alpilotx

Yes, New York for example is almost perfectly "height mapped" already in OSM. I am quite confident, that as soon as Ben found a way to integrate that data (and I don't think there are too big roadblocks on that way) it will definitely improves these cities. And "bad data" in OSM -- god, I have seen a few bad "building heights" indeed. Most common was the error, where people inserted the "house no." into the "height" field .... yielding some 1000m buildings in some rural, low density areas. Or inserting the elevation in the height field (thus giving us some 1700m high riser "huts" in the Alps etc.). A few months ago I did a "half manual" sweep trough the OSM height data (by previously exporting and assessing that data in QGIS) and removed a lot of bad outliers. But I am sure, we will almost never be able to really fix that (humans do make errors) ... only some plausibility checks in the scenery generator might prevent the worst cases (but also might remove some rare, legitimate cases ... if you think about it, you will realize that there is quite likely no perfect solution to this).

Well, Ben Supnik DID hint at the data sources on his own blog about two months ago, when the new autogen updates came out: http://developer.x-plane.com/2016/06/beta-3-in-a-few-days/ So, no, the current default scenery (and neither the HD Mesh, nor UHD Mesh) use OSM based building height data (for the default mesh, which got its OSM data mid 2011, I doubt there would have been enough such info at all!!). And this building height info has to be in the DSF, otherwise the autogen would only guess. And indeed, everywhere else, the autogen is guessing, based on some population density (as far as available - this is a topic on it own ... because this type of data is very complex to get by) data mixed into theurban landclass info. In the future - as Ben already hints - X-Plane will use building height data from OSM (which can be very very good for some cities .... and also has some idiotic errors, which I corrected a few some months ago ... but will always be introduced by OSM users for sure). But this can only come with a new, re-cut DSF (which will likely only happen with XP11) ... Experiments with OSM building height data are underway (at least I have already once sent Ben such an extract).

The problem is still - by far - not completely solved. And if you know the mathematics and geometry behind it, then you will easily understand why its by far not trivial. 10.50 only improves an obvious bug (which even worsened the situation) ... but there are enough other corner cases, which are definitely not easy to solve (at least not if you still want flyable FPS ... which is a factor often overlooked by people not aware of the hard facts of the "reflection problem"). So, yes ... it definitely improved (and especially at the sea, it works) . ... but go to the mountains with many lakes at different altitudes and you will see, that you still get problems (simply because you have a lot of different reflection planes at different altitudes, which its very costly to render all adequately - this is what would completely kill your FPS).

An introduction video showcasing X-Plane 10 UHD Mesh Scenery v1 in the Colorado Mountains. Scenery used (you can get it at www.alpilotx.net for free!): UHD Mesh Scenery v1 (Colorado Mountains) Tree lines and farms v2 (North America) Music from Jason Shaw (freemusicarchive.org) Nice And Easy Thingmajig Wheels One Fine Day Green Leaves

Before starting some conspiracy theories about water reflection, why not read what Ben Supnik wrote about that fix (it improves some things, but can't fix everything!): http://developer.x-plane.com/2016/08/a-few-quick-notes-on-bugs-fixed/

Maybe a "just" a promotion of the new ATC capabilities in XP10.50?

Hi Jose, its very simple with X-Plane, as there is only one folder where all the tiles of the Global Scenery reside. Namely, in the "Global Scenery" folder :smile: (maybe not very surprising). The "original" Global Scenery is put here: /data2/X-Plane_10/Global Scenery/X-Plane 10 Global SceneryBUT ... Lamianr wants to make your life even easier, and they have another - parallel - sub folder which contains the newer updates (and that is the one which you want to bring home!): /data2/X-Plane_10/Global Scenery/Recuts 1030/

Well, on the HD mesh Scenery v3 page, there is a quite extensive list of improvements in brings (compared to default scenery): http://www.alpilotx.net/downloads/x-plane-10-hd-mesh-scenery-v3/#IntroductionAnd it combines quite a few different data sources to get the result you see. Most importantly detailed landclass data (depending on the worlds region, I use different land use / land cover data sources to achieve this) ... which can give you relatively accurate forest positions too (of course, not as precise as with w2xp scenery where you have good OSM source data), as i use - in the meantime - very high resolution satellite measured forest data. To give you a "feeling" about how many different data sources I mix (to get the special sauce), I also have an official data sources acknowledgment list on my page: http://www.alpilotx.net/downloads/x-plane-10-hd-mesh-scenery-v3/#Data-Sources-Acknowledgments

As Tony told you ... disabling the use of extended DSF is the easiest and quickest way to lower your RAM pressure (of course, at the cost, that you loos details in the distance ... but which is less of an issue if you fly low-and-slow). The other - and long term - solution is to go with 32 GB of RAM. Especially as its quite likely, that with future developments the RAM demand might rise further .... (and thats why I recommend 32 GB of RAM on my UHD page :wink: )

