Any new info on XP12 ground scenery / autogen?

[mtaxp 666]

Lets stress test the magical AI black shark that from it's talks and promotions almost makes me believe it leaves little to be desired. I don't have MSFS installed for the last 6 months (and when I had, I rarely used it...), so @rka maybe @Claviateur you can post a shot of this location?

LLHA:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Haifa+Airport/@32.8174935,35.0493155,3441m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x151db0a7151e9f9f:0x561f8f9316551ec0!8m2!3d32.8116274!4d35.040381

 

From one side, a sea port with cranes as obstacles, from the other end, a large industrial area that also has this at final:

 

*Fun fact, the collapsed one died about 2-3 years ago, it was 2 of them as you can see 🤣

I'll be happy if MSFS, unlike the last time I tried which was an epic fail just like x-plane 11, will depict this area perfectly, as it has perfect OSM coverage. Orthos however are rather bad at this region.

 

[rka 916]

5 minutes ago, mtaxp said:

Lets stress test the magical AI black shark that from it's talks and promotions almost makes me believe it leaves little to be desired. I don't have MSFS installed for the last 6 months (and when I had, I rarely used it...), so @rka maybe @Claviateur you can post a shot of this location?

LLHA:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Haifa+Airport/@32.8174935,35.0493155,3441m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x151db0a7151e9f9f:0x561f8f9316551ec0!8m2!3d32.8116274!4d35.040381

 

From one side, a sea port with cranes as obstacles, from the other end, a large industrial area that also has this at final:

 

*Fun fact, the collapsed one died about 2-3 years ago, it was 2 of them as you can see 🤣

I'll be happy if MSFS, unlike the last time I tried which was an epic fail just like x-plane 11, will depict this area perfectly, as it has perfect OSM coverage. Orthos however are rather bad at this region.

 

I'll do it, but please give the stock XP11 comparison I asked for first.

Edited June 5, 2022 by rka

[tonywob 4,768]

8 minutes ago, rka said:

I'll do it, but please give the stock XP11 comparison I asked for first.

I think you know the answer to this already and how it will look.. 

 

8 hours ago, Claviateur said:

I need to try again Simheaven packages with my new PC

One trick that works with these large scale packages and similar is to disable any tiles you're not using.. e.g. If your VFR flight is restricted to just one or two tiles, disable all the rest.. You'll get faster loading times and better memory usage. I believe something like xOrganiser can do this as well. I'm hoping XP12 will improve this loading process eventually.

[mtaxp 666]

39 minutes ago, rka said:

I'll do it, but please give the stock XP11 comparison I asked for first.

Already told it was a fail in x-plane 11.

Now I wonder how the magic AI will deal with it 6 months after last time I checked.

[spitzer 19]

If we say the truth about Xp 11 terrain, even with orbx true earth it can't reach msfs terrain level. I hope this will change with version 12.

[mSparks 2,086]

3 hours ago, rka said:

Because it looks neither realistic nor good (and definitely not more more realistic or better) and your

is probably not even there - or if it is there, it maybe a business building or a house or something completely different.

well, as i said, this is my current scenery.

so best I can do from a last gen sim I havnt used for 6 months is heading south from yakov on the way to VAL from an old video

thats from 4 years ago

whole video is here

route is doban yakov obr val smi sremska mitrovica  rudder pedal failure. 

I have a detailed flight planner for that area at

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/43863-balkan-area-detailed-flight-planner/

but I suspect you will probably struggle with msfs because doban, obr, val, smi and sremska mitrovica are likely missing. (we know val is because someone already posted a screenshot)

Oh yeah, and no helicopters.

Edited June 5, 2022 by mSparks

[Claviateur 789]

3 hours ago, mtaxp said:

Already told it was a fail in x-plane 11.

Now I wonder how the magic AI will deal with it 6 months after last time I checked.

I will look for this location, but it could be that the this infrastructure is either not rendered or replaced with a procedural cylindrical infrastructure as it is the case with fuel tanks etc.

Now one thing is to know about how the machine learning scanning works/worked... And any procedural data driven generation using the data.

The AI is obviously trained to detect infrastructure in the Bing imagery (footprint, type and other attributes) ...

It is not a wild free for all magical detection and it is not about every human made infrastructure that the AI was trained to ID, for multiple reasons including the fact that the OSM has installation like these in the DB (However, MS Sim did not include them by default, but heard it is on their to do), or maybe, in some cases, security reasons (Not to render in default MSFS installations that are not purely civilian or that could make some Governments object) etc etc.

We know for examples that military airports in MS Sim are blurred or not rendered... Or replaced with generic textures...

The AI was clearly trained to scan and detect data and metadata for the houses, buildings, malls etc. 

So there is no magic... AI is trained or not trained...

Then

The data is filtered through algorithms... Not so different from what we can do with the Worl2XP scripts and that I enjoyed doing for a whole year...

We can filter out all what we do not want to render... Or... We can render it is a very generic aspect (i.e: many Chimney's are rendered by default as thin and tall buildings).

This is no more the AI decision, it is the production team to see what they want in their default infrastructure and what they do not want... Based on so many decisions... 

Hence the fetched database could or could not have these installation footprints and tags but then what the prod team would decide to do with these is a different story...

