cities (within its limitations) but a lot of designers are too lazy to properly apply them. Aside performance, you also have often a color mismatch between Photogrammetry cities and the surrounding.

Anyway, my vote goes for (i).

Kind regards, Michael

[dlermond 25]

Same. AI-Generated cities & POI would be great.

[Dominique_K 10,149]

My old jalopy and my mediocre connection don't like PG so I go for #1

 

[F737MAX 5,604]

Lots and lots of POIs. But the rest of the city can be quite generic.

Photogrammetry in the sim is a great concept, it just isn't ready for widespread use with current tech.
 

Edited April 22, 2021 by F737NG

[Matheus Vallim 22]

Thank you all.

Lots of POI + AI autogen is the way to go I think.

[pmb 5,137]

Just two hints, not to discourage you but just to omit frustration

- You obvisouly are limited to POIs where you have imagery available. Some coders rely on Sketchup Warehouse, not sure if the terms allow this or not (they may for freeware).

- You can run into the same issue as ORBX and FranceVFR now. Contrary to FSX which has been nearly static for 15 years, Asobo/MS produce World Updates every other month or so. The next one will be for the Nordic European States, thus it might not be a good idea to fill, say, Norway with plenty of Stave Churches right now. No one knows what will come next. 

Kind regards, Michael

[omarsmak30 4,068]

Yeah me too, AI generated plus POI. 

[cianpars 1,165]

Photogrammetry scennery every day for me. Performance issues are solved by running the scenery through the optimisation process created by Thalixte.

[Will Fly For Cheese 1,710]

Option 1 for me too.

[Farlis 2,287]

Personally I like Photogrammetry better with handcrafted POI's sprinkled in there. Basically what ASOBO and ORBX have been doing.

[Matheus Vallim 22]

20 hours ago, pmb said:

Just two hints, not to discourage you but just to omit frustration

- You obvisouly are limited to POIs where you have imagery available. Some coders rely on Sketchup Warehouse, not sure if the terms allow this or not (they may for freeware).

- You can run into the same issue as ORBX and FranceVFR now. Contrary to FSX which has been nearly static for 15 years, Asobo/MS produce World Updates every other month or so. The next one will be for the Nordic European States, thus it might not be a good idea to fill, say, Norway with plenty of Stave Churches right now. No one knows what will come next. 

Kind regards, Michael

Exactly. I live in the UK, Liverpool. Asobo didn’t include Liverpool in their photogrammetry, only some POIs. But you can download Liverpool photogrammetry for free. Is it worth? Not sure. It doesn’t include the whole city, the most part of the area is the city centre. It is pretty, very pretty. But heavy! And my PC is Good. Also there is a huge colour difference.

In my case I am not limited with satellite image. I can get my car and take hundreds of pictures of Anfield Stadium and model it maybe? Create custom textures with reflective maps and custom night maps? Get my car and take pictures of Chester and create a custom POI Chester scenery? It can be done.

I don’t know, I may try to do something. I am willing to start with Liverpool, put a low price and see how it goes. (Or even free if the work is not that hard). Then expand to small towns in the UK? Peak District? Lots of options.

I am a photogrammetry lover but performance/FPS is essential.

Anyway, thanks all for the comments.

ideas are welcomed as well.

Edited April 23, 2021 by Matheus Vallim

[pmb 5,137]

I think the UK would be a good start. In fact, you can bet Asobo will not touch again regions they've already reworked within the next 2 years again. This would be Japan, the UK, and France. In France, you will meet strong competition by France VFR who have a number of POI packs already in planning and a strong loyal customer base, mostly in France. Check their forum for more detail.

As far as I know, there is no comparable global competitor in the UK, although I would carefully check which cities have been already done by different developers.

Kind regards, Michael

Edited April 23, 2021 by pmb