I find insulting that just because the OP is asking for help with a fact (XP looks awful nowadays, and you have the most desired features as graphical ones, that should told you something), and just because of that he is being treated as a troll. 

https://feedback.x-plane.com

No guys, MSFS must improve its technical aspect (a lot), the same way XP should improve its visual one (which can be done, in several ways).

If you want a simulator that doesn't look horrible in some way, go outside.

4 hours ago, aleex said:

I find insulting that just because the OP is asking for help with a fact

I'm genuinely curious....Why are you insulted?  As far as I can see, no one insulted you.

Did somebody raise the dead.. Wasnt 6 feet under enough. Might need a cremation.

I think the OPs post is insulting to the developers of X-Plane that spent an incredible amount of effort to make it not look horrible. Just like telling a cook that his food tastes awful, or an aging lady that her age...shows. I raise my children to be polite and to honor an effort, even if it falls short in comparison to other results, but maybe not everyone has an upbringing like that. It is a skill to utter criticism while saving someones face.

X-Plane wasn´t some money-grab that someone cobbled together to reel in dough from the unsuspecting. It was the best that a dedicated team could come up with more than half a decade ago.

Now the internet is not always a place of subtelty and politeness, but if you come in swinging like the OP, don´t expect us X-Plane fans to just turn the other cheek 🙂

It's ridiculous to say that X-Plane looks horrible. It doesn't. But it does look outdated. Especially and  unless you are prepared to pay out a small fortune on enhancements, a top end PC, new drives and hours upon hours making or downloading orthos.

31 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

 Especially and  unless you are prepared to pay out a small fortune on enhancements, a top end PC, new drives and hours upon hours making or downloading orthos.

I dont.

How cool would a community driven "OpenTerrain" effort be? Basically an all out repository to provide complete terrain tiles composed of mesh, OSM data, orthos or better landclass (and textures) and landmarks. Registered users can contribute and anybody can download it via application. Basically something like FlightGear's scenery system, but for X-Plane. Or like the Gateway, but for terrain.

Yes, storage space, bandwidth, traffic and licensing create huge problems, but it ultimately would be infinitely better, more convenient and future-proof than having to maintain 100000 individual puzzle pieces.

19 hours ago, GoranM said:

I'm genuinely curious....Why are you insulted?  As far as I can see, no one insulted you.

Because I have the same opinion as him. XP looks outdated and ugly. I had the same opinion while using XP10, and then with 11. It has good aircrafts, it has good physics, but it has awful graphics for a 2018 sim/game (even more for a 2021 one). Just the opposite to MSFS, which has good graphics but it’s full of bugs and lack of basic procedures like proper approaches.

So I don’t see the problem in people asking for advices about improving the visual aspect of the sim, while LR improves it as a core feature, and I find insulting that people is treated as a troll just because they don’t have the same opinion as you. 

1 hour ago, aleex said:

but it has awful graphics for a 2018 sim/game (even more for a 2021 one).

The first public beta was late 2016, it was released early 2017.

To understand the genesis of X-Plane it is important to know how the different versions came about and how the team developed. Without going into details I can say that nice visuals were a complete afterthought until about X-Plane 8. At some point in time Ben Supnik joined Austin and he is the architect of X-Plane beyond the flightmodel. And naturally, he could not propel X-Plane to the speartip of visuals in computer games within a few years (and single-handedly, at first).

X-Plane 10 was really the first version that had some sort of "team" behind it, but it still carries a lot of artwork from 2 or even more versions back (trees, terrain textures,...).

As Asobo has found out, there are many facets to making a comprehensive and well rounded flight simulator. And even their vaunted forte, the visual aspect of aviation, is still lacking some aspects that one would certainly expect from a AAA title, namely the particle effects and full seasons (not only snow).

There is one other thing at play - a lot of users complain about X-Plane looking "faded" or "hazy" or "washed out". The truth is that this is the way the real world looks like most of the time when flying a real plane and I believe that X-Plane catches this hue quite well. But many folks prefer a brighter, more saturated colorful look (especially those coming over from FSX), and you need graphical tweaks to achieve that with X-Plane.

