Any new info on XP12 ground scenery / autogen?

[Claviateur 789]

1 hour ago, OlliePen said:

Those screenshots look good.

But I asked if there is video. 😀

FSElite are publishing a few videos about specific topics... Austin is talking about what they did in XP12...

But the in-sim videos displayed during the discussion with Austin are the same we saw previously.

But in general for now, we only saw bits and pieces of things, just like the screenshot tweekz is comparing to the real world photo above... 

Again what I look forward for is scenery development and for now I could see only some little hints in the few published screens and videos showing a scenery very similar to XP11 (minus the 3D trees)... Just like the photo vs screenshot above, all what is on the terrain could be possible in XP11 (minus 3D tree assets + the revamped skies)...

Maybe more videos from latest builds or a trailer will come soon...

Edited June 4, 2022 by Claviateur

[jarmstro 2,405]

On 6/3/2022 at 2:32 PM, mSparks said:

Its called VFR navigation, the very first type of navigation you learn, you plan it like

 

For which you need realistic photorealistic ground scenery, landmarks and obstacles. Probably something that may be forthcoming?

 

7 hours ago, tweekz said:

Judge yourself

Taken from a post on x-plane.org - the screenshot itself is showcase material.

Is this shot the sort of thing we can expect for the whole world? How much disk space am I going to need? Also, I note the clouds do not look particularly convincing. And zooming in it doesn't look good at all?

Edited June 4, 2022 by jarmstro

[tweekz 2,165]

52 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

Is this shot the sort of thing we can expect for the whole world? How much disk space am I going to need? Also, I note the clouds do not look particularly convincing. And zooming in it doesn't look good at all?

From what I read in forum posts, that's how streets will look like. They indeed look very generic. Some people say that the scenery itself (object placement in particular) will still receive an update. If it'll be a complete overhaul a few weeks before the beta? Maybe not.

Clouds do look quite grainy, but with the low resolution of the screenshots, I can't tell. Other people mentioned the missing refleciton of clouds on the water.

Some things I noticed from the promotional content below (keep in mind that this is still an unreleased version):

• There seems to be constant, subtle stuttering
• The borderline of LOD is sharp and annoyingly visible (watch the buildings)
• The texture flickering on the wing (wing-view, 7 minute mark)

 

According to their dev-blog, one of the current tasks is to improve performance of 3D trees. Who would've thought? I think that performance should better be spent in tree density overall - only rarely you watch trees from close enough to tell if they are actual 3D.

Edited June 4, 2022 by tweekz

[mSparks 2,093]

2 hours ago, jarmstro said:

For which you need realistic photorealistic ground scenery, landmarks and obstacles. Probably something that may be forthcoming?

needs the VRPs (visual reference points) 

So

Churches

Roads and junctions 

Powerlines

Trainlines

VORs

NDBs and other Radio Masts

Rivers and Bridges

Ortho is "nice", especially early on when its really really easy to get lost, but what you are practicing is being accurate keeping groundspeed and direction, of which the visibility (not just fog - but how they protrude from the terrain to actually find them while flying) is really the most important.

In that sense its more important these things all exist accurately to the real world & conditions and the aircraft behaves close enough to the real one so it translates into not getting lost when you climb into a real cockpit.

This can go both ways, from not existing in the sim while being easy to spot from the air (e.g. a VOR in MSFS) to being massively obvious in the sim to virtually invisible from the air (e.g. many rivers in XP)

"Then" you can start concerning yourself with how realistic and pretty they are when you do find and fly over them. (hang a left at Boston Cathedral)

Neither MSFS or XP do a particularly great job of looking much like things do from the cockpit, but at least XP has everything needed to cut down on the real world flight hours you need to spend in training.

Despite the waves of x bots that have hit this forum for the last 3 years, not a single one has been able to make a coherent argument for MSFS even trying to scratch the surface of that challenge.

Just a quickly to add, accurate groundspeed and direction is a lot harder than it sounds in poor visibility with variable wind and turbulence, and vital to safety, generally, but especially at lower altitudes, you are out of radio contact with anyone, and the only way anyone knows where you are - where to look for you if you dont make it home - is if you follow the flight plan accurately. 

