XP Scenery Generator [WIP]

[tonywob]

v0.6.0 Update

It's been a while since I've posted an update so I'll show what's being worked on and what will be in the next release. In 0.6.0, several new advanced rules have been added which allow placement of autogen where there is no data, this can fill out towns and cities with regional buildings in-between the real data in OSM. e.g. Houses can be placed to follow roads and similar groups of buildings can be grouped together and fitted in seamlessly with the real data. 

Additionally, lots of work has gone into the world-models library for the UK, France, Ireland and the Netherlands. Less red-roofed buildings and more darker, older style village houses. Since 0.5.0, around 100 new regional buildings have been added. (Also, the world-models library is currently being ported to Outerra and is available for scenery there as well).

Here are some screenshots I took this morning using the new artwork:


 



 





 









 

 

• Collision detection for line rules and advanced spacing and grouping options (Can be used to place random houses and other buildings along roads)
• Angle from road option, which will rotate objects to their nearest road. e.g. Churches, bus stops, billboards, even post boxes will be rotated and aligned with roads if they are not attached to the road in OSM.
• Polygon placement rule and some new default rules for placing beaches, mud and tidal flats.
• New shrub and tree textures. Shrubs surrounding farmland look more realistic. Shrub areas in OSM now contain proper shrubs and not sparsely placed trees. e.g. You'll see a mixture of small bushes, rose bushes, etc..
• Lots of bug fixes for random placement and options to make random placement look a little more natural
• New collection of supermarket and industrial buildings
• Toned down lights and trees in residential areas to look more realistic.

 

I'm not sure when release will be. The autogen random placement is very slow (in generation) and needs some optimising. Additionally, I'd really like to get custom roads, i.e. Removing the dark and big US style roads and adding smaller more European style roads (With left-side traffic in the UK and Ireland).

[FloB]

Simply amazing.

 

Flo

[Souf]

Thanks for all these efforts Tony!!!

[Caruso]

Hi Tony

 

Hope you had a good time over summer.

Thank you for these exciting news! Looking forward to the new features. You have mentioned lots of things I was secretely hoping for, like the allignment of bus stations, scrubs, beaches. But must of all the EU style of roads

 

Just let me know how I can help (e.g. the ideas we exchanged before the summer).

Cheers

[tonywob]

But must of all the EU style of roads

 

Yes, this is a huge annoyance of mine, even residential roads are too big. Problem is, I haven't been able to decipher the roads.net file. I can make small changes like removing street lights and pavements, but then it isn't possible to distribute the changes. It's either you completely replace the road or nothing. At the moment I've only managed to do basic farm tracks. If anyone wants to help out and take up the challenge then I'd be more than happy with the help

 

BTW, I do still have you photos and artwork to go through and add into new buildings. Just need to get myself some time to go through it

Edited September 21, 2014 by tonywob

[Ubbi]

Is it also possible to generate different lights with different roads? Your szenery looks fantastic at daylight, but in the evening/night you start to see only orange lights.

As far as I remember ( long time ago I flew without W2XPlane ) there was an light mix with X-Plane default. Mabey you can attach different lights to different types of roads?

Residential, highway/Autobahn, little countryside street...

Regards (and thanks for your wonderful work)

Philip

[tonywob]

Is it also possible to generate different lights with different roads?

 

Yes, this is exactly what I'm working on at the moment :-)

[AngeloM]

Yes, this is exactly what I'm working on at the moment :-)

 

Great Tony!!!

Can't wait to test it!!!!!!!

 

Angelo

[wilkur]

Outstanding job tony, thanks a lot.

 

Best regards

Willi

[Caruso]

Tony, your creation keeps surprising me all the time.

 

I have been test-flying W2XP for quite some time now and I keep discovering new details in the sceneries created with your tool

Yesterday e.g. I was flying from Calais to Le Tréport. And what did I see standing near the docks of Calais? Motorhomes - at exactely the same spot where I spent a night in my van during my last Normady vacation! I couldn't believe my eyes tried so hard to get a better look that I almost fell out of the cockpit...

