55 minutes ago, efis007 said:

The goal? the Nothing.
It's the same old "XPlane vs MSFS" story where someone entertains the crowd by highlighting the merits (but not the defects) of a product compared to another competing product (of which only the defects are highlighted, not the merits). 🥱

Based on the discussion, that would have been a more appropriate title for the thread.

29 minutes ago, Bjoern said:

Just watched an on/off comparison video from 2020 and 2024 and it's interesting how limited the autogen object pool is. Good facade textures and generic buildings, but not even generic landmarks like churches or TV towers. Maybe I watched videos from the wrong areas, I honestly expected more detail and variety out of the box, especially from a simulator that prides itself on its scenery. Considering that OpenStreetMap as a source is free, it shouldn't be too hard for MS to use the data in their autogen system instead of just their footprints. But maybe they're providing better autogen data with their region updates... 🤷‍♂️

That (Openstreetmap*) is also exactly what I thought when seeing what I described in another post:

I mean - trees within the airport boundary, so close to the runway ... And I've seen that not only in El Hierro, but also elsewhere.

* They used OSM for buildings a lot, so why not for trees? I compared buildings e.g. on the Canary Islands with the placement of the buildings in Simheaven (based on OSM). It's exactly the same.

2 hours ago, Bjoern said:

Just watched an on/off comparison video from 2020 and 2024 and it's interesting how limited the autogen object pool is. Good facade textures and generic buildings, but not even generic landmarks like churches or TV towers. Maybe I watched videos from the wrong areas, I honestly expected more detail and variety out of the box, especially from a simulator that prides itself on its scenery. Considering that OpenStreetMap as a source is free, it shouldn't be too hard for MS to use the data in their autogen system instead of just their footprints. But maybe they're providing better autogen data with their region updates... 🤷‍♂️

The autogen object (like houses or anything) are more detailed for sure in Xplane. But if I'm not mistaken, the variety of the autogen based on regions of the world is not so good. But that was true in XP11, I'm not sure if this is still true in XP12 (I have installed only the western US to install OrbX Washington on top of it).

The autogen in MSFS has simpler objects (churches are definitely part of it, and other VFR landmarks are available as addons), but it uses a generation system that not only tries to give them a correct roof color based on the ground texture color at that place, but also has a higher variety of shapes and colors for regions. For example, when flying in east  or middle-east (Pakistan, China, India, etc..) you get some kind-of localized building styles, at least for the colors. So the shapes are not that complex, but the overall outlook compensates quite a lot when flying anywhere in the world.

Concerning the usage of OpenStreetMap for the trees, as far as I remember it's often lacking in precision and availability, even in civilized places. They probably prefered to go with a system that tries to determine the position of trees/forests based on the ground textures. Sure it's imprecise (too often putting trees instead of bushes, or shadows...), but at least you get a reasonable coverage everywhere on the globe, which is simply impossible with OpenStreetMap, due to the limited coverage. A mix of both would probably have been the best, using OSM when available and texture processing when not...

1 hour ago, Daube said:

tries to give them a correct roof color

aiui, this should be a feature of the next gen scenery I hope it is, I'm really forming the impression that single change alone will shift peoples opinions to "X-Plane has the best scenery".

9 hours ago, mSparks said:

I hope it is, I'm really forming the impression that single change alone will shift peoples opinions to "X-Plane has the best scenery".

It does make a big difference. I've been experimenting with this across Europe. The roof colour is lifted from the Ortho4XP imagery and uses LiDAR data to get the correct height and shape.

We are in a much better place than a few years ago in terms of free data availability and in the places that don't have it, AI could suffice.

The downside at the moment and the reason it's hard to distribute such a scenery on a large scale is that the number of files required are large. It makes an ideal candidate for something like streaming however, and the new scenery tiling system sounds like it would work great

 

Wow, these two pictures are just spectacular !

EDIT: could you tell us where is the place you used for that second picture please ? I've just checked the picture in full resolution and the details of the building shapes are impressive. I'd like to compare to how it looks like in MSFS2020 or 2024 maybe.

Edited February 18, 20251 yr by Daube

@Aglos77

My only questions is how did you use Here maps? Ortho4XP or Autoortho or XP Map Enhancement? I never saw it in any of these apps.

@tonywob Wow! Just wow!

Edited February 18, 20251 yr by Pe11e

1 hour ago, Daube said:

could you tell us where is the place you used for that second picture please ? I've just checked the picture in full resolution and the details of the building shapes are impressive. I'd like to compare to how it looks like in MSFS2020 or 2024 maybe.

I can't remember the exact location, but it's somewhere here: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/50.13325/18.67671 near to Katowice/Rybnik.. that's the A1 motorway which should be easily visible in the sim. I was flying from Wrocław to Bielsko-Biała along the A1

Thanks a lot, I'll give it a try tonight if I'm lucky. I tried to look around a bit this morning but lacked the time 😕

9 hours ago, tonywob said:

yeah, this.... me drooling lots.

9 hours ago, tonywob said:

The downside at the moment and the reason it's hard to distribute such a scenery on a large scale is that the number of files required are large.

What we should get (ok, a lot of guessing on my part, what I expect we get), is the ability to "attach" roof color data into the meta data of the raster tile, which can then be referenced by any object type data that gets placed on it - should wrestle the distribution issues down and add tons of flexibility.

The downside then will be the increase in complexity for similar outcomes (both in terms of performance impact and development).... it's also going to need a new toolchain to actually edit any of it. But everytime I think of what they are cooking for us there, I get overexcited, so trying not to think about it and just get on with enjoying what we have.

