11 replies to this topic

[alpilotx]

Hi,

I - as one of the Global Scenery developers - wanted to share with you a more comprehensive selection of "outside the demo are" screenshots  from around the world. To not make this post explode, I uploaded them to a picasa album, where you can look at them in a slideshow. There you will find 125 pictures from quite some locations (mostly Europe) from these places:

• Austria - Zell am See
  
• Barcelona
  
• Corsica
  
• Hawaii
  
• Japan
  
• La Palma
  
• Norway
  
• Pyrenees
  
• Scotland
  
• Switzerland

Follow this link: https://picasaweb.go...capesOfTheWorld

I hope, this pictures will help you to better understand what the 8 DVDs can give you.

(you might see this same post from me on other forums - but before others start to copy it, I just did it myself)

[Daube]

Thanks a lot for uploading these screenshots, I'm going to take a look at them right now.

[Jonay]

Any chance of seeing more populated areas and other major airports around the word? Also some of the smaller regional ones too?

[Mohammad]

Must admit, those screenshots look very good. Seems like the European scenery is going to be decent at least, just like US. The images don't have the urban patchy feel that I got with my XP10 demo so I hope that's the final thing and not just marketing gimmick.

Is it possible if you can post a few scenery shots of Dubai, Kuwait, etc? Somewhere in Middle East?

The only downside is the downtowns look dead.

Edited by Mohammad, 04 December 2011 - 09:25 AM.

[alpilotx]

Well, the urban areas make not sooo much sense, without the next round of optimization and even more / new art assets (which all will come at some point). Of course, all of the cities look - for now - like the KSEA area ... there are no other rationalizations until now (but they are absolutely possible and will come - for example from Aerosoft for Europe!)

The same goes for the airpots. Most of you know - just like I do - that they are not populated with objects until now. So., it doesn't makes sooo much sense to show that off ...

My main focus was - and is - in the X-Plane development the natural landscape (as that is, what I worked on). And that is what I try to show you here (as we had quite some nice improvements there - as you can see). Other guys are working on the cities etc. , and they will show what is worth to be shown at the right time

[Mohammad]

Fair enough. Your effort here is much appreciated. Keep up the good work!

[Daube]

After taking a look at those screenshots, I have to say that the default world that is visible looks quite good.
I think I'll need some time to get used to the water and the way the cities are built/displayed, but that should be a problem.

What I really dislike though:
- it seems all the areas are using the same textures
- I don't like the tree autogen system in XPlane. I understand it's not bound to the ground textures, but the consequence is that we can see a lot of ground tiles showing forests but having no trees at all. For this particular point, I like the FS9/FSX technique better.

[alpilotx]

Daube, on Dec 4 2011, 10:12 PM, said:

After taking a look at those screenshots, I have to say that the default world that is visible looks quite good.
I think I'll need some time to get used to the water and the way the cities are built/displayed, but that should be a problem.

And just when you get used to it, it might change and improve. All those areas are far from finished, and will improve as the rest of the sim will improve ... So, don't worry, this is jsut the beginning  

Daube, on Dec 4 2011, 10:12 PM, said:

What I really dislike though:
- it seems all the areas are using the same textures
- I don't like the tree autogen system in XPlane. I understand it's not bound to the ground textures, but the consequence is that we can see a lot of ground tiles showing forests but having no trees at all. For this particular point, I like the FS9/FSX technique better.

Well, not all areas are using the same textures AND even this will change/improve. The thing is, that at the basis, the Scenery itself doesn't directly reference textures, but only abstract terrain definitions. And we have used between 20-28 different climate types (so, for example a conifer forest might have 20 different climate representations). And all these terrain definitions with different climate are bound to the scenery. Now, what might be the case at the moment is, that we often re-use the same texture for different terrain definitions ... but are working on putting in more appropriate ones where necessary. But in the end, we can't do many thousands of different textures (even though, we already have quite some of them) ... and so there is always a good chance to see the same texture again somewhere else.

PS: it's not impossible to tweak those terrain definitions by 3rd parties ... yes, even you could change which textures are assigned to each of those terrain defs. So, as with almost everything in X-Plane ... its quite open for a lot of tweaking, improvements (by us, or others)  

Edited by alpilotx, 04 December 2011 - 03:56 PM.

[Daube]

I understand the ground texture mecanism, it's basically the same as FS9 and FSX.
Sure the textures must be different, but I was just expressing a global feeling about those shots. It *seems like* they are very similar textures on all the shots, but of course with a closer look they are different.

My criticism about the tree autogen is not based on feelings though. I don't like the way XPlane's engine handles/defines it... but on the other way, I love what the guys working on this OpenStreetMap data convertion manage to do

[CaptainG37]

Mohammad, on Dec 5 2011, 02:06 AM, said:

Fair enough. Your effort here is much appreciated. Keep up the good work!

Nice to see a turnaround in you, Mohammad.
I never would have thought it would happen.

[alpilotx]

Daube, on Dec 5 2011, 12:51 AM, said:

.. but on the other way, I love what the guys working on this OpenStreetMap data convertion manage to do

No, the forests are not from OSM ... That would be a very bad idea for the majority of the planet! OSM is extremely good in some places, and a barren land in others. For this reason, all ground texturing ... and derived from that, the forests, are coming from the landuse data which is globally available, and more or less consistent. And especially for USA (Alaska, Hawaii included), Europe and New Zealand, where we have quite good anduse data at 100m resolution (the rest of the world is 300m data ... still far better than the 1km data in XP9) ... the forests should be were they need to be  

[Mohammad]

CaptainG37, on Dec 4 2011, 08:43 PM, said:

Nice to see a turnaround in you, Mohammad.
I never would have thought it would happen.

What turn around? I say it like it is. If something's good in my eyes, I say it.