Northern California Status

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. I know that many of you are eagerly waiting for this release. I can assure you that I am working to get this out the door as soon as possible, but like most projects, there are always unforeseen problems that arise!

The night texture testing has taken several weeks (months actually). This has really consumed me to get it looking as realistic as possible. NorCal is such a large area that data and algorithms that work in some areas don't necessarily work well in other areas. Even after running tests on a variety of "problem" areas and getting the data and algorithms working correctly, there would be other areas that would end up being problematic. I have literally started over on this process several times: processing the all of the scenery, only to find out another situation that wasn't handled correctly! Each night image undergoes 5 steps (three software packages plus my own scripts) until I can see it in X-Plane, so it takes a couple of days of processing time to run all of the images - only to find another problem and change the data and/or software to handle it. Well, I'm happy to report that all of this development is now done! ;D

One aspect of the night textures that I have been working hard to get right is the randomness of the lights along the roads. In addition, I have built several road classes, as well as urban, sub-urban, and rural lighting densities for each of the road classes. Every urban area was also hand edited make the output as reliable as possible from the night texture algorithms.

I am currently verifying each of the scenery files in this package within X-Plane and hand editing both day and night imagery as necessary. I have hand-edited over 500 images so far and am about 80% done with the verification process. I also have a few more airports to edit, mostly in eastern California and Nevada, but these will be quick to complete.

Here are some of the enhancements of the new NorCal scenery:

1. Higher resolution imagery

2. All airports edited to match the underlying imagery

3. Night textures covering all of Northern California

4. Transparent roads so the X-Plane cars travel on the roads in the imagery

Here's a quick video clip if you haven't seen this yet!

I have taken a few quick screenshots while testing the new scenery in X-Plane. I hope to have a gallery posted on RealScenery.com after all of the imagery is ready to go.

This is truly amazing "in sim" and the screenshots give you a rough idea, but to really experience it, you have to fly with it!

Crescent City, on the northern California coast, looking south, at sunrise.

City of Redding, California, looking north at sunrise.

Well, another very productive evening of testing is complete. One reason this takes awhile is that it's so easy to get sidetracked flying around!  ;D

I wanted to share with you a couple more screen shots that caught my eye.

Bishop, California, looking northwest at sunrise.

Flying south from Bishop through the Owens Valley with the Inyo Mountains on the right.

All the image retouching is finished! Over 600 images were hand edited over the last several days. Now each scenery package is being reviewed one final time to verify the edits and confirm that all of the files are correct for each package. This will be in the hands of X-Aviation next week! 

Fantastic work!

Just doing the final image testing. I acquired some new imagery for some areas which I wanted to improve. It looks fantastic! Should have all of the imagery done tomorrow.

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Eric

Well finally after 9 months or so, starting over three times from scratch, and spending a few months getting night texture software developed and tested, the image editing for NorCal is finally done!!! ;D I just have to edit a few more airports and then this will be ready for release!

I couldn't resist taking another beautiful sunset image. This is of King City, south of Monterey.

Enjoy!

Just stunning Eric, the contrast of the distant mountains and the lights below. I've got a thousand views of my 2 falco videos, I think there'll be many more for your scenery when I get my mits on it. The javelin and this at night will go very nicely!

Hey Simon - always appreciate the nice comments and I look forward to seeing the videos you create - should be fun to make and fun to watch!  ;D

Here is an overview map showing all of the scenery files included in the upcoming Northern California (NorCal) scenery. The commercial package will contain high resolution aeronautical charts allowing you to easily read all of the text and map symbols. Each scenery area covers 1^o longitude by 1^o latitude, which is a little over 3,000 sq miles (10,000 sq km) in this area.

For a more detailed image, click this link.

Airports are almost completed - worked about 13 hours straight to get them done. Several databases were used to compile the airports and it looks like the new total for NorCal will be around 350 airports, all hand edited to match the imagery. I'm also working with X-Aviation on the final roads data, which will be done soon.

Make sure to check back here or follow Twitter for the latest updates.

Eric

All of the airport edits are now complete. 383 airports were edited for the NorCal scenery!

You know, I've been watching with extreme interest in this project and will purchase this in a heartbeat as I live in Northern California.

Is there something else left to do on this before it's released? If not, (or so), ETA on release...

You know, I've been watching with extreme interest in this project and will purchase this in a heartbeat as I live in Northern California.

Is there something else left to do on this before it's released? If not, (or so), ETA on release...

The scenery is pretty well complete, however, we have hit a snag with what we believe is a bug in X-Plane and needs to be fixed before we can release. We are working with Laminar to resolve the issue, but no telling how long that will be.