7 hours ago, tonywob said:

I can't remember the exact location, but it's somewhere here: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/50.13325/18.67671 near to Katowice/Rybnik.. that's the A1 motorway which should be easily visible in the sim. I was flying from Wrocław to Bielsko-Biała along the A1

First pic is just west of the A1, south side of that link, looking North East, second pic is over Stanwice looking East.

Edited February 18, 20251 yr by mSparks

8 hours ago, Pe11e said:

@Aglos77

Mi única pregunta es ¿cómo usaste los mapas de Here? ¿Ortho4XP, Autoortho o XP Map Enhancement? Nunca lo vi en ninguna de estas aplicaciones.

@tonywob¡Guau! ¡Simplemente guau!

Ortho4xp 1.4 forked versión 

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/308219-forked-version-of-ortho4xp-14-no-installation-docs/

 

9 hours ago, tonywob said:

the number of files required are large

Why is this a limitation for distribution? Just zip it up?

21 hours ago, flying_carpet said:

* They used OSM for buildings a lot, so why not for trees? I compared buildings e.g. on the Canary Islands with the placement of the buildings in Simheaven (based on OSM). It's exactly the same.

Then it's indeed something about their pool of models and facades that makes things look a bit off.

 

19 hours ago, Daube said:

The autogen object (like houses or anything) are more detailed for sure in Xplane. But if I'm not mistaken, the variety of the autogen based on regions of the world is not so good. But that was true in XP11, I'm not sure if this is still true in XP12 (I have installed only the western US to install OrbX Washington on top of it).

The autogen in MSFS has simpler objects (churches are definitely part of it, and other VFR landmarks are available as addons), but it uses a generation system that not only tries to give them a correct roof color based on the ground texture color at that place, but also has a higher variety of shapes and colors for regions. For example, when flying in east  or middle-east (Pakistan, China, India, etc..) you get some kind-of localized building styles, at least for the colors. So the shapes are not that complex, but the overall outlook compensates quite a lot when flying anywhere in the world.

Concerning the usage of OpenStreetMap for the trees, as far as I remember it's often lacking in precision and availability, even in civilized places. They probably prefered to go with a system that tries to determine the position of trees/forests based on the ground textures. Sure it's imprecise (too often putting trees instead of bushes, or shadows...), but at least you get a reasonable coverage everywhere on the globe, which is simply impossible with OpenStreetMap, due to the limited coverage. A mix of both would probably have been the best, using OSM when available and texture processing when not...

XP12's pool of autogen objects is basically the one from XP11 and thus US and EU style only. X-World has a bit more variety, but its models are simpler (e.g. no mailboxes) because they're mostly one from the World2XP libraries (XP10 days?).

IIRC, the regionalized buildings were already a thing in FSX. Maybe it's something about the art style that's throwing me off with the autogen scenery in MSFS as the contrast to the photorealistic terrain is pretty strong because all in all, the autogen buildings do remind me more of FSX than on something more modern. Maybe the videos just picked some particularly bad places (Portsmouth and Toronto) to show off the difference.

OSM for vegetation data is mostly useless outside of cities, but there's always other sources to compensate (like official land use forestry data). I think Global Forests for XP uses a mix of OSM, land use and maybe aerial photo exctraction techniques.

 

 

9 hours ago, tonywob said:

It does make a big difference. I've been experimenting with this across Europe. The roof colour is lifted from the Ortho4XP imagery and uses LiDAR data to get the correct height and shape.

How much post-processing work was involved?

The LiDAR data scenery tutorial for XP involves hand editing the generated model in Blender which is none too inviting to try it on larger areas.

26 minutes ago, Bjoern said:

Then it's indeed something about their pool of models and facades that makes things look a bit off.

 

XP12's pool of autogen objects is basically the one from XP11 and thus US and EU style only. X-World has a bit more variety, but its models are simpler (e.g. no mailboxes) because they're mostly one from the World2XP libraries (XP10 days?).

IIRC, the regionalized buildings were already a thing in FSX. Maybe it's something about the art style that's throwing me off with the autogen scenery in MSFS as the contrast to the photorealistic terrain is pretty strong because all in all, the autogen buildings do remind me more of FSX than on something more modern. Maybe the videos just picked some particularly bad places (Portsmouth and Toronto) to show off the difference.

Maybe it was the video indeed. In any case, here is how it looks like somewhere in not far from EPZG:

https://ibb.co/RkgtKhKs
https://ibb.co/1G3R4Lbn

Sure it's not as detailed as the XPlane buildings, but it's a major improvement over anything we had in FSX. Also, keep in mind these are in MSFS2020. I haven't compared with MSFS2024 yet.

 

Edited February 18, 20251 yr by Daube

19 minutes ago, Daube said:

Sure it's not as detailed as the XPlane buildings, but it's a major improvement over anything we had in FSX. Also, keep in mind these are in MSFS2020. I haven't compared with MSFS2024 yet.

It looks good to me for default autogen, they seem to have reduced the amount of trees as the last time I tried to fly around this area it looked unrecognisable due to the size and over coverage of trees.

46 minutes ago, Bjoern said:

How much post-processing work was involved?

The LiDAR data scenery tutorial for XP involves hand editing the generated model in Blender which is none too inviting to try it on larger areas.

None, it's all scripted once I feed it the correct datasources as it would be impossible to hand edit this at the scale I'm doing it, i.e. entire countries. I'm not directly converting the LiDAR data to buildings, but rather I'm using it to help protrude a model of the buildings from footprints and getting the roof and building height correct, the roof colour is used from the Ortho4XP tile textures (or downloaded if not found). If there is no LiDAR data then it's a best guess based on information about the building, but it's an automated process which builds tiles of scenery. The hope is that I my workflow/toolset can be adapted to the new format when it's ready.