 

That's why I especially love W2XP so much, Tony. It adds so many little, accurate and plausible details to VFR flying one could fly on and on and on and on

And it seems this is not the end

 

Thank you.

[tonywob]

Thanks Caruso, this is what the experience is all about, and there are lots of little surprises to look out for in the scenery. Here's some more examples that you'll see in 0.6.0

 

• Tractors along farm tracks in fields, going the right direction using a new type of rule.
• Construction vehicles around quarries
• Beaches and mud flats inside water
• Bus Stops and billboard aligned correctly with the roads
• Random silo placed on some farms

Of course, the possibilities are endless, and you can do anything you like with the data and combinations of tags in OSM, and I'm always finding new things to play with and map out :-)

 

The scenery is meant to be flown low-and-slow. If you like flying a 737 then this type of scenery is pointless and wasteful on resources. But flying over the scenery at 500ft in a helicopter where there is good data is great.

 

Regarding 0.6.0, I'm not sure when it will be out. I'm still having lots of problems with the autogen rules for filling out blank areas with buildings. Basically, generation time is appalling and the results are somewhat mixed. I'm trying out various things to see what works, but at the moment I'm falling behind a bit here.

[Caruso]

Tony, there is no rush and good things take their time.

 

One question: I recently (since 0.5.0) noticed new (ugly) big ships and fish trawlers in my ports. Do they have anything to do with w2xp as I couldn't find the objects in the library?

One suggestion: since you work on left hand traffic in UK - dense hedges lining the streets of rural England could be a nice addition

One hint regardig custom roads: These guys have created rescue sceneries and a library for helicopter pilots. The library contains custom roads to place in sceneries. Don't know if this is the kind of things you're after.

[tonywob]

One question: I recently (since 0.5.0) noticed new (ugly) big ships and fish trawlers in my ports. Do they have anything to do with w2xp as I couldn't find the objects in the library?

 

No, nothing to do with World2XPlane. The ships are enabled in X-Planes setting, and can be used to land on, etc.. It places them everywhere and in strange places

 

Roads are a real pain. One option if you have high quality photoscenery is to make the roads all transparent. It looks good, and the traffic still drives along. I'll await Ben Supnik to return into development (I think he's on paternity leave), and see if he can help me out with some documentation or simple examples. In 0.6.0, UK roads will actually already be lined with small hedges/shrubs if they are bordering a farm. The effect looks quite good and better than large trees

[Caruso]

No, nothing to do with World2XPlane.

 

I found the culprit. It was another scenery in Alaska spawning ships all around the world. No idea how...

 

 

UK roads will actually already be lined with small hedges/shrubs if they are bordering a farm

 

There is a new airport scenery on the org that uses a hedge facade. (Marginal made the FAC from a hedge model especially for this scenery). It quite nicely depicts the straight hedgelines I have seen there.

[Shaunus82]

OMG !!! Tony, This is looking amazing. One of the most important things to me is having proper hedge rows and your hedges in those images look perfect. This is looking extremely promising.

 

As you know, I have recently created two new airport packages. EGHC Land's End Airport, Cornwall, and EGHH Bournemouth Airport, Dorset, which are both highly detailed sceneries. I have had to do some very extensive OSM mapping around both areas, especially St Just, as Cornwall is very sparsely populated with OSM data. The Bournemouth area was much easier as it is quite heavily populated with OSM especially in and around the town of Bournemouth itself. It was just the immediate area surrounding the airport that was bare. One big problem that I have in this area is the river just in front of Rwy 26 (See Image) which in reality is nothing more than a stream, although it is still named as a river, but it is showing here as quite a wide river and all attempts at making this river smaller have failed. I have tried re-tagging it as a stream, I have put in the width of the stream as 2m, but it does not change a thing. The runway lights that extend out from Rwy 26 are submerged in the river as was the airport fencing which had to be moved.

 

Are there suggestions that you can make on how to resolve this.

