REALIST ROADS IN FSX? Look Again!

[Guest SJDickson]

Where was the screenshot taken? What coordinates, or near what city/town? I've tried flying around a handful of different locations on the west coast of Italy and can't find any areas which have that amount of road detail, particularly the minor roads which can be seen in your screenshot.

[Jimmy Angel 19]

I agree that looks pretty bad.In FS9, the texture resolution was low enough that realistic roads (such as in the Ultimate Terrain series) looked a bit awkward but not too bad. Now, there is a pretty severe disconnect between the road data textures and the scenery textures. Also notice the way the forest cuts through the houses in your screenshot.With the previous muddier textures, you could suspend disbelief. Now, especially if I fly in areas I am familiar with, the level of detail just shines a light on the inconsistencies with reality. ("Hey, there's not a shopping mall there!")Personally, I'm happy for the greater texture resolution but it is also taking a step away from surreal to real, and other elements of the sim just don't support that detail. When I move to FSX (still on FS9), I will probably fly almost exclusively in areas with good satellite terrain coverage (such as the Generation X package for UK/Wales). That way, you're looking at what exists in reality.

[Guest ditopilot]

>Where was the screenshot taken? What coordinates, or near>what city/town? I've tried flying around a handful of>different locations on the west coast of Italy and can't find>any areas which have that amount of road detail, particularly>the minor roads which can be seen in your screenshot. Unfortunately I cannot remember exactly where. I did not label the pics with the names of their exact locations (next time I will). But for sure, it is somewhere in Europe I was jumping placed just for a quick exploration. Sorry for that!dito

[bob.bernstein 0]

I'm unsure what addvertisement you speak about. I will say, when I look at your screen shot I reach the opposite conclusion from you...the roads could be completely proper for all I know, the disconnect looks to me to be with the default textures not having a way to protray a road's right of way.Bob

[Guest]

This is what I've said for a long time. The 'real' roads are placed 'on top of' the textures, including the texture roads. The terrain guy should be rewriting the code to draw the 'real' roads first. Then the textures in accordance with these roads. There should not be any texture roads! The autogen houses and trees etc can be drawn around the 'real' roads. Until this happens your going to keep seeing the mess of roads and textures.

[Guest ditopilot]

>I'm unsure what addvertisement you speak about. I will say,>when I look at your screen shot I reach the opposite>conclusion from you...the roads could be completely proper for>all I know, the disconnect looks to me to be with the default>textures not having a way to protray a road's right of way.>>BobSimply notice that those dark roads do not lign up with the othes and cut through buildings, and so on... That's what I referred to.dito

[Guest ditopilot]

>This is what I've said for a long time. The 'real' roads are>placed 'on top of' the textures, including the texture roads.>The terrain guy should be rewriting the code to draw the>'real' roads first. Then the textures in accordance with>these roads. There should not be any texture roads! The>autogen houses and trees etc can be drawn around the 'real'>roads. Until this happens your going to keep seeing the mess>of roads and textures.I am not a developer BUT what you just said makes sense to me! Wow, finally another someone who could be hired by the giant company to please us all.dito

[victorwest2 0]

>How to switch the GENERIC roads off?>>ditoSorry. I meant I switch off the UT residential roads.

[oktorn777 0]

This is a great Idea but one will get problems in areas with bad road data. You could have a city without any roads and only houses!I agree with the fact, that the higher resolution actually makes things worse particularly in this area.In FSX, when looking at the textures one by one they look great, but when they are mixed together they can look very strange and unrealistic. That's something that really bothers me.On the other hand there are regions that look quite nice like the southern part of france.cheers,C.G.

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi dito.Your observation of the scenery is very good. :)The problem can be solved by using photoreal scenery.BUT....To make photoreal scenery of the entire earth, with the desired accuracy, with monthly textural changes ( yes, it's monthly now for photoreal ), and all the autogen needed, is impossible.Impossible.Maybe in 10 years, such a thing can be done. Our computers do not have the memory capabilities. The actual aerial data does not exist for most of the world, and it is not available for all the monthly variations for any area. Not in the detail ( 1 meter / pixel ) we would desire. And the price? Astronomical!So what you see in the sim are generic ground textures, with an overlay of vector roadways. And they don't match. ================================Another approach would be to have real-time generic texture creation. Water and roads could be vectors, and the gaps between them runtime generated to 'fill' the polys between them with ground type, vegetation and buildings... perhaps according to some huge classification scheme. They could be scaled correctly, and aligned to the roads and water and each other, with decent blending from housing to industry, to shopping, to agricultural. This would also take 10 years to develop in order to have CPUs and Graphics cards and motherboard BUS speeds to do this type of realtime graphic calculation.=================================For now, our imaginations need to take over. This has been true for ALL versions of flight simulator. FSX's terrain display is a type of visual "shorthand". Somewhat accurate roads and water polys help us with navigating the FS world, but they often do not match the ground textures.Photoreal is great for small areas, but sometimes only available for a single season.Dick

[sightseer 895]

This problem has become more apparent in FSX. photoscenery wouldsolve the problem but it seems to be out of the question.It would be nice if textures could be 'grown' from the roads and thenblended into a base background. At the very least, it would be niceif the roads (and runways) had grass textures 'attached' to them thatwould blend into the texture it was placed on.I think the areas with just trees or trees and fields look great. Its theareas with small town or a mixture of town and field textures that don'tlook so great. I think what was said earlier is correct and I had not noticedit before -- the sizes of the images are mismatched -- probably becausethey wanted to use larger autogen objects.I'm trying to figure out why the textures appear more grainy than theydid in FS9. The textures are higher resolution but it seems that thegrain that was in FS9 has also been more defined. anyone else notice this? the buildings and planes and objects all look great...its justthe ground textures that have a lot of graininess to them.

[sightseer 895]

>???>>Compare to my out of the way, default screenshots>I haven't yet noticed anything like that pic. >>>http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/167386.jpg>>>http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/167387.jpg>Where were these shots taken? They look really good. Is it FSX?

[LAdamson 240]

>I'm trying to figure out why the textures appear more grainy>than they>did in FS9. The textures are higher resolution but it seems>that the>grain that was in FS9 has also been more defined. anyone else>notice this? the buildings and planes and objects all look>great...its just>the ground textures that have a lot of graininess to them.>There is a difference between my 21" CRT & 20" LCD. Vibrant ground textures on the CRT, and some grainy looking textures on the LCD. Yet, some screenshots look better on the LCD instead of the CRT. ???

[Guest allcott]

Mostly, the graininess seems caused by the land texture detail box being checked in the sim. This graininess was deliberately introduced in earlier versions to give a better sense of depth and contrast to the textures, at the lower resolution possible them. But at 2m or above resolution FSX doesn't need them, but there are compromises - the checkbox also seems to control the yellow lines at airports for example - they appear white when the box isn't checked.Try it and see if the graininess goes.Allcott

[bob.bernstein 0]

The question is why you think the roads are at fault. I submit that the roads are per the data available for their location and the default textures are the issue.