X-Plane 10, Landscapes of the world (125 screenshots)

[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)

Edited December 4, 2011 by alpilotx

[karingka]

That looks awesome, thanks!! Would you mind posting your specs and your rendering options? (Just curious, your computer looks pretty hardcore)

Thanks

[alpilotx]

I work with an Core i7-2600K,. GeForce GTX 570, 16 GByte RAM (and all this on Linux!)

And see my rendering preferences in the screenshot.

[TOBS]

Your specs are surprising - me with stronger I7 and a GTX580 all on the MSI ECLIPSE Mainboard but with WIN7 64 bit - is able to run xp10 at all. with very low specs I have bd FPS and with volumetric fog on I got artifacts of ghost pics (not only me)

If my hardware would work on linux I would switch - I am not sure what to do - I will try to set up a new win7 system - do not know if this helps. If I ran a furmark bench for opengl I get very good FPS with this nvidia GTS580 but with XP10 only quite low - to low! :-(

So I am not sure if I am abel to use xp10 at all.

Cheers and thnx Tom

Edited December 4, 2011 by TOBS

[glenner]

Amazing pics. As you are one of the Global Scenery developers, I have one question concerning the scenery provided with the demo. It appears that some of the rivers are missing compared to V9. Is this on purpose or will the released version be updated. Rivers are important reference points in VFR flying and add to the distinguishing character of the area. So far I've found the river that goes around Fall CIty 1WA6 and Concrete Municipal 3W5 are missing. I'm just hoping they will not be lost.

Apart from that, amazing work.

Thanks

[alpilotx]

Well, rivers ... Those are a mixed bag. The problem is, that we completely changed our data source for roads/railroads/powerlines/coastlines and RIVERS (all the vector data) to OpenStreetmap. So, we only have what OpenStreetmap has (well, had at the time when we pulled the data - don't ask the exact date, I would need to ask Ben, as he did that). So, this might sound on the one side like a little bit "sad" thing in some places (yes, even I have missed some rivers) BUT it has a very very bright side (if you think in a bit longer terms). As X-Plane intends to use OSM for the future (even more extensively than now), you can (everybody, all OSM users - OSM is like a Wiki) improve the landscape around you. So, what ever you improve in OSM now will show up in future releases of the Global Scenery (don't ask me about the distribution - time line/method - of future global scenery, as many thing mights or might not change in that filed :-) ).

PS: but I always need to remind people not to just pimp OSM for X-Plane alone. That is a big, community map source, where X-Plane is "only" a guest. Please, always respect heir rules/ideas/methodology when it comes to map editing!

[glenner]

Thanks for the info. I just checked on Openstreetmap.org and the river data in question for the Skagit river and Snoqualmie River were put in 2008 and 2009. I'm not trying to make an issue, just disappointed as I wonder how it will be elsewhere. Hopefully future releases will improve this.

Thanks

[karingka]

Those are really surprising specs indeed! I have an i7 2600, and a HD6970 2GB Vram, with 4 GB ram, but I can't run those settings...

[Simmo W]

Those are really surprising specs indeed! I have an i7 2600, and a HD6970 2GB Vram, with 4 GB ram, but I can't run those settings...

Hehe, but you haven't asked his framerates. He only needs 1fpqh, (fpqh= Frame per quarter hr, for pics!)

Andras, how did I guess you'd be a 'treehugger'?!

[alpilotx]

Hehe, but you haven't asked his framerates. He only needs 1fpqh, (fpqh= Frame per quarter hr, for pics!)

Yes, for screenshots, that would suffice ... but usually I have far more than 1 FPS. Outside, in the natural landscape I easily get 25-40 FPS (sometimes more) ... which allows very smooth flying. In cities, of course, I see it drop to 8-10 FPS too ... then I lower my shadow settings one (max two) notches, and I am back around 15 FPS (which is usually enough to fly).

Andras, how did I guess you'd be a 'treehugger'?!

I don't know !

[alpilotx]

Thanks for the info. I just checked on Openstreetmap.org and the river data in question for the Skagit river and Snoqualmie River were put in 2008 and 2009. I'm not trying to make an issue, just disappointed as I wonder how it will be elsewhere. Hopefully future releases will improve this.

