FSX Roads & photo scenery...

[IslandBoy77]

Hi all

Since I'm one of those VFR-types who likes to "play down in the mud", excellence of imagery when flying at low altitude is the name of the game. Whilst photo-real looks great from over a certain height, it looks pretty ordinary under 1000 feet (where I like to play).

One of the things that particularly annoys me is roads. Photoreal roads are not only fuzzy, but they tend to have a green hue due to most photoreal having the greens "pumped up" (presumably). I understand that the new VLC will have good roads with it (yay!), so a couple of questions:
1) Will the VLC roads go over top of photoreal, in the right place, to make proper roads?
2) Is it practical in any way to make the roads on photoreal sharper & the right colour?

And, while I'm dreaming , is there any way to have different types of roads where applicable? Dirt, ashphalt, metal, tarseal.

Lastly, is there any way to fix the main roads and traffic flow on RealNZ FX Wellington? The main drag at the end of the runway has 2 "weirdnesses" going on
1) The road is green & fuzzy (and kermit doesn't live there...)
2) The traffic suddenly "ends" instead of flowing off where it normally would

I am supposing that FSX - while a big jump over FS9 with traffic complexities and such - is still fairly basic in how much control one has over roads & traffic flow - yes? Any decent fixes for this lack?

Oh, and one other thing (if it's good enough for Uncle Steve, it's good enough for me ) - what's with the bridges in FSX having "ramps" at each end? I presume that is to do with mesh and elevations: is there a way to fix that? Napier is a shocker for that - all the bridges in the area, especially along the coast, look horrible and just "plonked" where they are (not to mention not looking a thing like the real world).

Perhaps I just need to wait another few years until the replacement for FSX comes out... so I can buy all the scenery again...

[Ian Warren]

Photo Real and VLC has its limitations ,

1) Will the VLC roads go over top of photoreal, in the right place, to make proper roads?
the roads and rail match exactly , 1000 ft in the Catalina i,m impressed .

2) The traffic suddenly "ends" instead of flowing off where it normally would
Currently there is very little that can be done here , its very good , to an example the AGN models are hopelessly terrible its how you use them within a photoreal scenery .

Bridges and mesh ,well we will have to see , time progress , defaults could easly be replaced

[Timmo]

To answer:

1) No. Photoreal scenery always takes priority regardless of where it is placed in your scenery library.
2) Not unless you have the source imagery.....and even then, not easily.

3) VLC roads are correctly classified (touch wood!)- Dirt roads will be dirt roads etc (with the usual caveat for any digital data- It does go out of date and isn't always 100 % spot on....generally its good though)

4) VLC roads define a heap more roads (most of the main roads in NZ) as freeway so there will be more traffic around the place. The amount of traffic has been scaled for NZ using a new population density layer so that traffic in the wop wops will be less frequent than at spaghetti junction etc. One issue is that for country roads, the traffic will only flow one way as ACES didn't enable both traffic directions for a single line and dual-lane data doesn't exist for any roads that I'm aware of (i.e. if a road does have seperate parts, such as a motorway with a large internal verge then there will be two lines, but a standard road with just a painted median exists only as a single line)

5) Bridges are step up from Fs9.....but are still tricky. I'm working on a script to replace all the bridges but am unsure if I will have it figured out in time for the first VLC release. Like any coding, you may be able to make 1 awesome bridge and base a rule off that....but then that rule may not follow for other bridges. Having a 'hump' is necessary in most cases because the mesh simply doesn't have the detail (or the user doesn't have their slider down low enough) for the terrain to fall away at each abutment.....the flip side is having flat bridges that conflict with the mesh (i.e. Z sorting flickers) or are simply flat.

If you want to get into making bridges using the Extrusion bridge code, then S-Builder will help you.