Thanks for your interest! In a nutshell, I'm done.

However, (a customer's least favorite word ) I'm working through a rendering issue with Laminar and X-Aviation concerning the new transparent road technology. As soon as we have a solution and I've done the final testing, the data will be in the hands of X-Aviation. I honestly hope this is just a few days away now, although I will know more when I get information back from Laminar. I will post updates on Twitter and this forum when I have more info. I appreciate everyone's patience through this very long development cycle. I think you will find this scenery stunning and with many incredible enhancements. We will also be offering some additional distribution options, so stay tuned for news on that as well.

Eric

Greeaaat!  I'm sure the Meyers team is working real hard on it as we speak.

Thanks for all the effort you've given so far.  I'll check back in a few weeks...

The official Northern California image gallery is now available!

I've created photo-based scenery in X-Plane for several years. I've never flown over anything like this!

Those are amazing Some of those shots look like photos! Can't wait to fly over it in the CRJ200

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Hi, Jack,

I can't say I agree any bit with what you are saying.

Non-enhanced sceneries have some washed out areas, but the Norcal package has been in production for nearly a years time, and has had a tremendous amount of color correction done. It's stunning and beautiful in sim.

X-Plane's atmosphere can add brightness dependent on your gamma settings and time of day/visibility, but that's about it.

i don't mean to be a stickler, but why do the textures look washed out and unsaturated? it look as if they don't have any color depth to them. Is is just you guys done fix the color on the images when you get them or is it because x-plane lights them in a way that they get unsaturated in high light?

i don't mean to be an arse, but its been bugging me for a while now.

I thought they looked great on my computer. I played around with some of the screen shots in Photoshop the adjustments I added made them look worse. Its 100% better than X-Planes current stuff I cant wait to try it on my computer!

i don't mean to be a stickler, but why do the textures look washed out and unsaturated? it look as if they don't have any color depth to them. Is is just you guys done fix the color on the images when you get them or is it because x-plane lights them in a way that they get unsaturated in high light?

i don't mean to be an arse, but its been bugging me for a while now.

Totally agree with Cameron, finally saw the gallery on a large LCD TV, they look great! Textures are nicely muted, not cartoon fsx-like. Really looking forward to this release.

i don't mean to be a stickler, but why do the textures look washed out and unsaturated? it look as if they don't have any color depth to them. Is is just you guys done fix the color on the images when you get them or is it because x-plane lights them in a way that they get unsaturated in high light?

i don't mean to be an arse, but its been bugging me for a while now.

Like FlyingJackal, I don't want to sound complaining, but just to let him know that he's not the only one who is seeing it this way. I noticed this with the Tennessee scenery as well. To me the screenshots look like a color photograph that has faded over the years with certain pigments faded more than others. In this case, it looks as if the magenta or maybe yellow pigments have faded--that is, if it were a print. I say that only by way of analogy to explain the look. When such a photograph fades, you can't add back the color that was lost with Photoshop. All you can do is boost certain colors uniformly, but that causes other color distortions. That's why Airbus couldn't get it to look any better than they already are. My guess is that Eric has done the best he possibly could with the photography available to him, but you can't restore details that were lost. A real artist could paint colors back in manually, but that would be a unrealistically large job for half a state!

If I had to guess as to the cause, I suppose it would be that it must be due to the nature of the satellite photography...perhaps that the colors are distorted through the many many feet (miles?) of atmosphere that gives it a slightly washed-out, bluish-green look.

EDIT: I forgot to add as I intended that the night textures look amazing!

Garrett,

Please refer back to my last post.

Non-enhanced sceneries have some washed out areas, but the Norcal package has been in production for nearly a years time, and has had a tremendous amount of color correction done.

Tennessee (which you mentioned) would fall into the Non-Enhanced category as mentioned in my previous statement posted above. Norcal comes from different sources than traditional packages we've done, and we've gone that extra mile to enhance not only the imagery, but the roads and night lighting as well. As such, Norcal is the first "Enhanced" package available, and should definitely not be compared to any previous packages we've ever published. It's honestly an entirely different animal when compared to previous packages and time spent working on it.

If I had to guess as to the cause, I suppose it would be that it must be due to the nature of the satellite photography...perhaps that the colors are distorted through the many many feet (miles?) of atmosphere that gives it a slightly washed-out, bluish-green look.

We don't use satellite photos for RealScenery.

I'm sorry, but having been one of the few to fly over the Enhanced imagery and Norcal, I don't agree with your statements. It is our desire to ensure we do Norcal right, and if it really were a problem we would definitely fix it! We want Norcal to set a new bar, but of the various people I have asked, in addition to others posted here, you're in a minority at this point. If we were talking about one of our previous packages I may agree in some areas. This time...I don't.