Do you mean this river?

http://www.openstree...oom=12&layers=M

Hmmm ... thats strange, because at first sight (as far as i can see from OSM data - don't have my X-plane at hand at the moment), this river should qualify to get into our scenery ... I would need to re-check what our data processing does with it. Then I could tell you why it did disappear (or if it disappeared at all )

Edited December 5, 2011 by alpilotx

[glenner]

Do you mean this river?

http://www.openstree...oom=12&layers=M

Hmmm ... thats strange, because at first sight (as far as i can see from OSM data - don't have my X-plane at hand at the moment), this river should qualify to get into our scenery ... I would need to re-check what our data processing does with it. Then I could tell you why it did disappear (or if it disappeared at all )

Yep that's the river. I just checked and it seems that when the river narrows to a certain point it is not in v10 as nearing Concrete Municipal.

http://www.openstree...oom=12&layers=M

It's too bad as these rivers meander around the airports. I love to explore the countryside in X-Plane and following rivers and such is helpful as you can follow on a map. I've attached some screenshots between v9 and v10. You can see that the rivers add to the character of the scene. I had touble finding Fall City as the falls and river weren't there. Also I've noticed these areas as I've been working on airport scenery for them in my spare time.

Concrete Municipal in v9

Concrete Municipal in v10

Fall City in v9

Fall City in v10

We can really see the improvement in the global textures in v10

Hopefully these rivers will find it into v10.

Thanks

[iamfallen]

...this river should qualify to get into our scenery ...

How does a river "qualify" for addition? Has the requirement been changed since V9?

[PascalL]

Do you mean this river?

http://www.openstree...oom=12&layers=M

Hmmm ... thats strange, because at first sight (as far as i can see from OSM data - don't have my X-plane at hand at the moment), this river should qualify to get into our scenery ... I would need to re-check what our data processing does with it. Then I could tell you why it did disappear (or if it disappeared at all )

I was looking for Snoqalmie river too, since it's in a place I did some scenery work for Fly! II years ago.

When looking at the OSM data, we can see that the missing parts are the ones entered as linear objects, as opposed to real polygons which made their way into XP10.

I suppose it's the problem due to OSM data consistency. Maybe it would have been workable by building polygons from the line's data ?

[alpilotx]

UPDATE: PascalL already had the right idea whats going on (while I was typing) ... but read the details here:

Aaah, now I see what you mean. Well, this is something that will not get "fixed" in this release of the Global Scenery (as this is some feature that is either in the DSFs, or it is not ... and as they are now shipped, you know whats the case here).

This is some point a tried to push internally for, but it just couldn't make it in our production because of time constraints (and because of the thousand other features which needed to be coded - and might have made people equally upset as "missing rivers").

So, whats going on here. The problem is (and I answer to iamfallen too), that we switched our data source entirely. All vector data is coming now from OpenStreetmap (the following is vector data: roads, railroads, powerlines, coastlines, rivers). And yes, you see rivers in that list. So they depend on OSM too. But they also have another constraint, that we couldn't work around until the deadline ... We only use polygonal rivers (those qualify for the current scenery). Rivers, which are defined as area features in OSM. But not rivers, which are only drawn in as line features (usually the smaller streams). Now comes the problem ... Although OSM is a fantastic treasure chest of gigabytes of data, it also has a little-big drawback. Its like a wiki, and everybody does to his/her liking (many adhere to common rules, but not all). So, while sometimes, some users create the tiniest rivers as area features (this made us headaches too!), some others don't waste their time, and just quickly draw in even bigger rivers as line features ... And then you see what happens. All river segments which are only lines, are not in the scenery ... (and yes, I have seen many areas where I really miss this).

But why don't we have those line rivers? Because area water features (and coast --> the big seas) are not draped but "burnt" into the triangle mesh of the DSF (scenery) ... something which we couldn't afford with myriads of very small - line based - streams (as it would induce a triangle explosion in the mesh, which hurts quality of the rest of the mesh or FPSs). And also, the mesh based water is not very good at steep, sloped landscape. So, for this reason, we will need some kind of draping technique (remotely similar to how roads work now), a technique which paints those line rivers over the mesh (and not makes part of the mesh) ... And this is what didn't make it in XP10 in time (and because this, we didn't care to burn it in the DSF either - and so this kind of tech will have to wait some time .. there are enough, higher priority, burning issues at the table for the near future).

I hope you understand it now i(and neither I am happy with this decision, believe me ... but sometimes decisions need to be made).

Edited December 5, 2011 by alpilotx

[iamfallen]

Thank you for your clarification. It is a shame though about the rivers. I live in a geographically boring area...perfectly flat farm land for miles and miles with roads laid out in a square grid pattern. VFR in game is difficult and the plausible world scenery doesn't really help much. Based on your description, our only defining landmark won't be in the game.

[TOBS]

Thank you for your clarification. It is a shame though about the rivers. I live in a geographically boring area...perfectly flat farm land for miles and miles with roads laid out in a square grid pattern. VFR in game is difficult and the plausible world scenery doesn't really help much. Based on your description, our only defining landmark won't be in the game.

Hi,

phototexture could help, but Austin does not like it and it seems that is is not possible to integrate phototextures (g2xpl or other commercial distributers) into XP10 without loosing the buildings and roads of Austins plausible world. I tried it around KSEA and came to this conclusion. Maybe alpilotx konws more or knows a way to do it.

