why does FSX have GIANT autogen?

[Guest]

I can believe how big the houses and trees are in FSX. I put my C-130 on the ground to compare and a one story house was about 30ft tall at the roofs peak. The trees appear to be equally out of proportion. Seems a bit wacky if you ask me, or am I the one who's out of whack?

[jonpatch 1]

Indeed the autogen is huge. Don't know why, but one guess is that if it were more realistic in size, the scenery would look a lot less full...Jon

[MatthewS 761]

>I can believe how big the houses and trees are in FSX. I put>my C-130 on the ground to compare and a one story house was>about 30ft tall at the roofs peak. The trees appear to be>equally out of proportion. Seems a bit wacky if you ask me,>or am I the one who's out of whack?Yep... IMHO it looks ridiculously oversized and gives a false sense of altitude.

[Randall 82]

Well, here's an obvious question--why can't it be reduced in size?Randall

[Manny 1,293]

>Indeed the autogen is huge. Don't know why, but one guess is>that if it were more realistic in size, the scenery would look>a lot less full...>>JonI concur with you. It does give volume. If you make it real size then you would need like 8 times the object to give the same density. Let alone the FPS hit by using more objects.I only wish instead of using a huge tree...they need to make a huge forest as a single object or a huge 3d bush field etc or a single 3d object for a suburbia.Manny

[bkeske 0]

Probably can be, and was (well someone did as third party freeware solution for trees) done for FS9. I agree, but this has always been an issue in most all versions of FS, and, perhaps, if we are patient, someone will come along and scale them down like was done in FS9.

[Guest]

>Indeed the autogen is huge. Don't know why, but one guess is>that if it were more realistic in size, the scenery would look>a lot less full...>>JonAh, good point! FSX looks awesome the way it is so I don't mind.

[Guest bohemianboy]

The cars are also out off proportion... and I expect the same issue with the boats...

[Guest jshyluk]

A very long time ago, I worked with a texture artist who insisted on putting doorknobs at eye level in his door textures for 3d shootemup games. That really bugged the living daylights out of me. The reasoning had its own logic: put the doorknob at eye level and the gamer would know that the texture belonged to a door that could be opened in the game. But unless you are quite short to begin with, when was the last time you looked at a doorknob at eye level?!? Maybe in a game based on a Tom Cruise movie, this might work...I suspect that since the eyepoint of the sim pilot is way above the horizon, the models got sized to fit how the textures look from above. I don't think it's so much that the autogen is too big, it's that the aircraft and the world are too small. I liken flying in FSX to playing with an aircraft model about an inch long. There's times that I can't define except through intuition that my model is flying apparently a foot or two above the scenery, which itself is HO scale. Anyway, I don't mind the big trees. The smallest tree in my yard is a stunted 88-foot sapling we call "Shorty". The rest are over 100 feet tall. It was an intesting exercise in trigonometry inspired by reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that allowed me to figure out the tree heights. Jeff ShylukASsistant Manging EditorSenior Staff ReviewerAVSIM

[bkeske 0]

oops DBL post

[bkeske 0]

>I suspect that since the eyepoint of the sim pilot is way>above the horizon, the models got sized to fit how the>textures look from above. I don't think it's so much that the>autogen is too big, it's that the aircraft and the world are>too small. I liken flying in FSX to playing with an aircraft>model about an inch long. While I *think* I know what you are saying Jeff, I have slewed above my own street (with UT, I can do that), and the autogen house(s) on my street are giants, and only 3-5 could fit, and in reality we probably have 60-100 homes on our street. In addition, I plan my flights with a real flight planner (Golden Eagle), and my distances and times to complete my flights seem fairly accurate to me (after taking weather into account). That said, I always wondered (for a long long time) if FS's world was 'out of proportion', and although I believe it may have been in the past (going back to FS5), with the advent of a true 3D spherical world in FSX, I believe it may be closer to reality than ever before.

[McCrash 3]

Maybe by making the autogen scenery smaller we might get a couple of frames.

[Guest]

>Maybe by making the autogen scenery smaller we might get a>couple of frames.I suppose its just as easy and effective to lower the autogen slider one notch. Either way it will appear less full.There's no doubt larger autogen in fewer numbers performs better than smaller autogen in greater numbers.

[jonpatch 1]

MSFS (or any simulator) is based on illusion: how can we distract and trick the eye and mind with information that looks real, but isn't. The autogen size is one such trick, and I think it's overall effective. As machines get more powerful perhaps MS will further increase autogen density by another couple of orders of magnitude, allowing the use of realistically-sized autogen.Jon

[MatthewS 761]

I understand what you're saying but to my eye it looks unreal because they are grossly oversized.How would one go about rescaling the autogen?I think some utility that would do the following would be great:-1) Backup autogen bitmaps to backup directory2) Restore autogen bitmaps from backup directory3) Rescale autogen buildings by % 4) Rescale autogen trees by %5) Specify density of buildings (ie the TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS_PER_CELL setting)6) Specify density of trees (ie the TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELL setting)