Scenery people get ready

[tkyler]

BenS posted a bit on this xplane blog about some scenery developments

http://www.x-plane.com/blog/

There are efforts, independently of Laminar, to set up a type of "developer university" with some tutorial vids targeting various levels of development. Laminar is not so much attempting to do all the 3D scenery as it is attempting to enable to community to easily do the 3D scenery itself...and leverage the community workforce. We're probably far enough along where I could answer any technical questions anybody has within reason.

If any of you are interested in dabbling in scenery, then this forum is the place to be.

Edited September 5, 2011 by tkyler

[Airbus]

Less scenery building nightmares! Im all for that!

[Simmo W]

Just replied to it Tom. Looks like a great start, well done. This'll certainly fix the barren look in the long term, but still allow for customisation later. I've asked about allowing for more variety in wall types, via a periodic submission process, I hope you don't get lumbered with the review job! Having a few different classes of wall or roof would avoid an eventual criticism of, say, 'a laminar look'. Happy to volunteer to create the dust/sunburnt 'Aussielook'...

It must be cool playing with the dynamic lighting, me jealous..

[tkyler]

The problem with diversity is the amount of texture space. I'm cramming in all that stuff into about 7 2048 x 1024 textures and they're filling up fast. The question will be , "will laminar add more texture space?"We have a budget and I can't just "add another roof" if there's no space. Doing so means loading up video cards at a "base level". With custom scenery, users will accept the burdern because that kind of addition to one's scenery stable is "voluntary". If laminar has extreme VRAM requirements in a base install, then customers will be none too happy. It is possible to diversify wall types, but you won't find as much diversity in "color and texture". We can add new shapes all day long as long as we map them with the same texture. Custom scenery developers wont' be bound by such things though. I'm sure as time goes on though and such limitations of RAM and performance wane...that might change.

The idea is to seed the scenery landscape. Folks will want to do custom stuff pretty quick when they see they can get a lot of "free" stuff like hangars / FBOs and a few filler pieces. Also, you have to keep future users in mind, who will want to see something at an airport, even if it is a repetitive approximation.

We have some ideas here to really push scenery creation. There is no way we'll get the diversity we want without lots more texture space and manpower....Laminar will only be willing to go so far in how much detail they'll 'officially' support....so the best we can try and do is guide the developers, give some guidelines and see if we can't start a movement here of some organized scenery development.

Edited September 5, 2011 by tkyler

[iamfallen]

Will there be seasonal textures?

[tkyler]

I don't think so. I'd hope to see it during V10 some time though, I do know it's on the feature list...but obviously sits behind higher priority features.