autogen really isn't that bad

[Guest davewins]

After flying low in Miami and taking a look at the buildings down the beaches I really think that autogen is not all that bad. I think the 2d flat blurry ground textures that they are coming out of make them look bad though. The autogen textures themselves aren't all that bad. I didn't take a great look at the houses but I think they need to make the trees better. I think if we could get the whole world or the whole scenery in 3d format then it would be awesome. I honestly lose the sense of altitude when looking down from 1200 feet. 1200 feet feels like 1200 feet when looking STRAIGHT DOWN in the game but if you look out in the horizon and then look down its a blurrier ground and you really lose the sense of depth. You now can't tell how high you are. I think it's because of the "flattened" ground.What are the ground textures in the game based from if they are not autogen?? Is some of it aerial photography?? I think the roads are awful. Just flattened grey lines running across the terrain. I think everything needs to be more 3 dimensional. Not just high rise buildings and houses but smaller stuff such as trees bushes fences roads etc.

[Guest jshyluk]

My dream is to see all of the real-world objects presented three-dimensionally. I call my idea "Jeff Shyluk's REALGEN!!!", yes, with the caps and the exclaimation points. Autogen is based on the texture tile it sits on. My admittedly fictional realgen, oops, I mean, Jeff Shyluk's REALGEN!!! would have all of the objects placed by hand or by some kind of scanny supercomputer that puts thingsinto their proper places.You do see this kind of thing coming up in map programs that show more and more 3-D buildings in their correct shape and placement. Placing the trillions of buildings, trees, lamp-posts, and what-not that exist in the real world would be a monumental challenge, but in the end, the biggest issue might just be a matter of scale. When we have terabyte disks and drives, maybe it woiuld be possible to create realgen.As for the land texture tiles in FSX, they are based on aerial and satellite imagery, but they have been re-worked by hand by talented artists. The textures are intentionally bland because there are realtively few of them given the land mass of the Earth. If you have textures with features that catch the eye, then you will see that feature be repeated over and over again as soon as you gain any real atitude. Better to be bland and uniform than to have bits that stand out and are repeated.The views of the buildings are as flat as possible to preserve visual perspective. If you have a tall building depicted orthogonally (from an angle that isn't direct), then it will look correct only from the perspective viewpoint that the picture was taken from. Fly to any other viewpoint, and an orthogonal texture will look wrong. A good example is to look at the Hilton near Dulles airport in Washington DC using Google Maps. Scroll around, and you will see some buildings whose perspectives do not fit becuase the photographs were taken from differing viewpoints:http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geoc...6&t=h&z=17&om=1Jeff ShylukAssistant Managing EditorSenior Staff ReviewerAVSIM

[Guest tmilton]

I like the autogen in FSX, although I agree, there could always be improvements to make it even better. Autogen is very important to add a 3D feel to the rendered world in FSX. If it weren't for autogen, what a boring world it would be indeed when flying at the lower altitudes - the ground would look like a empty featureless expanse covered with a flat textured carpet. Autogen also contributes immensely to give the proper perception of height from the ground.The trick is how to combine photorealistic ground textures with well placed and chosen autogen.

[Guest jshyluk]

Indeed. SP2 is supposed to showcase new technology that helps organize and simplify autogen placement, which in turn should in theory easy the workload of the computer processors. Although I saw this demonstrated at FanCon, I don't yet have SP2 myself, so I can't comment from personal experience here. Each time the ACES artists take a stab at autogen, it's been a visual improvement over previous iterations, as you could no doubt see from looking back at various versions of MSFS. Still, there's a long way to go to get to the next step. Jeff ShylukAssistant Managing EditorSenior Staff ReviewerAVSIM

[Guest tmilton]

Yes, the there are significant improvements in FSX autogen when compared to FS9. I would assume that FS11 will have further improvements and newer technology to increase autogen with higher resolution and more accurate placement along with optimizations I hope would make it more efficient for CPUs to process.

[Guest slydon]

This is a FLIGHT sim---not a scenery sim. Autogen is good enough in my opinion and any improvements should be in the flight part. Just my 2 cents worth.

[Guest tcable]

From a practical standpoint, I can see integrating live.com's 3d views in major cities (more or less on the fly).However, global coverage- not bloody likely! not practical on a number of levels, but it would be extremely cool!