 

EDIT: I just remembered that when I took that screenshot, I was using xp10.25 and w2xp beta4, so I thought that maybe with 10.30 & beta5, the problem may have been resolved, but I updated the dorset_latest scenery and reloaded the sim and have taken another screenshot and as you can see the problem still persists. (See new image here) as you can see also in this image the river is not even following it's proper course. The real river can be seen on the photo terrain just to the left.

 

There are other issues I have but I will contact you about them.

 

Many thanks for all the hard work you have done.

 

Shaun

Edited September 28, 2014 by Shaunus82

[tonywob]

Thanks for the kind words Shaun :-)

 

One big problem that I have in this area is the river just in front of Rwy 26

 

Regarding the waterway, World2XPlane doesn't generate the mesh, just the roads, buildings, woodland, obstacles, etc.. The rivers/streams are part of the base mesh inside X-Plane (or the photoscenery) and also come from OSM. However, the good news is that alpilotx (Author of HD Mesh v2) is about to recut his mesh again for v3, so if you've already fixed this inside OSM, then HD Mesh v3 (and any photoscenery based on it) will have the corrected data (and also be slightly more higher definition). I've found a lot of these ditches and streams tagged incorrectly and badly aligned, and I've fixed a lot of them.

 

Andras has given us a deadline (I think mid October) to get any mesh based changes into OSM for inclusion into v3, which is why i've also been fixing up/realigning rivers and coast lines. 

 

BTW, I've just noticed that you've added names to all the fields (as "field" etc) in OSM. OSM recently had a cartostyle update which now shows all the names everywhere for any closed-way, so all your labels have just started appearing. I'd recommend you use the "notes=*" tag and not name=*, unless you are specifically naming the field or feature with its real name.

[Shaunus82]

Hi Tony,

 

Thank you for explaining that to me. I was wondering whether it was something to do with the mesh and it is really nice to know that Alpilotx is working on a new update. This is starting to get really good now and I'm so excited about the future of xplane. I'm sorry about tagging the field names and I will correct that as soon as I can. I'm still learning and hopefully getting better all the time, but if you notice any other mistakes, let me know and I will put them right.

Edited September 28, 2014 by Shaunus82

[Shaunus82]

I found the culprit. It was another scenery in Alaska spawning ships all around the world. No idea how...

 

 

 

 

 

There is a new airport scenery on the org that uses a hedge facade. (Marginal made the FAC from a hedge model especially for this scenery). It quite nicely depicts the straight hedgelines I have seen there.

The hedge was made by me as an object for my new EGHC Lands End Airport and Marginal saw it and suggested it would be better as a fac, so he did this for me. it does look really effective even close up and as the hedge model uses a transparent png, it looks very realistic.

 

Screenshots here:

 

Image _01

 

Image _02

 

Image_03

[tonywob]

The hedge was made by me as an object for my new EGHC Lands End Airport and Marginal saw it and suggested it would be better as a fac, so he did this for me. it does look really effective even close up and as the hedge model uses a transparent png, it looks very realistic.

 

Shaun, that looks fantastic. Can I use this in World2XPlane? 

[Shaunus82]

Yes of course you can Tony. It would be an honor to have one of my objects being used in world2xplane. i was also planning on making a few more different types of hedges.

Edited September 28, 2014 by Shaunus82

[tonywob]

Yes of course you can Tony. It would be an honor to have one of my objects being used in world2xplane. i was also planning on making a few more different types of hedges.

 

Thanks Shaun. I've just added them and generated the Yorkshire Wolds, here is a screenshot of a village

 

 

The hedges look fantastic, however I did find a couple of issues:

 

1) If the land is slanted, which is certainly is here , the hedge doesn't follow the curve of the land, and either goes into the ground or up into the air.

2) It seems it doesn't like really large areas and it ends up with graphical artifacts. I think the .fac needs the GRADED objective adding to it, but I'm not sure if this works on v10 version of the .fac format

3) Performance suffers quite badly (Which is understandable). We'd need to limit the usage quite a lot, although it does look very nice.