Edited June 4, 2022 by mSparks

[SAS443 1,729]

17 minutes ago, mSparks said:

Neither MSFS or XP do a particularly great job of looking much like things do from the cockpit

I have no problems at all using MSFS first on my dry runs for x-country (especially to unfamiliar airports). Terrain, VRPs are all very easy to spot in MSFS, but alas  XP11 is quite underwhelming (mostly the generic groundtextures, no Ortho. Plenty of VRPs are missing where I fly IRL).

With some shader mods, MSFS is crazy close to from what I see from my Cessna, Piper or B23 from 1.500ft-9000ft. Maybe we are just lucky with the bing quality around here.

Edited June 4, 2022 by SAS443

[mSparks 2,093]

19 minutes ago, SAS443 said:

I have no problems at all using MSFS first on my dry runs for x-country (especially to unfamiliar airports). Terrain, VRPs are all very easy to spot in MSFS, but alas  XP11 is quite underwhelming (mostly the generic groundtextures, no Ortho. Plenty of VRPs are missing where I fly IRL).

Can say exactly the same for

https://earth.google.com

except, its faster, much cheaper, runs on mobile and has better scenery than both.

So not sure I get your point. Was it perhaps not along the lines of how innovative google earth was 20 years ago?

Edited June 4, 2022 by mSparks

[SAS443 1,729]

12 minutes ago, mSparks said:

So not sure I get your point. Was it perhaps not along the lines of how innovative google earth was 20 years ago?

My point was your statement about sim X not doing a "particularly great job" is incorrect for me as a user of XPLANE-11 + MSFS + RW VFR pilot.

I know how the terrrain is supposed to look like from above. And one sim is significanty better in depicting that than the other. 

PS: do you know where can find vpilot for Google Earth. Asking for a friend. 😂

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jarmstro 2,405]

1 hour ago, mSparks said:

Neither MSFS or XP do a particularly great job of looking much like things do from the cockpit, but at least XP has everything needed to cut down on the real world flight hours you need to spend in training.

No, no. I've been looking and looking but I just can't find Norwich Cathedral in XP?  Nor can I find any other correctly placed landmarks. power lines, masts, lakes, country houses, fields, field boundaries or indeed anything much that can help with VFR flight apart from an iPad. Maybe XP 12 will correct this and everything will be faithfully and accurately depicted.

[mSparks 2,093]

1 hour ago, jarmstro said:

No, no. I've been looking and looking but I just can't find Norwich Cathedral in XP?  Nor can I find any other correctly placed landmarks. power lines, masts, lakes, country houses, fields, field boundaries or indeed anything much that can help with VFR flight apart from an iPad. Maybe XP 12 will correct this and everything will be faithfully and accurately depicted.

because neither LR nor MS did it.

it was however crowdsourced for xplane

https://simheaven.com/simdownloads/vfr-landmarks/

Edited June 4, 2022 by mSparks

[mSparks 2,093]

5 hours ago, SAS443 said:

I know how the terrrain is supposed to look like from above

Well, this is towards OBR from VAL at around 1500 feet agl, typical CAVOK day. pretty standard area,

Ive never seen a screenshot from any sim that looked even 50% similar to real life, to any of the basic properties of that photo, although orthophoto (identical in both xp and msfs) is OK - not great. You're always going to need the VRPs for it to "look like it does from the air" because one field with houses on looks much like any other field with houses on, and moving maps are not the primary means of navigating, they are an assistant that makes things much easier when you have learnt enough to not need them.

Edited June 4, 2022 by mSparks

[Claviateur 789]

As I mentioned previously, Simheaven packages for XP11 add great details, they did a great amount of freeware work for the community but the packages can seriously hit performance with the OSM data generated as facades... the library objects, not so much...

Now if Orbx happen to have created VFR regions for your area of interest and you want to invest in it, then you are all set...

