M-Air Bush Deliveries Ltd

I know. Anyways, I think we have everything covered on how to import Google maps models. Wish you guys luck. Will occasionally bump this thread to point all the amateurs here into the right direction. Now hop hop, to work with you! Embrace my knowledge haha!!!!

Some guy on reddit did a tutorial on how to setup LODs after I displayed my superior understanding of real time technology there. He just does not know how to get people to pay attention and spread the word, so I will take the aggressive marketing over for him. You need: 1. My genius idea on how to rip LODs directly from Google maps, something second winners usually do not think of. 2. His tutorial on how to include LODs in FS2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQDMSeHDCKo The only issue I noticed is that they do not have dithered LODs, which is which is what Unreal Engine does for example to avoid the next LOD instantly popping in. Dithered LODs uses a fade blending transition which makes LOD transitions smoother. In his video, the LODs pop in, which is quite bad actually. https://couchlearn.com/fading-between-lods-in-unreal-engine-4/#:~:text=5 Conclusion-,Explanation,compared to non dithered meshes.

Look up the Yosemite thread to see how to do LODs and not mess up everyones framerate.

Yes, meshes reconstructed from photogrammetry point clouds are far from ideal in their topology, nevertheless a second grade polygon reduction is intended for LOD2, ie the mesh that is viewed from far away anyways. The absolute low point was when I tried the Glasgow city that someone did for FS2020. He or she literally put the entire city as is in FS2020. The thing did not even load in right before I was very close to it. Heck, if I took my Agisoft Metashape here and the drone, I would do a better job because I would actually set up LODs or even export them directly from Metashape. To easily get LODs from Google maps, people should just export 3 three times at different zoom levels. This gives the inbuilt Google LOD mesh everytime, you know when you zoom into Google maps 3D you see the LODs transitioning. If doing poly reduction and retopo on your end is too hard, this is the easy way around it! Point is, all this brute force modding with tanked frame times and load times throws a bad light on FS2020 with the conclusion drawn by the general public that the game can not run complex 3D photogrammetry properly.

If you were any experienced in real time rendering and appropriate tool sets, you would have taken the model that you ripped from Google maps, send it through any software that can do automated poly reduction, export three different version for different viewing distances and set them up in FS2020. I hear the kids using Blender these days. Believe me, there is a difference between any VFX work that you are doing and real time rendering, apparently.

That's a huge problem for all freeware scenery released so far by people who just took meshes from Google maps - the missing LOD transitions/groups. It just tanks the framerates. LOD setups are done for every game released, also native FS2020 assets, and are also at work for Bing/Google Maps photogrammetry. The FS2020 SDK features them, ie. features multiple versions of a mesh and the lowest poly version is loaded at distance while the highest poly version is only loaded in when getting real close. In between those meshes transition into each other. People just HAVE to learn what LODs are and how to set them up in FS2020 SDK. So far there has been nothing but overexcited kids who ripped 3D models from Google maps and put them straight into FS2020, which is something nobody with experience in real time rendering would ever do. https://docs.unity3d.com/560/Documentation/Manual/LevelOfDetail.html

ok, finished the last leg. Bugs, bugs, bugs and no photogrammetry in Bing maps even though Google has it for Stavanger. Uninstalled. Will check back on the sim in a year or so and grab it on deep sale 50% off at least. This is just not enough. Have fun with the 1 buck for the first gamepass month, Microsoft. What a trainwreck of a release.

come on. What is this pile of bug rubbish? One thing is for sure, they will not see more than the 1 buck I paid for this first gamepass month from me.

Sometime my left stick translates the camera and other things are messed. For example when I press left stick, default landing gear, this console opens which I then close with B-button. What is this? I have unplug the pad, restart PC and then it works again. No idea what's going on.

One big problem with the waves, they are absolutely generic and neither wind strength or direction dependent. Makes them one of the silliest looking thing in the game. See screenshot, they literalyl come from all directions equally with zero wind. An option to disable them would be great. Looks honestly so stupid.

I am also not a big fan of the lack in 2D image resolution and and lack of photogrammetry in Bing maps. If X-Plane or P3D ever do the same that MFS, but with Google maps, I instantly switch simulators.

color matching needs to be done, basically just taking some blue out of the textures. But a good start. What most people miss though is setting up LODs to not choke our rigs. I hope the guy who does the Monaco addon is setting up LODs. Otherwise the model will only load in 3 feet in front of you and you GPU will start smoking.