 

Rather than going around every field or road, I've set them up so that if you tag something in OSM as barrier=hedge, then one of the 2 hedges will be chosen. So this gives you exact control over where you wish to place the hedges inside OSM.

 

I've added them into the world-models library, and of course you are also free to use any of the models in there for your own scenery (There are hundreds of different style UK houses). Also, if you'd like write access to the library to add in new files or make changes then please let me know, and I'll set you up with an account.

Edited September 28, 2014 by tonywob

[Shaunus82]

Hi Tony,

 

The hedge fac looks just as good in Yorkshire as it does in Cornwall.

 

The hedge  was originally designed just as an object to use on relatively flat terrain. It was never intended to make it into a fac, so it was not designed with the extra nodes that are needed for a fac model.

 

I do know about the issue with the object not liking steep slopes, and have had some discussion with marginal about this. To quote from what marginal said,

 

"note that facades don't magically drape themselves over the terrain; they follow a straight line between each node/corner. So if you're putting these on bumpy terrain you will need to add extra nodes/corners as necessary in order to follow the terrain".

 

I'm going to speak with him again and find out exactly what I need to do to make these work better on sloped terrain. I may also do some more hedge types and see if marginal will also make these into a fac for me.

 

Also with regard to having write access to the library. I have been planning on adding  several model types to the library that are typical of buildings in my local area. maybe a couple of council house type buildings. Also, I live near an industrial estate so have access to many industrial warehouse type buildings that could be added. Another building type that is typical of this area are slate clad buildings, and I don't think I have seen any of these in the library, so it would be nice to add one , or two of these. One other building group that seems to be lacking is UK style churches and chapels.

 

Of course, this is not going to happen overnight, and it will take time to build these, but those, among many other projects are my future plans. 

Edited September 28, 2014 by Shaunus82

[tonywob]

"note that facades don't magically drape themselves over the terrain; they follow a straight line between each node/corner. So if you're putting these on bumpy terrain you will need to add extra nodes/corners as necessary in order to follow the terrain".

 

Thanks for the info. I could add a parameter to break long lines up so it will slope better, and we'll see how it goes. I actually simplify most shapes for performance reasons, so I'll need to do the reverse :-).

 

 

 

Also, I live near an industrial estate so have access to many industrial warehouse type buildings that could be added

 

Industrial buildings are difficult to do as objects, the best bet is actually creating these as facade textures. Industrial units, unlike houses, are often complicated shapes and it is often difficult to find a good match in the library. Blacky75 did some industrial models which work well, but we could certainly do with more variety. I know .fac v10 format supports far more features than we are currently using, and maybe marginal can give us some advice on these.

 

 

 

Another building type that is typical of this area are slate clad buildings, and I don't think I have seen any of these in the library, so it would be nice to add one , or two of these.

 

I think I added just a single one from Wales. However, I'm currently modelling some older style Edwardian style terrace and detached properties which look good in the countryside. As you can see in the above screenshot I posted many Eastern European style buildings still there, which don't suit too well.

 

Also, I have added a config file in v0.6.0 which supports regionalisation per UK county as an experiment. It's a bit extreme, but with enough regionalisation in the library, it could be possible to add regional style varieties of buildings. e.g. There is a difference between the building styles seen in West/North Yorkshire, and those seen in the East.

 

 

One other building group that seems to be lacking is UK style churches and chapels.

 

Yes, another killer for immersion in a UK village, bright white coloured churches. There are 2 UK style churches in the library, but lots more or needed to cover various sizes. I'm intending on getting some of these done when I can get some photos.

 

If you do manage to create any buildings for the library (And I really hope you do, as I'm on my own doing this at the moment ;-)), then remember to keep them as simple as possible. I've seen many really complicated UK objects on the xplane.org, e.g. A red telephone box, which contains over 11000 triangles. Placing these everywhere would quickly kill X-Plane, so I've kept most houses simple, i.e. A box and roof, and i try and detail like shadows into the texture so it makes the object look more complicated than it actually is.

