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CGTextures is indeed a great source (if not the best) for free textures however their license is very "strange" . As we don't know which license Tony is going to use for distributing his scenery, this can or won't be a problem. For example if Tony chooses a CC or open source license any models textured with cgtextures cannot be used :(. (That's why I gave an example of people taking pictures of their own homes, a lot less license problems )

I agree git can be quite a hassle. But alone the ticketing system will show others which works needs to be done, so this would be a great benefit. Also all suggestions which are far in the future (there were quite a few here and at x-pilot) can be entered as a feature request, so we don't forget them. Also if somebody doesn't want to install a git client, I guess they could email it to somebody who is able to put the file into the rep. I think this would enable many to contribute since 3D programs generally have a rather steep learning curve. I will contribute a blender tutorial as soon as I have some free time ...

I personally think this is a good idea because this gives more performance in both, developing and using the tool. If anybody considers using the tool, I am sure they will spend some time in setting up the prerequisites. And if it's documented well this shouldn't be a big problem anyway. Also my understanding is, that the idea of this tool is use the best data avaiable and generate a fantastic scenery, and a GIS database will make this easier. I think to get this really started, it would be a good idea to start something like a git rep (or another central, public space). So one could enter a feature request for a let's say Italian building and somebody who sees that could submit one. It is easy to say that "everything is missing", but I think people are a lot more productive if they know exactly what they need to do. Also this would allow people, who lets say have no idea of 3D modelling, just to submit texture photos/pictures/etc (finding textures which have appropiate licences needs a lot of time but everybody can photograph their own house ). Also clarifying what exactly is need for submitting a model would be cool. I have worked with blender for years (mostly VFX stuff, but I can do a low poly house ) and could easily create buildings or even a tutorial. BUT I don't really know what kind of a file you need (and I am writing exams for about 5 more weeks, so I am busy till then).

By the way, this great website shows the OSM improvements in real time: http://osmlab.github.io/show-me-the-way/. These volunteers do a great job and I am amazed by their speed and that they literally cover the entire world. I noticed though, that their forest selctions are (of course) rather rough ... I wondered if it would be possible to write a script for your tool, which would make the borders a little bit "fuzzy"? So e.g. at the borders of forest selections trees are placed at a lower density and sometimes there is random tree a few meters outside of the actual boarder, just like in reality . This would get rid of these dense forest which just completly stop at a certain line, which is a bit unrealistic...

I have thought about the lack of real 3D buildings and there is a few things I have come up with. Google Warehouse (which seems to be a great source for 3D buildings) was mentionend in the other thread in Scenery Design and it looks like their license actually allows this kind of use. The bigger question is, how to convert these files to the X-Plane *.obj file type. Google Warehouse allows to download a file in the collada file type which can be imported without any bigger hassels into blender. It imports both, geometry and textures, but the later ones aren't mapped to the geometry (maybe it's just a missing material). In theorey using this plugin: https://github.com/der-On/XPlane2Blender one should be able to export these files to xplane. Unfortunately I have a few exams coming up, so I won't be able to work this (and solve the texture problem) within the next 6 weeks. If somebody wants to give it a try, blender can be found at blender.org, the plugin is linked above and this model (http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=855e7070ae291bd5f59311a5bf4c9e27&prevstart=0) can be downloaded... I am not a 100% sure but I feel like, there is a trick to reassigne the textures to the geometry because the opposite would mean the importer is bad, which I can't imagine in the blender community . Edit: I played just a little bit more (stupid exams ) and found that actually a few textures are assigned. I just added a light source and rendered it and voila a few textures . So it must be possible.

I agree and like I said in the other thread, awesome work . I especially like the randomly placed cattle, although it was hard to see . If there's anything we can help like writing config files for placement of objects assoicated to OSM tags or random placement filters, just let us know. I would be happy to help . If you don't know where to host your scenery files, using bittorent would be a good solution. I guess the interest in these files is rather high, so there would be few peers around after the file was uploaded once. Unfortunately everytime you generate a new version, you got to upload the entire file again (well that's the same for one click hosters), but probably it would work just fine for biweekly releases .

Well if that's the case, a set of sophisticated filter rules based on OSM data and random placement can entirely replace the AutoGen world, because more up to date OSM data can be used, a bigger variety of objects can be linked into the areas they fit and blank/little covered spots can be filled up . If it is faster to generate individual countries instead of continents a batch functionality would probably really helpful. So if you want europa it internally just does all the countries individually. Or if all states of a country are processed faster than the country itself, some kind of a recursive loop .

Those config rules seem really straight forward but really flexible at the same time . If I understand your code snippets correctly by using <filter> one can exactly specify certain criteria. Can you use two (or multiple) filters like one for longitudes and latitudes and one for land type (rual, city, etc.) to make a even more precise selection as well? Also I wondered how long does the program take to run? Is it as slow as osm2xp or is it faster? And whats the bottleneck when running it? I believe the random placement feature could improve the plausiblity and the awesomeness of the entire scenery a lot . Sometimes the OSM data is just not sufficient enough (which is now displayed as empty space which is of course not the reality) or nobody cares to record the data to OSM because it is too tedious to record it (like every single tree). Random placement would fill these empty spots (just like alpilotx tree placement alongside of roads) and could create even more detail like cattle on fields or the expamples I mentioned above.

Yeah, shortly after I asked whether you'd release it as open source, I figured OSM2XP is open source as well, didn't know that before :huh: . I think the main reasons why people decide to work on open source projects is on the one hand that they want to work with the software as well (and therefore want to improve its quality) and on the other hand that it is relativly easy to get started coding. To be honest I didn't browse through the osm2xp code, but this projects sounds like currently it is at stage where the amount of code is not too big... So if I understand you correctly it would be possible to assign a bunch of objects from a scenery library to a certain OSM tag (and maybe only in a certain area) and the resulting scenery would use those objects in this area. Or to take this concept one step further, theoretically I could map an entire scenery library like OpenSceneryX to OSM tags and your scripts would build a scenery with many, many different objects which fit to the local area? I also like your idea of creating a highly configurable program and being able to add scripts into the pipleline B) . I guess this will enable the user to create truely plausible scenerys, as one could write scripts to do cool stuff, just like alpilotx did when he randomly added trees along the streets and farmbuildings in rual areas (take a look at http://www.alpilotx.net/downloads/x-plane-10-tree-lines-and-farms/ and his before and after screenshots here: https://plus.google.com/photos/101666907909842492197/albums/5765374892383381569?banner=pwa). So one could write scripts to place reeds at the shore of lakes, put traffic signs at intersections (if no OSM data is avaiable), place shrubs and grasses all over the world, put farm animals on the meadows, replace trees with smaller plants in higher altitudes, etc. Basically the idea is just to add "random noise" objects if OSM data is insufficent to make the scenery even more plausible. Sorry for the many questions and ideas, I am just a little bit excited about this project .

Tony, first of all I just want to say your works looks really awesome ! I wondered what kind of objekts does your script link into the generated scenery, just the X-Plane Standard ones or also objects from librarys like OpenSceneryX? Using objects from OpenSceneryX could make the impression much more realistic since most american buildings don't really fit into Europe or even Asia . Also it would be really cool if you could tell us what your plans with this tool are? Are you thinking of earning money with it (by selling generated scenerys) or do you consider publishing it as open source on a platform like github (which would enable other coders to send in patchs to support other tags in OSM for example)? The later one would be really awesome and I think this tool could become a very powerful scenery generator to make x plane even more awesome .