So does X-Plane look dated, compared to other games? Definitely. Is it ugly, awful or horrible? I don´t think so. Maybe at times - just like MSFS´s photogrammetry when the bandwidth goes down or when you look up close 🙂

Cheers, Jan

 

Edited May 29, 20215 yr by Janov

3 hours ago, Janov said:

just like MSFS´s photogrammetry when the bandwidth goes down or when you look up close

No way - that always looks horrible and always will.

I'm very satisfied with

cd Tiles
for l in */
do 
cd "$l/textures"
if [ -f shade.txt ]
then
echo "skipped $l"
else
touch shade.txt
for j in *.dds
do 
  echo "$l$j"
  convert -brightness-contrast -5x20 "$j" "$j"
done
fi
cd ..
cd ..
done

This bash script (Linux, but will probably work with mac to) reduces the brightness and increases the contrast of all the dds files in my Ortho4XP tiles folder (which I symlink to my X-Plane custom scenery folder), making them less washed out and richer in colour in sim(skipping any folders it was already run on).

Xplane ships with a fairly small number of generic ground textures, in mountainous areas these actually look good, but for any kind of flat land they are often repetitive and really ugly, MSFS or X-Plane, the only solution to that is to download gigs of orthophoto.

Also - as page one - VR - although that may well be to realistic in X-Plane for those who prefer the gamer experience.

Edited May 29, 20215 yr by mSparks

7 hours ago, aleex said:

Because I have the same opinion as him. XP looks outdated and ugly. I had the same opinion while using XP10, and then with 11. It has good aircrafts, it has good physics, but it has awful graphics for a 2018 sim/game (even more for a 2021 one). Just the opposite to MSFS, which has good graphics but it’s full of bugs and lack of basic procedures like proper approaches.

So I don’t see the problem in people asking for advices about improving the visual aspect of the sim, while LR improves it as a core feature, and I find insulting that people is treated as a troll just because they don’t have the same opinion as you. 

Im just amazed how easily people are insulted, I guess we have become soft, need to go back to the hold days when people where tough, when finding food was enough to make you happy.

5 hours ago, mjrhealth said:

Im just amazed how easily people are insulted, I guess we have become soft, need to go back to the hold days when people where tough, when finding food was enough to make you happy.

Its 2021, now people need safe spaces and ignore buttons because words hurt.

Mind you, if a certain forum tasked with running the public XP beta discussion didn't regularly ban anyone who found a bug in X-Plane, and insult anyone trying

 this kind of crazy might have been fixed a long time ago

But thanks to Janov and his chums it and many others are still there years on (although hopefully now finally getting fixed now that LR cottoned on to them and brought more of it in house)

14 hours ago, aleex said:

Because I have the same opinion as him. XP looks outdated and ugly. I had the same opinion while using XP10, and then with 11. It has good aircrafts, it has good physics, but it has awful graphics for a 2018 sim/game (even more for a 2021 one). Just the opposite to MSFS, which has good graphics but it’s full of bugs and lack of basic procedures like proper approaches.

So I don’t see the problem in people asking for advices about improving the visual aspect of the sim, while LR improves it as a core feature, and I find insulting that people is treated as a troll just because they don’t have the same opinion as you. 

Ok.  But it wasn't you who said X-Plane looks horrible.  Just because you share the same opinion, doesn't mean you should be insulted.  Apart from what Janov said a few posts up, I'll just say this.  How about something I was taught many years ago.  Vote with your wallet.  If you don't like it, don't buy it.  Crisis over.  Screaming about missing features, and saying X-Plane looks "horrible" will not get you anywhere.  If anything, it will just make you look like a typical troll.  Be constructive.  Word things constructively.  

If there is a problem with X-Plane, or you want to see something added to it, email Laminar about it.  

This whole "I feel insulted" thing reminds me of South Parks Episode 9 in Season 1 😂