Big News from PC Aviator??

[Mike T 218]

Obviously not but I find little use for "real" buildings and trees - I don't have time to look out the window and study them and think what they should be like. When I fly for real I have no time for that either plus I enjoy sim-flying out of my local area hence I have no clue what real buildings to expect. For me personally it is always what gives me the overall impression of reality rather than what every inch or square yard looks like.

Well.... from a another real pilots perspective, knowledge of the buildings in the surrounding area is imperative unless you are always only flying with an IFR hood on. Even on take off, a vertical landmark in the distance that is aligned with the runway is a great way to correct for wind and ensure that you stay on the runway heading at climbout. Also, autogen gives a sensation of speed and height...especially on take off an landing when they always tend to look too close to the bottom of your plane. The real world does NOT look anything like the flat crisp photoreal scenery without autogen unless you are looking straight down on a sunny day. Buildings and trees obscure things so that when trying to pick out landmarks in the real world it will take some practice to pick things out from the 'clutter'.Also, as a VFR pilot you are looking outside 95% of the time so you get a great feel for the houses, trees, obstructions, etc. Flying over a photoreal scenery is cool for showing friends at parties that you can fly over your house in FS, but it should be clear to anyone who has even taken an intro flight that in the real world, it doesn't look like that at all.Just my observation.Mike T.

[Geofa 108]

"Well.... from a another real pilots perspective, knowledge of the buildings in the surrounding area is imperative unless you are always only flying with an IFR hood on. Even on take off, a vertical landmark in the distance that is aligned with the runway is a great way to correct for wind and ensure that you stay on the runway heading at climbout. Also, autogen gives a sensation of speed and height...especially on take off an landing when they always tend to look too close to the bottom of your plane. "Absolutely agree with you here"The real world does NOT look anything like the flat crisp photoreal scenery without autogen unless you are looking straight down on a sunny day. Buildings and trees obscure things so that when trying to pick out landmarks in the real world it will take some practice to pick things out from the 'clutter'."But the real world buildings and trees are in the photo scenery exactly where they should be providing exactly that clutter! I recently posted some shots in the screen shot forum showing some real/photo compares and they show exactly that. Every real world building/tree can be found exactly as it appears. From a few thousand feet up the flat look is lost-and the high resolution of the fsx textures almost provide a 3d look from any kind of altitude..How are the present generic autogen buildings and trees that don't reside where they are supposed to helpful as landmarks or add to reality? I don't find the real world looks like that either.I took a short vfr flight a week ago to test the plane out after annual. After takeoff-headed to a nearby lake towards a water tower that gives the correct heading to leave the airspace (it is not there in fsx). Then headed over the major road and noticed the restaurant and businesses I frequent (in the sim a mix of farmland and office buildings-and the major road looks like a line draped over the scenery), then crossed the major highway (also in the sim looks like a couple lines someone drew over the scenery), then did a 360 around my house which in the sim is a church with a few office building and farmland (not even close!)-headed out to some gravel pits that are landmarks again for avoiding airspace (not in the sim)-checked out my old house which can only be located by unusual rows of pine trees (of course not in the sim) then headed back towards the airport by flying towards a ski resort small mountain (not in the sim)-then my flying partner wanted to show me an office building his company was buying-did a flyover of Chrysler world headquaters for a landmark and then were easily able to fly by the office building (none of this even close in the sim).Photoscenery allows finding all the above-even if flat. Autogen gives a nice flavor of something going on but seldom has much to do with reality. Get to the western US where there are less buildings and more scenery of infinite variety of subtle colors and there is no match.The link in the hangar chat shows that both real autogen and photoscenery are now available-how long it takes to get in the sim is another thing.http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtopic=240837But right now I'll take the photo-especially when an entire volcano I have flown over is missing-autogen or not!Again-it reminds me exactly of the situation in the mid 1990's. When Pro Pilot came out, those who used it were stunned to find real 3d terrain facing us-while the fs of the time was missing little things like the entire Rocky mountains. Sure, someone could do a small detailed area by hand drawing polygons which in the end didn't look realistic either.I still remember one poster at the time saying-"well Pro Pilot might be a great rock simulator-but we don't need that kind of reality-it is after all a flight sim". The common complaint was that while Pro Pilot might do a small area like the United States in this type of detail-it was too limited.Didn't take but two years later and fs was suddenly transformed to this technology. I don't think it will be that long before the present generic database driven likewise go the same way. Just a matter of time....