With the discussion about image quality, I thought I'd offer my two cents on this.

As envious as I am of the fine aircraft developers here, creating scenery is a whole different animal. I can't start with a blank canvas in a 3D program or Photoshop and start painting a picture of the landscape. I have to start with something (imagery) and then see how to best enhance it for X-Plane.

There are two types of imagery:

1. Aerial photography

2. Satellite imagery

Like most things, there are advantages/disadvantages to each. Aerial photography is flown with specially outfitted aircraft that have that as their sole mission in life; to take pictures. My flight instructor flew a King Air for a state transportation department that was designed for taking aerial photos. Here in the USA, much of this imagery is available at low cost, however, the tradeoff is that the imagery is much more difficult to obtain over a large area that offers consistent quality.

Satellite imagery has the benefit of having tonal consistency over a broader area, but is very expensive to license. The cost of NorCal licensed from one of these vendors would be well over $100,000USD. However, even an area as large as NorCal would essentially be a "patchwork" of imagery, even from a satellite vendor.

There are many factors that affect the quality of the aerial photography. Imagine an airplane flying back and forth across and area (called "flightlines") capturing images. As the day goes on...

...the sun angle changes.

...clouds can appear causing shadows (or sometimes even appear in the imagery!)

...middle and high level clouds can cause widespread changes in image quality compared to direct sunlight.

...changes in humidity/smoke can add to more/less scattering of blue light in the atmosphere, causing coloration changes, sometimes significant.

Now imagine covering an area as large as northern California (this package really covers 2/3 of the state). You can't possibly fly this area in one day capturing all of the imagery. Even if you had several aircraft, you would have different weather conditions over the area which would make the imagery from one aircraft not necessarily match seamlessly with the imagery from another aircraft, especially if the flightlines were flown several hours apart in time.

Even satellite imagery from the major online mapping sites covering NorCal is a total patchwork of images. Not all areas are being continuously captured. Most imagery is captured based on a specific order from a government agency or private company. This is especially true for aerial photography. Since much of this imagery is only acquired "on demand," imagine creating a seamless set of imagery for an area as large as a state! As you can imagine, it is very difficult to do.

The bottom line here is that imagery covering a large area, whether satellite or aerial photography, is typically made up of many different image sources covering different times, sometimes even different seasons and different years! The NorCal scenery for X-Plane is no different. However, I've spent a lot of time making it as consistent as possible. What you see in the NorCal gallery is representative of the image quality throughout the entire NorCal area. I think I can say with a good degree of confidence that this is probably one of the most consistent set of images covering northern California that exists today, especially from aerial photographs.

Now that's only one factor - the source imagery. The other major factor affecting your perception of the images is your computer's video hardware including your video card and your monitor. I use two machines in my scenery production and they have different monitors and video cards, which, of course, render the images differently, as well as all of my other software.

How about X-Plane? I mentioned above the difference in sun angle and time of day. X-Plane also does this, as we all know. Hold down the "K" or "L" keys and watch what happens as the day goes by in just a few seconds. If you have clouds, notice what happens to the imagery in the shadows versus sunlight. X-Plane will render most scenery bright and washed out at high-noon. X-Plane will render scenery textures best at mid-morning and mid-afternoon.

X-Plane now has the ability to change gamma. I design scenery with the gamma setting of 2.5. A lower gamma will make the images look more saturated, but overall, the sim will be darker. You'll have to experiment with the gamma to get the best balance of image quality, and aircraft rendering quality. You may also consider adjusting your monitor for the best X-Plane experience.

Just for fun, I picked an area in Google Maps and Bing Maps and compared it to the imagery I have acquired for this RealScenery release. I think you may be surprised at what you see here. Keep in mind these are small-scale images to give you an idea of the quality differences over a larger area. The actual images used in this release are much higher resolution than you see here. Look at the gallery link posted earlier to see the actual detail you will see in X-Plane. This is for an area north of San Francisco in the Napa Valley, home to California's famous wine country.

Overall, I think you'll find this scenery is spectacular, as I've tried to show with the examples in the gallery. Like all scenery, it's much nicer "in sim" than any still screenshot can portray.

Enjoy!

Google Maps

Bing Maps

RealScenery source image

Eric

Thank you Eric for this very interesting post !  8) It gives a small view of the huge amount of work behind a large orthophoto scenery. It's impressive to see the 3rd image that looks really seamless.

Did you build your own programs or filters to work on the colors, or do use standard tools like GIMP, Photoshop, or other photo editing software ?