Reading is a virtue :wink: : http://www.alpilotx.net/downloads/x-plane-10-uhd-mesh-scenery-v1/#Why-is-region-X-not-covered

Yes ... for every large scale scenery (countries / states ... or simply, anything that would cover at least a 1x1 degree area), you can expect it to be that way. Even though there is also a phototexture-overlay function in X-Plane ... no sane developer would use it for large scale scenery, because for larger areas, that would completely tank performance. This phototexture-overlay function is only meant for small area scenery, like an airport, or maybe a city ... because at that scale, it has no serious performance hit, but frees the developer from the need to create a phototextured mesh for the entire 1x1 area (and above all, this way his large scale scenery works with all other mesh products placed below it ... because it uses phototexture-overlay tech).

I just simply re-quote myself (or you could have simply re-read it above :wink: ): So, not even the priority is happening by magic, but simply by the scenery_packs.ini!

You do not need WED to download any new Laminar Airport. You can easily go to the website of the airport data hub, and get (and search) it there: https://gateway.x-plane.com/

If you want to play it safe, then never even consider jumping on board during betas. Wait at least until the RC (release candidate) phase. Only if you are willing to accept that everything might blow up (or are at least willing to make a copy as suggested above) might you consider using it.

Sorry, but I am absolutely sure, you are NOT looking at default autogen here, but instead at some other add-on scenery (w2xp, osm2xp or hand made). The buildings are too specific (they are models of many of the real world ones) to be autogen :wink:! This how the autogen Chicago looks like (with HD Mesh Scenery v3, but its based on the same autogen artwork as default scenery ... so it should be quite similar): Thats why I always say: before you state something, check your facts :wink:

Well, theoretically yes ... the DSF scenery format allows you to dissect almost all of its aspects in separate files. You could have a DSF for mesh, for forests, for roads, for autogen, for objects, for facades ... but it would also make a lot of things fairly complicated to manage. So, I doubt anyone is aiming for this level of "separation" ... And in cities, usually its nice to have halfway city like textures where you place autogen (and ground textures are linked to the base mesh). And you might also like to have the forests (if there were some previously) removed too ... so, its not unlikely, that in the end - if you want a coherent picture in the end - you are better off with updating the whole package, instead of patching here and there. (on the other hand, w2xp style overlay add-on scenery is effectively already doing something like you imagine ... in a way) Here is another nice Manhattan picture:

Here is a before-after NYC (HD Mesh Scenery v3) comparison of the new autogen (and yes, it definitely works, where the data was good enough in the scenery already). 10.45 10.50

JYW: Simheaven is not offering photoscenery for more than a year now? Because of possible legal reasons (its still not clear, if its really OK to openly distribute scenery based on Bing/Google imagery etc.) and because of the extreme download volume ... You CAN NOT COMBINE HD Mesh Scenery v3 (or UHD Mesh Scenery v1) with any other scenery on the fly! This is - possibly - a myth. X-Plane only and always allows ONE active mesh scenery at the same time. And as all the photosceneries you name are mesh sceneries too .... you either have one or the other active / visible (and if both installed, then the priority in scenery_packs.ini decides) at the same time in the same location. No mixing / merging / overlaying at runtime! Still: You can get photoscenery from zonephoto.x-plane.fr which is - as far as I know - based on default Global Scenery. And it is also bringing its own mesh (so, no magical mixing with HD Mesh Scenery v3 is happening) You can derive your own photoscenery based(!) on for example HD Mesh Scenery v3 by using a tool like g2xpl ... Which re-tailors the mesh and replaces default textures with phototexture (from Google or Bing ... or what ever else). But it also gives you a new mesh based in many parts on the input HD Mesh Scenery v3 (oh, and before you think you might then freely distribute that ... you better read the very short license terms on my website and ask) You can generate an entirely new photoscenery mesh on you own with Ortho4XP (but you need much more knowledge here) ... and still you get a new mesh, which is on its own. Just as a technical side-note: indeed, there is one way to have phototextures ON an existing mesh (yes, on HD Mesh Scenery v3 too). Its called overlay texturing. But this technique is not meant to be used at large scale (entire scenery tiles) because of its horrendous performance overhead. Instead it is meant to be used for small scale sceneries like airports. And this is the area where it is also used a lot (and nciely) ... as it allows the airport to overlay its local phototextures independently of the mesh placed below it.

Or that ... a Bug :smile: Thats why it is called a BETA (maybe this example helps some users to understand, why its not always great to have betas) (nevertheless: I am still quite sure, that the new autogen can give even better results with improved scenery data - because the result can usually never be better that the data its based on ....)