[Christopher Low 5,400]

I still remember one poster at the time saying-"well Pro Pilot might be a great rock simulator-but we don't need that kind of reality-it is after all a flight sim". The common complaint was that while Pro Pilot might do a small area like the United States in this type of detail-it was too limited.

Since VFR is an important part of real world flight, I find it very strange that some people don't think that decent scenery is important in a flight simulator. It's that kind of thinking that has held MSFS default scenery back for far too long. I'm also puzzled how anyone could think of the entire United States as being a "limited area" :(

[Mike T 218]

Geofa:I absolutely agree with ya that photoreal scenery does look great outside of areas that are full of trees and buildings...take colorado for instance where anything taller than a sage bush was probably put there by man...stunning. I think that in the areas of the country where you fly that you really have some stunning sfuff for ya.But then take Chicago metro photoreal with no autogen at average VFR altitudes. I fly out of KPWK (or KDPA or LL40, 2 mi due east of me) with permission) and I can tell you I quickly deleted any Chicago photoreal scenery, at VFR altitudes it was simply like flying over a picture. Heck, granted Illinois is flat...but it ain't THAT flat! As far as I know, no one I know navigates by tree, but hey...if you can, by all means do it. The problem is that since it has no depth it is inaccurate from a given angle. If you are looking at a static flat picture with a tree obscuring a telephone pole then it will always obscure the telephone pole from all directions because it is just a static picture. However, if a 3D tree obscures a 3D telephone pole from the North but you approach from the south, you have two different perspectives and you'd see the pole first then the tree.With 3d scenery, for instance I can pick out 'the salt-shakers' which are 2 buildings sticking out of the trees to the NNE of my airport (they look like saltshakers). With photoreal scenery I can also see them, but they do not stick above the trees they are lying flat on the ground, like the trees. You can find the location, sure, because its a picture and located exactly where it should be, but when you get in a plane it doesn't look like that at all at low altitude (which is where the vast majority of VFR flights are spent).Sure photoscenery can look great in some circumstances but for 'real' VFR pilots who use 3d landmarks and natual features that you must pick out at a distance for navigation at low to med altitude, photoscenery is nothing more than a sight seeing tour...IMHO of course.Regards!Mike T.

[Geofa 108]

Well as usual we will have to agree to disagree.I posted a shot in another thread but spoiled it by putting autogen on top of the new megascenery earth.Here is a compare (which I should have done in the first place) of just outside y88 in Northern Michigan where my son used to go to school. I would drop him off-takeoff from the grass strip, and then do a fly over of his dorm (right on the wing). Part of what helped me find the place was the interesting row of trees just over the wings, and of course the buildings. True the colors don't match up completely in the megasceneryearth,but in a similar vein fsx looks too "neon", the photoscenery the buildingsare flat-but they are the real buildings, the real trees, the real fields, and real looking roads now with moving fsx car traffic on them. The autogen fsx buildings just look like lego to me and stick out too much almost as much as the photoscenery buildings are flat. The trees I'll take if they would match the reality at all-both in placement and appropriate vegetation which is pretty hard to do when you have a whole world.Of course what really needs work is the water. You can get it to look perfect in one place and then it doesn't look good for another body of water.It is nice though that we have choice and can pick exactly what we want-including xplane.

[Mango 0]

The textures you see in the water (the sand on the bottom and so on), are those from FTX or REX? They make it look very real, a lot more real than the bottomless default FSX water.

I am not sure how exactly it is done, but it is indeed an interesting technique. The FTX photo real part is covered by shallow water (no matter what textures are used) - you can see it even at some default places like St. Maarten. 1 meter or higher photo real coverage without autogen and without a proper color correction doesn't cut the cake for low GA flying (at least not for me). The fun begins at 15 cm with hand placed trees and buildings. Of course it is not possible (yet?) to distribute this huge amount of data for big areas like a whole state. That's why i think that high quality generic terrain with embedded (well blending) smaller 15 cm locations like airfields or points of interest (f.e. the lake in the pics above) are the way to go. Anyways, i am looking forward to get a product like MegaScenery for the place i know very well - where i lived for many years.

