17 hours ago, Gilandred said:

In all seriousness though, they should lean in hard to the “living scenery” concept.  I was doing a VFR flight today and a balloon was passing below me.  I swear it looked real.  They already have great vehicles and trains.  Now let’s see moving waterways/waterfalls, birds, seasonal changes to fields, tractors, etc, etc. This is the advantage of not having to rely on photogrammetry.

Flowing rivers would be something, but I guess that's mostly up to the graphics tream programming the shaders to provide an illusion of moving water.  Same for the surf at coasts. Or grass on fields reacting to prop/rotorwash.

 

17 hours ago, GCBraun said:

I’ll probably just keep using XP Map Enhancement. 

Enjoy your color mismatches, clouds and other artifacts.

 

8 hours ago, coastaldriver said:

Not expecting much at all - just fix or tidy up the land and coast outlines and the terrain mesh and the way roads are displayed - yes there are lots of dirt roads about the world and the one size fits all streetlamps in out of the way places that do not have at all (For example Johnson Atoll in the Pacific (PJON) is diabolical in the real world, it is a little coral island with a dirt runway of sorts and no body living there - you get in XP a tar covered strip and road with street lamps etc - pretty stupid same goes for Canton Island ( PCIS )- you would think your in Majorca  or somewhere like that with lights everywhere and traffic zooming about, when maybe 6 people live on Canton Island now) any other wise I am not expecting reality to be reproduced[...]

If there were easy to use, well documented tools for XP scenery creation/modification out there, you could easily fix "neck of the woods" issues yourself. Maybe even coupled with a Terrain Gateway so that user-made improvements can find their way into the default scenery just as with the airports.

 

8 hours ago, coastaldriver said:

Not sure how they interpret the map data they use but Open Street map is itself in some places a very rough interpretation of what the real world is actually like - again I use the example of Canton Islands - yes it actually has a major concrete runway and ramp area a left over from the end of the use of the place as a Pacific stopover and refuel point before the Jets arrived (Pan Am and Qantas owned and operated it) now it is abandoned and derelict and yes lots of roads all dirt and a few rotting houses but tree cover is minimal and basically it is a dry dessicated pacific atoll.

OpenStreetMap data is user-created and thus requires user involment for improvements.

 

8 hours ago, coastaldriver said:

Oh yes and ditch those stupid balloons they turn up everywhere no matter what the wind conditions - Ballooners floating about when in reality no Ballooner would even think of going flying in the wind condtions present! That is anything but light and variable or calm keeps Balloon folk on the ground!

Just replace the balloon object files in "Resources/default scenery/sim objects/dynamic" with renamed copies of blank.obj and be done with it. I think there's even a library for that on the Org. 

I bet we get grass

1 hour ago, Bjoern said:

Enjoy your color mismatches, clouds and other artifacts.

I totally understand why you steer clear of streamed satellite imagery as the colour issues and artifacts can be a dealbreaker for some. For me though, the added realism of real-world terrain outweighs those downsides. Still, I’m really looking forward to seeing what Laminar Research does with the next generation of ground terrain.

I wonder if ORBX isn't leaving a lot of money on the table by not doing some Global and regional land class scenery for Xplane. 

Hi,

I know I'm working on my own night lighting edits because I can't stand what is being offered by L/R.. But, it would be nice if L/R took the time to update their night scenery themselves. Those big balloon balls of light at night don't look good at all! If I can do an okay job at these edits, I can only imagine what the L/R team can do, seeing how they know what they are doing, I make it up as I go along.

3 hours ago, blingthinger said:

I bet we get grass

I bet if we dont get grass several hundred thousand xplaners will congregate outside ben and sids house with pitchforks and burning torches.

1. Xplane 12 looks great , I didn't want a large internet bill for MSFS. Xplane on the other hand looks great and I was able to just use my inexpensive phone internet to download everything 

11 hours ago, Bjoern said:

Enjoy your color mismatches, clouds and other artifacts.

Very little of those in MSFS. If there is a will, XP can also have a similar solution.

8 hours ago, Melchie said:

1. Xplane 12 looks great , I didn't want a large internet bill for MSFS. Xplane on the other hand looks great and I was able to just use my inexpensive phone internet to download everything 

Not required and another unnecessary incumbrance - if they do go with that architecture and service model - well that is the end of my dalliance with Flight Simulators which began some 25 years ago. Where I live the internet service is woeful and always will be due to stupid decisions made by idiots in Government and Shyster Telco's besides I am a minority customer i.e., I live in a rural country area that provides no real profit margin for large service providers, so that will be it - besides I would just go back to a standalone system with ORBX products and FSX era models - I could live with that but likely not bother too old and too grumpy now better things to worry about!

I think Laminar are most likely not going down the streaming route, and I also think (well I hope!) that they will continue with the regional install idea, I've always liked that aspect of the installer.

one of the reasons I like satellite imagery so much is, if you depart the green UK and fly south to the mediterannean islands of Mallorca, Malta, Canary Islands etc (typical British holiday destinations...) you really do feel like you have travelled somewhere different

that's my hopes for XP, i.e. the volcanic landscape of the canary islands (jsut to give an example), looks vastly different to the rolling fields and urban areas of the UK

it's escapism for me and part of the attraction of simming is the feeling of travelling somewhere, MSFS does this very well, especially if you happen to fly your final approach over a PG area - for me, even melted buildings at 1000 feet and 150 knots look realistic to my eye - if you fly to the other side of the world, you're not just met with generic (if regionalised) buildings in nearby city centres, it's very close visually to flying over the real foreign city you just arrived at

 

Edited October 19, 2025Oct 19 by EGLD

1 hour ago, EGLD said:

one of the reasons I like satellite imagery so much is, if you depart the green UK and fly south to the mediterannean islands of Mallorca, Malta, Canary Islands etc (typical British holiday destinations...) you really do feel like you have travelled somewhere different

What excites me about xplanes next gen scenery is that is very much their goal, with none of the disadvantages of raw sat imagery.

What terrifies me is this will be new, never seen before, in house to Laminar technology. That comes with significant risks and unknowns. Looks and sounds great on paper, but no one, not even LR, knows when or even if they hit pay dirt.

Its definately going to be a long process though, the world is a big and varied place.

17 hours ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

I totally understand why you steer clear of streamed satellite imagery as the colour issues and artifacts can be a dealbreaker for some. For me though, the added realism of real-world terrain outweighs those downsides. Still, I’m really looking forward to seeing what Laminar Research does with the next generation of ground terrain.

My main XP install has ZL14 orthos for the US and Europe. Why ZL14? Because EOX has very little color mismatches, very little to no clouds and any artifacts drown in the resolution. Plus it's easy on storage space, quick to generate and looks just fine down low thanks to good decals.

 

7 hours ago, GCBraun said:

Very little of those in MSFS. If there is a will, XP can also have a similar solution.

There is no will for Laminar for reasons that have been discussed ad nauseam before.

Edited October 19, 2025Oct 19 by Bjoern

I hope they use some sort of satellite technology that looks realistic! The current XP12 default scenery looks very dated and does not look realistic, so we will all have to wait and see.

Edited October 19, 2025Oct 19 by Pugilist2

On 10/18/2025 at 1:19 AM, Pe11e said:

Next big things in XP12 world are CPU threading and default scenery updates. I'm looking forward to both, I can't hide that.

Is the scenery update coming in XP12? I don't think there was a clear commitment on that, all we know is they are working on it. Have I missed something?

Oh and Sid hinted at 3d grass nearly four years ago but then a lot of things have changed. Just to give a possible scale of timings.