For MS Sim, there are a few packages for VFR that add all the things that the default scenery did not render in their real life aspect for xy reason...

But none of the reasons has anything to do with what the AI at Blackshark or any other company that does the same thing, is capable of fetching or not...

[jarmstro 2,402]

13 hours ago, Claviateur said:

• 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 

Is it really that simple?😀

[mrueedi 702]

56 minutes ago, mSparks said:

we know val is because someone already posted a screenshot)

Again, what was wrong with Val? It was clearly visible, not missing, it stood out nicely from the surrounding terrain.

[Claviateur 789]

6 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

Is it really that simple?😀

Nope, it is not at all, and this is what makes the difference between older gen platforms and newer ones... More and more, tech will allow world engines to feature out of the box all the things that we used to spends tons of hours to learn how to create and create ourselves for small areas, before we could even start using them... 

Obviously, this is not what a user should be doing normally but with the limitation of tech we had no choice obviously if we want the platform to be used for VFR

[Daube 348]

5 hours ago, mtaxp said:

Lets stress test the magical AI black shark that from it's talks and promotions almost makes me believe it leaves little to be desired. I don't have MSFS installed for the last 6 months (and when I had, I rarely used it...), so @rka maybe @Claviateur you can post a shot of this location?

LLHA:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Haifa+Airport/@32.8174935,35.0493155,3441m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x151db0a7151e9f9f:0x561f8f9316551ec0!8m2!3d32.8116274!4d35.040381

 

From one side, a sea port with cranes as obstacles, from the other end, a large industrial area that also has this at final:

 

*Fun fact, the collapsed one died about 2-3 years ago, it was 2 of them as you can see 🤣

I'll be happy if MSFS, unlike the last time I tried which was an epic fail just like x-plane 11, will depict this area perfectly, as it has perfect OSM coverage. Orthos however are rather bad at this region.

 

As you guessed, the rendition of this area is quite terrible: the OSM data seems the be lacking, to say the least, and some part of the ortho is even replaced by generic textures (usually happens with military area or when the ground is masked by clouds). However, I checked on Bing Maps and that area appears quite crisp, so I have no idea why it looks so bad in the sim 😕

Still, the chimneys are there... not destroyed, though...

And here is a general view of the area from the oposite side. The quality is quite on the low side 😕

EDIT: ah, on Bing maps, when zooming out a bit, you can see the area of the harbor under my plane in the last shot disappear completely. So it looks like MSFS is ready an obsolete version of the ground imagery here. Interesting... I wonder if some "World Update" patch might improve the area in future, maybe ? 🙂

EDIT2: The airport by default looks pretty empty. However, I saw on flightsim.to that two freeware versions are available, one of which adds also the two cooling towers, with a half-broken one 🙂

Edited June 5, 2022 by Daube

[Claviateur 789]

4 hours ago, mtaxp said:

I'll be happy if MSFS, unlike the last time I tried which was an epic fail just like x-plane 11, will depict this area perfectly, as it has perfect OSM coverage. Orthos however are rather bad at this region.

 

I went there... Yes, the ortho in this area is not great and it could be for so many things... Including security / gov decisions?

And as I guessed, the footprints are generated into these cylindrical buildings as chimneys are thin and tall buildings in other places...

It seems also that many of the Bing footprints are ignored, filtered out or simply not rendered... Especially in non civilian or residential areas...

It seems as if there is a glitch or bug that prevents some procedural buildings from being extruded but in my opinion it is not a bug at all... It is intentional...

Far away islands in the middle of the oceans have all their houses so no reason why the generation would not work here... It is intentional...

So MS did not render all OSM data other than civilian infrastructure (as I mentioned above, I heard that they talked about it being on their to do list) and then there is the question:

Even if they will render OSM data other than houses, buildings etc would they still filter out the data that could affect security aspects in some countries and they leave these to 3rd party?

Just wondering...

[Claviateur 789]

11 minutes ago, Daube said:

As you guessed, the rendition of this area is quite terrible: the OSM data seems the be lacking, to say the least, and some part of the ortho is even replaced by generic textures (usually happens with military area or when the ground is masked by clouds). However, I checked on Bing Maps and that area appears quite crisp, so I have no idea why it looks so bad in the sim 😕

Still, the chimneys are there... not destroyed, though...

And here is a general view of the area from the oposite side. The quality is quite on the low side 😕

I believe you have "We Love VFR" package installed to get the chimneys to show there because the default MS data has 2 cylindrical buildings 🙂

And yes, this area is very bland and the procedural rendition is sketchy... A lot of data is omitted ...

 While the areas around it or in far away lands and remote areas we have every house in the middle of some prairie, right where it should be...

Edited June 5, 2022 by Claviateur

[Daube 348]

Yes you are absolutely right, I had that addon installed after somebody (you, I think?) mentioned it about the other chimneys near Belgrade, earlier in this topic, sorry 🙂

[Daube 348]

Concerning the rendition of OSM data in the sim, were there already discussions about the various kind of autogen buildings in XPlane ?

Right now in XP11 it's limited to European (German?) or American style, right ? Has this been enriched since then ? What's the plan for XP12 ?