Hope that helps

[dbcunnz]

QUOTE (IslandBoy77 @ Aug 1 2010, 05:16 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Oh, and one other thing (if it's good enough for Uncle Steve, it's good enough for me ) - what's with the bridges in FSX having "ramps" at each end? I presume that is to do with mesh and elevations: is there a way to fix that? Napier is a shocker for that - all the bridges in the area, especially along the coast, look horrible and just "plonked" where they are (not to mention not looking a thing like the real world).

Do you have the Red Baron NZ topo installed if you have take out all the Topo scenery br***.bgl files that should get rid of all those bridges with the ramps on each end.

Doug

[toprob]

The quality of the photo scenery is always going to be based on the quality of the source image, but the main problem is the resolution -- the default FSX scenery has ground textures at 1.2 metres per pixel, but vector roads can be up to 15cm (or 7cm if you want that..)

The photoscenery is 2.4 metres per pixel, and since vector roads can't go on top, the roads are restricted to that, which is a huge difference in resolution. A normal road might be comprised of 4 or 5 pixels wide, but add a bit of fuzziness from the aerial photo process, rotate it for diagonal roads, and you might end up with 3 pixels to play with....

The colour is another issue -- I have seen some very nice colour images from overseas, but I've never seen a 'full colour' image anywhere in NZ. I suspect that these won't exist for a while yet.
For the Tauranga FSX update, I did in fact recolour the roads separately, as this image started life in black and white, so the recolour process gave particularly bad results on the roads. However I don't intend to do this for Wellington, as the process I use just won't work on a large area.

The real answer is better quality aerial images, but these are few and far between, and very expensive. In the future there will be less scenery relying on large-scale aerial images, and more using an aerial of the airport, blending to VLC.

[IslandBoy77]

Thanks to you all for your comments - very interesting. Just when I think I've started to understand the complexities of FSX scenery, I ask a couple of questions like above I realise that I've only just scratched the surface!

QUOTE (Timmo @ Aug 1 2010, 05:40 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

1) No. Photoreal scenery always takes priority regardless of where it is placed in your scenery library.

Thanks for your info Timmo. So, one can have photoreal & horrible roads, or VLC & good roads, is that right? No way around that at all?

[Timmo]

Well yes and no- As Robin mentioned, it really depends on the quality of the aerial photo and if one wants to spend time tweaking it to bring out the roads more.....


However, it isn't (as far as I'm aware) possible to overlay vector roads on Aerials (and even then it wouldn't look right)-Each type of vector scenery does have a render priority in the Terrain.cfg file.......but from memory photoreal scenery isn't included in there so there is no way to reorder the vector layers vs photoreal.

[Bushmaster]

Just so you know at this time there isn't going to be anymore updates for fsx or new versions, ACES have split up due to the global financial crisis.

[IslandBoy77]

QUOTE (saski17 @ Aug 1 2010, 09:54 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Just so you know at this time there isn't going to be anymore updates for fsx or new versions, ACES have split up due to the global financial crisis.

Thanks - yes I was aware of that. I understand that someone else is looking to either write a whole new flight sim, or purchase the "rights" to FSX / Aces from Microsoft and develop from there. It's been very quiet regarding the whole thing, so who knows what will happen...

[Bushmaster]

Yes, in a article i saw not long ago there was rumor saying that the fired workers of ACES have formed a group and might be going to continue with flight sim.
Also since ACES has split up probably Xplane will be the more popular simulator and maybe even someone will make there own simulator, who knows the possibilities are endless this could be the start of a new era in flight simulation!

[IslandBoy77]

Yup - there certainly are many possibilities. I've had a look at X-Plane - reminds me of a budget version of FS9. I understand that X-Plane is extremely accurate with it's flight modelling & dynamics, but the graphic side of things lag. I sold X-Plane through my business 2 year's ago - and have since seen screen shots & a demo: it's got a way to go before it catches up to FSX, even if the X-Plane guys can be bothered. Their management are typically arrogant in an American way - that's why I stopped dealing with them...