Otherwise you can turn XP11 (and I am sure 12 as well) into a great VFR sim for your own needs and specific limited area of interest:

• Learn Ortho4XP
  • Then generate the tiles for your area and that requires disk space
    • You need to know how to choose resolution vs quality and then apply decals to create a crisp effect when low
• Learn Worl2XP scripting and how to filter process OSM data
  • Download the OSM data for your area
  • Then filter the data generate overlay objects for your ortho
    • Avoid Facades as much as possible as it is can affect performance a lot (however this is how you get OSM footprints to become 3D)
      • Use generic objects from default or 3rd party libraries 
        • The generic objects will not fit on the exact footprint shape or size on the ortho
    • Generate other objects in your area (chimneys, antennas etc) using default or 3rd part library 
• If you need custom 3D landmarks
  • Learn 3D programs (Sketchup or Blender)
  • Create 3D architecture
  • Learn graphic tools (Photoshop or Gimp)
  • Learn how to create and map texture
• Learn how to use World Editor (WED) / Great tool indeed
  • Add exclusions
  • Place your custom objects...
  • Place any library object to override W2XP procedural ones..
• If you need to mod the terrain in your area you need to use
  • the Terrain extraction feature in Ortho4XP to extract the terrain portion from the tile and export 3D mesh 
  • Edit extracted terrain mesh / 3D in 3D program (considering you know how to use it)
  • Re-plug the edited mesh in the terrain tile 
    • Be careful not to break the edges of the edited 3D mesh otherwise all your edit will need to be done again 
• Etc. Etc.

Certainly the time you need to learn and produce all the above requires a lot of hours spent on this...

And your VFR area is limited and this is relative to your disk(s) space...

And all the above is for your own need and use... You can't distribute a VFR scenery as per the above because the Ortho or Modded XP Terrain Tile (a mix of copyright + huge files etc)

Edit: I forgot to mention that, after doing all this, you can do some test flights to fix and adjust... And then you can fly over your VFR scenery... And then it's time to create another VFR area because you become addicted to a level of life like immersion that is not present outside the created area...

Edited June 4, 2022 by Claviateur

[Murmur 3,944]

I still don't understand the point of all these ongoing discussions.

It's understood that XP12 will not have a hi-fidelity scenery as the satellite, AI-enhanced scenery of MSFS. So for all those whose primary interest in a flight sim is watching default scenery from above, XP will not be the product of choice. It will probably set new benchmarks in other, different areas.

Any discussion here, or anywhere else, will not change that.

So...?

 

Edited June 4, 2022 by Murmur

[DD_Arthur 1,091]

25 minutes ago, Murmur said:

I still don't understand the point of all these ongoing discussions.

It's understood that XP12 will not have a hi-fidelity scenery as the satellite, AI-enhanced scenery of MSFS. So for all those whose primary interest in a flight sim is watching default scenery from above, XP will not be the product of choice. It will probably set new benchmarks in other, different areas.

Any discussion here, or anywhere else, will not change that.

So...?

 

This....with bells on.👍

A visit to the XP forum is like watching a group of one-legged men in an word not allowed kicking contest.

[mjrhealth 822]

32 minutes ago, Murmur said:

I still don't understand the point of all these ongoing discussions.

It's understood that XP12 will not have a hi-fidelity scenery as the satellite, AI-enhanced scenery of MSFS. So for all those whose primary interest in a flight sim is watching default scenery from above, XP will not be the product of choice. It will probably set new benchmarks in other, different areas.

Any discussion here, or anywhere else, will not change that.

So...?

 

Because people like to be right. Thats why opinons mean nothing. And to counter your arguement, for those who want some resemblance of flight realism, xplane will be the sim of choice.

[Claviateur 789]

1 hour ago, mSparks said:

Well, this is towards OBR from VAL at around 1500 feet agl, typical CAVOK day. pretty standard area,

Ive never seen a screenshot from any sim that looked even 50% similar, to any of the basic properties of that photo.

I do not have XP11 Simheaven installed anymore to chcek this area but I decided to explore the area in MS Sim... I got the following... 

All default except the Chimneys + Fancier powerline from a 3rd party package (We Love VFR)... 

EDIT: You can certainly achieve the following result in XP11 (for a limited area) using the steps I described above...



 

Edited June 5, 2022 by Claviateur