Edited September 28, 2014 by tonywob

[Caruso]

hi Tony and shaunus82

 

Im glad you picked up the "hint" about hedges and are working on these Great stuff!

 

 

@Tony

I had this idea about finding more buildings for the library: I could go and ask around scenery designers if they would agree to contribute some of their generic buildings to the world models library. Especially if they have created buidlings that are very typical for a certain area. I guess I would start with designers of Swiss scenery and see how it goes. Waht do you think? Would you take any kind of building and simplify them if necessaire or have they to follow certain rules?

 

To make sure I explain things correctly I would like to clarify the following: Is it correct, that, if available, w2xp will use objects from the corresponding regional subfolder when generating scenery for this area? Is it correct, that the object has to match certain criterias regarding size and shape to be chosen? E.g. if I wanted the swiss countryside to be coverd with swiss looking farmhouses it would'nt be enough to put several differently textured objects of the same kind into the library, it would also need dfferent sized objects?

[tonywob]

Thanks Caruso, if you can get people to try and donate their objects to the library then great. Do you have write access to world-models? I don't remember if you do, so if you don't set yourself up an account and send me a PM with your details.

 

 

 

Would you take any kind of building and simplify them if necessary or have they to follow certain rules?

 

Mostly anything can be accepted (Including VFR obstacles, wind turbines, woodland, fences, etc), however it has to follow three simple rules:

 

1) Not contain too much detail, e.g. A house with the window ledges and roof sidings mapped. Simple objects are the best. For models that are likely only to appear every now and then, e.g. A large supermarket, then some detail is fine, and we can always simplify if it becomes a problem. 

 

2) The most important rule (and I had to reject quite a largish library because of it), is that the buildings must be centrally/axis aligned, i.e. The 0,0,0 point is directly in the middle of the buildings, and not (as I've seen) in some arbitrary position like in the garden or left wall. Such buildings can be fixed, but it's a pain to do so (No importer in Blender 2.70). Unaligned buildings will end up colliding with roads. N.B. Lots of the buildings in the R2 library are like this, and you'll often see them

colliding with each other and onto roads. I've been trying to replace them slowly, but simply don't have the time or the energy to replace them all.

 

3) Have a basement area so that the building doesn't appear to float in mountainous terrain. Again, we can accept without and live with it, but much better to have.

 

 

 

Is it correct, that, if available, w2xp will use objects from the corresponding regional subfolder when generating scenery for this area?

 

The name of the folder makes no difference, it's simply a way to organise the library. The file you are interested in is residential.csv in world-models which contains the model name and ICAO code/codes of the country or US state it should appear in. e.g. You'll see buildings marked as DE;CH;AU for Germany, Austria, Switzerland, etc.. Every single rule can be configured per region, e.g. You can change the tree type or density in Southern Spain, etc.. At the moment, lots of countries share the same buildings, however there is a lot of regional buildings for the UK and Poland. You'll notice that lots of the buildings in the UK folder are also used in Ireland and some in France, etc..

 

 

 

Is it correct, that the object has to match certain criterias regarding size and shape to be chosen?

 

Yes, there is a tolerance setting (currently set to 1m). W2XP will look for a building which will fit approximately into the building footprint in OSM. It will prefer buildings to face the nearest road, and match the height information. It uses a scoring algorithm to find the best match, so the best fitting and most suitable building will be placed. If no building is found in the library for the footprint (or there is a building but it is set not to show in the country), then a facade is used. So if the buildings cover the most common sizes for buildings, you'll hit most of the buildings, i.e. Normally from 4x4 up to 20x20. Generally, when I create a building I'll simply create several sizes of the same building, it's very easy to do in Blender, just resize the building and adjust the texture slightly.

 

Edit: Shape of the building isn't taken into consideration at the moment, it uses the tightest fitting rectangle around the entire building to choose a suitable model. This means that if the building is an L shape inside OSM, it wont' necessarily receive an L shaped building, but one that would fit neatly inside a rectangle surrounding the L.

Edited September 28, 2014 by tonywob