Cheers Tom

[inktomi]

You could model the river into OSM and replace the line river with a polygon river. In theory that would enable it to get into an upgrade at some point for you. Or maybe Austin et al will release a tool where you can import your own map data..

[alpilotx]

The tool solution is not very probable ... at least from todays perspective (but you never know what the future will bring one day ). But correcting/ updating OSM data is always a good idea. On the other hand, you need to be careful! Very careful! Never - I really say NEVER - edit OSM data just because of X-Plane. We - the X-Plane community - are only guests in that big project, and if we do something only for our own good but maybe completely disobey some general editing rules ... thats a bad thing (and might result in negative sentiments from the OSM community in our direction).

So, I think its reasonable, to leave small rivers (streams) as linear date in OSM (as below some size, it just doesn't make sense geographically to make it as a polygon). First, we filter out extremely thin polygon data anyways (as it "overloads" the triangle mesh - water polygons are always part of the mesh!). Second, we hope, that a next release of the Global Scenery can support linear rivers ... well, and not only the scenery will need to support that, but also X-plane getting a feature to render those tiny, line based rivers. Even if it won't happen tomorrow, this feature is definitely on our internal "wish list", and will come at some point in the future!

[whiskeyportal]

Real bummer about all the small lakes and rivers. That was one of the things that really put X-Plane above FSX for me as far as realism anyways. OSM is pretty cool, but not very accurate at all. May be good enough for general streets and highways, but never for rivers, lakes, streams, and coast lines. Hopefully the issue is fixed soon, XP9 was pretty damn close. Close enough for VFR dead reckoning anyways.

[alpilotx]

I think, you are not entirely correct about OSM ... You comment shows, that you not really know OSM. Of course, its far from perfect, but calling it generally inaccurate would be a gross statement. In some countries of the western world (for example Germany) it has much more detail than even Google Maps has ... And small lakes? In some places you get them all:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=47.101&lon=-78.702&zoom=11&layers=M

(and in others, you get nothing - yes, the inconsistency is one of the problems of OSM ... but then, its completely free and open too!).

[MdMax]

OSM is pretty cool, but not very accurate at all. May be good enough for general streets and highways, but never for rivers, lakes, streams, and coast lines. Hopefully the issue is fixed soon, XP9 was pretty damn close.

Hello !

Did you find a bug in OpenStreetMap ? Are you missing a river or a lake ? Just add it:

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Beginners%27_guide

Or report the problem here:

http://openstreetbugs.appspot.com/

Happy flying.

[whiskeyportal]

I'm going to add hundreds of small lakes and rivers through out the US that we're there in XP9? Why doesn't Laminar fix this? Why pawn it off on customers?

[alpilotx]

Why doesn't Laminar fix this?

You are not seriously asking this (should we really go out and paint 123.421.102 lakes/rivers/coastlines instead of improving the sim itself ??).

Or do you not understand OpenStreetMap? It is not Laminars tool or toy, but an open - completely open - Wiki like geographic data collection system. It lives from 100.000s of users around the world, who feed it with data (just like Wikipedia), and everybody is free to use the data for what ever he likes.

BUT, still everybody has to respect the basic principles and rules of OSM. Its definitely not a good stile to edit it, just to make it work in X-Plane (but maybe ignore rules of OSM itself). X-Plane is a guest in the house of OSM and we should adhere to their rules. As long as this is respected, everybody is invited and encouraged to improve OSM as you will see the results of it in the next release of the Global Scenery.

But in the end, its not just for Laminar, its for everybody out there who uses OSM (there are even navigation systems which use it already)!

[whiskeyportal]

You are not seriously asking this (should we really go out and paint 123.421.102 lakes/rivers/coastlines instead of improving the sim itself ??).

Or do you not understand OpenStreetMap? It is not Laminars tool or toy, but an open - completely open - Wiki like geographic data collection system. It lives from 100.000s of users around the world, who feed it with data (just like Wikipedia), and everybody is free to use the data for what ever he likes.

BUT, still everybody has to respect the basic principles and rules of OSM. Its definitely not a good stile to edit it, just to make it work in X-Plane (but maybe ignore rules of OSM itself). X-Plane is a guest in the house of OSM and we should adhere to their rules. As long as this is respected, everybody is invited and encouraged to improve OSM as you will see the results of it in the next release of the Global Scenery.

But in the end, its not just for Laminar, its for everybody out there who uses OSM (there are even navigation systems which use it already)!

I'd say that this is a pretty large step backwards for the sim, not a major improvement. Many pilots use rivers and lakes for VFR navigation, not city neighborhoods. And I am very familiar with OSM, I'm a cartagrapher by trade. Can't Laminar just export their water and shoreline database from 9 and bring it in to 10? And maybe throw in some different textures for different types of water bodies? These are not unreasonable requests.