[GHD 21]

Approach to EGMC Rwy 06 with Generation-X photoscenery and custom autogen:AMD 4800+ @ 2.4GHz, 4GB RAM and a 512MB 7800GTX

[Christopher Low 5,400]

Where did you get this "custom" autogen? I have just ordered Volume 1 of VFR Generation X Version 2, so I would be interested to experiment with autogen scenery that has been specifically designed for the relevant areas.

[Mike T 218]

It's all good Geofa. But your screen shots are what I totally agree with. As I said in my original post, photoscenery looks great while looking straight down, but that's not how you fly in real life. Show some screenshots with a landmark off in the distance with no autogen. For instance, with no autogen, pick out an object (watertower would be perfect) say, 5nm ahead of you that you wish to fly towards at 3,000 feet.If it still looks as good as you showed in your screenies then I'll eat my hat. (Light beige AOPA hat :( )

[FlightLevel180 0]

Mind you I reckon stuff like this will give it a reasonable run for it's money... when the tech is used in the NA and PNW environment.Cheers,

WOW! What area is this from? This makes me smile big time. Is this an already released area for Oz or previews of the Pac NW USA?

[Geofa 108]

It's all good Geofa. But your screen shots are what I totally agree with. As I said in my original post, photoscenery looks great while looking straight down, but that's not how you fly in real life. Show some screenshots with a landmark off in the distance with no autogen. For instance, with no autogen, pick out an object (watertower would be perfect) say, 5nm ahead of you that you wish to fly towards at 3,000 feet.If it still looks as good as you showed in your screenies then I'll eat my hat. (Light beige AOPA hat :( )

Trouble is...the water tower would most likely be a fast food restaurant or a church or a misplaced tree with autogen.As far as the objects you are talking about-I leave the scenery complexity full right which gives the real positioned rw objects like city buildings, towers etc-on top of the photoscenery-and leaves the random autogen out of the picture. Are we speaking of those? In that case I am in agreement.If I get the time I'll post some straight ahead shots too.

[maxter 0]

WOW! What area is this from? This makes me smile big time. Is this an already released area for Oz or previews of the Pac NW USA?

Hi there, these were some screenshots of the YWVA (Warnervale airport scenery)... go here for some more... WarnervaleGosh, there is some interesting discussions going on here...The point of my post and attendant screenies above was to highlight the fact that there is a middle ground that can be achieved here. One that sits between complete 100% photorealistic scenery and 100% landclass texture overlays. This is what I think the true genius of the Orbx products are.Where needed eg. around airports and specific VFR related identification points, they have created some custom landclass and implemented them over photoreal high resolution imagery. This creates in no small measure, an intense sense of being there with the added benefit of seasonal colouring and appropriate structures properly annotated, items that most photoreal offerings miss out on.Anyhow, this is a great discussion, suffice to say whichever method into the future, we as simmers are really spoilt for choices. May that continue for a long time. One can only imagine what FSXI will enable.Cheers and all the best,I will attach a couple more images to aid in the discussion and illustrate my points here...

[Geofa 108]

It is a interesting discussion-and those shots look magnificent!Now if the area I want to fly in could only look like this!

[Mango 0]

It is a interesting discussion-and those shots look magnificent!Now if the area I want to fly in could only look like this!

That's their goal... :(

[michal 44]

Well.... from a another real pilots perspective, knowledge of the buildings in the surrounding area is imperative unless you are always only flying with an IFR hood on. Even on take off, a vertical landmark in the distance that is aligned with the runway is a great way to correct for wind and ensure that you stay on the runway heading at climbout. Also, autogen gives a sensation of speed and height...especially on take off an landing when they always tend to look too close to the bottom of your plane.

You seem to be replying to me however you may have a wrong guy. No where did I say I was against autogen. In fact I like autogen but was saying I could live without photo-real buildings. I hope you understand this subtle point.