Take a look at this shot taking off to the north out of L45 in California.  I think the PG must be getting better.  I've seen many places where the PG objects were just colored blobs on the ground but here you can see pick-up trucks and vans and panel vans.  There are houses and mobile homes and travel trailers.  Even the fences aren't half bad.  There looks to be some concrete mixers across the street maybe?  They're definitely doing something with trees...not sure I like it but its better than green squares.

Anyway, I remember what FSX or P3D could do with autogen and even how Orbx tried to make things better with "TrueEarth' but this is miles better imo and covers SO MUCH of the Earth (included by default and more coming all the time).  Its impressive. and this isn't even the best example.

 

 

it truly is, 100% agree with you

This sim, for its faults, is honestly the most breathtaking, closest video game experience to real flight.... Sure, someone will gripe on physics, but nothing will compare to word not allowed in seat, but honestly, the lighting and the scenery puts you there, flying around my local feels like... flying around my actual local field. I love it 🙂

Real time streaming of Satellite & Photogrammetry is the future for flight simulation, including the conversion of 2D satellite objects into 3D objects (ie. the work that Blackshark AI does).  The thing is, this is the resolution and quality of photogrammetry right now, which is already quite decent.  But the quality of photogrammetry will only get better in the future.

The fact that P3D and XP don't have this means they are miles behind MSFS.  I think Lockheed Martin conceded they needed something like what MSFS has, in the flight sim expo last year.   In the case of XP, I think Austin Meyers refuses to even consider satellite & photogrammetry and keeps insisting on using autogen, which is just inferior and is something you would expect from the 2000s, but not the 2020s.

It's truly breathtaking when it all comes together and is working properly.  The satellite imagery seems to be improving all the time, though the photogrammetry is dodgy in places.  As someone who graduated from FS2 through the entire series of Microsoft flight simulators it is excellent and will only get better.

I do wonder what will come next. MSFS 2025 or 2030? There are still quite a few years of MSFS 2020 to come though.

Edited January 31, 20224 yr by cianpars

29 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

I think Austin Meyers refuses to even consider satellite & photogrammetry and keeps insisting on using autogen, which is just inferior and is something you would expect from the 2000s, but not the 2020s.

The higher end 'art' in XP11 does look very nice, but there is a certain artificiality in it that I have a hard time ignoring.  It's almost too good if there is such a thing.

Edited January 31, 20224 yr by Noel

Out of the box, MSFS has the most realistic looking scenery of all the civilian flight sims. Nothing really compares. 

13 minutes ago, Noel said:

The higher end 'art' in XP11 does look very nice, but there is a certain artificiality in it that I have a hard time ignoring.  It's almost too good if there is such a thing.

That's not in XP11. That's a paid addon (SFD GLobal). Not to disagree, just to be exact 🙂

20 minutes ago, cianpars said:

the photogrammetry is dodgy in places

Yes, the quality varies greatly. London, for instance, is among the worst. But some of the latest additions look very good, which gives me hope that they‘re on the right track. I stumbled over a photogrammetry area near Lisbon in Bing Maps the other day which wasn‘t there a few weeks ago if I‘m not mistaken and it looks fantastic. One of the best I‘ve seen. I hope it will come with the Iberia update. 

It is great, but plenty of room for improvements.

I tend to agree on the fact that it is great, however it comes down a lot on the single PG cities data. Some are better than others. I also dislike how they tend to have a brown tint (at least the ones in Italy) which really stands out compared to the normal autogen covered zones

What I really like about MSFS is that the basic architecture appears to be such that it will evolve w/ the technology w/o a major re-write, or so is my sense.  As satellite imagery improves, as photogrammetry improves so will the sim....that 10y project...

You know what your friends and relatives houses look like.

In a photogrammetric rendered city MSFS shows the house looking as in reality. In a non photogrammetry city, the houses are generic. Even the large signs on the stores along the streets are correct in photogrammetric areas.

You have to get down close, such as in the drone, to really see the wonder of it all.

I do like PG but it was definitely murdering my older cpu hehe so I turned it off.  Also some areas where I fly have just tiny photogrammetry zones.  Whereas if you fly say in Florida, USA, it seems like everywhere and its brother has PG hehe.  If Asobo can expand it and have more areas in PG I'd probably re-enable it.

34 minutes ago, Fielder said:

You know what your friends and relatives houses look like.

In a photogrammetric rendered city MSFS shows the house looking as in reality. In a non photogrammetry city, the houses are generic. Even the large signs on the stores along the streets are correct in photogrammetric areas.

You have to get down close, such as in the drone, to really see the wonder of it all.

The boldfaced sentence needs a little clarification. Even without photogrammetry, autogen buildings in MSFS are placed in their correct locations and have the correct footprint. Although they may differ somewhat in appearance from the real buildings, they come pretty darn close, certainly far closer than in any earlier sim (where, in most places, you won't even find the streets in your neighborhood properly placed). My own neighborhood doesn't exist at all in other sims; in MSFS everything is right where it should be.