[toprob]

Yes, I think there'll be a few choices, but I would imagine that we'll be sticking with FSX for a while.
Best chance of a new sim comes from Microsoft, who are keen to do a 'Windows Live' sim, but there's also Cascade Game Foundry, who are a couple of ex-Aces who are looking at continuing the 'world-simulator' which MS were working on for their new train sim and flight sim. This seems like a huge job, so it may be squashed by a quicker project, but I love the idea of a truly expandable sim where I can fly, race cars, and walk my dog...

[IslandBoy77]

QUOTE (toprob @ Aug 2 2010, 07:31 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

... but I love the idea of a truly expandable sim where I can fly, race cars, and walk my dog...

... have proper roads & rail over top of photoreal...

[AndrewJamez]

Your forgetting that Aerosoft is wanting to do a new sim from the ground up. Initialy they touted released dates and features but their forum has gone fairly quiet. Securring the funding is proving more dificult than anticipated. Thats what I've seen on the forums anyway. Check these guys out, they are developing a new sim engine. Its far from finished but looks promicing. Apparently Aerosoft looked into it but opted not to go for it. Still, it looks good and the demo video's were done with what I can remember, a medium powered dual core cpu and a old nvidia 9600Gt
Check it out, its worth a look. http://outerra.com/index.html

[IslandBoy77]

Wow - that Outerra is the BOMB! Even in it's current state, it's far more realistic to look at - even the general lighting looks better than anything I've seen: it actually looks like REAL daylight. A shame it's not going anywhere at the mo...

[Bushmaster]

QUOTE (toprob @ Aug 2 2010, 07:31 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

but I love the idea of a truly expandable sim where I can fly, race cars, and walk my dog...

How about a grand theft auto with advanced flight dynamics, realistic models and virtual cockpits, now that would be fun!
Outerra's screenshots are looking fantastic, but looks like the project has been abandond .

[toprob]

QUOTE (AndrewJamez @ Aug 2 2010, 08:00 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Your forgetting that Aerosoft is wanting to do a new sim from the ground up. Initialy they touted released dates and features but their forum has gone fairly quiet. Securring the funding is proving more dificult than anticipated. Thats what I've seen on the forums anyway. Check these guys out, they are developing a new sim engine. Its far from finished but looks promicing. Apparently Aerosoft looked into it but opted not to go for it. Still, it looks good and the demo video's were done with what I can remember, a medium powered dual core cpu and a old nvidia 9600Gt
Check it out, its worth a look. http://outerra.com/index.html

I didn't forget Aerosoft, but I do put them fourth -- behind X-plane -- as the sim of choice to replace FSX.
I think that there are a few really good 'world' renderers out there, Outerra is one, and licensing that would be the ideal way to jump-start a new sim.

[IslandBoy77]

QUOTE (toprob @ Aug 2 2010, 11:01 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think that there are a few really good 'world' renderers out there, Outerra is one, and licensing that would be the ideal way to jump-start a new sim.

Are there others that are as good as Outerra - or better? Do you keep an eye on their development? Are they still just "tinkering" at this point, or do any of them show any actual promise of being realised as the engine for a new sim?

[AndrewJamez]

I would say forget microsoft. The main reason they want to go online multiplay (Micrsoft live) is that they can command a monthly subsrciption like some multiplayer Xbox games. That way each customer becomes a constant soarce of income instead of a 1 time payment that the purchase of a standard type game or sim would provide. They are just being greedy. I believe the next sim to come along will be created from members of the flight sim community. In the end they may be classed as "big companys" but that is where they will origonate from and they will have a passion for it. That could be a long time coming though and FSX is far from done yet.
I only hope that the next generations of computor hardware can continue to improve FSX performance because FSX is capable of running 7cm/pixcell resolution scenery, 5m terrain mesh, insane amounts of autogen and 4096bit textures and there is'nt a desktop computor in existance that can render an FSX world at that level all over.
Let us bow down and prey for such a machine, and please make it affordable. lol

[Bushmaster]

If there is a new sim make it work on the average computers, maybe no major graphics enhancments just improved weather, dynamics and so on.