Well, my 2 cents: From my observation (CAUTION: this is not official, nor had I time to ask Ben about it !!!!!!!): the new autogen is definitely there, but the scenery in New York is not fully "using" it, because the building heights are often - well - not set that high ... this is a "problem" of older scenery (and no different with HD mesh Scenery v3) quite likely, in Ben's screenshot he used some newer scenery, which used much more "real" building height data (maybe from experiments for X11 ?? ... because I clearaly know, that I supplied him that height data extracted from latest OSM ... and which at least in New York is quite good). So ... quite likely the case is that the current scenery (default or HD Mesh) has simply not enough high rising buildings defined in it to make the new autogen shine. BUT, the new autogen gets still used wherever the scenery already references types which received an artwork update. Which is quite likely in more places than most of us "realize" (because everybody was expecting and looking for the perfect NYC skyline ... which didn't happen just trough plain magic). UPDATE: and maybe its just because of different expectations, that some see "something" and others not :smile: (only by providing screenshots could we more objectively decide, if we all see the same or something different .... oh, and then we didn't even ask people to make sure the have no add-on scenery active at the same time). UPDATE 2 : and after re-checking NYC ... If I look over to Manhattan from La Guardia, I wouldn't even say the skyline looks bad. Its just maybe still not the "real thing" (so, with latest OSM data, it could be even better).

Hi, First: there is NO world coverage :smile: (where did you get that from?). Simply by looking at the official map, you will see what is available (and what not). Second: there is not categoric "different" resolution between HD Mesh Scenery v3 tiles, although depending on the region they are usually based on different raw data sources, which can have some effect on the perceived resolution (but at least technically, they are relaitvely identical). There is only a real "resolution"/quality difference between HD Mesh Scenery v3 OR UHD Mesh Scenery v1 (where the latte is also covering far fewer and smaller regions ... for reasons) Third: HD Mesh Scenery v3 and equally UHD Mesh Scenery v1 tiles are completely self contained as none of them brings its own artwork (all the scenery is using the original X-Plane artwork set ... for textures, autogen, roads etc. etc.). Thus it makes technically no difference if you install a single 1x1 degree, or a 10x10 degree folder (based on one of the ZIP downloads), or everything at once. I even encourage users (hey, this is even in the instructions under Warnings / Requirements ... does anyone care to read that :wink: ) to start with one ZIP at first, try it, and only continue with other regions if they like what they see and are SURE it works.

Well, Mario already summed it up all very well! Thank you for that! Its not about insulting anybody here ... its about general observations in the community (which I made over many years), and how most users easily miss the view from the other side (the reasons for which any developer makes the choices he makes ... which is often much more complex than most of you might imagine .... AND usually the developer also has a much better statistical understanding of his user base). And I repeat: I am definitely NOT against criticism. Constructive(!) and well worded (which can be hard) criticism or wishes are very useful and important to make the developers aware of what one is missing / looking for etc.. For me its about this "we all know / everybody agrees" way of - well, little bit - manipulative writing which I can't stand (and is sometimes revealing about the user who uses these terms).

Very good point Mario! This is something I see quite often in forum threads, where people say things like: We XYZ definitely need this / that feature ... Everybody agrees that this / that is a must have feature ... All users see this / that as a showstopper, and should have highest priority ... In the best case, this is just some shortsightedness on behalf of the poster, in the worst case, its just pure manipulative wording .... Because I doubt, that any of these posters (or at least less than 1%) have real statistic data to support their observation. All these sentences do overlook, that the flight simulation community is MUCH more diverse than one would expect. And this is mostly because flight simulation is an extremely (and beautifully) diverse are, where users have a lot of different approaches and preferences. Thus: I openly request users to stop using sentences like I posted, and try to think a bit more openly / broadly about the entire flight simming business. PS: I am definitely (and explicitly) want to emphasize, that I am not wanting to stop anyone from being critical (and write criticism) ... its just about the fact, that the way you do it (the wording) can make a very big difference in how it is perceived (and if you reach you goal before turning down the recipients interest / mood).

Good question ... a few months ago I did that data extract for Ben for his experiments (and some "clean up" in OSM, as there were a bunch of totally whacky heights in OSM ... like people tagging the height with house number ... which can be extreme in some cases). But I can't tell you if he wanted it to be an additional data layer (then it could be added independently from existing DSFs) or as part of the DSF scenery (well, this latter would be easy ... as this "tech" would be nothing new for DSF scenery ... but would need a re-cut).

The previous ASN-XP blog author Angelique van Campen (she stopped ASN-XP a few months ago) just informed me about her new site: X-PlainedCheck it out .... and maybe with some help / contributions from us, it might become a great new place. UPDATE: ... duhh ... sorry, just read someone else promoted it already above :smile: (nevertheless, maybe its good to repeat a few times so more people bookmark and visit it ... which is important to make the site work).