Sandane(ENSD) - Bergen(SNBR) This leg was all about my big entrance into Bergen. The journey from Sandane to Bergen was an eventless piece of cake because I did it at real time, which was from 3-4pm, and as a result that sun was perfectly lined up with my route. This helped a lot with the usual landmark counting and shape matching to Bing maps. So much for that. When I arrived in Bergen, which is a large city, I was surprised by how scattered it is over many smaller bays and water bodies. From what I saw, it is the exact opposite of a dense and stinking city, which is how they usually come at a population of ~300k people. Bergen however is more interesting for its history, which involves one of the largest maritime trading unions in European history - the Hanseatic League. Now when you look at the map, you notice a lot of water between northern mainland Europe (Germany,..) and Scandinavia. Essentially hosting a lot of trading by ship, this body of water was dominatede by the league. And one of its northern most enclaves was Bergen. Following the trading interests, the scandinavian region was also fully mapped in a somewhat accurate way for the first time. The result of this 12 years long mapping effort was the Carta Mariana, which even had a 10 year copyright issued by Pope Paul the 3rd. So yes, lots of interesting Wikipedia reading following a simple one hour flight in FS2020. Anyways, nothing is forever, and after the a big economic crisis in the 15th century which was basically triggered by Europe selling all its valuable metals to China, the decline of the league began. The decline was however substantially accelerated by Sweden, who woke up and suddenly felt the wish to do trade on those large water bodies themselves. After lots of friendly talks and nice meetings where everyone was nice, but which led to nothing, this interest culminated in the Northern Seven Years War. In the end, the Hanseatic League was in noticable existence between the 12th-17th century. Another noticable event happened in 2020 when I arrived with my IconA5 in Bergen and delivered another clean landing. I am sure the chaps from the Hanseatic League would have also loved four bright lights on final and some good parking. Although I really do not know what I am talking about since I got all this from Squirrel's videos and really just fly for sight seeing and navigation excercise. About 1/5th of the city of Bergen. It stretches on and on towards the horizon. Entrance of IconA5 in Bergen, anno 2020. A new record in messed up landscapes was also set. On top, every smaller water body in Bergen was messed up (elevated to some height above ground)

I am all for moutain range flying. Right now I fly down the West coast of norway. There is also the alps crossing, Salzburg to Monaco. Then there is the Andes crossing, or better the entire west coast of South America. Canada/Alaska is another playground. Also in far east Russia and other countries.

Kristiansund(ENKB) - Sandane(ENSD) This was basically a preliminary leg for the big entrance into Bergen that is to follow. Leaving Kristiansund though, it took only about 3 mins for me to completely loose track. Never come back home exhausted from sports and hop into your plane for a landmark-VFR flight without compass and GPS. After emptying almost half my fuel, I was lucky enough to see airport lights in some bay. I knew it would not be Sandane. Trying to study Bing maps in detail and at the same time avoiding a crash was too much. So I decided to do a water landing, switch everything off and take a deep breath. Finally some time to study the map without panick attacks! It turned out the airport lights belonged to the airport of Malmo. Everything matched, the bridges, the bay shape, the islands in the bay, what a relief. You may have heard of Malmo, soccer time again. The baby face assassin from the previous leg took his first steps as first team coach there. Eventually I took off again and paid more attention to landmarks. You know, the usual mountain tops counting, the lake and bay shape matching to the map and so on. After about 2/3 of the leg I had to cross a final mountain range before I could descend into Sandane. Now, this flight was big! Big in a sense of spectacularly big! As in irresponsibly big because I could have ended up in a mountain face easily. You can see the mountain range in the map, and recognize it by its snow top. The entire thing was soaked in almighty broken clouds and it was like rolling a dice whether I would make it over the peaks or not. When the clouds occasionally openend up, I was greeted with jaw dropping sights. That was one to remember. Not so much Sandane, which is just a forgettable little settlement in the middle of Norway. Stryn is close by though which is a skiing resort. One way or another, into Bergen tomorrow! Big mountains soaked in big clouds Questions over questions. I know there is a snow capped peak in that cloud. How high is it? Will I make it? Will I be in the news for the wrong reason? Sandane aiport. Not much to say. Maybe that it is pretty short with water at the end. Perfect for the Icon A5.